Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

The Social Contract Part II





Updated: 12/10/2017

The Social Contract, Part II



     We left off with the realization that consent had to be defined, because it is a point upon which thinkers disagree. 





     Consent, in this context, is often divided into two categories: explicit or overt, and tacit. The latter holds the rather extreme view that anyone residing within the sovereign boundaries of a state who is not a participant in an active insurrection is thereby consenting to the legitimacy of that government. This seems as contradictory to the spirit and understanding of a contract as Rousseau's remark that "we shall force them to be free." Force is rarely considered to be part of a valid contract in most jurisdictions. Indeed, there is a special term for that: duress. In modern U.S. courtrooms, the presiding judge will typically ask anyone pleading guilty whether or not they were coerced or otherwise entering into the agreement under duress, as it invalidates such a pact. Such would seem to apply in the grand scheme of the intersection of life and government as well. The logic of voting via sedition or emigration also ignores the interconnected issues of physical geography and the social and familial bonds that are sometimes colloquially referred to as "putting down roots." If a man loves his job, his family, his church and his home, it is certainly arguable that his decision not to relocate may signify not that he supports a given government, but rather that other matters were higher priorities. Said another way, his choice to remain in a state in which he is a citizen and in which he was born may merely mean that the government is not presently sufficiently oppressive to warrant fleeing. Hardly lavish praise, it seems therefore doubtful that one can derive consent from this condition alone. Immigration to a new place, on the other hand, represents different circumstances that may constitute not mere consent, but even endorsement. Another potential pitfall for the concept of tacit consent is the matter of participation in "civilised society." If a person elects not to be a subject of a given state, and thus leaves, his prospects for a new home are obviously limited to habitable locales, which are likely to be claimed by at least one government. His insistence on independence, even if he is otherwise capable of solitary subsistence, is at best a competing claim to sovereignty of whatever tract of land he may choose. One final point that contravenes the idea of tacit consent as basis for the contract is that jurisprudence in the west, a discipline devoted to rigorous reasoning, observes a much higher standard to constitute any meaningful legal consent. On these grounds, the case for tacit consent to the Social Contract fall short of compelling or inspiring.


     Overt consent, however, makes considerably more sense. There is historical precedent to verify that some governments have been established by such a process. Perhaps democratic elections are even the maintenance and amendment of a government by means of the Social Contract, though competing views are also plausible. Despite this, it is difficult to discern to what extent various governments have historically been created in a manner consistent with the exposition of Social Contract Theory.

     The presumption that man is born free is also suspect. His physical condition at birth has him literally tethered to the person upon whose care his survival rests. While this arrangement is fleeting, s/he will continue to be heavily dependent upon his family for many years. It seems fair to state that a person's first experience with being governed is the parent/child relationship. If not upon arrival into this world, when specifically does man attain this alleged complete freedom? Another indicator of the fallacy of this almost laughably feeble claim can be found observing primates or elephants, both of which have cultures that can, at least at times, appear to resemble government or society.




     Regardless, the theory has been pondered and debated thoroughly over the generations since its first iterations, usually attibuted to Hobbes' "Leviathon," and it is the product of many great minds. Their treatments of the topic do not fail to call the mind to action, and few would object to that.




Update:  Since I wrote both blog posts as a single unit and published them separately, I didn't incorporate a request for more information on John Rawls.  I won't add substantially to this post, because this conversation rapidly gets too deep for just two entries.  Without further ado, however, here's a little John Rawls in a nutshell:


I also posted comments on posts from a couple of classmates whose ideas and opinions have been a blessing throughout this past semester:



Source 2
Source 3
Source 4

2 comments:

  1. 2d installment already? No Rawls?

    But ok, Dilbert's worth the price of admission. Who could blame the next generation for thinking we've voided the contract?

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    Replies
    1. Haha, I'm glad that my experience holds true: Dilbert never fails to impress!

      I actually wrote the first post as a 1,000 word post and then saw your instructions that both posts should total 1,000 words, so I split the original post into two, otherwise I'd have been happy to include Rawls.

      I just added an honorable mention of sorts for Rawls, but the debate over the strengths and weaknesses of the Social Contract theory is, as you know, one that could fill many volumes without exhausting the arguments, so I didn't add anything significant, because I don't feel that appending it to this post is capable of doing justice to the additional material.

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