ABSTRACT
The aim of this book is to provide an alternative account of social contract theory that explicitly aims to address the unique problems and opportunities that are found in diverse societies. In particular, it establishes three key ideas that differ from traditional social contract theory. First is the idea of perspective in political reasoning. Rather than assume that all citizens view moral and political problems in the same way, it articulates a way to productively aggregate disparate views to find potential areas of agreement. The second key idea is a bargaining model that requires virtually no agreement amongst its participants. And finally it presents a model of how agents can be motivated to seek out more diverse societies, even in the face of distributive disputes. These components combine to create a theory of social contract that embraces Mill’s concept of “experiments in living,” by presenting a system of constant social experimentation and refinement. Rather than articulate an ideal end state, my focus is on the trajectory of change. This process of discovery offers a rather different picture of political justification, which I argue protects us from some of the epistemic failures of the Rawlsian public reason approach. It is this reorientation of political philosophy toward a diverse, dynamic process of discovery that presents the biggest change with the contemporary debate and the greatest opportunity to rethink our approach to core questions of how we are to live with one another. Let us now briefly consider each of these ideas in turn.
