Gwyn asked:

Is the notion of a social contract a useful device for the solution of problems in political philosophy?

============

Typically issues that political philosophy deals with are the questions of what makes a society just, of
how we can reconcile liberty and equality and why we should be obliged to obey governments. The
notion of a social contract seems to offer a viable answer to these questions: a just society is one
where the individuals come together and agree to a form of government in order to ensure security for
themselves. Some degree of liberty may have to be traded for equality but this is compensated for
within the terms of the contract.

Now there are various forms the social contract can take and various problems associated with them,
however there are two particularly interesting and important objections against social contract
theories, which I think show that social contract's do not play a very useful role in dealing with political
problems.

The idea behind the first argument is that the social contract theory presents a picture of individuals
as basically selfish and egocentric. Here the social contract is an opportunity to bargain for their best
situation for oneself to promote one's interests and security. (Even in Rawls' system which is based
on the Kantian idea of a person as an end in themselves where an individual has intrinsic moral
worth, the principles of justice that are chosen in the Original Position — Rawls version of the contract
— reflect the fact that in the original position I do not know which person I will be in the world or what
my social situation will be like. In choosing I had therefore, better chose principles that will provide the
best possible situation for everyone.) The first objection to social contract then is that I think this
selfish attitude is implausible. I do not think that it is a accurate picture of human motivation.

Certainly we have personal motives, requirements and interests, but at the same time as we think
about these, we also recognise the motives and requirements of others. These motives of the others
form the basis of our moral lives and do not need to be imposed on us by society or government. (Or
to be more specific, the recognition of others claims does not need to be imposed on us.) One may
think that even so the solution needs to imposed on us and this is where social contract's come in, I
don't think this is right. The solution does not need to be imposed on us, political institutions do not
generate the solutions to the impasse between the personal and the impersonal, but are the results of
proposed solutions.

Even if a view of social contract could be formulated so that this objection was overcome there is a
second objection which is that any social contract would presuppose and therefore could not
generate an idea of justice. And if a social contract could not generate or justify principles of justice
then it could not help in solving political problems. For example Rawls admits that if individuals in the
original position are disposed to gamble or take risks, then they may propose principles of justice
other than those Rawls suggests would be chosen. They may chose Utilitarian rather than maxi/min
principles, for example. (See A Theory of JusticeSec. 20)

But if different theories offer different principles then we would have to decide prior to entering into the
contract situation which theory we accept. The social contract would then be either trivial or
redundant.

Hume may have had a similar point in mind when he criticised the social contract tradition. Social
contract theorists say we need to obey governments because we have promised to, but Hume asks,
Why should we keep our promises? (see Of The Original Contract).

The social contract theorist cannot give an answer without giving a prior justification for keeping our
promises, other than to say that we have promised to do so.

It seems then that social contract requires a system of justice and morality before they be of any use,
but then what use would we have for social contracts if we already know the basic principle of justice?

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield

Since there was no historical event of establishing a contract, the question comes to whether the
notion is a useful model for understanding relations between a society and its members. It is like
trying to understand the eye on the model of a camera, or the human brain on the model of a
computer. A model is an analogy: and analogies come in two kinds: illustrative and argumentative. An
illustrative analogy attempts to make the unfamiliar understandable in terms of the familiar
(camera-eye, for example). It is, if a good analogy, supposed to be an illuminating teaching device.
An argumentative analogy is an attempt to argue from the fact that two things are alike in certain
ways, that they are likely to be alike in further ways. It is a predictive device. The Social contract is
used in the first way, not usually in the second. How illuminating is it? That depends on how close the
analogy is.

It has also been believed that the notion of the social contract is a kind of explanation or justification
of the relations between the citizen and the society. In this respect, as David Hume argued, it seems
to be a failure. Hume pointed out that contracts already assume a society, and therefore cannot
explain a society. A contract is a kind of promise, and promises suppose obligations since it is an
obligation, thus it cannot be the justification of obligations.

It is interesting that despite Hume's criticisms, "contractarianism" ("contractism" is my choice) has
attained a great deal of currency recently, especially through the writings of John Rawls, although I
have never seen an adequate reply to Hume.

Kenneth Stern