ABSTRACT
Normative rules are ubiquitous; they structure our interactions, inform our plans, define our options, and play a central role in our understanding of our own activities. Doubts about the explanatory importance of normative rules come from many directions. Recognized, respected, and enforced social rules time and again shift expectations, circumstances, and motivations, so as to ensure that people will not act in ways that make all worse off. The temptation to view the explanatory role of normative rules so narrowly should dissipate once attention is turned to explaining those beliefs that have rules as their content. Switching from rule-following to rule-breaking behavior, it is clear as well that rules that are unrecognized, yet violated, by a person can contribute to an explanation of what happens. The contractarian theory begins not with a conception of objective human good, but with a theory of rationality and, specifically, rational agreement.
