Contractarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #37
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Date: 2022-04-04
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Comments and reviews: 10
Kent
Contractarianism is an incredibly inconsistent moral philosophy, with very poor grounding from the start, and that can be seen as early as your first argument.
1: The state of nature is bad for small actors because larger actors will exert their will by threat of aggression.
2: The state of nature is bad for large actors because coalitions of small actors will threaten large actors.
C: The state of nature is bad for everyone.
Expect, that the actual answer is that you have unintentionally created a balanced system where larger and smaller powers effectively check each other. Any actor threatening another would directly incentivize the formation of a coalition in response, meaning that this state of nature is functionally identical to the proposed society.
The second issue, and a much larger one, is that contractarians are inconsistent about the rules and definitions of what a contract is, because they reason with the goal of justifying our current society. For example, take the example of implicit contracts Hank provides and then compare refutation provided for slavery.
1: Slavery is unjustified because the slave is not free to accept or decline the contract.
2: You are implicitly agreeing to the social contract by accepting the benefits of the living in society.
The problem is, I didn-t agree to accept the benefits of society, or opt in in any way. So I implicitly agreed to a contract by receiving something I didn-t ask for and had no way to refuse. In other words I am not free in regards to this contract. Also slavery is justified because a slave eats their master-s food and sleeps in quarters provided by their master, thereby implicitly agreeing to slavery.
This is the problem with contractarian ethics is that they are so fluid with their reasoning that you can justify anything with very little effort. In my opinion, this is entirely because they feel they need to find a way to justify involuntary contracts. If you stick only to explicit contracts then you have a reasonably valid ethical system, but you lose the social contract. In order to justify the social contract you need some way to discriminate between involuntary systems you like and ones you don-t. Since that-s a fundamentally subjective distinction, your whole system gets screwy.
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Contractarianism is an incredibly inconsistent moral philosophy, with very poor grounding from the start, and that can be seen as early as your first argument.
1: The state of nature is bad for small actors because larger actors will exert their will by threat of aggression.
2: The state of nature is bad for large actors because coalitions of small actors will threaten large actors.
C: The state of nature is bad for everyone.
Expect, that the actual answer is that you have unintentionally created a balanced system where larger and smaller powers effectively check each other. Any actor threatening another would directly incentivize the formation of a coalition in response, meaning that this state of nature is functionally identical to the proposed society.
The second issue, and a much larger one, is that contractarians are inconsistent about the rules and definitions of what a contract is, because they reason with the goal of justifying our current society. For example, take the example of implicit contracts Hank provides and then compare refutation provided for slavery.
1: Slavery is unjustified because the slave is not free to accept or decline the contract.
2: You are implicitly agreeing to the social contract by accepting the benefits of the living in society.
The problem is, I didn-t agree to accept the benefits of society, or opt in in any way. So I implicitly agreed to a contract by receiving something I didn-t ask for and had no way to refuse. In other words I am not free in regards to this contract. Also slavery is justified because a slave eats their master-s food and sleeps in quarters provided by their master, thereby implicitly agreeing to slavery.
This is the problem with contractarian ethics is that they are so fluid with their reasoning that you can justify anything with very little effort. In my opinion, this is entirely because they feel they need to find a way to justify involuntary contracts. If you stick only to explicit contracts then you have a reasonably valid ethical system, but you lose the social contract. In order to justify the social contract you need some way to discriminate between involuntary systems you like and ones you don-t. Since that-s a fundamentally subjective distinction, your whole system gets screwy.
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Freedom
The the part where he says 'and he was probably right' within the first minute. Now, by what form of logic does that make sense? Today's world has progressed to the point to where we are to engrained in our tech and most people know nothing about the natural world. Chaos would eminent. However, this again would be the result of our current world and would be temporary. When the last canned foods are either consumed or expired this would start to change. People like you teach to fear nature, when our job is to live along side it. We would see a tear down of our current world order and we would ascend back to nature. What has destroyed our world was the belief that we must be domesticated and codependent upon the government. I get you are teaching a topic, I am cool with that, but I have a problem with your statement where you said 'and he was probably right. ' That could not be further from the truth.
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The the part where he says 'and he was probably right' within the first minute. Now, by what form of logic does that make sense? Today's world has progressed to the point to where we are to engrained in our tech and most people know nothing about the natural world. Chaos would eminent. However, this again would be the result of our current world and would be temporary. When the last canned foods are either consumed or expired this would start to change. People like you teach to fear nature, when our job is to live along side it. We would see a tear down of our current world order and we would ascend back to nature. What has destroyed our world was the belief that we must be domesticated and codependent upon the government. I get you are teaching a topic, I am cool with that, but I have a problem with your statement where you said 'and he was probably right. ' That could not be further from the truth.
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Huntracony
Well, I agree that the utopia laid out by contractarianism, but it could never work. First of all, it doesn't seem to originate as naturally as contractarians would like, because we do have things like slavery and largely (though not entirely) getting rid of that did not exactly go as smooth as just realizing one day that we'd be better off with a social contract that included all humans. Second, we are not free to choose. We cannot refuse the contract. A lucky few may have their pick of contracts, but most people are thrust into the contract of the society they live in and even not making use of the benefits of the contract could not get them out of the obligations. And that's not even a complaint, that's just an unavoidable fact. We happen to share a world together so we have to be forced into a contract, but that does mean we are not free.
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Well, I agree that the utopia laid out by contractarianism, but it could never work. First of all, it doesn't seem to originate as naturally as contractarians would like, because we do have things like slavery and largely (though not entirely) getting rid of that did not exactly go as smooth as just realizing one day that we'd be better off with a social contract that included all humans. Second, we are not free to choose. We cannot refuse the contract. A lucky few may have their pick of contracts, but most people are thrust into the contract of the society they live in and even not making use of the benefits of the contract could not get them out of the obligations. And that's not even a complaint, that's just an unavoidable fact. We happen to share a world together so we have to be forced into a contract, but that does mean we are not free.
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Perry
About the contract; that we Americans dont have to consent to, but must obey. While immigrants have to consent, to become American's. We as american give our consent by not taking it away. That's what makes america different we are governed by the consent of the people.
If one would want to take his consent away whilst in trouble, that one is ignorant of the law. But if another would like to change the law before he got into trouble that is a different story and would be revolutionary for the ages to see. Just by denouncing his consent.
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About the contract; that we Americans dont have to consent to, but must obey. While immigrants have to consent, to become American's. We as american give our consent by not taking it away. That's what makes america different we are governed by the consent of the people.
If one would want to take his consent away whilst in trouble, that one is ignorant of the law. But if another would like to change the law before he got into trouble that is a different story and would be revolutionary for the ages to see. Just by denouncing his consent.
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Dillian
Regarding the idea that the system must make your life better than it would be out of it. Why do we see incidents throughout history of obvious contracts that oppress large groups of people, be it slavery, internment, and even genocide, yet the oppressed remain subjugated by the authority and refuse to return to the state of nature as a group. Is the human desire to submit to the Leviathan so strong that we are generally willing to wait out such atrocities with the hope they will eventually rectify themselves?
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Regarding the idea that the system must make your life better than it would be out of it. Why do we see incidents throughout history of obvious contracts that oppress large groups of people, be it slavery, internment, and even genocide, yet the oppressed remain subjugated by the authority and refuse to return to the state of nature as a group. Is the human desire to submit to the Leviathan so strong that we are generally willing to wait out such atrocities with the hope they will eventually rectify themselves?
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Medhead101
This form of morality has some issues as different contracts have different degrees of moral value. The contract which represented government of Nazi Germany with it's people is obviously a horrible form of morality so it's invalid, despite the fact if some people or even a majority of people perceived benefit (as per Hitler's strong support in the early days of his reign. So no one can be born into a system of government and absolutely be justified in being against it. Libertarianism all the way!
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This form of morality has some issues as different contracts have different degrees of moral value. The contract which represented government of Nazi Germany with it's people is obviously a horrible form of morality so it's invalid, despite the fact if some people or even a majority of people perceived benefit (as per Hitler's strong support in the early days of his reign. So no one can be born into a system of government and absolutely be justified in being against it. Libertarianism all the way!
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education
Citizenship is not an implicit contract but a territorial mob rule of the current 'leaders'. Tax paying is oppression, you are forced to pay up or be locked up in jail. As a reward you might get back a road or a glass of water but you are bullied in a shitty deal instead of an 'implicit contract'. Look how much tax you pay and what you get back for it, no one would ever make such a shitty deal rationally! That's why the state uses force to the people!
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Citizenship is not an implicit contract but a territorial mob rule of the current 'leaders'. Tax paying is oppression, you are forced to pay up or be locked up in jail. As a reward you might get back a road or a glass of water but you are bullied in a shitty deal instead of an 'implicit contract'. Look how much tax you pay and what you get back for it, no one would ever make such a shitty deal rationally! That's why the state uses force to the people!
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VoltStrike
Wait a second. If this theory suggests that morality is shaped by Contracts between people--Wouldn't this mean that there can be various opposing contracts from one group with another? Doesn't this bring us back to the same issue that lies within -Moral Relativism- or -Cultural Relativism---That any group/ethnicity/religion within society can just make their own agreements(In this case, contracts?
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Wait a second. If this theory suggests that morality is shaped by Contracts between people--Wouldn't this mean that there can be various opposing contracts from one group with another? Doesn't this bring us back to the same issue that lies within -Moral Relativism- or -Cultural Relativism---That any group/ethnicity/religion within society can just make their own agreements(In this case, contracts?
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jeremy
If you have a partner in crime then you have already both violated the law or laws of the land. Who is to say that they can trust each other after this fact unless they both had this discussion prior to breaking the law and landing in jail? Now you are hoping that he or she will do the -right- thing now? Hmmm. doubtful at best and of course this is another kind of extreme case.
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If you have a partner in crime then you have already both violated the law or laws of the land. Who is to say that they can trust each other after this fact unless they both had this discussion prior to breaking the law and landing in jail? Now you are hoping that he or she will do the -right- thing now? Hmmm. doubtful at best and of course this is another kind of extreme case.
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kaerblover
-The land of do-as-you-please sounds great - until you realize that everyone else is also doing as they please. That-s when you find out that you have an abundance of freedom, but you do not have any security. The key to saving the world from chaos, Hobbes said, was a contract. -
- Crash Course Philosophy #37
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-The land of do-as-you-please sounds great - until you realize that everyone else is also doing as they please. That-s when you find out that you have an abundance of freedom, but you do not have any security. The key to saving the world from chaos, Hobbes said, was a contract. -
- Crash Course Philosophy #37
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