Contractarianism

Imagine a world with no rules and no laws. You would have an abundance of freedom. But a lack of security. Thomas Hobbes called this "the state of nature." Hobbes imagined the State of Nature to be rough, brutish, and just plain mean. Hobbes argued that people would be willing to give up some of their rights to live under the protection of civilization.

Giving up a 'right' or 'rights' would occur under a contract. Good acts do not violate the rational agreements that we've made. Contractarianism is when people or parties come together and make an agreement that benefits both parties and does not harm the other person or party.

Hobbes was Antirealist about morality. Hobbes believed that we simply make morality up. Hobbes believed that when you get a group of 'free' 'self-interested' 'rational' individuals living together, morality will simply immerge.

 

For example, we live next door to each other in the state of nature. I grow apples. I like apples. I eat apple pie and other apple-like things all the time. You grow oranges. You are sick of oranges, and now you want apples.

How do you go about getting the apples from me?

 

You could just steal them, but I'll just steal your oranges in return. Because I'm sick of apples.

 

So to resolve this issue, we make a contract.

I exchange a certain amount of apples for your oranges, and we don't rob each other.

 

A problem with contracts

We don't always agree to the contracts that we are in.

Many of us never agreed to be US citizens.

Thus, many of us didn't agree to follow the laws of this country.

So when I get pulled over for running a red light, I may be empowered to say that.

 

"I never agreed to the traffic laws."

 

I am still going to get a ticket.

 

While that might seem unfair to you. You do reap many benefits from the laws that exist.

 

Benefits from society

If your home is on fire, people will come put it out.

You can drink clean water for free etc.

 

Rights imply obligations

So when you take from the common pot by enjoying the goods that the system provides, you are expected to pay in.

 

You pay in when you pay taxes or attend jury duty.

 

Contracts protect us from what Hobbes called "the war of all against all." Contracts put us in a state where we all get along because we trust others to follow the contracts we all agreed to.

 

Prisoner dilemma

You and an associate commit theft. Both of you are caught by the police and put in separate rooms for interrogation. If you stay silent, both of you will get a year on a lesser charge. If you rat your partner out, you will go free, and your partner will get 3 years. You rat each other out; you will both get two years. What may happen is that you will rat on your partner because you don't know if you can trust them. This is a problem with contracts. This is Defection.

 

Defection

Defection occurs when we break the contracts we either agreed to or didn't agree to follow. Seeking our own interests. This happens all the time. Like in traffic, when everybody goes for the merge lane, traffic gets backed. This occurs less often with people that you know. No one likes it when individuals break contracts that they didn't have to make because our whole society is based on everybody keeping our word.

 

Reiterate

For a contract to be valid, the contractors must be free. The contractor must be better off in the system that the agreement makes possible than they would be outside it. This rules out slavery. You are always better off outside of a system that doesn't enslave you, so slavery is never ok under contractarianism.

 

The system may not work in your favor all the time. But you must be better off in the system than you are on your own. Unlike utilitarianism, divine command theory, or Kantianism, morality doesn't exist until we make it up. There is nothing fundamentally real about morality. But it becomes real as soon as we agree that it is real. Because once we agree to particular rules, they become real and binding. This occurs all the time. When we change our minds as a group, we simply modify the contract as a group. This occurs explicitly when we change laws and implicitly with shifting social mores