World-Wide Ethics. Chapter Six. Social Contract Theory. of the social contract theory of morality.

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1 World-Wide Ethics Chapter Six Social Contract Theory How do you play Monopoly? The popular board game of that name was introduced in the US in the 1930s, with a complete set of official rules. But hardly anyone who plays the game follows those rules. A recent survey found that nearly 70% of Monopoly players have never read the official rules, and that around 50% make up rules while they are playing. The way the game is played varies from house to house, and family to family. The game board indicates that a player collects a salary of $200 for passing Go. But if you actually land on that square do you get $400? Some people play that way. Are you permitted to buy properties on your first trip around the board? Some people say no. Some people play by the rule that cheating in Monopoly is permitted, provided you are not caught and if you are caught, you go directly to jail; you do not pass Go, and you do not collect $200. If you have played Monopoly, chances are that at some point your game has been interrupted by a dispute over the rules. That is one reason the game s maker, Hasbro, released a new version of the game accompanied by a collection of optional house rules. If players can agree at the beginning on which of these nonstandard rules they will observe, then there may be fewer quarrels over what is permitted and what is not; and the game may be more enjoyable. Of course the game still ends when one greedy person finally manages to bankrupt everyone else; which is no fun unless you happen to be that person. The idea behind the social contract is that society is like a game with rules that the members of the society must agree to live by in order to play. The game of society, like other games, has rules that are for the most part followed, because cooperating with other people is more enjoyable than the alternative. This idea has led to the development of the social contract theory of morality. Statement of the Social Contract Theory The correct moral principles are the ones that rational people would agree to live by in order to enjoy the benefits of social living; and they are correct moral principles because it is rational to agree to live by them for this purpose. The social contract theory can be seen as combining the utilitarians interest in beneficial consequences with the deontologists emphasis on moral rules recognized by reason. The theory has been attractive since its modern development in the 17 th century by an English philosopher named Thomas Hobbes ( ). A more recent version of the theory was introduced by a Harvard professor named John Rawls ( ). Both of their ideas will be covered in this chapter. Hobbes and the State of Nature In order to make it clear to people why they ought to obey the laws and governments of their societies, Hobbes recommended imagining a condition without any laws or governments. This would be an ancient state, he said, in which human beings had not yet developed societies. In this state nothing would be legal or illegal, just or unjust, or even, he said, right or wrong. People at that time would have been uncivilized, and they would have lived basically like animals. But their reasoning abilities, including their skill at commun-

2 icating abstract ideas, would have made them superior to animals. Hobbes called this condition the state of nature. In the state of nature, he suggested, it is perfectly reasonable to expect people to do whatever they desire to do. In fact, it can be said that in that state people have a right to do whatever they please, because, again, nothing is right or wrong. But then when we think about it, Hobbes said, human life in the state of nature is apt to be pretty miserable. In that state people would be roughly equal. Some individuals may be bigger and stronger than others, but some would be smarter, and faster runners. But everyone would be vulnerable in some recognizably human ways. Everyone has to sleep, for example. Another point about the state of nature is that the resources humans need for survival would be relatively scarce. So competition for them could be intense; and remember, everyone has a right to do as they please, nothing is fair or unfair. Under these conditions, life in the state of nature would not be very pleasant. There would be no farming, since no one would bother to work the land and plant crops if they could not be assured of owning what they had worked so hard to grow. Nor would there be any industry, since no one could depend on others to cooperate in the production of manufactured goods. Human life in the state of nature, Hobbes famously said, would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. He also described the state of nature as a state of war of all against all. He next proposed the question: how, then, did people manage to leave the state of nature? If that process can be understood, we would likely understand the origin of governments and their laws, and why we ought to obey them. Hobbes suggested that, because people are rational, they would have easily understood that the way out of the state of nature lay in making pacts, or contracts with others. They could agree, say, to cooperate in hunting or food-gathering expeditions, and divide their yields fairly. They could promise not harm others, or invade their territories, provided others would treat them similarly. Entering into a collection of specific bargains like this would eventually become expected of everyone, forming the basis for relatively peaceful and stable societies, and for human prosperity. Rational people would quickly and easily come to understand that their lives are better in society, under the terms of contracts, than in the war-torn state of nature. So they would be willing to stick to the terms of their agreements with others, provided the others were willing also. The Contract Mechanism A contract is essentially an agreement between at least two parties, and perhaps among many more. Each of the parties agrees to do something, or not do something, in exchange for something they see as beneficial to themselves. The most familiar contracts are trades between two parties: one pays money, for instance, and the other conveys a piece of property, or a service. Each gets something they want. The accompanying document, if there is one, will specify the terms or conditions of the trade, in case any later disputes arise. So the contract, technically, is the agreement. The signed document, if there is one, is only a record of the contract. A contract is possible also where two people agree that they will each give something to a third party. Perhaps each one has a weapon that he feels he must hold on to as long as the other party holds on to his. Each might see a benefit to himself in the other s not having the weapon, so each may be willing to transfer his weapon to a third party. Hobbes suggested that the funda-

3 mental problem of the state of nature was that everyone possessed a right to do anything he or she wanted. This led to a war of all against all. That war could be ended if people could transfer the right to do whatever they please to some neutral party. Here everyone would agree to give up their complete freedom, in order to live more peacefully and cooperatively with one another, making mutually beneficial projects like farming, industry and commerce possible. Hobbes pointed out another necessary feature of every contract: enforcement. People can promise anything they like; they can even put it in writing. But unless there is someone more powerful than they are, who will force them to live up to the terms of their agreement, the contract is worthless. It is only a hollow promise. This means that people cannot actually leave the state of nature until there is someone who is more powerful than anyone else. It is necessary that someone have the power to force each individual to carry out what they had agreed to in the social contract. Hobbes referred to the person expected to play the role of the social contract s enforcer as the sovereign. He thought of the sovereign as typically a monarch, like a king or queen. He realized also that because people s desire to leave the horrible state of nature would be very strong, and because they would see a sovereign power as necessary for their doing so, they would be glad to have one. Hobbes s aim was to explain the origin and legitimacy of governments and their laws. The social contract theory explains this by showing how sovereignty and governments owe their existence to the people s willing promise to obey them. Disobeying laws is breaking the promise of the social contract. If everyone did that, people would return to the state of nature, and no one wants to do that. This means, then, that lawbreakers are basically social cheaters: they want to enjoy the benefits of social living without restricting their conduct according to the laws that make those benefits possible. The Ideal Social Contract When Hobbes wrote about the social contract, he did not imagine it as an agreement made at a certain place, or at any specific point of time in human history. He thought of it instead as ideal, meaning that it is an idea by which we can understand our obligation to obey the law. You might object that you, yourself, never signed any social contract, and that you before now you never heard of such a thing. So why should you be expected to obey the law? By thinking of the social contract as ideal, Hobbes treated it as explaining everyone s commitment to obey the law, whether they think about it in terms of a contract or not. The fact is that every member of society benefits from the peaceful relations it provides; and for those benefits they owe their obedience to the governing power that makes them possible. The Prisoners Dilemma The basic idea of the social contract is that people are typically better off if they agree to cooperate with one another, than if they disregard others and pursue their own interests. That is what Hobbes s idea of the social contract really amounted to. If everyone ignores others interests in pursuit of their own, then everyone lives in the dreaded state of nature. It is therefore more beneficial, and more rational, for them to limit their freedom to do as they please, by agreeing to obey social rules. An imaginary scenario called the prisoners dilemma makes this point in a different way. Suppose you have been

4 arrested for a sensational crime in your city. The police, who have no suspects, have picked you up at random in order to show they are making progress on the case. They are corrupt, but never mind. They want you to confess to the crime, and get a relatively light sentence; or, if you don t confess, they will send you to prison for a longer term. They also tell you they have arrested someone else, whom they also want to confess to the crime; and they have given him the same deal as they have given you. Only, you are not able to communicate with him. The deal is that if you both confess, then you will each be sentenced to a five year term. If he confesses and you do not, then your term will be 10 years. If you confess and he does not, you will go free; and if neither of you confesses, you will both get 1 year. This grid illustrates your options: He confesses He doesn t You confess You don t 5 years 10 years 0 years 1 year To learn the lesson of the prisoners dilemma you must suppose that you want nothing but the lightest sentence possible. You should not have any qualms about confessing to something that you did not do, if it will reduce your sentence. The system is corrupt, remember. It should be easy to see that under the circumstances, you should confess. Given your interest in the shortest possible sentence, confessing is most rational. For regardless of what the other prisoner may do, by confessing you make your sentence either 5 years or 0 years. That is better than not confessing, which makes your sentence either 10 years or 1 year. However, since the same deal is offered to the other prisoner, it is just as rational for him to confess. So for this reason, you better count on spending five years in jail. Now imagine that you can communicate with the other prisoner, and you find out that the police have indeed offered him the same deal. In that case, it looks most rational for each of you to refuse to confess. That way, you will each get only 1 year, which is better than five. This shows what Hobbes suggested about the social contract: that cooperation with others can improve your prospects, even if it cannot get you the very best results. The very best result, here, is that you go free. Still, can you really trust the other prisoner to cooperate? Suppose you don t confess, as promised, but then he breaks his promise and confesses. In that case, he will go free and you will get 10 years! This is the dilemma in the prisoners dilemma scenario: whether to confess, and most likely get five years, or to agree not to confess, and maybe get 1 year, or possibly 10. The moral of the story is that if you plan to cooperate with someone in order to improve your prospects, you better be sure you can trust him. That is roughly the idea expressed by Hobbes. A powerful government, that you can trust, is required to make people keep their promises to cooperate in society, rather than continue doing whatever they please. Without a trusted enforcer of the social contract, we have no path out of the miserable state of nature. That explains why we need governments and laws, and why it is rational to obey them. Moral Principles The social contract theory is supposed to explain the correctness of moral principles, but so far nothing has been said about this. Hobbes had a clear but very unappealing explanation of moral principles. The correct moral principles, he said, are the laws imposed by the sovereign power. It has to be this way, he said, for one simple reason. It is

5 that the sovereign the king or queen cannot be a party to the social contract. Remember that a social contract requires a powerful enforcer to compel individuals to keep their promises to restrict their behavior. The sovereign plays this role. But since there is no one more powerful than the sovereign, no one could compel the sovereign to do anything he or she does not want to do. The sovereign cannot therefore be a party to any contract. The sovereign remains in the state of nature, with the freedom to do anything he or she wants. This includes governing in any way he or she wants. So according to Hobbes reasoning, the sovereign is free to command the principles people are to live by. This idea should call to mind the God of the Divine Command Theory. It should also remind us of the theory of Cultural Relativism. For here the correct moral principles of different societies, governed by the commands of different sovereigns, can be different. Hobbes provided an insightful and revolutionary idea about why people ought to obey the laws of their governments. But most people have thought that he failed miserably in offering an account of correct moral principles. What he said about morality and correct moral principles is basically that might makes right. Recent Developments The contract mechanism makes people responsible for governing themselves. Even if they submit to be governed by a sovereign, they do so on their own, voluntarily, in cooperation with others, and for their own benefit. In recent thinking about the social contract, some philosophers have shown how moral principles could be made correct by people s agreements with one another to live by them, instead of by the arbitrary commands of a governing power. In the 1970s, a Harvard Professor named John Rawls developed the idea of a hypothetical social contract for this purpose. He recommended imagining people coming out of the state of nature, who take it upon themselves to agree on the correct moral principles, beforehand, as part of the social contract. In other words, these imaginary people will not leave morality up to the arbitrary will of a sovereign. Rawls called this stage in the contract process the Original Position a kind of middle stage between the state of nature and life under the social contract. He also suggested that the people in the original position could be seen as representing all of humanity. So the moral principles they would agree to live by would not be correct relative to only one society among others. If there were a way to understand what principles such people would agree to live by in their future society, this could show us which moral principles are correct, and why. Here the social contract is imaginary, or hypothetical. For this reason there would be nothing odd about imagining the parties to the contract in a way suitable for identifying correct moral principles. Rawls proposed that we imagine these people as perfectly rational, since rationality is a unique quality of human beings. He suggested also that people in the original position would be self-interested. Like the prisoners imagined in the prisoners dilemma, they can be expected to choose to agree upon whatever moral principles are most beneficial to them, personally. Then Rawls added an interesting twist. We are to imagine these self-interested, perfectly rational contractors as under what he called a Veil of Ignorance. This means that they do not know anything about themselves as individuals. They do not know if, in the society they will form through their contract, they will be rich or poor, or if they will be male or female. They do not know

6 their age, their race, their religion, their skills, income or education level. They are all completely ignorant of any personal details that would lead them to choose moral principles suited only to their own personal advantage. It is like they are supposed to agree in advance to a set of rules for playing a game, such as the game of Monopoly. Only, all they know about themselves is that they will be players who want to win or at least enjoy themselves while playing the game. The question everyone in the original position must ask themselves, therefore, is what rules of the game of society should they agree to live by, in order to benefit themselves the most in order to give themselves the best chance of living a satisfactory life. The rules these imaginary people would agree to live by are the correct moral principles; and they are correct just because rational people, under the veil of ignorance, in the circumstances of the original position, would agree to live by them. Some Examples In the course of their deliberations over what moral principles they will agree to live by, the parties in the original position can be expected to consider whether to permit slavery in their society. As we imagine them, they do not already know that slavery is wrong. Whether it is right or wrong is something they must decide, based on how advantageous it may be for them; and it is clear that they would disallow slavery. Each would know that if slavery were permitted, then he or she has a real chance of being a slave in their future society. It is not rational to favor slavery unless you can be certain you will not be a slave; and no one can be certain of this while under the veil of ignorance. No one knows what they will be like, personally, in the future society. That is why people in the original position would reject slavery; and that is precisely how the social contract theory explains the wrongness of slavery. Would the people in the original position favor equal rights for women, or would women be expected always to be subservient to men? It is clear they would favor equality between the sexes, and equality among the races. Since people in the original position do not know their sex or race, they would favor gender and racial equality otherwise, they might commit themselves to live by moral principles that would be to their disadvantage. Similar lines of reasoning would support their choosing that killing, lying, cheating, and theft are wrong. They would also agree that punishing the innocent is wrong, and that promise-breaking is wrong. In short, most of the familiar moral principles that seem obviously correct would be chosen by the people in the original position as correct rules for their society. This is not because they already believe these principles are correct. It is rather because they would choose these principles as the most advantageous rules for life in the society they will establish by their social contract most advantageous precisely for themselves. The Best of Both Worlds Utilitarians base correct moral principles on the greatest overall happiness, and correct principles are selected in the social contract theory for their impact on happiness. Deontologists like Kant look to reason, and to universality, for identifying correct principles, and so does the contract theory. But this theory manages to combine both interests, in ways that neither utilitarianism nor deontology seems capable of doing. If Kant s theory is the closest version of deontology to the contract theory, rule util-

7 itarianism is the closest version of utilitarianism. In fact, it may be hard to see exactly how the contract theory differs from rule utilitarianism. Both the contract theory and utilitarianism treat moral principles as rules for social living, and both identify correct rules on the basis of happiness. The real difference is that utilitarianism always looks toward the greatest overall happiness. What matters for utilitarianism is the greatest happiness for the greatest number, even if this means that a smaller number of people will end up unhappy. In the contract theory, however, happiness is valued individually. That is, people agree on correct moral principles based solely on the prospects of their own happiness. The difference this makes is highly abstract, and subtle; but it matters. Imagine playing Monopoly with some friends, and debating at the beginning about playing by one or another of some house rules. Suppose there is one rule that, if chosen for the game, would make the winner s experience of game very exciting, but would leave the other players thouroughly bored for most of the game. Now compare this with an alternative rule, which can be expected to reduce the winner s enjoyment somewhat, while making the game more fun for the losing players. Finally, suppose that the combined happiness of all players will be the same, regardless of which rule is chosen. That is, imagine that playing by the second rule effectively subtracts some amount of enjoyment from the winner, and divides it evenly among the other players. Playing by the second rule will thus provide no real gain in overall happiness; it will only distribute the same amount of happiness differently. This means that from the perspective of rule utilitarianism, the players have no reason to prefer one of these optional rules over the other. Overall happiness is the same either way. But from the perspective of the social contract, the second rule will definitely be preferred. The players are each interested in their own happiness only, and not in the total amount of happiness. So each will find it rational to prefer enjoying less happiness if they should win, provided they can enjoy more happiness if they should lose which is most likely. This illustrates the difference between rule utilitarianism and the social contract theory. Rawls applied reasoning like this to what is sometimes called economic justice: the question of how to distribute wealth fairly in society. Should people be allowed to become super rich, even if only a tiny fraction of the population will manage to do so; or, should people s incomes be roughly equal? Rawls reasoned that by the social contract theory, the correct moral principle of economic justice would have two parts. First, people should have equal opportunity to earn wealth. Second, income inequality should be allowed only if those who accumulate the most have some wealth taken from them, by taxation, and distributed to those who have the least. The correctness of this principle can be seen from the Monopoly example just reviewed. Not knowing at the beginning whether we will be among the super rich, or among the disadvantaged poor, it is rational for each of us to agree to the government s redistribution of personal wealth by taxation. Grounds for Revolt Aside from that point, one of the more interesting features of the social contract theory is the way it justifies civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is disobeying laws for a higher, moral purpose. The American Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, is a document in which the author attempts to justify civil disobedience. There the Amer-

8 icans pledged no longer to obey the laws of Britain, and explained that they are right in doing so, because their basic rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were being ignored. Some people have thought that civil disobedience can never be justified that citizens can never have any moral reason to disobey their government. But Hobbes pointed out that there is one reason, and one reason only, why citizens may disobey the law. If in society they are no better off than in the state of nature, then they can consider the social contract to have been broken. The bargain of the social contract was that if people would agree to restrict their freedoms in order to cooperate with others in society, then they could live more happily. But if they hold up their end of the bargain, yet do not receive social benefits in exchange for doing so, then they are right in no longer cooperating. They have no reason to keep their promise to obey the law. This line of thinking about civil disobedience is sometimes expressed by disadvantaged groups in society, who feel they are not treated fairly because of their race, sex, or income level. We agree to play by the rules, they say, but we end up being exploited or mistreated by members of the racial majority, or by the opposite sex, or by the rich. The game is rigged! If there is no racial, or gender, or economic justice in the society, as there is no justice in the state of nature, what reason do these groups have for continuing to play by the rules? To the extent that such grievances are legitimate, they must be taken very seriously by those who see society as based on a contract. The risk is that we may all fall back to the state of nature, into the chaos of the war of all against all, in which case everyone loses. Problems for Social Contract Theory Researchers in ethics who work with moral theories understand that no explanation of correct moral principles is likely to satisfy everyone. This includes the social contract theory, even if it may be better than any other theory developed. But to some people s minds, the glaring problem with the social contract theory is that it can provide no explanation of right and wrong ways to treat animals. This seems correct, and it seems like a problem. It seems correct because the social contract theory presents morality as a human construction, designed to serve the interests of rational human beings. No moral principle could be correct, according to this theory, if the interests of individual human beings are not served by it. Moreover, the theory presumes that principles are made correct by parties capable of understanding the contract mechanism; and it is hard to expect this of animals. They do not have the capacity to restrict their freedom to do whatever they please, which is why it is impossible to contract with lions and tigers and bears. They also cannot cooperate with us in social life, for our mutual benefit. While it is true that some animals can be our pets, and that we can benefit from their love or friendship, the vast majority of species on the planet are not like that. They remain in the state of nature; and since we can have no agreement with them, the contract theory must say that we need not restrict our behavior in regard to them. This line of complaint about the theory gets even worse. For it has been pointed out also that not all human beings are capable of understanding the contract mechanism. So it looks like the contract theory should allow treating infants and mentally disabled human beings however we please. Nor can we think of future generations of human beings as parties to a contract with us, since we will

9 be long gone once they arrive. Apparently, then, we have no moral reason to be concerned about any long-term damage we might cause to the environment that they can be expected to live in, if we follow the contract theory. These considerations must give us second thoughts about that theory. It may be that it is the best theory for explaining a major part of the moral world, but not the whole. Perhaps the contract theory explains the principles only for an important part of morality, and some wider theory, about the whole of morality, must encompass it. Something similar occurs in physics, in fact. The laws of nature most familiar to us explain what happens in the world of the mid-sized objects of human experience. But things appear to behave quite differently at the level of sub-atomic particles, and at the level of huge objects like stars and black holes. For this reason, some physicists research today concentrates on developing a so-called theory of everything, whose laws will be broad enough to explain all levels of physical reality. But not everyone thinks that such a project can succeed, because they think there can never be a satisfactory theory of everything. They might be right about physics; and perhaps they are right about ethics as well. Right now it is hard to say. Chapter Summary A historical presentation of the social contract theory, by Thomas Hobbes, helps us see why we need governments and their laws, and why we ought to obey them. The main reason is that, without them, human life is pretty miserable. Life without governments and laws is referred to as the state of nature ; and the way people can escape that horrible state is by making a social contract. This is an agreement among people to restrict their behavior and cooperate with others, in order to enjoy the benefits of social life. Correct moral principles are derived from that agreement, although most people have not believed that Hobbes had the right idea about how this part of the social contract is supposed to work. A puzzling scenario called the prisoners dilemma is a more modern explanation of the basic idea of a social contract. It shows how, under certain conditions, it is most rational for someone to confess to a crime he did not commit. It can be more rational still to cooperate with another prisoner and do the opposite, although this is true only if the other prisoner can be trusted. An idea of the social contract proposed recently (Rawls, 1970s), shows more clearly and plausibly how moral principles can be derived from peoples agreements to live together in society. This hypothetical social contract assumes people are rational, self-interested, and that they know nothing about themselves as individuals (the veil of ignorance ). In theory, these people would agree to live together in a society governed by rules that they agree upon at the start. One of the more controversial aspects of the social contract theory is the fact that it focuses solely on the interests of rational human beings. For this reason, it does not seem capable of showing how any moral principles for human beings treatment of animals can be correct. Works Cited Caitlin Dewey, After 80 Years, Monopoly is Finally Adding House Rules, The Washington Post (March 25, 2014). Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), Part I, Ch. 12. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971).

10 Terms Introduced State of Nature: in ethics, human life without governments and laws. Hobbes assumed the natural state of human beings would be a chaotic war of all against all, although other thinkers did not see why is would be this way. Social Contract: in ethics, the founding agreement that people make with one another in order to live together peacefully in society. An ideal social contract is not a historical event, but an idea about the individual s role in society, as subject to laws for the benefit of all. Someone imagined as a party to an ideal social contract need not be understood as having made an actual promise to obey its laws. A hypothetical social contract is an imaginary agreement, made by imaginary people, who may only somewhat resemble ordinary human beings. Rawls showed how correct moral principles could be based on a hypothetical social contract. principles will be correct because they agree on them. Veil of Ignorance: In Rawls s social contract theory, the people in the original position are under a veil of ignorance, meaning that they know nothing about themselves as individuals. This prevents personal bias in their decisions about correct moral princples. Economic Justice: in ethics and politics, the concern over the proper distribution of wealth in a society. Questions of economic justice include whether wealth and income should be distributed equally, or whether inequality should be allowed; and if so, how is inequality fairly managed? Civil Disobedience: in ethics and politics, disobeying laws for a higher, moral purpose. The social contract theory explains why it can sometimes be right, or justified, to disobey civil laws. Sovereign: in Hobbes social contract theory, the person in charge of a society s government and laws: usually a king or queen. The sovereign s primary role would be to enforce people s agreement in the social contract. Prisoners Dilemma: in ethics and psychology, a thought experiment about agreement and social cooperation under conditions of uncertain trust. Original Position: in Rawls s social contract theory, a decision point between the state of nature and life in society under the social contract. People in the original position are assumed to be rational, and self-interested, and they are expected to come up with, and agree upon, correct moral principles. The