Lecture 11: The Social Contract TheoryThomas Hobbes – Leviathan

Mozi – Mozi (Chapter 11: Obeying One’s Superior)

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Agenda

1. Thomas Hobbes

2. Framework for the Social Contract Theory

3. The State of Nature

4. The Social Contract

5. Mozi (Chapter 11: Obeying One’s Superior)

6. Advantages of the Social Contract Theory

7. Objections to the Social Contract Theory

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Thomas Hobbes

•1588 – 1679 CE

•English philosopher

•Wrote Leviathan

•Social contract theorist

•Defended absolute sovereignty

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Framework for the Social Contract Theory

• Social contract theory attempts to ground morality in mutual agreement (rather than, for instance, divine will).

• The legitimacy of the government is based on the consent of the governed. Likewise, morality consists in a set of rules that people would agree to in a contract.

• The state of nature is a state prior to the formation of society or government. What social contract would people agree to in the state of nature?

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The State of Nature

• For Hobbes, humans are basically self-interested.

• For the most part, people are equal in their physical and mental abilities.

• Three causes of discord in human nature: competition, distrust, and glory.

• “This makes it obvious that for as long as men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in the condition known as ‘war’; and it is a war of every man against every man” (2).

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The State of Nature

“In such conditions there is no place for hard work, because there is no assurance that it will yield results; and consequently no cultivation of the earth, no navigation or use of materials that can be imported by sea, no construction of large buildings, no machines for moving things that require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no practical skills, no literature or scholarship, no society; and—worst of all—continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (3).

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The State of Nature

• Was there ever in history a state of nature? Does it matter?

• “It may be thought that there has never been such a time, such a condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally like this all over the world. Still, there are many places where people live like that even now. For the savage people in many parts of America have no government at all except for the government of small families, whose harmony depends on natural lust. Those savages live right now in the brutish manner I have described. Anyway, we can see what way of life there would be if there were no common power to fear, from the degenerate way of life into which civil war has led men who had formerly lived under a peaceful government” (3).

• Racist depiction of Native Americans as living in a state of nature.

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The State of Nature

“Even if there had never been any time at which •individual men were in a state of war one against another, this is how •kings, and persons of sovereign authority relate to one another at all times. Because of their independence from one another, they are in continual mutual jealousies. Like gladiators, with their •weapons pointing and their •eyes fixed on one another, sovereigns have •forts, garrisons, and guns on the frontiers of their kingdoms, and permanent •spies on their neighbours—this is a posture of war, as much as the gladiators’ is. But because in this the sovereigns uphold the economy of their nations, their state of war doesn’t lead to the sort of misery that occurs when individual men are at liberty ·from laws and government” (3-4).

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The State of Nature

• “In this war of every man against every man nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place there. Where there is no common power, there is no law; and where there is no law, there is no injustice” (4).

• Hobbes is essentially making a meta-ethical point here. That morality, rightness, wrongness, and justice do not exist in the state of nature, but only exist after the social contract is created.

• Even with a pessimistic picture of human nature and their motivations as basically selfish, there can still be morality: mutually agreed upon rules that benefit all.

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The State of Nature

• In the state of nature, everyone has a natural right to everything.

• “For as long as every man maintains his right to do anything he likes, all men are in the condition of war. But if other men won’t also lay down their right, there is no reason for him to divest himself of his; for ·if he alone gave up his rights· that would expose himself to predators (which no man is obliged to do) rather than to dispose himself to peace” (5).

• People will give up their rights and hand them over to a sovereign, provided that others give up their rights as well.

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The Social Contract

“As I said in chapter 14, covenants of mutual trust are invalid when one part fears that the other party will not perform. Although the origin of justice is the making of covenants, there can’t be any actual injustice until the reason for such fear be taken away, which can’t be done while men are in the natural condition of war. So the labels ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ can have application only when

there is some coercive power to •compel all men equally to perform their covenants, through the terror of some punishment greater than the benefit they expect from breaking their covenant, and ·thereby· to •ensure that men get the benefits they contract for, this being their compensation for giving up some of their rights.

There is no such power before the commonwealth is created” (5).

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The Social Contract

• Hobbes ultimately thought that in order to escape the state of nature and end the war of all against all, there needed to an absolute sovereign with undivided and unlimited power.

• A leviathan is a sea monster from the Old Testament.

• John Locke (1632 – 1704 CE), a different English political philosopher, thought that people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. People give over some of their rights to the government to escape the state of nature. As a result, the government exists by the consent of the citizens for the purpose of protecting their rights to life, liberty, and property and to promote the common good. 12

The Social Contract

“This can also be gathered from the ordinary definition of justice in the Schools; for they say that justice is the steady willingness to give every man his own. Where there is no own—that is, no property—there is no injustice, and where no coercive power has been set up—that is, where there is no commonwealth—there is no property (all men having a right to all things); therefore where there is no commonwealth, nothing is unjust. So that justice consists in the keeping of valid covenants; but the validity of covenants begins only with the setting up of a civil power sufficient to compel men to keep them; and that is when property is also begins” (6).

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Mozi (Chapter 11: Obeying One’s Superior)

• “In ancient times, when people first came into being and before there were governments or laws, each person followed their own norm for deciding what was right and wrong… For this reason, within families, there was resentment and hatred between fathers and sons and elder and younger brothers that caused them to separate and disperse and made it impossible for them to cooperate harmoniously with one another” (60-1).

• How is this similar or different from Hobbes’ state of nature? 14

Mozi (Chapter 11: Obeying One’s Superior)

• “Those who understood the nature of this chaos saw that it arose from a lack of rulers and leaders and so they chose the best person among the most worthy and capable in the world and established him as the Son of Heaven” (61).

• Son of Heaven’s strength was insufficient, so he installed three impartial ministers. The world was divided into states with feudal lords and rulers, and governors and leaders.

• How does the Son of Heaven compare to Hobbes’ absolute sovereign?

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Mozi (Chapter 11: Obeying One’s Superior)

“Once the governors and leaders were in place, the Son of Heaven announced his rule to the people of the world saying, ‘Whenever you hear of something good or bad, always inform your superior. Whenever your superior approves of something as right you too must approve of it. Whenever your superior condemns something as wrong you too must condemn it. Should a superior commit any transgression, one must offer proper remonstrance. Should your subordinates do anything good, one must widely recommend them. To obey one’s superior and to avoid joining together with those in subordinate positions—such conduct will be rewarded by superiors and praised by subordinates’” (61-2).

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Advantages of the Social Contract Theory

1. Which rules are morally binding?

2. Why should we follow moral rules?

3. When can we break rules?

4. How demanding is morality?

5. The social contract theory explains when and why civil disobedience is justified.

Advantages of the Social Contract Theory

1. Which rules are morally binding?

• Rules that facilitate social harmony and cooperation are morally binding.

• How does this compare to utilitarianism?

Advantages of the Social Contract Theory

2. Why should we follow moral rules?

• We agree to moral rules because they are mutually beneficial. We follow them because they are enforced.

Advantages of the Social Contract Theory

3. When can we break rules?

• We obey the rules so long as others obey them. When others break the rules, we are no longer obligated to them and we can punish them.

Advantages of the Social Contract Theory

4. How demanding is morality?

• Morality only demands of us what we can reasonably expect others to follow.

• Reciprocity

Advantages of the Social Contract Theory

5. The social contract theory explains when and why civil disobedience is justified.

• Civil disobedience is justified when a disadvantaged population does not receive the benefits of the social contract. Therefore, they are not obligated to follow its rules.

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Objections to the Social Contract Theory

1. The social contract is fictional.

2. Some individuals cannot benefit us.

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Objections to the Social Contract Theory

1. The social contract is fictional.

• Is there an implicit or tacit social contract?

• Does it make sense to speak of a hypothetical social contract?

• A hypothetical social contract is still a useful thought experiment to think about what rules people would agree to as mutually beneficial, and this is sufficient to ground morality.

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Objections to the Social Contract Theory

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2. Some individuals cannot benefit us.

• Infants

• Nonhuman animals

• Future generations

• Oppressed populations

Does this mean we are not obligated to them? The social contract theory is ultimately grounded in self-interest and reciprocity, which is perhaps both its strength and its weakness.