David Schmidtz

The assurance problem in a laboratory market

In the most general terms, a public good exhibits the characteristic of nonexcludability; its benefits are available both to those who help to provide it and those who do not. Two other important features of the public goods provision problem are (i) the mechanism or institution for providing the good and (ii) the incentive structure for potential providers. Among the most familiar institutions is the voluntary contributions mechanism (VCM) combined with an incentive structure such that, for a single period, low levels of contribution are a dominant strategy equilibrium, while some higher level of provision is Pareto-superior. There has been a considerable amount of experimental research on such an environment (see Isaac and Walker, 1987a, for a survey). The existence of such a dominant strategy equilibrium, however, is not the only potential source of problems for the VCM. In particular, under alternative environments a potential provider can have an incentive to contribute if, and only if, he or she has a credible guarantee that others will also contribute. Absent such a guarantee, the provider may withhold. An environment exhibiting these incentives but without such a guarantee is sometimes said to exhibit the assurance problem (see Schmidtz, 1987).

Rational Choice and Moral Agency

Preface and AcknowledgmentsPt. IRational Choice1Ch. 1Why Be Rational?6Ch. 2Choosing Strategies28Ch. 3Choosing Ends58Ch. 4Comparing Ends80Ch. 5Reasons for Altruism98Pt. IIMoral Agency121Ch. 6Because Its Right126Ch. 7Social Structure and Moral Constraint155Ch. 8Moral Dualism186Ch. 9Objections and Replies213Pt. IIIReconciliation241Ch. 10Why Be Moral?243References265Index273

The Institution of Property

The typical method of acquiring a property right involves transfer from a previous owner. But sooner or later, that chain of transfers traces back to the beginning. That is why we have a philosophical problem. How does a thing legitimately become a piece of property for the first time ? In this essay, I follow the custom of distinguishing between mere liberties and full-blooded rights. If I have the liberty of doing X , then it is permissible for me to do X . But the mere fact that I am at liberty to do X leaves open the possibility that you might be at liberty to interfere with my doing X . Accordingly, liberties are not full-blooded rights, since my having a right to do X has the additional implication that others are not at liberty to interfere with my doing X . When it comes to mere liberties, interference is not a violation. You can violate rights, but you cannot violate liberties.

Nonideal theory: What it is and what it needs to be

People sometimes say, “Ideally, this is what we would do...” Often, someone who says this is making a throwaway remark as a preliminary to getting down to serious problem-solving. Needless to say, none of us wants to wake up some day only to realize that we spent a career elaborating what amounts to a throwaway remark. What would theorizing have to be like in order to matter? Amartya Sen has an answer. Theorizing about justice would have to be about real problems here and now. It would have to be about real steps that real people can take here and now to make the world a better place. Sen built his reputation by writing elegantly concise essays that got right to the point, made the point, then stopped. By contrast The Idea of Justice is a vast book, sprawling across the major landmarks of a long career. 1 There comes a time for reflecting on where one has been and what one has accomplished. This is Sen’s time. It is also time, Sen believes, for our theorizing about justice to part ways with Rawlsian ideal theory (xi). Rawls assumes that various idealizing assumptions facilitate progress in theorizing about justice. Rawls also treats justice as concerned more with perfecting institutions than perfecting relationships. 2 In Sen’s parlance, Rawls is thus a transcendental institutionalist, as are most political theorists (6, 8, 67). Sen tries to distance himself from this. Although Sen does not radically depart from Rawls, he does provide a glimpse of what a radical departure would be like. The contrast between ideal and nonideal theory is elusive. It expresses a concern about the point of theorizing, but the concern is actually a constellation of concerns related by family resemblance rather than shared essence. We worry about supposing that every question has an answer, or that every question has the same answer, or that everyone must agree on what that answer is, on pain of being irrational or evil. We worry about trying to discern what to do by asking what would be reasonable under ideal conditions. Critics with one of these concerns tend to have the others, too, but they are distinct. 3

Reasons for altruism

This essay considers whether acts of altruism can be rational. Rational choice, according to the standard instrumentalist model, consists of maximizing ones utility, or more precisely, maximizing ones utility subject to a budget constraint. We seek the point of highest utility lying within our limited means. The term ‘utility’ could mean a number of different things, but in recent times utility has usually been interpreted as preference satisfaction (and thus utility functions are sometimes called preference functions). To have a preference is to care , to want one alternative more than another.

Are All Species Equal

Species egalitarianism is the view that all species have equal moral standing. To have moral standing is, at a minimum, to command respect, to be something more than a mere thing. Is there any reason to believe that all species have moral standing in even this most minimal sense? If so — that is, if all species command respect — is there any reason to believe they all command equal respect. The article summarises critical responses to Paul Taylor’s argument for species egalitarianism, then explains why other species command our respect but also why they do not command equal respect. The intuition that we should have respect for nature is part of what motivates people to embrace species egalitarianism, but one need not be a species egalitarian to have respect for nature. The article closes by questioning whether species egalitarianism is even compatible with respect for nature.

Respect for Everything

Species egalitarianism is the view that all living things have equal moral standing. To have moral standing is, at a minimum, to command respect, to be more than a mere thing. Is there reason to believe that all living things have moral standing in even this most minimal sense? If so—that is, if all living things command respect—is there reason to believe they all command equal respect?1 I explain why members of other species command our respect but also why they do not command equal respect. The intuition that we should have respect for nature is one motive for embracing species egalitarianism, but we need not be species egalitarians to have respect for nature. This paper questions whether species egalitarianism is even compatible with respect for nature.

Self-Interest: What's in it for Me? *

We have taken the “why be moral?” question so seriously for so long. It suggests that we lack faith in the rationality of morality. The relative infrequency with which we ask “why be prudent?” suggests that we have no corresponding lack of faith in the rationality of prudence. Indeed, we have so much faith in the rationality of prudence that to question it by asking “why be prudent?” sounds like a joke. Nevertheless, our reasons and motives to be prudent are every bit as contingent as our reasons and motives to be moral–or so I argue in Sections II and III. A second theme of this essay is that conflict between morality and self-interest is contingent as well. The moral perspective, as characterized in Section IV, does not require a universal regard for others, whereas the kind of self-interested perspective characterized in Section III does not require a wholesale disregard for others. Both perspectives make room for a deep although not universal other-regard–or so I argue in Section V.

When preservationism doesn't preserve

According to conservationism, scarce and precious resources should be conserved and used wisely. According to preservation ethics, we should not think of wilderness as merely a resource. Wilderness commands reverence in a way mere resources do not. Each philosophy, I argue, can fail by its own lights, because trying to put the principles of conservationism or preservationism into institutional practice can have results that are the opposite of what the respective philosophies tell us we ought to be trying to achieve. For example, if the wisest use of South American rainforests is no use at all, then in that case conservationism by its own lights defers to preservationism. Analogously, if, when deprived of the option of preserving elephants as a resource, Africans respond by not preserving elephants at all, then in that case preservationism by its own lights defers to conservationism.

When justice matters

Reasonable people disagree about what is just. Why? This itself is an item over which reasonable people disagree. Our analyses of justice (like our analyses of knowledge, free will, meaning, etc.) all have counterexamples. Why? In part, the problem lies in the nature of theorizing itself. A truism in philosophy of science: for any set of data, an infinite number of theories will fit the facts. So, even if we agree on particular cases, we still, in all likelihood, disagree on how to pull those judgments together to form a theory. Theorizing per se does not produce consensus. Why not? An argument is sound or not. So why isn’t a theory compelling to all of us, if sound, or none of us, if not?