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200984 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.200984 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 2025-05 39 pages Osorio, Nicholas de Marneffe, Peter Portmore, Douglas Barrett, The Honors College Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership This thesis examines the ethical problem of free riding through the lens of contemporary moral and political philosophy. While our moral intuitions strongly condemn free riding—taking advantage of cooperative systems without contributing to them—some dominant ethical theories, particularly act-utilitarianism, appear unable to consistently justify this condemnation. Utilitarian reasoning, with its focus on maximizing overall happiness, often permits free riding when individual actions seem inconsequential to collective outcomes. This limitation raises serious concerns, especially in cases involving public goods, environmental sustainability, and institutional fairness. To address this, I turn to John Rawls’s theory of justice, which offers a more robust moral framework for evaluating the wrongness of free riding. In particular, I focus on Rawls’s principle of fairness, a moral principle chosen by rational individuals in the original position to guide personal conduct within just institutions. I argue that this principle both rules out free riding and provides the normative grounding that utilitarianism lacks. After exploring Rawls’s distinction between natural duties and obligations, I examine his arguments in favor of the principle of fairness, especially its role in stabilizing cooperation and fostering mutual trust. The second half of this thesis critically compares Rawls’s principle of fairness with the act-utilitarian alternative. I show why individuals in the original position would rationally reject act-utilitarianism: it conflicts with the two principles of justice and destabilizes cooperative arrangements. I conclude by applying Rawls’s theory to our own society, arguing that our constitutional framework—though imperfect—meets the threshold of “reasonable justice” and thus generates obligations of fairness for those who benefit from it. Free riding, in Rawls’s view, is morally unacceptable within such a society. Free Riding John Rawls Utilitarianism Consequentialism Ethics and Obligations: Exploring Free Riding Through Moral and Political Philosophy