Self-organizing moral systems: Beyond social contract theory
Authored by Gerald Gaus
Date Published: 2018
DOI: 10.1177/1470594x17719425
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Abstract
This essay examines two different modes of reasoning about justice: an
individual mode in which each individual judges what we all ought to do
and a social mode in which we seek to reconcile our judgments of justice
so that we can share common rules of justice. Social contract theory has
traditionally emphasized the second, reconciliation mode, devising a
central plan (the contract) to do so. However, I argue that because we
disagree not only in our judgments of justice but also about the degree
of reconciliation justice calls for, the social contract presupposes a
single, controversial, answer to the proper degree of reconciliation. In
place of the social contract's top-down' approach, this article explores
the idea of self-organizing moral systems, in which each individual,
acting on her own views of justice (including the importance of
reconciliation), responds to the decisions of others, forming systems of
shared justice. Several basic agent-based models are explored to begin
to understand the dynamics under which individuals with diverse views of
justice may come to share common rules. It is found that, surprisingly,
by increasing the diversity in a system, we can sometimes increase the
possibility of agreement.
Tags
self-organization
Diversity
Spontaneous order
Social morality
Social contract
Public
reason
Bargaining problem
Liberalism
Reason