Contract Theory, Utilitarianism, and Theories of Well-Being Exam Review

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering contract theory, utilitarianism, theories of utility, and famine relief ethics for the Sommers Fall 2026 Second Exam.

State of nature (Hobbes)

A condition with no common power where life is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,' and equality is a factual capacity for anyone to kill anyone rather than a moral ideal.

Native America (Hobbes)

The only real-world example Thomas Hobbes provides of the state of nature.

Covenants without the sword

Hobbes's dictum expressing that agreements are 'but words' without an enforcement mechanism; the sovereign makes compliance rational via the threat of punishment.

The Foole

Hobbes's interlocutor who asks: 'If breaking a covenant benefits me, why would reason tell me to keep it?'

Hobbes's reply to the Foole

The argument that covenant-breakers are excluded from future cooperation and cannot rationally count on going undetected.

Circumstances of justice (Hume)

The three coexisting conditions required for justice to arise: relative equality, moderate scarcity, and limited generosity.

Moderate scarcity

A Humean circumstance of justice situated between abundance (where rules are unneeded) and desperate scarcity (where rules collapse).

Limited generosity

A Humean circumstance of justice situated between perfect benevolence (where rules are unneeded) and pure selfishness (where cooperation cannot occur).

Artificial virtue

A virtue, such as justice according to Hume, that depends on human convention rather than directly on human nature, without being fake or arbitrary.

Natural virtues

Virtues such as benevolence and parental love that require no convention to exist.

Mutual disinterest

David Gauthier's assumption that contracting parties take no interest in one another's interests, demonstrating that morality does not rest on sympathy.

Constrained maximizer

In Gauthier's theory, an agent with an internal disposition to cooperate with other cooperators who fares better over a lifetime than a straightforward maximizer.

The Racial Contract

Charles Mills's concept of a historically actual agreement among those categorized as white to subordinate non-whites, used to expose domination.

Subpersons

In Charles Mills's Racial Contract, non-whites assigned a lower moral and political status who serve as the objects of the contract rather than parties to it.

Literal state of nature (Mills)

The condition applied to non-Europeans whose societies were designated pre-political, rendering their land available and excluding them from the scope of justice.

Utilitarianism

The moral theory asserting the sole rule to always maximize overall well-being, built upon consequentialism, welfarism, and aggregation.

Consequentialism

The component of utilitarianism stating that the moral worth of an action depends solely on its consequences.

Welfarism

The component of utilitarianism stating that well-being is the only thing that matters in the evaluation of outcomes.

Aggregation

The component of utilitarianism where total well-being is summed across individuals, with each person's well-being counted equally.

Intrinsic value

Value that is good in itself (such as happiness or well-being), recognized by utilitarians as the sole intrinsic good.

Instrumental value

Value that is good only as a means to achieve something else, exemplified by money.

Separateness of persons objection

An objection arguing that utilitarian aggregation treats distinct individuals as one composite entity, allowing extreme harms to some to be outweighed by benefits to others.

Hedonism

The theory of utility defining well-being strictly as pleasure and the absence of pain.

Experience machine

Robert Nozick's thought experiment showing that people desire to actually do things and maintain contact with reality rather than merely experiencing simulated mental states.

Desire theory

The theory of utility holding that well-being consists of getting what one wants, regardless of whether the satisfaction is consciously experienced.

Defective desires

An objection to desire theory identifying desires harmful to the agent caused by ignorance, addiction, or adaptation.

Objective list theory

The theory of utility holding that well-being consists of possessing specific goods (such as knowledge, friendship, achievement, and pleasure) regardless of whether one wants or enjoys them.

Alienation objection

A critique of objective list theory questioning how an item can be beneficial for an individual if that person neither desires nor enjoys it.

Hybrid views (well-being)

Accounts of well-being requiring an item to both reside on the objective list and be desired or enjoyed by the individual.

Singer's principle

The moral principle stating that if one can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, one ought to do it.

The $5 argument

An argument concluding that an individual owes only a small sum ($5) because universal contribution would suffice; it fallaciously derives an unconditional duty from an unfulfilled hypothetical premise.

Timmerman's objection

A challenge to Peter Singer arguing that the shallow pond represents an anomalous one-off emergency, whereas the principle actually demands unrelenting, lifetime sacrifices akin to encountering drowning children daily.

Prisoner's dilemma

defecting dominates in one shot, but over many rounds tit-for-tat does best.