Rational Deliberation

For several decades, David Gauthier has been one of the leading philosophers working on practical rationality and deliberation. This book presents a selection of Gauthier's writings on these topics, all but two of which were written after Morals by Agreement (OUP, 1986). They represent Gauthier's most important contributions to the theory of practical reason, moving some distance from the view a first presented in "Reason and Maximization" and developed in amuch-reprinted chapter of Morals by Agreement. These essays challenge common misconceptions of Gauthier's revisionist conception of practical rationality, and provide important insights with implications for economic theory.

David Gauthier is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. He previously held postions at the University of Toronto, and has held visiting appointments at UCLA, UC Berkeley, Princeton, UC Irvine, and the University of East Anglia. He is the author of Practical Reasoning: The Structure and Foundations of Prudential and Moral Arguments and their Exemplification in Discourse (OUP, 1963), The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral andPolitical Theory of Thomas Hobbes (OUP 1969), Morals by Agreement (OUP, 1986), Moral Dealing: Contract, Ethics, and Reason (Cornell, 1990), and Rousseau: The Sentiment of Existence (Cambridge, 2006).