Social contract theory

Social contract theory

Social contract theory, almost as old as philosophy itself, is the view that the obligations of legal persons and / or policies are subject to a contract or agreement between them to form the society in which they live. Socrates uses something quite like a social contract argument to explain to Crito why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty. However, the social contract theory is precisely associated with modern moral and political theory, and given his first exhibition full defense by Thomas Hobbes. After Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the best promoters of this theory known influential, which was one of the most dominant theories within moral and political theory throughout the history of the West modern. In the twentieth century, moral theory and political philosophy has regained momentum as a result of Kant's version of John Rawls's theory of social contract, and was followed by further analysis on the subject by David Gauthier and others. More recently, philosophers from different perspectives offered new criticism of the social contract theory. In particular, feminists and race conscious philosophers have argued that the social contract theory is at least an incomplete picture of our moral and political life, and may in fact camouflage some of the ways in which the contract is itself parasitic on subjections class of people.

Table of Contents :

1. Socrates Argument

2. Modern social contract theory

3. Thomas Hobbes

4. John Locke

5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

6. More recent theories of social contract

7. John Rawls Theory of Justice

8. David Gauthier

9. Contemporary criticisms of the theory of social contract

10. Feminist arguments

11. The sexual contract

12. The nature of the liberal individual

13. Arguing care

14. Race-Conscious Argument

15. Conclusion

16. References and Further Reading

1. Socrates Argument

In the early Platonic dialogue, Crito, Socrates makes a convincing argument for why it should remain in prison and accept the death penalty, rather than flee into exile in another Greek city. He personifies the laws of Athens, and, speaking in their voice, says he has acquired an overwhelming obligation to obey the laws because they have their way of life as a whole, and even the fact of its existence , possible. They allowed his mother and father to marry, and thus to have legitimate children, including himself. Having emerged, the city of Athens, through its laws, so that his father needed care and education. Socrates' life and how life developed in Athens are each depends on the laws.

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Importantly, however, the relationship between citizens and the laws of the city are not required. Citizens, once they grew up, and saw how the city is done, may choose to leave, taking their possessions with them, or stay. Staying implies an agreement to respect the laws and accept the punishments they inflict. And, having made ​​an agreement that is itself just, Socrates says he must keep to the agreement he did and obey the laws, in this case, staying and accepting the death penalty. Above all, the contract described by Socrates is implicit: it is implied by his choice to stay in Athens, although he is free to leave.

In most well known of Plato's dialogue, the Republic, the social contract theory is again represented, although this time less favorable. In Book II, Glaucon proposes a candidate for an answer to the question "What is justice?" In representing a social contract explanation for the nature of justice. What men would most want is to be able to commit injustices against others without fear of reprisal, and what they most want to avoid is being treated unfairly by others without being able to do injustice in return. Justice then, he says, is the result of conventional laws and conventions that men do to avoid these two extremes. Being unable to commit injustice with impunity (as those who wear the ring of Gyges would), and fearful of becoming victims themselves, the men decide that it is in their interest to comply with the agreement of justice. Socrates rejects this view, and most of the rest of the dialogue centers on showing that justice is useful to have for herself, and that the just man is the happy man. So from the point of view of Socrates, justice is a value that exceeds value prudential Glaucon assigns.

These views, in the Crito and the Republic, may at first seem incompatible: in the former dialogue Socrates uses a type of social contract argument to show why it is right for him to stay in prison, while in the second, he rejects the social contract as the source of justice. These two views are, however, to reconcile. Socrates' point of view, a just man is one who will, among other things, to recognize its obligation to the state by obeying its laws. The state is the entity morally and politically the most fundamental, and as such deserves our deepest respect and loyalty. Just men know this and act accordingly. Justice, however, is more than just enforce the laws in exchange for others to obey them as well. Justice is the soul of a well regulated, and if the just man is also necessarily a happy man. Thus, justice is more than just obedience to the law of reciprocity, as Glaucon suggests, but it does provide, however, obedience to the state and laws that support it. So in the end, though Plato is perhaps the first philosopher to offer a representation of the argument at the heart of social contract theory, Socrates ultimately rejects the idea that the social contract is the original source of justice.

2. Modern social contract theory

a. Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679, lived during the most crucial period of modern history at the beginning of England: the English Civil War, conducted from 1642 to 1648. To describe this conflict in the most general terms, it was a confrontation between the king and his supporters, the monarchists, who preferred the traditional authority of a monarch, and parliamentarians, particularly led by Oliver Cromwell, that required more power to the quasi-democratic institution of Parliament. Hobbes is a compromise between these two factions. On the one hand, he rejects the theory of divine right of kings, which is most eloquently expressed by Robert Filmer in his patriarch or the Natural Power of Kings, (although it is left to John Locke to refute Filmer directly) . View Filmer held that the authority of a king was invested in him (or, presumably, his) God, that this authority was absolute, and therefore the basis of political obligation is our obligation to obey God absolutely. According to this view, therefore, political obligation is subsumed under religious obligation. On the other hand, Hobbes also rejects the democratic point of view at first taken by parliamentarians, that power must be shared between Parliament and the king. In rejecting these two points of view, Hobbes occupies the site of the one that is both radical and conservative. He argues, radical for its time, the political authority and obligation are based on the individual self-interests of the members of society who are supposed to be equal, with no individual vested with authority essential to rule the rest, while maintaining the same time the conservative position that the monarch, which he called the Sovereign, to be sold absolute authority if society is to survive.

Hobbes's political theory is best understood if taken in two parts: his theory of human motivation, psychological egoism, and his social contract theory, based on the hypothetical state of nature. Hobbes, first and foremost, a particular theory of human nature, which gives rise to a particular view of morality and politics, as developed in his philosophical masterpiece, Leviathan, published in 1651 . The scientific revolution, with its important discoveries that the universe could be both predicted and described in accordance with the universal laws of nature, Hobbes greatly influenced. He sought to provide a theory of human nature that would parallel the discoveries in the sciences of the inanimate universe. His psychological theory is informed by the mechanism, the general view that everything in the universe is produced by nothing but matter in motion. According to Hobbes, this extends to human behavior. Human macro-behavior can be aptly described as the effect of certain types of micro-behaviors, although some of that behavior is invisible to us. Thus, behaviors such as walking, talking, and others are themselves produced by other actions within us. And these other actions are themselves caused by the interaction of our bodies with other bodies, human or otherwise, that create in us certain chains of causes and effects, and that eventually lead to human behavior that we can clearly be observed. Us, including all of our actions and choices, then, according to this view, as explained in terms of universal laws of nature as are the movements of celestial bodies. The gradual disintegration of memory, for example, can be explained by inertia. As we are presented with ever more sensory information, the residue of earlier impressions "slow" over time. Hobbes's point of view, we are essentially very complex organic machines, in response to mechanical stimuli in the world and in conformity with the universal laws of human nature.

For Hobbes, the mechanical quality of human psychology involves the subjective nature of normative claims. "Love" and "hate", for example, are just words we use to describe things, we are attracted and repelled by d ', respectively. Similarly, the terms "good" and "bad" have no meaning other than to describe our appetites and aversions. Moral terms are not to describe an objective state of affairs, but rather reflections on individual tastes and preferences.

In addition to subjectivism, Hobbes also infers from his mechanistic theory of human nature that humans are necessarily and exclusively interested. All men to pursue what they perceive as their own benefit individually - they respond mechanistically by being drawn to what they want and repelled by one they oppose. It is a universal claim: it is intended to cover all human actions in all circumstances - in the company or outside it, towards strangers and friends, with respect to small pieces and most widespread of human desires, such as the desire for power and status. Everything we do is motivated solely by a desire to improve our own situation, and meet as many of us, individually considered desires as possible. We are infinitely appetitive and only really concerned with ourselves. According to Hobbes, even why adult care for young children can be explained in terms of adult self-interest (he claims to save a baby by taking care of it, we become the recipient of a strong sense obligation of one who was helped to survive rather than letting die).

In addition to being exclusively selfish, Hobbes also argues that human beings are reasonable. They make their own rational capacity to pursue their desires in the most effective and the maximum possible. Their reason was not given the subjective nature of value, to assess their given purpose, rather it acts simply as "the Boy Scouts, and Spies, to range abroad and find the way things desired "(139). Rationality is purely instrumental. It can add and subtract, and compare the amounts to each other, and thus provides us with the ability to formulate the best means for any purpose that we might get to have.

From these premises of human nature, Hobbes continues to build a provocative and compelling argument for why we should be prepared to submit to political authority. It does this by imagining people living in before the creation of society, the state of nature.

According to Hobbes, the justification of political obligation is: given that men are naturally selfish, but they are rational, they will choose to submit to the authority of a sovereign, in order to live in a society calendar, which is conducive to their own interests. Hobbes argues for this by imagining men in their natural state, or in other words, the state of nature. In the State of Nature, which is purely hypothetical according to Hobbes, men are naturally and exclusively interested, they are more or less equal to another, (even the strongest man can be killed in his sleep), the resources are limited, and yet there is no power capable of forcing men to cooperate. Given these conditions in the state of nature, Hobbes concludes that the state of nature would be unbearably brutal. In the state of nature, each person is always in fear of losing his life to another. They have no ability to ensure long-term satisfaction of their needs or desires. No long-term cooperation or complex is possible because the state of nature can be aptly described as a state of absolute distrust. Given Hobbes reasonable assumption that most people want first and foremost to avoid their own death, he concluded that the state of nature is the worst possible situation in which men can be. Is the state of perpetual war and inevitable.

The situation is not, however, without hope. Because men are reasonable, they can see their output of such a state, recognizing the laws of nature, which show them ways to escape the state of nature and create a civil society. The first and most important law of nature commands every man is ready to pursue peace when others are willing to do the same, while retaining the right to continue to prosecute the war when others do not pursue peace. Be reasonable, and recognizing the rationality of the basic precept of reason, men can expect to build a social contract that will give them a life other than that available to them in the State of Nature. This contract consists of two separate contracts. First, they must agree to set up the company collectively and reciprocally renouncing the rights they had against each other in the State of Nature. Second, they must teach a certain person or an assembly of people with the authority and power to enforce the original contract. In other words, to ensure their escape from the state of nature, they must both agree to live together under common laws, and create an enforcement mechanism of the social contract and the laws that constitute it. Since the ruler is vested with the authority and power to impose penalties for breaches of contract which are worse than not being able to act as we want, men of good, though interested, due to fit the artifice of morality in general, and justice in particular. The company becomes possible because, while in the state of nature there was no power able to "hold in check all", now there is a person artificially and conventionally superior and more powerful that can force men to cooperate. While living under the authority of a sovereign can be harsh (Hobbes argues that because the passions of men can be expected to overwhelm their reason, the Sovereign must have absolute authority for the contract to succeed), it is at least better than living in the State of Nature. And no matter how much we may object to a sovereign unclear how manages the affairs of the state and regulates our lives, we are never justified to resist his power, because it is the only thing that stands between us and what we most want to avoid the state of nature.

According to this argument, morality, politics, society, and everything that comes with it, stay comfortable all Hobbes calls are purely conventional. Before the establishment of basic social contract, that men agree to live together and the contract to play as a ruler with absolute authority, nothing is immoral or unjust - anything goes. After these contracts are, however, then society becomes possible, and people can expect to keep their promises to cooperate with each other, and so on. The social contract is the most fundamental source of all that is good and what we depend on to live well. Our choice is either to respect the terms of the contract or return to the state of nature, Hobbes argues that no reasonable person would prefer.

Given its rather severe view of human nature, Hobbes nevertheless manages to create an argument that makes civil society, with all its advantages, possible. In the context of political events of his England, he was also able to advocate for a continuation of the traditional form of authority that his company had long enjoyed, while still placing it on what he considered a much more acceptable foundation.

b. John Locke

For Hobbes, the need for absolute authority, as a sovereign, followed by the utter brutality of the state of nature. The state of nature was totally unacceptable, and so many rational people would be willing to submit to the absolute authority, even in order to escape. For John Locke, 1632-1704, the state of nature is a very different type of place, and if his argument about the social contract and the nature of the relationship of men in authority are therefore quite different . While Locke uses Hobbes' methodological device on the state of nature, as do almost all of the social contract theorists, he uses it for a purpose quite different. Locke's arguments for the social contract, and to the right of citizens to revolt against their king had an enormous influence on the democratic revolutions that followed, especially Thomas Jefferson and the founders of the United States.

Locke most important and influential political writings are contained in his two treatises on government. The first treaty is concerned almost exclusively to refute the argument Patriarcha Robert Filmer, that political authority was derived from religious authority, also known by the description of the divine right of kings, which was a very dominant theory in the seventeenth century England. The second treatise contains Locke's own constructive vision of the purpose and the justification for civil government, and is entitled "Essay on the true extent of origin and the end of civil government."

According to Locke, the state of nature, the natural condition of mankind, is a state of perfect freedom and complete a life as one of the best fit, without interference from others. This does not mean, however, that it is a state license: we are not free to do whatever he likes, or even something that is judged to be in his interest. The state of nature, but a state where there is no civil authority or government to punish people for transgressions against the laws, is not a state, without morality. The state of nature is pre-political, but it is not pre-moral. People are assumed to be equal to each other in such a state, and thus also able to discover and be bound by the law of nature. The law of nature, which is on the point of view of Locke the basis of all morality, and given to us by God, the commands that we not harm others with regard to their "life, health, liberty, or possessions "(para. 6). Because we all belong to God himself, and because we can not remove what is rightfully his, we are forbidden to harm the other. Thus, the state of nature is a state of freedom where people are free to pursue their own interests and plans, free from interference, and because of the law of nature and the restrictions it imposes to people, it is relatively peaceful.

The state of nature is not the same as the state of war, as, according to Hobbes. However, it can be transformed into a state of war, in particular, a state of war on property disputes. While the state of nature is the state of freedom where people recognize the law of nature and therefore does not interfere with each other, the state of war begins between two or more men once one man declares war the other, stealing from him, or trying to make him his slave. Since in the state of nature there is no civil power to which men can appeal, and since the law of nature allows them to defend their own lives, they can kill those who would bring force against them. Since the state of nature is not the civil power, once the war starts, it is likely to continue. And this is one of the strongest reasons that men have to give up the state of nature by getting together to form a civilian government.

Property plays an essential role in Locke's argument for the civilian government and the contract it establishes. According to Locke, private property is created when a person mixes his work with the raw materials of nature. For example, when a piece of land cultivated in nature, and in fact a piece of farmland that produces food, then we have a claim to own this piece of land and the food produced on it . (This led Locke to conclude that America does not really belong to the natives who lived there, because they were on his vision, failing to use the basic material of nature. As of other words, they did not farm, so they. had no legitimate right to it, and others could legitimately appropriate it) Given the implications of the law of nature, there limits on how property can have: we're not allowed to take more to nature itself can use, leaving the others without enough for themselves. Because nature is given to all mankind by God for their livelihood common, we can not take more than its fair share clean. The property is central to Locke's argument for the social contract and civil government, because it is the protection of their property, including property in their own bodies, that men seek when they decide to abandon the state of nature.

According to Locke, the state of nature is not a condition of individuals, as for Hobbes. Rather, it is populated by mothers and fathers with their children, or families - what he calls "conjugal society" (para. 78). These companies are based on voluntary agreements with the children together, and they are moral, not political. Political society is set up as individual men, representing their families, gather in the State of Nature and agree to each give up executive power to punish those who transgress the law of nature, and give this authority to the public of a government. Having done this, they become subject to the will of the majority. In other words, making a compact to leave the state of nature and form of society, they are "one body politic under one government" (para. 97) and submit to the will of this body. A joining such an organization, either from the beginning, or after it has already been established by others, by explicit consent. Having created a political society and government through their consent, men then gain three things they needed in the State of Nature: laws, judges to rule laws, and executive power necessary to enforce these laws. Every man therefore gives more power to protect themselves and punish the transgressors of the law of nature for the government it created through the compact.

Since the end of the "men to unite in common wealth" (para. 124) is the preservation of their wealth, and the preservation of life, liberty and well-being in general, Locke can easily imagine the conditions under which the pact with the government is destroyed, and men are justified in resisting the authority of a civilian government, like a king. When the executive branch of government is vested in tyranny, for dissolution of Parliament and therefore deny the people the opportunity to make laws for their own preservation, and the tyrant gets results in a state of nature, and more precisely in a state of war with the people, and they then have the same right to self-defense as they had before making a compact to establish society in the first place. In other words, the justification for the authority component of the executive branch of government is to protect property and people's welfare, so when such protection is no longer present, or when the king becomes a tyrant and acts against the interests of the people, they have the right, if not an absolute obligation to resist his authority. The social contract can be dissolved and the process of creation of political society again.

Because Locke does not provide the state of nature as Hobbes eerily like he can not imagine the conditions under which it would be better off rejecting a particular civil government and a return to the state of nature, with the aim of building a better civilian government in its place. It is therefore both the view of human nature, and nature of morality itself, that the differences between Hobbes and Locke views the social contract.

c. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778, lived and wrote during what was probably the most heady period of intellectual history of modern France, the Enlightenment. It was one of the lights of this intellectual movement, contributing to articles Encyclopdie Diderot, and participating in exhibitions in Paris, where issues of great intellectuals of his day were continued.

Rousseau has two distinct theories of social contract. The first is in his essay, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, commonly called the second speech, and is an account of the moral and political evolution of human beings over time, to from a state of nature in modern society. As such, it contains his naturalized account of the social contract, which he considered very problematic. The second is the normative or idealized theory of the social contract, and is intended to provide the means by which to alleviate the problems that modern society has created for us, as foreseen in the second speech.

Rousseau wrote his Second Discourse in response to an essay contest sponsored by the Academy of Dijon. (Rousseau had already won the essay contest even with an earlier study, known as the first speech.) He describes the historical process by which man began in a state of nature and over time "increased "civil society. According to Rousseau, the state of nature was a peaceful and quixotic time. People lived solitary lives without complication. Their needs were few easily satisfied by nature. Because of the abundance of nature and the small population size, competition was non-existent, and people rarely even saw another, much less was due to conflict or fear. Moreover, these simple people were morally clean naturally gifted in the ability to pity, and therefore not likely to harm another.

As time passed, however, humanity faces some changes. As the global population has increased, the means by which people could meet their needs should change. Slowly people began to live together in small families and in small communities. Divisions du travail ont été introduites, à la fois au sein et entre les familles et les découvertes et inventions ont rendu la vie plus facile, donnant lieu à des temps de loisirs. Ces temps de loisirs a inévitablement conduit les gens à faire des comparaisons entre eux et aux autres, résultant en des valeurs publiques, ce qui conduit à la honte et l'envie, orgueil et mépris. Plus important cependant, selon Rousseau, a été l'invention de la propriété privée, qui constitue le moment charnière dans l'évolution de l'humanité d'un simple état ​​pur dans une caractérisée par la cupidité, la concurrence, la vanité, l'inégalité, et le vice. Pour Rousseau l'invention de la propriété constitue l'humanité "disgrâce" hors de l'état de nature.

Après avoir introduit la propriété privée, les conditions initiales de l'inégalité est devenue plus prononcée. Certains ont la propriété et les autres sont obligés de travailler pour eux, et le développement des classes sociales commence. Finalement, ceux qui ont un avis de propriété qu'il serait dans leur intérêt de créer un gouvernement qui protège la propriété privée de ceux qui n'en ont pas mais vous pouvez voir qu'ils pourraient être en mesure de l'acquérir par la force. Ainsi, le gouvernement obtient en place, grâce à un contrat, qui vise à garantir l'égalité et la protection de tous, même si son véritable but est de se fossiliser les inégalités mêmes que la propriété privée a produites. En d'autres termes, le contrat, qui prétend être dans l'intérêt de tous de manière égale, est vraiment dans l'intérêt de quelques-uns qui sont devenus plus forts et plus riches en raison de l'évolution de la propriété privée. C'est le contrat naturalisés social, dont Rousseau considère comme responsable du conflit et la compétition à partir de laquelle la société moderne souffre.

Le contrat social normatif, préconisée par Rousseau dans Le Contrat social (1762), est destinée à répondre à ce triste état ​​des affaires et de remédier aux maux sociaux et moraux qui ont été produites par le développement de la société. La distinction entre l'histoire et de la justification, entre la situation factuelle de l'humanité et comment il doit vivre ensemble, est d'une importance capitale à Rousseau. Bien que nous ne devons pas ignorer l'histoire, ni ignorer les causes des problèmes auxquels nous faisons face, nous devons résoudre ces problèmes grâce à notre capacité de choisir comment nous devons vivre. Peut-être jamais fait le droit, en dépit de la fréquence à laquelle il prétend qu'il peut.

Le contrat social commence par le plus souvent cité la ligne de Rousseau: «L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les chaînes" (49). Cette revendication est le pont conceptuel entre le travail descriptif de la Deuxième discours, et le travail normatif qui est à venir. Les êtres humains sont essentiellement libres, et ils étaient libres dans l'Etat de la Nature, mais le «progrès» de la civilisation a substitué la soumission à d'autres pour que la liberté, à travers la dépendance, les inégalités économiques et sociales, et la mesure dans laquelle nous nous juger à travers des comparaisons avec d'autres . Depuis le retour à l'état de nature n'est ni faisable ni souhaitable, dans le but de la politique est de restaurer la liberté à nous, conciliant ainsi qui nous sommes vraiment et sont essentiellement la façon dont nous vivons ensemble. Donc, c'est le problème philosophique fondamental que le contrat social cherche à l'adresse suivante: comment pouvons-nous être libres et vivre ensemble? Ou, en d'autres termes, comment pouvons-nous vivre ensemble sans succomber à la force et la coercition des autres? We can do so, Rousseau maintains, by submitting our individual, particular wills to the collective or general will, created through agreement with other free and equal persons. Like Hobbes and Locke before him, and in contrast to the ancient philosophers, all men are made by nature to be equals, therefore no one has a natural right to govern others, and therefore the only justified authority is the authority that is generated out of agreements or covenants.

The most basic covenant, the social pact, is the agreement to come together and form a people, a collectivity, which by definition is more than and different from a mere aggregation of individual interests and wills. This act, where individual persons become a people is “the real foundation of society” (59). Through the collective renunciation of the individual rights and freedom that one has in the State of Nature, and the transfer of these rights to the collective body, a new 'person', as it were, is formed. The sovereign is thus formed when free and equal persons come together and agree to create themselves anew as a single body, directed to the good of all considered together. So, just as individual wills are directed towards individual interests, the general will, once formed, is directed towards the common good, understood and agreed to collectively. Included in this version of the social contract is the idea of reciprocated duties: the sovereign is committed to the good of the individuals who constitute it, and each individual is likewise committed to the good of the whole. Given this, individuals cannot be given liberty to decide whether it is in their own interests to fulfill their duties to the Sovereign, while at the same time being allowed to reap the benefits of citizenship. They must be made to conform themselves to the general will, they must be “forced to be free” (64).

For Rousseau, this implies an extremely strong and direct form of democracy. One cannot transfer one's will to another, to do with as he or she sees fit, as one does in representative democracies. Rather, the general will depends on the coming together periodically of the entire democratic body, each and every citizen, to decide collectively, and with at least near unanimity, how to live together, ie, what laws to enact. As it is constituted only by individual wills, these private, individual wills must assemble themselves regularly if the general will is to continue. One implication of this is that the strong form of democracy which is consistent with the general will is also only possible in relatively small states. The people must be able to identify with one another, and at least know who each other are. They cannot live in a large area, too spread out to come together regularly, and they cannot live in such different geographic circumstances as to be unable to be united under common laws. (Could the present-day US satisfy Rousseau's conception of democracy? It could not. ) Although the conditions for true democracy are stringent, they are also the only means by which we can, according to Rousseau, save ourselves, and regain the freedom to which we are naturally entitled.

Rousseau's social contract theories together form a single, consistent view of our moral and political situation. We are endowed with freedom and equality by nature, but our nature has been corrupted by our contingent social history. We can overcome this corruption, however, by invoking our free will to reconstitute ourselves politically, along strongly democratic principles, which is good for us, both individually and collectively.

3. More Recent Social Contract Theories

a. John Rawls' A Theory of Justice

In 1972, the publication of John Rawls' extremely influential A Theory of Justice brought moral and political philosophy back from what had been a long hiatus of philosophical consideration. Rawls' theory relies on a Kantian understanding of persons and their capacities. For Rawls, as for Kant, persons have the capacity to reason from a universal point of view, which in turn means that they have the particular moral capacity of judging principles from an impartial standpoint. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls argues that the moral and political point of view is discovered via impartiality. (It is important to note that this view, delineated in A Theory of Justice, has undergone substantial revisions by Rawls, and that he described his later view as “political liberalism”.) He invokes this point of view (the general view that Thomas Nagel describes as “the view from nowhere”) by imagining persons in a hypothetical situation, the Original Position, which is characterized by the epistemological limitation of the Veil of Ignorance. Rawls' original position is his highly abstracted version of the State of Nature. It is the position from which we can discover the nature of justice and what it requires of us as individual persons and of the social institutions through which we will live together cooperatively. In the original position, behind the veil of ignorance, one is denied any particular knowledge of one's circumstances, such as one's gender, race, particular talents or disabilities, one's age, social status, one's particular conception of what makes for a good life, or the particular state of the society in which one lives. Persons are also assumed to be rational and disinterested in one another's well-being. These are the conditions under which, Rawls argues, one can choose principles for a just society which are themselves chosen from initial conditions that are inherently fair. Because no one has any of the particular knowledge he or she could use to develop principles that favor his or her own particular circumstances, in other words the knowledge that makes for and sustains prejudices, the principles chosen from such a perspective are necessarily fair. For example, if one does not know whether one is female or male in the society for which one must choose basic principles of justice, it makes no sense, from the point of view of self-interested rationality, to endorse a principle that favors one sex at the expense of another, since, once the veil of ignorance is lifted, one might find oneself on the losing end of such a principle. Hence Rawls describes his theory as “justice as fairness.” Because the conditions under which the principles of justice are discovered are basically fair, justice proceeds out of fairness.

In such a position, behind such a veil, everyone is in the same situation, and everyone is presumed to be equally rational. Since everyone adopts the same method for choosing the basic principles for society, everyone will occupy the same standpoint: that of the disembodied, rational, universal human. Therefore all who consider justice from the point of view of the original position would agree upon the same principles of justice generated out of such a thought experiment. Any one person would reach the same conclusion as any other person concerning the most basic principles that must regulate a just society.

The principles that persons in the Original Position, behind the Veil of Ignorance, would choose to regulate a society at the most basic level (that is, prior even to a Constitution) are called by Rawls, aptly enough, the Two Principles of Justice. These two principles determine the distribution of both civil liberties and social and economic goods. The first principle states that each person in a society is to have as much basic liberty as possible, as long as everyone is granted the same liberties. That is, there is to be as much civil liberty as possible as long as these goods are distributed equally. (This would, for example, preclude a scenario under which there was a greater aggregate of civil liberties than under an alternative scenario, but under which such liberties were not distributed equally amongst citizens.) The second principle states that while social and economic inequalities can be just, they must be available to everyone equally (that is, no one is to be on principle denied access to greater economic advantage) and such inequalities must be to the advantage of everyone. This means that economic inequalities are only justified when the least advantaged member of society is nonetheless better off than she would be under alternative arrangements. So, only if a rising tide truly does carry all boats upward, can economic inequalities be allowed for in a just society. The method of the original position supports this second principle, referred to as the Difference Principle, because when we are behind the veil of ignorance, and therefore do not know what our situation in society will be once the veil of ignorance is lifted, we will only accept principles that will be to our advantage even if we end up in the least advantaged position in society.

These two principles are related to each other by a specific order. The first principle, distributing civil liberties as widely as possible consistent with equality, is prior to the second principle, which distributes social and economic goods. In other words, we cannot decide to forgo some of our civil liberties in favor of greater economic advantage. Rather, we must satisfy the demands of the first principle, before we move on to the second. From Rawls' point of view, this serial ordering of the principles expresses a basic rational preference for certain kinds of goods, ie, those embodied in civil liberties, over other kinds of goods, ie, economic advantage.

Having argued that any rational person inhabiting the original position and placing him or herself behind the veil of ignorance can discover the two principles of justice, Rawls has constructed what is perhaps the most abstract version of a social contract theory. It is highly abstract because rather than demonstrating that we would or even have signed to a contract to establish society, it instead shows us what we must be willing to accept as rational persons in order to be constrained by justice and therefore capable of living in a well ordered society. The principles of justice are more fundamental than the social contract as it has traditionally been conceived. Rather, the principles of justice constrain that contract, and set out the limits of how we can construct society in the first place. If we consider, for example, a constitution as the concrete expression of the social contract, Rawls' two principles of justice delineate what such a constitution can and cannot require of us. Rawls' theory of justice constitutes, then, the Kantian limits upon the forms of political and social organization that are permissible within a just society.

b. David Gauthier

In his 1986 book, Morals by Agreement, David Gauthier set out to renew Hobbesian moral and political philosophy. In that book, he makes a strong argument that Hobbes was right: we can understand both politics and morality as founded upon an agreement between exclusively self-interested yet rational persons. He improves upon Hobbes' argument, however, by showing that we can establish morality without the external enforcement mechanism of the Sovereign. Hobbes argued that men's passions were so strong as to make cooperation between them always in danger of breaking down, and thus that a Sovereign was necessary to force compliance. Gauthier, however, believes that rationality alone convinces persons not only to agree to cooperate, but to stick to their agreements as well.

We should understand ourselves as individual Robinson Crusoes, each living on our own island, lucky or unlucky in terms of our talents and the natural provisions of our islands, but able to enter into negotiations and deals with one another to trade goods and services with one another. Entering into such agreements is to our own advantage, and so rationality convinces us to both make such agreements and stick to them as well.

Gauthier has an advantage over Hobbes when it comes to developing the argument that cooperation between purely self-interested agents is possible. He has access to rational choice theory and its sophisticated methodology for showing how such cooperation can arise. In particular, he appeals to the model of the Prisoner's Dilemma to show that self-interest can be consistent with acting cooperatively. (There is a reasonable argument to be made that we can find in Hobbes a primitive version of the problem of the Prisoner's Dilemma.)

According to the story of the Prisoner's Dilemma, two people have been brought in for questioning, conducted separately, about a crime they are suspected to have committed. The police have solid evidence of a lesser crime that they committed, but need confessions in order to convict them on more serious charges. Each prisoner is told that if she cooperates with the police by informing on the other prisoner, then she will be rewarded by receiving a relatively light sentence of one year in prison, whereas her cohort will go to prison for ten years. If they both remain silent, then there will be no such rewards, and they can each expect to receive moderate sentences of two years. And if they both cooperate with police by informing on each other, then the police will have enough to send each to prison for five years. The dilemma then is this: in order to serve her own interests as well as possible, each prisoner reasons that no matter what the other does she is better off cooperating with the police by confessing. Each reasons: “If she confesses, then I should confess, thereby being sentenced to five years instead of ten. And if she does not confess, then I should confess, thereby being sentenced to one year instead of two. So, no matter what she does, I should confess.” The problem is that when each reason this way, they each confess, and each goes to prison for five years. However, had they each remained silent, thereby cooperating with each other rather than with the police, they would have spent only two years in prison.

According to Gauthier, the important lesson of the Prisoner's Dilemma is that when one is engaged in interaction such that others' actions can affect one's own interests, and vice versa, one does better if one acts cooperatively. By acting to further the interests of the other, one serves one's own interests as well. We should, therefore, insofar as we are rational, develop within ourselves the dispositions to constrain ourselves when interacting with others. We should become “constrained maximizers” (CMs) rather remain the “straightforward maximizers” (SMs) that we would be in a State of Nature (167).

Both SMs and CMs are exclusively self-interested and rational, but they differ with regard to whether they take into account only strategies, or both the strategies and utilities, of whose with whom they interact. To take into account the others' strategies is to act in accordance with how you expect the others will act. To take into account their utilities is to consider how they will fare as a result of your action and to allow that to affect your own actions. Both SMs and CMs take into account the strategies of the other with whom they interact. But whereas SMs do not take into account the utilities of those with whom they interact, CMs do. And, whereas CMs are afforded the benefits of cooperation with others, SMs are denied such advantage. According to Gauthier, when interacting in Prisoner's Dilemma-like situations, where the actions of others can affect one's own outcome, and vice versa, rationality shows that one's own interest is best pursued by being cooperative, and therefore agents rationally dispose themselves to the constrain the maximization of their own utility by adopting principles of morality. According to Gauthier, rationality is a force strong enough to give persons internal reasons to cooperate. They do not, therefore, need Hobbes' Sovereign with absolute authority to sustain their cooperation. The enforcement mechanism has been internalized. “Morals by agreement” are therefore created out of the rationality of exclusively self-interested agents.

4. Contemporary Critiques of Social Contract Theory

Given the longstanding and widespread influence that social contract theory has had, it comes as no surprise that it is also the objects of many critiques from a variety of philosophical perspectives. Feminists and race-conscious philosophers, in particular, have made important arguments concerning the substance and viability of social contract theory.

a. Feminist Arguments

For the most part, feminism resists any simple or universal definition. In general though, feminists take women's experiences seriously, as well as the impact that theories and practices have for women's lives. Given the pervasive influence of contract theory on social, political, and moral philosophy, then, it is not surprising that feminists should have a great deal to say about whether contract theory is adequate or appropriate from the point of view of taking women seriously. To survey all of the feminist responses to social contract theory would carry us well beyond the boundaries of the present article. I will concentrate therefore on just three of those arguments: Carole Pateman's argument about the relation between the contract and women's subordination to men, feminist arguments concerning the nature of the liberal individual, and the care argument.

i. The Sexual Contract

Carole Pateman's 1988 book, The Sexual Contract, argues that lying beneath the myth of the idealized contract, as described by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, is a more fundamental contract concerning men's relationship to women. Contract theory represents itself as being opposed to patriarchy and patriarchal right. (Locke's social contract, for example, is set by him in stark contrast to the work of Robert Filmer who argued in favor of patriarchal power.) Yet the “original pact” (2) that precedes the social contract entered into by equals is the agreement by men to dominate and control women. This 'original pact' is made by brothers, literally or metaphorically, who, after overthrowing the rule of the father, then agree to share their domination of the women who were previously under the exclusive control of one man, the father. The change from “classical patriarchalism” (24) to modern patriarchy is a shift, then, in who has power over women. It is not, however, a fundamental change in whether women are dominated by men. Men's relationships of power to one another change, but women's relationship to men's power does not. Modern patriarchy is characterized by a contractual relationship between men, and part of that contract involves power over women. This fact, that one form of patriarchy was not overthrown completely, but rather was replaced with a different form, in which male power was distributed amongst more men, rather than held by one man, is illustrated by Freud's story of the genesis of civilization. According to that story, a band of brothers, lorded over by a father who maintained exclusive sexual access to the women of the tribe, kill the father, and then establish a contract among themselves to be equal and to share the women. This is the story, whether we understand Freud's tale to be historically accurate or not, of modern patriarchy and its deep dependence on contract as the means by which men control and dominate women.

Patriarchal control of women is found in at least three paradigmatic contemporary contracts: the marriage contract, the prostitution contract, and the contract for surrogate motherhood. Each of these contracts is concerned with men's control of women, or a particular man's control of a particular woman generalized. According to the terms of the marriage contract, in most states in the US, a husband is accorded the right to sexual access, prohibiting the legal category of marital rape. Prostitution is a case in point of Pateman's claim that modern patriarchy requires equal access by men to women, in particular sexual access, access to their bodies. And surrogate motherhood can be understood as more of the same, although in terms of access to women's reproductive capacities. All these examples demonstrate that contract is the means by which women are dominated and controlled. Contract is not the path to freedom and equality. Rather, it is one means, perhaps the most fundamental means, by which patriarchy is upheld.

ii. The Nature of the Liberal Individual

Following Pateman's argument, a number of feminists have also called into question the very nature of the person at the heart of contract theory. The Liberal Individual, the contractor, is represented by the Hobbesian man, Locke's proprietor, Rousseau's “Noble Savage,” Rawls's person in the original position, and Gauthier's Robinson Crusoe. The liberal individual is purported to be universal: raceless, sexless, classless, disembodied, and is taken to represent an abstract, generalized model of humanity writ large. Many philosophers have argued, however, that when we look more closely at the characteristics of the liberal individual, what we find is not a representation of universal humanity, but a historically located, specific type of person. CB Macpherson, for example, has argued that Hobbesian man is, in particular, a bourgeois man, with the characteristics we would expect of a person during the nascent capitalism that characterized early modern Europe. Feminists have also argued that the liberal individual is a particular, historical, and embodied person. (As have race-conscious philosophers, such as Charles Mills, to be discussed below.) More specifically, they have argued that the person at the heart of liberal theory, and the social contract, is gendered. Christine Di Stefano, in her 1991 book Configurations of Masculinity, shows that a number of historically important modern philosophers can be understood to develop their theories from within the perspective of masculinity, as conceived of in the modern period. She argues that Hobbes's conception of the liberal individual, which laid the groundwork for the dominant modern conception of the person, is particularly masculine in that it is conceived as atomistic and solitary and as not owing any of its qualities, or even its very existence, to any other person, in particular its mother. Hobbes's human, is therefore, radically individual, in a way that is specifically owing to the character of modern masculinity. Virginia Held, in her 1993 book, Feminist Morality, argues that social contract theory implicitly relies on a conception of the person that can be best described as “economic man.” “Economic man” is concerned first and foremost to maximize his own, individually considered interests, and he enters into contracts as a means by which to achieve this end. “Economic man”, however, fails to represent all persons in all times and places. In particular, it fails to adequately represent children and those who provide them with the care they require, who have historically been women. The model of “economic man” cannot, therefore, fairly claim to be a general representation of all persons. Similarly, Annette Baier argues that Gauthier's conception of the liberal individual who enters into the social contract as a means by which to maximize his own individually considered interests is gendered in that it does not take seriously the position of either children or the women who most usually are responsible for caring for those children.

iii. Arguing from Care

Theorizing from within the emerging tradition of care ethics, feminist philosophers such as Baier and Held argue that social contract theory fails as an adequate account of our moral or political obligations. Social contract theory, in general, only goes so far as to delineate our rights and obligations. But this may not be enough to adequately reveal the full extent of what it means to be a moral person, and how fully to respond to others with whom one interacts through relations of dependence. Baier argues that Gauthier, who conceives of affective bonds between persons as non-essential and voluntary, therefore fails to represent the fullness of human psychology and motivations. She argues that this therefore leads to a crucial flaw in social contract theory. Liberal moral theory is in fact parasitic upon the very relations between persons from which it seeks to liberate us. While Gauthier argues that we are freer the more that we can see affective relations as voluntary, we must nonetheless, in the first place, be in such relationships (eg, the mother-child relationship) in order to develop the very capacities and qualities lauded by liberal theory. Certain kinds of relationships of dependence, in other words, are necessary in the first place if we are to become the very kinds of persons who are capable of entering into contracts and agreements. In a similar vein, Held has argued that the model of “economic man” fails to capture much of what constitutes meaningful moral relations between people. Understanding human relations in purely contractual terms constitutes, according to her argument “an impoverished view of human aspiration” (194). She therefore suggests that we consider other models of human relationships when looking for insight into morality. In particular, she offers up the paradigm of the mother-child relationship to at least supplement the model of individual self-interested agents negotiating with one another through contracts. Such a model is more likely to match up with many of the moral experiences of most people, especially women.

Feminist critiques of the contractarian approaches to our collective moral and political lives continue to reverberate through social and political philosophy. One such critique, that of Carole Pateman, has influenced philosophers writing outside of feminist traditions.

b. Race-Conscious Argument

Charles Mills' 1997 book, The Racial Contract, is a critique not only of the history of Western political thought, institutions, and practices, but, more specifically, of the history of social contract theory. It is inspired by Carole Pateman's The Sexual Contract, and seeks to show that non-whites have a similar relationship to the social contract as do women. As such, it also calls into question the supposed universality of the liberal individual who is the agent of contract theory.

Mills' central argument is that there exists a 'racial contract' that is even more fundamental to Western society than the social contract. This racial contract determines in the first place who counts as full moral and political persons, and therefore sets the parameters of who can 'contract in' to the freedom and equality that the social contract promises. Some persons, in particular white men, are full persons according to the racial contract. As such they are accorded the right to enter into the social contract, and into particular legal contracts. They are seen as fully human and therefore as deserving of equality and freedom. Their status as full persons accords them greater social power. In particular, it accords them the power to make contracts, to be the subjects of the contract, whereas other persons are denied such privilege and are relegated to the status of objects of contracts.

This racial contract is to some extent a meta-contract, which determines the bounds of personhood and parameters of inclusion and exclusion in all the other contracts that come after it. It manifests itself both formally and informally. It is an agreement, originally among European men in the beginning of the modern period, to identify themselves as 'white' and therefore as fully human, and to identify all others, in particular the natives with whom they were beginning to come into contact, as 'other': non-white and therefore not fully human. So, race is not just a social construct, as others have argued, it is more especially a political construct, created to serve a particular political end, and the political purposes of a specific group. The contract allows some persons to treat other persons, as well as the lands they inhabit, as resources to be exploited. The enslavement of millions of Africans and the appropriation of the Americas from those who inhabited them, are examples of this racial contract at work in history (such as Locke's claim that Native Americans did not own the land they lived on because they did not farm it and therefore did not own it). This contract is not hypothetical, as Hobbes describes the one argued for in his Leviathan. This is an actual contract, or series of contracts, made by real men of history. It is found in such documents as Papal Bulls and Locke's writings on Native Americans, and acted upon in such historical events as the voyages of discovery made by Europeans and the colonization of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The racial contract makes possible and justifies some people, in virtue of their alleged superiority, exploiting the peoples, lands, and resources of other races.

From Mills' perspective then, racism is not just an unhappy accident of Western democratic and political ideals. It is not the case that we have a political system that was perfectly conceived and unfortunately imperfectly applied. One of the reasons that we continue to think that the problem of race in the West is relatively superficial, that it does not go all the way down, is the hold that the idealized social contract has on our imagination. We continue to believe, according to Mills, in the myths that social contract theory tells us – that everyone is equal, that all will be treated the same before the law, that the Founding Fathers were committed to equality and freedom for all persons, etc. One of the very purposes of social contract theory, then, is to keep hidden from view the true political reality – some persons will be accorded the rights and freedoms of full persons, and the rest will be treated as sub-persons. The racial contract informs the very structure of our political systems, and lays the basis for the continuing racial oppression of non-whites. We cannot respond to it, therefore, by simply adding more non-whites into the mix of our political institutions, representation, and so on. Rather, we must reexamine our politics in general, from the point of view of the racial contract, and start from where we are, with full knowledge of how our society has been informed by the systematic exclusion of some persons from the realm of politics and contract. This “naturalized” feature of the racial contract, meaning that it tells a story about who we actually are and what is included in our history, is better, according to Mills, because it holds the promise of making it possible for us to someday actually live up to the norms and values that are at the heart of the Western political traditions.

5. Conclusion

Virginia Held has argued that “Contemporary Western society is in the grip of contractual thinking” (193). Contractual models have come to inform a vast variety of relations and interaction between persons, from students and their teachers, to authors and their readers. Given this, it would be difficult to overestimate the effect that social contract theory has had, both within philosophy, and on the wider culture. Social contract theory is undoubtedly with us for the foreseeable future. But so too are the critiques of such theory, which will continue to compel us to think and rethink the nature of both ourselves and our relations with one another.

submitted by

Md Akram Hossain

OS,BLSDO