Social Contract I: Harsanyi and Rawls

Abstract

This is the first of several papers whose beginnings lie in Rawls' [1958, 1968, 1972] theory of the social contract. The aim of the sequence of papers is to defend a verson of Rawls' "egalitarian" conclusion for a world in which agents are assumed to be constrained only by rational self-interest. No foundational issues are taken for granted. This is partly because I hope to make the work accessible to a wider audience; but mostly because I believe that much confusion in the literature derives from straightforward misunderstanding on matters which out not to be controversial.