Moral Contractualism

Moral contractualism is the view that the rightness and wrongness of our conduct is somehow to be understood in terms of some kind of actual or counterfactual agreement. This must be distinguished from political contractualism, which adduces agreements in order to account for the justice or authority or legitimacy of political institutions or decisions. Versions of contractualism differ in terms of how they specify the agreements. The two main versions of contractualism are Hobbesian contractualism (sometimes called “contractarianism”), which is based on the idea of a self-interested bargain or contract between self-interested individuals for the sake of individual gain, and Kantian contractualism, which is based on the idea of a morally constrained agreement among individuals who regard themselves and one another as free and equal persons warranting moral respect. This article will say something about the historical sources of contractualism, but will focus primarily on recent discussions.