10% off all books and free delivery over £40
Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.

Moral Contract Theory and Social Cognition

View All Editions (2)

The selected edition of this book is not available to buy right now.
Add To Wishlist
Write A Review

About

Moral Contract Theory and Social Cognition Synopsis

This interdisciplinary work draws on research from psychology and behavioral economics to evaluate the plausibility of moral contract theory. In a compelling manner with implications for moral theory more broadly, the author's novel approach resolves a number of key contingencies in contractarianism and contractualism.
Acting in accordance with principles that we could all agree to under certain conditions requires that agents are capable of taking up the perspectives of others. Research in social and developmental psychology shows just how challenging this can be. The author discusses in detail what implications findings on perspective-taking have for contract theory. He concludes with cautious optimism that, despite our limitations, it lies within our power to become better at perspective-taking and to adopt a contractarian or contractualist mode of moral thinking. This does however require us to be much more attentive to the standpoints of others than we tend to be.
Contract theorists also assume that agents can be moved to comply with principles that would be the object of agreement, with some arguing they can be so moved out of their own interest. The book show that, in contrast to the suspicion of many philosophers, this idea is largely supported by research on the dynamics of trust and our ability to distinguish trustworthy from untrustworthy others. Bringing a welcome dose of realism to the debate on contract theory, the author shows the value of assessing moral theories from an empirical perspective.

About This Edition

ISBN: 9783319353265
Publication date:
Author: Peter Timmerman
Publisher: Springer an imprint of Springer International Publishing
Format: Paperback
Pagination: 233 pages
Series: Theory and Decision Library A
Genres: Ethics and moral philosophy
Social and political philosophy
Occupational and industrial psychology