Background
Gauthier, David Peter was born in 1932 in Toronto.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
David Peter Gauthier
Edit ProfileEducation
University of Toronto, Harvard University and University of Oxford.
Career
1958 80, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, then Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto. From 1980, Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh.
Views
Gauthier’s first book argued, amongst other things, that legitimate practical reasoning must take account of all of the desires of those affected by the action in question. Its roots were in Kant and the work of R. M. Hare. His later work has been much more influenced by the Hobbesian tradition. He holds that the point of morality is to constrain the pursuit of self-interest in a world in which our actions affect others, so as to produce the best outcome. And what is morally right is what would be agreed to by mutually disinterested, amoral, fully informed agents bargaining about the terms of social cooperation. Gauthier holds that much of traditional morality is captured by this approach, and that the parts that are not are best abandoned as rationally unfounded.
