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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 26, 2026

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task
06:08

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task

Published on: July 22, 2025

Rational contractualist solutions are not perceived as moral.

Maayan S Malter1, Janet Metcalfe2

  • 1The Hebrew University Business School, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel maayan.malter@mail.huji.ac.il https://bschool-en.huji.ac.il/Maayan-Malter.

The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
|June 24, 2026
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Rational contractualism, like Nash bargaining solutions, may not be moral. Empirical studies show most participants found "rational" agreements to be immoral, questioning the ethical basis of such solutions.

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Area of Science:

  • Game Theory
  • Moral Philosophy
  • Behavioral Economics

Background:

  • Rational contractualism, exemplified by Nash bargaining solutions, is often assumed to have moral implications.
  • However, the inherent morality of agreements derived from rational self-interest remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the moral import of rational contractualism, specifically Nash bargaining solutions.
  • To empirically assess public perception of the morality of outcomes derived from rational agreements.

Main Methods:

  • The study presented participants with two scenarios based on Nash's 1950 bargaining solutions.
  • Participant responses regarding the perceived morality of the outcomes were explicitly queried.

Main Results:

  • In one scenario, over 80% of participants deemed the Nash Pareto-optimal outcome immoral.
  • A plurality of participants in the second scenario also concluded the outcome was immoral.

Conclusions:

  • Empirical findings challenge the assumption that rational bargaining solutions inherently possess moral value.
  • The study suggests that outcomes considered rational may frequently be perceived as immoral by the public.
  • Further research is needed to reconcile rational decision-making frameworks with ethical considerations.