ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to compare impartialism with the contractarian theory that John Rawls develops in his book A Theory of Justice. The disinterestedness requirement needs a somewhat fuller treatment than these other requirements. It is equivalent in Rawls' theory to the noncoercionist and nonmonism requirements of impartialism. The chapter considers three of the objective circumstances of justice that Rawls proposes. They are: the Robinson Crusoe circumstance, the humanhood circumstance and the moderate scarcity circumstance. The chapter looks at each in turn to see whether there is any good reason why impartialism should not be used to resolve conflicts of desire that lie outside these circumstances. Ann and Ben can employ the impartialist apparatus to try to resolve this conflict of desires. Impartialism rules out ordering principles on the basis of the proposer's threat advantage. It is, however, ruled out for reasons to do with what is necessary to reach unforced agreement at all.
