Social contract

Definition

Social contract is a phrase used in philosophy, political science, and sociology to denote a real or hypothetical agreement within a state regarding the rights and responsibilities of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between a group and its members. All members within a society are assumed to agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society.

The social contract, as a political theory, explains the origin and purpose of the state, and of human rights. The essence of the theory (in its most common form, namely the one proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau) is as follows: In order to live in society, human beings agree to an implicit social contract, which gives them certain rights (such as the right to life) in return for giving up certain freedoms (such as the freedom to kill others). Thus, the rights (and responsibilities) of individuals are the terms of the social contract, and the state is the entity created for the purpose of enforcing that contract. Also, the people may change the terms of the contract if they so desire; rights and responsibilities are not fixed or "natural". However, more rights always entail more responsibilities, and fewer responsibilities always entail fewer rights.

History

Contract theory is certainly not new; Cicero (106-43 BC) posited such a theory in the latter stages of the Roman Republic. The first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed contract theory was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who contended that people in a state of nature ceded their individual rights to a strong sovereign in return for his protection. John Locke (1634-1704) also posited a contract theory; however, unlike Hobbes, Locke believed that people contracted with one another for a particular kind of government, and that they could modify or even abolish the government.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), in his influential 1762 treatise The Social Contract, outlined a different version of contract theory. Rousseau's theory has many similarities with the individualist Lockean tradition, but also departs from it on many significant points. This theory has already been presented in the second introductory paragraph of this article, since Rousseau's version of the social contract is the one most often associated with the term "social contract" itself. It is also worth noting that in the century following Rousseau's death, his theories have been an important influence in the formation of the socialist movement.

John Rawls (1921-2002) proposed a contractarian approach that has a decidedly Kantian flavor, whereby rational people in a hypothetical "original position," setting aside their individual preferences and capacities under a "veil of ignorance," would agree to certain, general principles of justice.

Analysis

Because social contract theory assumes the existence of a contract binding upon individuals who have not explicitly accepted it, the theory has been found flawed by some philosophers, such as Lysander Spooner. However, the usual response to this objection is that many contracts and acceptances of same in a modern economy also tend to be implicit, e.g. copyright which exists in a work regardless how marked, entry into private spaces where rules of access and exclusion are posted (but not explicitly accepted other than by actually entering premises), and software and web site licenses. In the same way that implicit contracts in these circumstances standardize interactions to make them simpler and cheaper to support, enhancing the value of capital, social contract can likewise increase the social capital (a formal term for trust), and what's more this is measurable.

However, the parallel between the notion of the social contract and the examples of informal, implicit contracts is not entirely persuasive, because all those other contracts require some acknowledging act, while acceptance of the social contract seems to be implied by accident of birth. Similarly, the argument for geographical assent ("if you don't like how it works here, move to xxx") assumes that country "xxx" would permit the dissenter to enter. That is, a dissenter to the perceived local social contract cannot necessarily vote with his feet. On the other hand, there are many other situations where a person cannot make the choice he or she wants simply because that choice is not available, yet those situations are generally not considered to be restrictive of the person's freedom of choice (for example, you may wish to buy a certain product that is not available on the market, just like you may wish to move to a type of country which does not exist or which refuses to receive you).

Sometimes, social contracts are informal (for example, when they are not codified in law), and many are not well understood. In very dynamic or mobile societies the local consensus is often rapidly shifting as people move in and out of groups. Conflict often arises out of different understandings of the local aggregate expectations as well as disagreement regarding appropriate rules of behavior and interaction. This can be very stressful for group members until new informal agreements have been informally negotiated between interacting members of the group, community, or society. Such fluidity argues for a minimum of forceful imposition of the social contract, given the likelihood of disagreement over its terms and conditions.

The Social Contract is also a term used to by both the Labour government of Harold Wilson in 1970s Britain and the New Democratic Party government of Bob Rae in 1990s Ontario to describe attempts to impose austerity measures on the labour movement.

de:Gesellschaftsvertrag ja:社会契約 pt:Contrato social simple:Social contract

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