 There are also reasons to think that bargaining solutions are unnecessary as criteria for fair transaction. Suppose that the transactors’ status quo points are morally acceptable (so that there is nothing morally suspect about the Nash solution itself), but the transactors (irrationally) agree to an outcome that is not Pareto optimal. For example, it might be that 100 utils are up for grabs and the Nash solution dictates both receive 50% of the gains but both transactors irrationally ‘burn’ the same portion of their gains, each taking only 40 utils. This behaviour would be odd and, by definition, against each agent’s interests, but it does not seem that the distribution would be unfair. The point is that rationality may require optimisation, but fairness does not. Non-optimal distributions that preserve the proportionality of the Nash solution remain fair. If this is the case, arriving at the Nash solution is not strictly necessary for a fair transaction.