What Is the Principle of Social Contract Theory

In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that emerged during the Enlightenment and generally concerns the legitimacy of state authority over the individual. [1] Social contract arguments generally postulate that individuals have explicitly or tacitly agreed to give up some of their freedoms and submit to authority (of the ruler or the decision of a majority) in exchange for protecting their remaining rights or maintaining social order. [2] [3] The relationship between natural and legal rights is often a subject of social contract theory. The term takes its name from the Social Contract or Principles of Political Law (French, a book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau from 1762 that dealt with this concept. Although the precursors of social contract theory can be found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy, and in Roman and canon law, the pinnacle of the social contract was from the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the main doctrine of political legitimacy. Previous critics of the social contract, such as Rousseau and Karl Marx, have expressed concerns about the assumptions of equality and reciprocity that give the social contract its appeal. Rousseau originally referred to the social contract as “the rich deceiving the poor” (although he later articulated his own egalitarian version). Marx describes it as part of the ideology of capitalism used to legitimize the continued exploitation of the working class by the bourgeoisie. Because the equality hypothesis is so problematic internationally, the attempt to apply the theory of social contracts to this field serves to further illuminate critics such as those of Rousseau and Marx, who point out how the morality of the treatise is undermined if agents are not distributed evenly and symmetrically. [17] Rawls, as well as Gauthier and Buchanan, were sometimes attracted to such a reading. Rawls (1999, 104) describes the argument of the original position as an invocation of “pure procedural justice” – the consultative situation is structured in such a way that all the principles it produces are just for their generation by the fact. However, his thoughtful position is that the result of the deliberative model is indicative (not constitutive) for the correct solution of the “question of justification” (1999, 16). It is perhaps not surprising that the revival of contemporary contact theory took place at the same time as the theoretical tools of games, and negotiation theory in particular, began to be applied to philosophical problems.

Negotiation theory, as developed by John Nash (1950) and John Harsanyi (1977), is a rigorous approach to modeling how rational individuals would agree to share something good or supernumerary. In its most general form, the negotiation model of the agreement specifies a group of people who have individual utility functions that can be represented in relation to each other without the need to directly compare interpersonal benefits. Certain goods or merchandise intended for division will be specified, and if the persons concerned can agree on how the good in question is to be divided, they will receive this division. However, if they can`t get along, they get their disagreement result instead. Maybe that`s what they brought to the table, or it could be another specified amount. An example is a simple application game in which two people have to write how much of the donated prize pool they want. If the two “commandments” are equal to or smaller than the pot, everyone will receive what they have written, otherwise not everyone will get anything. David Gauthier`s “neo-Hobbesian” theory holds that cooperation between two independent and selfish parties is in fact possible, especially when it comes to understanding morality and politics. [19] Gauthier points in particular to the advantages of cooperation between two parties when it comes to challenging the prisoner`s dilemma. He suggests that if two parties respected the originally agreed agreement and morality set out in the contract, they would both achieve an optimal result. [19] [20] In his social contract model, factors such as trust, rationality and self-interest keep each party honest and prevent them from breaking the rules.

[19] [20] In such a position, behind such a veil, everyone is in the same situation, and it is believed that everyone is equally rational. Since everyone uses the same method to choose the basic principles of society, everyone will adopt the same point of view: that of the disembodied, rational, universal man. Therefore, all those who look at justice from the point of view of the initial position would agree on the same principles of justice that emerged from such a thought experiment. Each person would draw the same conclusion as any other person regarding the most fundamental principles that a just society must regulate. With M as the deliberative framework; R rules, principles or institutions; I the (hypothetical) persons in their original position or in the state of nature which form the social contract; and I* am the individuals in the real world who follow the social contract. [6] In 1971, John Rawls revived interest in the social contract with the publication of A Theory of Justice. Later, he extended the model developed in A Theory of Justice in The Law of Peoples to the international stage. .