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by Tibor R. Machan, Ph.D.
Social compact theories attempt to explain the rationale for social or political norms, though arguably some include principles of personal conduct as well. In the latter instance they are versions of conventionalist meta-ethics. A social compact theory in the sphere of social, political or even legal norms contends that the correct principles of community life are those to which either actual or hypothetical community participants agree to be legally bound. Agreement is the feature that underlies the principles that guide social-political life. Social compact theories are inadequate. A sound political system not only needs agreement but logically prior non-conventionalist ethical principle(s) or, alternatively, natural drives (for example, the drive for self-preservation). Their success must in part rest on such elements that are not usually mentioned. The position I argue against is that social compacts by themselves, involving agreements by members of a community, can establish binding norms of any sort whatsoever. Briefly, nothing follows from everyone concerned agreeing to abide by some guidelines unless agreements themselves have normative significance. And this cannot derive from a still prior compact, ad infinitum. Unless there is some prior norm that binds an agreement, the agreement fails to obligate. It contains no rationale committing anyone to do anything. That is, norms resulting from agreements have moral force only if promising, independently of any agreement making it binding, has moral force. The other option is that there is some inborn motive or drive that impels those who are party to a compact to live by it. Then the norms will be binding not because of the agreement but because the agreement had to be made (so as to secure safety or preserve life). Yet many in political philosophy and theory appear to hold that without any prior ethical norm or natural drive guaranteeing the requisite behavior (at least among normal parties to the compact) a social compact can set up binding and enforceable guidelines. After my critical remarks I will sketch an approach to establishing social or political norms that captures some of the appeal of social contract theories yet also avoids the problem of their lack of support on anything other than agreement or consent. Social contract theories, I argue, implicitly assume that prudence is a moral virtue (or a natural drive) one that we ought to (or will be motivated to) cultivate and in line with the dictates of which we ought to (or will) agree to the provisions of a social compact. To start with, it is useful to note that in, for example, Kant and Rawls, the alleged contractual basis for the legitimacy of law and government is supplemented with the very strict requirement of self-consistency of the resulting norms. Once this element of internal consistency is isolated and set aside, what is left of the social compact basis of norms and law is very meager and inadequate. One might, however, argue that self-consistency is something demanded of every theory -- it is a meta-theoretical criterion that goes without saying. So if this self-consistency requirement places serious, binding constraints upon what may be contracted for via a social compact, then agreement alone renders the content of the social compact binding. But if such self-consistency is not inherent in a system that rests on agreement but is, rather, a distinct normative requirement, this suggests that normativity -- the relevance of value judgments -- is not something easily dispensed with in any sphere of human concern. Still, does rationality need to be a prerequisite for any social compact? It may not be an inherent requirement of such a compact to involve participants who respect rationality. If some were to promote the idea that we ought to unite and reach agreement on irrational rules to govern us, it may obtain support and agreement on such rules may be reached. We know, for example, that many irrational groups exist, such as gangsters, gangs or other cabals the purposes of which are, as it were, crazy. Terrorists might be regarded as such, as might the Nazi Party or the Skinheads, each of which might establish their rules on the basis of nothing but agreement without these rules having any moral force. That the objectives or purposes sought by way of such irrational rules couldn’t be conscientiously and consistently implemented, acted upon, is, of course, just my point: something aside from an agreement is needed to establish viable, coherent and morally binding social compacts. Let me spell this point out further. To deny that rules born out of a social compact resting entirely on agreement can be irrational flies in the face of history and common sense. Clubs, organizations, institutions, and other human groups that clearly embrace irrational ideas surround us. These they incorporate as their proposed guiding principles of conduct. Yet to claim they have moral force is to imply that they have moral legitimacy. Yet the substance of the criticism of such groups is precisely that they lack moral legitimacy. So such agreed to rules could arise from a social compact without being morally binding -- who would morally blame someone who, upon a change of heart, decided to violate the norms of the Nazi Party? Kant stated explicitly that the "idea [of social compact] alone enables us to conceive of the legitimacy of the state." He made clear that the social compact would be a "mere idea of Understanding, which has, nonetheless, its doubtless (practical) reality." It "obligates every lawgiver to advance his statutes so that they could have emerged from the united will of the whole people, and to consider every subject, as regards his desire for citizenship, as though he had been party to accepting that will. For that is the basis of the legitimacy of every public enactment." This idea was recently revitalized by John Rawls by way of the hypothetical social compact that is to be conceived of as having been formed behind "a veil of ignorance." There are other, more Hobbesian, versions of social compact theory but, the Kant-Rawls version has become a prominent one among contemporary political philosophers. The problem is that their versions are not free of certain normative presuppositions and thus do not qualify as pure social compact theories. In other words, both Kant and Rawls pack in certain norms prior to or combined with the social compact, norms that seriously delimit what can count as a bona fide compact. But then the resulting agreement will itself be much more than something arising from the compact alone. Hobbes may be a better representative of pure social compact theory. For Hobbes the gist of the story is simple: when scarcity and congestion reach a critical mass in the state of nature, the self-interested motivation of individuals drives them to convene and reach a consensus. They will then devise certain rules of social life which a monarch or government is to make sure everyone obey by imposing strict sanctions against law-breakers. At this point everyone gives up the "natural rights" that each possesses in the state of nature, except for the right to resist being killed. In Hobbes's version no content for the rules is specified, though it is assumed that they would aim for the maintenance of peace and preservation of human life. Peace was seen by Hobbes as the only public good. In the Kantian-Rawlsean version of social compact theory, however, more is assumed required of than the mere laying down of rules -- they must be rational, fair, etc. What is so appealing about the Hobbesian idea, especially among supporters of the enlightenment based liberal tradition of politics? It seems well suited to the task of providing an empirically based explanation of the content of preferred laws. Even Kant embraced this for the phenomenal world -- e.g., in his discussion of how people pursue happiness as a matter of natural necessity -- where the practical task of politics is to be realized. The idea that human actions must be explained by reference to motives (as distinct from purposes, for example); that nature provides no guidance to judging something good or bad; that morality is mainly a social invention; that people lack freedom of the will, at least from the scientific, practical point of view, and that their conduct is neither morally right nor morally wrong except as a matter of their relationship to certain social goals, all these and related considerations accommodate the liberal goal of anti-authoritarianism and scientific respectability. According to the empiricist-scientistic viewpoint, prior to being bound by their own uncompelled choices (which in the last analysis come to hypothetical revealed preferences, so as to accommodate empiricists standards), members of a social group cannot be bound by moral standards. By this understanding of human life, it isn't the case that people ought to live in certain ways rather than others (since that implies that they could do otherwise, that they possess free will and might be free in the sense of initiating their own conduct apart from not being compelled by others). They will be inclined or driven -- naturally motivated -- to do so. Some dismiss this point on grounds that the idea of free will, such that one causes one's own conduct, makes no sense and so morality could not involve the provision of free choice -- that "ought" does not imply "can." For them Hobbes, a mechanical materialist, could have a bona fide moral system, since all that means is that he could promote certain kinds of behavior and discourage others. For such folks ethics or morality isn't a matter of choosing, on one's own initiative, to do the right thing but of behavior in line with certain rules. It is this view that seems to me to have recommended the social compactarian stance because with the demise of the classical idea of natural law -- the view that human life has an end or purpose and that freely chosen, self-caused right conduct ought to and can further this -- the hypothetical social compact thesis had the best chance of resurrecting some semblance of respect for social moral and legal principles. But here we have an argument about the very nature of morality, including of social moral norms -- are they ways we are driving to behave under certain optimal circumstances or are they ways we ought to come to behave on our own initiative? It is this latter that was the idea of ethics and morality prior to the empiricist-scientistic era of moral philosophy. Yet something had to be said that addressed our moral concerns. Let me put this in somewhat different terms. If the only hope for some semblance of normativity -- moral and political standards -- arises within a deterministic framework, the place of a moral or political norm will be taken by some instinct or innate motive. For Hobbes that innate motive was self-preservation or survival. It is this that drove people to form a social compact, even if he spoke on and off about this amounting to morality. (Philosophers often try to link concepts that do not really mesh.) So the theoretical role assigned to natural law (or some other way of understanding basic ethical norms) was assigned by Hobbes to a basic instinct or innate drive, never mind that he kept some of the older language of ethics or morality in place. In both cases, the social compact in and of itself does not contain the full measure of normativity often associated with it. Simple agreement does not generate bona fide moral norms arising from the (hypothetical) social compact. Instead, either an innate biological or psychological drive or some prior natural (moral, ethical) law is needed. As noted, both Kant and Rawls invoke much more than mere universal agreement in their efforts to make the compact supply us with moral and legal standards which can be considered binding. Rawls believes that the compact must be confirmed by intuitively acceptable moral conceptions placed in rational equilibrium. He also introduces the idea of the veil of ignorance so as to establish for himself a basis for consistency. Consistency would be thwarted if the contractors had important individual characteristics, so Rawls makes all the contractors uniform. So in Rawls, the element of consistency comes from both the rational equilibrium and the veil of ignorance provisions. The consent, in turn, seems to be based on the intuitions which Rawls imposes on the contractors. Why is a mere agreement not sufficient? If no other source of norms is available -- especially in the case or Rawls -- why not simply insist that norms come from human choices, be they rational, self-consistent, irrational, illogical, arbitrary, or whatever? I think the reason this road is blocked for Kant and for Rawls is that both reject any sort of metaphysical or ontological grounds for morality. Rawls was very clear in his Eastern Division APA Presidential Address when he stated: "Now my thought is this: much of moral theory is independent from the other parts of philosophy." Kant, too, locates morality in pure reason, without external foundations: "Every action is right which, in itself, or in the maximum on which it proceeds, is such that it can coexist along with the freedom of the will of each and all in action, according to a universal law." With reference to social morality Kant held, furthermore, that we should all "act externally in such a manner that the free exercise of the will may be able to coexist with the freedom of all others, according to a universal law." (Kant wished to deduce every legal judgment from pure reason.) For example: "If a man and a woman have the will to enter on reciprocal enjoyment in accordance with their sexual nature, they must necessarily marry each other; and this necessity is in accordance with the juridical laws of pure reason." Now in Rawls' case, the attempt to reject personal and social morality's dependence on other parts of philosophy cannot succeed for reasons I have noted elsewhere. Briefly, any effort to explicate the Rawlsian task to specify the nature of moral obligation begs for philosophical clarification from the non-normative branches of the discipline. There is no way to avoid explication of the idea of "rational" in terms of at least elements of the philosophy of mind, ontology, the subject of free will versus determinism, etc. If, for example, being rational implies, as Kant suggested, that an agent is free to make choices, to initiate conduct, this alone will make a difference as to the ethics and politics that human beings ought to adopt. Some might contend that ordinary understanding of rationality will suffice, there is no need for metaphysics or deep philosophy at all. But while it is true that in many ordinary human circumstances that common sense that's in force at the time carries along the discussion with sufficient clarity and precision, under certain kinds of skeptical assaults this will not suffice. Just as we all manage to engage for a good while with the physical, chemical, sociological and economic realities that surround us without reliance on the specialists, at certain points we come to depend on their work. So with ethics and politics. Common sense is certainly the beginning but not the end of inquiry.
It might be argued, as well, that social compact theories claim that each person appraises proposed items for inclusion in the fundamental code of social morals on the basis of his or her own interest, given the interests and powers of others. So if one's acceptance of some point of philosophy, say in metaphysics, affects one's interests in a way that calls for a new item for inclusion in the social compact, that may be defensible. It will be part of the list being negotiated. An example could be that there must be free inquiry in a society -- that is surely a plausible item. Yet does this become part of discussion because some metaphysical fact implies it? Or because of the fact of differences between various parties about such a metaphysical fact, so that there can be a question how this difference is to be accommodated? Yet if there are some facts of any kind, including metaphysical, that permeate social life -- for example, that all human beings are sovereign agents and their agency is a precondition of a moral life -- they cannot be contracted away. So such provisions will be unavoidable, a necessary part of a coherent human social life, whether they are included as a provision of the compact. An example might illustrate this point: Say it is part of the social compact that some people in society would be slaves. Yet if slavery is a basic violation of one's humanity, it could never be part of a meaningful social compact. When in Ghana, for example, young virgins are forced to become the sex slaves of the priests, purportedly to atone for the grave sins of some family member, this cannot be a matter of their social compact, however much it is insisted upon. It violates the basic fact of human life that human beings must choose the way they will live, each and every one of them; but the young virgins are left out of this, even when they become of age. Social compact theories that do not take this into account are failures but not because they have violated some agreement but because they have failed in their agreement to abide by certain unavoidable principles of human social existence. Kant attempts to secure the foundations of morality in pure reason, removed from that impossible field, metaphysics. Yet this is a kind of metaphysics, only a complicated sort. What we do see in Kant, though, is that social compact theory rests on requirements as to how human beings ought to act that do not themselves rest on agreement. The particular moral principles Kant claims to have shown to govern human life may not be the ones we ought to live by but it is clear that some such principles are needed so as to make social compacts morally palatable. Now common sense already suggests one serious problem with all kinds of social compact theories, Kantian, Hobbesian, or Rawlsian. This is that it is always perfectly intelligible to ask whether what people (would have) willed either behind a veil of ignorance, in unison, or at some great convention should have been willed by them in the first place. Some could argue that the very point of making agreements, normally, is to settle something. If asking the above question amounts to reneging on the agreement, we'd better have heard about the question a bit sooner. Yet that is just it. Where does this "We'd better have heard about it sooner" come from? The question implies a moral judgment, namely, that if you didn't like a provision, you ought to have said so before agreeing to it instead of reneging on the compact later. Now this is a moral claim that has its basis not in a prior compact but in something more fundamental, namely, some natural law or objective moral principle. If someone agrees to do X and later disputes the force of the agreement, it can be said: "You ought to have considered your doubts earlier." Does this last claim itself rest on some agreement, ad infinitum? If, so, it has no force that obliges one to heed it. If not, then the social compact is itself grounded in something outside of itself, on the binding nature of agreements apart from what may or may not have been agreed to. (Here we recall that agreeing to something involving third parties who were not consulted is perverse not because there is an agreement against such a procedure but because consent is fundamental in adult human relationships, be this agreed to or not.) When someone considers entering a social compact while encountering scarcity and congestion in the state of nature, the question can be raised, "Ought I to join in the search for some way of solving our problem?" In other words, there must already be standards for making the right choice about doing so. This standard is very likely what is called prudence: we ought to take reasonably good care of ourselves, including when we embark upon social life. (Rawls admits that some such standard might be discovered but, regards it obstructionist to wait for it.) It is not cogent to deny that such a question can arise, based on the view that entering the convention is a matter of being driven to do so out of fear, for if we are determined to behave as we do, then this will hold following the social compact, so not judgments as to what we ought to do will be applicable. If "ought" implies "can," then this holds before and after the social compact. But if it holds before, then there can be standards of ascertaining what one ought to do prior to the compact. A quite recent example of social compact theory is advanced by Jan Narveson, in his The Libertarian Idea. He characterizes his version of this approach as the view that "the principles of morality are (or should be) those principles for directing everyone's conduct which it is reasonable for everyone to accept. They are the rules that everyone has good reason for wanting everyone to act on, and thus to internalize in himself or herself, and thus to reinforce in the case of everyone." But this is problematic because it builds into the social compact the requirement of reasonableness, yet, as we just saw, agreement by itself need not involve this at all. The normative requirement that we ought to be reasonable cannot be assumed as constitutive of agreements and, thus, of social compacts. Some who consider agreeing could ask, "Why should we be reasonable?" Granted, this may seem like a silly, even incoherent, question to some. Yet it is certainly one that has been raised by philosophers and, especially, some literary and religious figures. It may not be reasonable to have faith in God but many believe that that is just what we ought to have. It may not be reasonable to indulge one's momentary feelings or passions, yet there are famous figures throughout history who have promoted this notion. Why are they wrong? Why should we follow reason instead of fancy, as Socrates had advised? The contractarian stance does not answer that question but simply takes the indispensability of reasonableness for granted. As Narveson puts the point, "Those who insist on being unreasonable aren't being metaphysical drop-outs; they are simply being sociopaths, and social contract theory explains very succinctly how to deal with such people: no contract, nothing is disallowed, and you do whatever you think necessary, period. If the 'unreasonable' don't like that, then they have their answer to the question, 'why be reasonable'." Yet it is philosophically impoverished to provide this kind of answer to all those who have championed unreason, all those who have maintained that being reasonable is in some ways sectarian, biased or an expression of Western prejudice. Such people may be wrong but they need not be sociopaths, as are the inhabitants of the institutions for the criminally insane. Indeed, if only those in such institutions defended unreason, all the efforts by certain philosophers and others to rebuff, for example, the post-modernist zeitgeist, with its very large dosage of irrationalism, would be pointless and wasted. Of course, it might not be easy to reorient irrationalists toward reason, but that the effort is made repeatedly suggests both that many who are capable of being reasonable choose not to be and that most of us see hope of convincing some such champions to become reasonable (perhaps by appealing to some modicum of reasonableness they exhibit). The answer to why it is wrong to be unreasonable could very well amount to a lengthy philosophical and related story -- for example, something along lines that we are by nature rational animals; that nature, in turn, is a rational order, not some random, chaotic mess, and that for us to deal with nature successfully it is vital that we be reasonable. This answer, in turn, requires (at least now and then) a defense -- it has to be shown to be true, not simply taken for granted. And for that purpose it isn't sufficient to rely solely on common sense. And even if it isn't going to convince those with an entrenched irrationality, they will at least help us to guide ourselves, including in how we ought to deal with irrational persons. There are other problems with contractarianism, too, among them its fundamental egalitarian stance which is often taken for granted by its champions. The parties to the contract are viewed as having equal standing. yet why so? What if some are born with superior sensibilities and thus were in a better position to decide what rules ought to guide all of us? This egalitarian assumption needs to be defended, not just assumed, yet social compact theories typically start with the view that parties to the compact possess an equal measure of required sensibilities (e.g., prudence, self-regard). Furthermore, if prior to the compact certain ethical standards already bound us, then social compacts could be taken as ill formed. They should never have been entered into, etc. Prior to entering an agreement, one might have to decided whether to enter it -- on certain ethical grounds. Indeed, given that social compact theory is often invoked to justify laws or systems of rules that reach far into the future, past the life plans for those who might have taken part in the agreement itself, one can easily raise the question of whether the contractual provisions of those in the past deserve respect. Should we be loyal to the US Constitution, for example? How about the United Nations' Charter? Or the laws that arise from Hobbes' social compact or Rawls' compact forged behind the veil of ignorance? That would raise the issue of what grounds there may be for dismissing some of the provisions of these and other social compacts? Are such grounds themselves valid only because some later assembly of citizens have affirmed them? Or don't these documents qualify as social compacts and why is that and aren't there many who disagree about that this issue and what are we to do about them -- is there some agreement, some social compact that will provide the answer to that question? These are objections to social compact theory that need to be addressed. I do not believe they can be, successfully. The question that remains then is whether and where the social compact approach, given its shortcomings and given that from different philosophical perspectives it would not be necessary, is still required. I believe its power rests mostly on the scientistic, non-normative understanding of human conduct whereby we are driven to act as we do by inborn psychological dispositions that we cannot resist as a matter of choice. Once, however, the theoretical power of empiricism and scientism has been lifted, I think the appeal of social compact theory would be narrowed considerably. In other words, while agreement may be important for purposes of implementing certain principles, it isn't agreement per se that would make those the principles that we ought to adopt for purposes of community life. The orthodoxy of empiricism, in abandoning any hope for metaphysics, however, lacks philosophical as well as, for the time being, cultural force. The field is wide open and new beginnings can be forged. So, it seems to me, in particular, that a reconsideration of the Greek conception of human nature, specifically Aristotle's, would provide greater promise for grounding justice than any such truncated approach as social compact theory, given that social compact theories appear clearly to presuppose some substantive provisions which are themselves in need of the sort of support we find Socrates, Plato and Aristotle offering for their moral and political conclusions. Why do social compact theorists reject this approach to grounding politics and law? As Narveson puts the point, the answer is easy: "There are people out there, apparently, who don't agree with the Greeks about how to live -- or anyway, don't seem to...Aristotle is telling us how to be happy, and if he's right and we genuinely disagree, then we shall be unhappy. So what? What business is it of [anyone] whether I am unhappy?" The problem with this response is that the same can be said about the results of the social compact. Narveson and others tell us that we ought to let everyone be free. But there are people out there, not just apparently, who do not agree with Narveson about how we ought to act toward one another as human beings, as fellow citizens, as neighbors, etc. So what if we are not free? We simply won't be able to do as we want to, so what's wrong with that? Where is there a good reason, other than some people's agreement, that freedom is better than, say, full equality or conscripted service to the gods or some other goal? Put differently, there is just as much trouble about agreeing with Narveson as there is with Aristotle. This is of no philosophical consequence. In part philosophy is done so as to convince people of what they do not now believe, be it done by Aristotle and his students or Narveson and his. Social compact theory does not escape the problems we face because of disagreements among us. It is no less difficult to guarantee the acceptance of the case for principles that arise from a supposed social compact than ones that arise from Aristotelian arguments. If it were, social compact theory would long have produced the results Narveson believes follow from it, namely, widespread agreement about the value of individual liberty and the resulting protection of that liberty throughout human societies. It is more likely that theories of all kinds will find skeptics who reject them. The issue that remains is which theories are better. If it turns out that people in fact ought to strive to be happy, then that is a premise with which our thinking about how we ought to live must contend. It must contend with it when we consider what kind of communities are best suited for us, since ones that disallow our striving to be happy will fail us. It turns out that the free society is most conducive to the pursuit of happiness -- it is no accident that the American Founders concluded this after much consternation about what kind of society they ought to found. All this does not mean anyone can impose the vision of how to live on anyone else, not even that anyone is authorized to try. One's business is learning how we ought to live is just that, learning it and doing it and, maybe, telling it here and there. Not making anyone conform. But once one has learned it, one can continue to try to figure out the implications of this view for social and political life. It turns out that the political framework that makes the pursuit of happiness possible, given how varied such a pursuit can be, also makes possible the rejection of that pursuit or the pursuit of unhappiness or godliness or cleanliness. In any case, the case for liberty inspired by the Aristotelian tradition of moral philosophy does seem to hold out philosophical promise. Aristotle's naturalism, since it abandons the Platonic aspiration for timelessly fixed natures from which eternal standards of good and bad, right and wrong, may be derived -- not, however, deduced, because of what Hume has taught -- gives us a reconceptualization of what is meant by "the nature of X." This can produce a revitalized naturalistic ethics, one that resists Moore's open question approach (for reasons too complex to spell out here and ones I have provided elsewhere). In terms of the best classification of what a human being is, what it is to be a human being, one can learn what a good rendition of such a being would come to, which, since human beings are free, responsible agents, provides us with norms we ought to apply in our own lives. Being distinctive as potentially rational animals, human beings are at their best if they actualize this potential to live rationally, to be reasonable. This is an ontological foundation for the ethics social compact theory only presupposes without argument. It implies, furthermore, that insofar as we are social beings, with the requirement of some type of community, we face the question as to what kind of community will be most hospitable to our task of living rationally, the right way. The standards of such a community are, among other ingredients, our basic, natural, rights that all members will be required to observe and won't be able to violate with impunity. The social contractarian aspect of this way of thinking of political norms include, most prominently, what an economist might call the ultimate exit option: no one may be coerced to remain part of the community, the consent of the governed is required for government to have authority to administer the (just) laws. But no one may "consent" to governmental deeds that would be immoral to do in private. So what remains of social compact theory is, indeed, very important: namely, the value of freely reaching agreement among human beings, and the justifiability of certain kinds of efforts to reach it. For instance, when participants in the polis can and do in fact agree on how to maintain and preserve appropriate standards of social justice (as well as on who should administer the effort), something crucial to the lives of the participants is achieved -- the efficient preservation of the conditions of proper social intercourse. The compact is, as it well, the will that is needed to apply the norms. Human beings, who have free will, do not always do what is right vis-à-vis their fellows and to impress them with the need to abide by the proper norms, force is sometimes needed. Such force would be ineffective if the political will didn't back it. If, as the liberal tradition holds, the proper norms provide individuals with the jurisdiction over their significant actions, they would be the first to be involved in political action, that being within the range of significant actions. To put the matter plainly, it isn't sufficient to learn of the true principles of justice, it is also vital to apply them and that would not be possible without widespread agreement -- i.e., a social compact or contract. But, here the compact is not the ultimate basis of social or legal norms, let alone of personal ones. Instead, it is implied by prior ones or some aspects of them -- e.g., individual sovereignty -- to be the method by which political (meta)norms can and will be upheld, interpreted and enforced in society. That method -- in the Western legal tradition referred to as "due process" -- is itself always open to evaluation -- that is how one can tell whether a system is corrupt or flawed in some other way. When consent secures the method to achieve due process, something enormously valuable happens: the prospect of success (because willing and possibly rational or prudent) in the maintenance of justice. Where social compact fails is as the first word about social and political norms. Social compact will not suffice as the grounding of how we ought to live in each other's company -- mere agreement does not establish what is socially or politically right. For that we also need first to have a clear enough idea -- if only, perhaps, in very general terms -- of how we ought to live.
Dr. Machan can be reached at: machan@chapman.edu and machatr@home.com You can respond to this essay in The Radical Academy Forum |
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