Why have a social contract

Why have a social contract?

An essay by Bill McKenna   ©2012

Before I take a giant leap into the European enlightenment, let’s recap Augustine’s just war.  I could have been harsher in my treatment of the concept.  It could be seen as a compromise between the teachings of Christ and pragmatism.  I think that Augustine is better than that though.  He is making an argument that given moral sovereign authority to stop evil war wagers by the use of force which will prevent suffering is just.  The practical offshoot of applying such a system really is a problem.  Tying just war to papal infallibility in medieval Western Europe, and you get the crusades (edit - see comment section - papal infallibiliity was not a medieval dogma - example is still worth noting however).  The Reformation brought the Thirty Years’ War which was fought over the proper sovereignty within the Christian Church itself.  Every combatant in that struggle claimed to be defending faith against those who would destroy that faith.  Lastly, the concept relies on benevolent monarchs, presumably made sovereign through the grace of God.  The idea of an insurrection or capricious tyrants doing evil within their sovereign space is left unaddressed.

Just war philosophy was tremendously lacking, but it was also revolutionary.  I’ll give Augustine full credit in western civilization for the revolution, but someone more learned than I can speak to similar philosophies that arose in Indian and Chinese culture.  My point is, before Augustine and his like-minded eastern philosophers, warfare was unlimited except by strength of arms.  After Augustine, there is a moral value to peace.  It is an enormous step forward in civilization.  Now, I ask you, what would the next step be?

Let’s jump more than 1,000 years ahead to England in the 1600’s.  If you’ve learned Western Civ in high school or college you may remember Thomas Hobbes as the foil for John Locke.  I’ll briefly recap here.  Both Hobbes and Locke developed an Enlightenment period concept of a social contract, one of the founding concepts of political science.  Both philosophers argued that in order to live more fulfilling lives as individuals, it is necessary to create a social contract between a governing sovereign, and a governed people.  In other words, it is desirable to surrender some portion of one’s own autonomy to accept the governance of a recognized authority.

For Hobbes, in his book The Leviathan, man in a natural state is beset by self-interest, and everyone living in this state of nature is subject to the whims of the strongest.  The pre-governed natural world of Hobbes leads to lives that are “nasty, brutish, and short”.  The way to develop a social contract is to ordain an absolute authority.  The Hobbesian perspective of humanity in a natural state is that it is essentially driven by base, evil objective thought.

John Locke, a near contemporary of Hobbes also advocated a social contract, but his presumptions of human nature led him to an entirely different outcome.  In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke talked about ‘natural law’ which governs how we conduct our lives in the absence of absolute authority.  In his view the social contract emerges from our natural law, and we create government to codify and create private property.  The authority of the government belongs to the governed.  Locke, therefore sees the natural human state as good, so that government can be agreed upon by consent.

The Hobbes-Locke duality is a common subject for political scientists, and it plays an important role in my thesis about peace.  I will argue that civilization has evolved over time; if one goes back to my Greek or Roman examples from last month, we see remnants of the old ‘strongest empire model’ where large armed groups preyed on the smaller.  Over time, however, as sovereignty has moved from kings and emperors to representative government, we see that more emphasis is placed on the legal standing of individuals and their rights.  Clearly, with current examples such as the barbarous suppression in Syria, we have a long way to go before we emerge as a truly evolved civilization.  Nonetheless, if you can allow me my thesis as I develop it further, you will see that peace becomes inevitable, and we collectively have the ability to hasten its arrival.

My long-winded thesis development is starting to take shape now.  If you’ve been reading along I hope it’s holding together for you.  Please comment if you have any issue with it so far.  Immanuel Kant is up next, and then we can put our philosophers on the back burner for a while, and move from peace theories to some practical stuff for my peacemaking friends.

Peace to you all.  I need to get some sleep now, as I hope to attend the Sunrise Interfaith service at Hampton Beach, which will involve (I think) The New England Peace Pagoda, NH and MA Peace Action and the Friends Service Committee, hoping that my Buddhist and Quaker brethren can use some prayers from a good Episcopalian.  If freezing rain keeps me away, they may expect my spiritual support at least.