Studies at the Intersection of Philosophy and Economics

 

Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM 4 (2013), 61 – 66

Contractarianism as a Broad Church

Abstract

I defend the claim, made in a previous paper, that a Humean can be a contractarian‘, against the criticisms of Anthony de Jasay. Jasay makes a categorical distinction between ordered anarchy‘ (which he associates with Hume) and `social contract theory‘. I argue that Hume’s political position was conservative, not anarchist. On Hume’s analysis, a convention is an implicit agreement; the concept of convention is more general than, rather than distinct from, that of agreement by exchange of promises. Hume justifies political obligation by treating established forms of government as conventions in this sense.

Journal Information

RMM is an interdisciplinary open access journal focusing on issues of rationality, market mechanisms, and the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects. It provides a forum for dialogue between philosophy, economics, and related disciplines, encouraging critical reflection on the foundations and implications of economic processes.

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