This House Believes that the Social Contract is a viable political theory

I will address the social contract theory as incorrect, based on my opponent’s explanation of it. Specifically, I shall focus on one particular point: “social contract theory accounts for society's origins”. Like all theories, the social contract makes metaphysical, as well as normative, claims. I will ignore for the purposes of this debate about whether the social contract is a nice or nasty idea. Instead, I will focus on whether its testable claims are in fact accurate. The claim in question is whether the contract is a correct account of society’s origins. Beginning with basic biology, all humans came from parents. Secondly, to repeat the social contract theory, everyone signs individually to the contract of society to form authority (authority, distinct from power, is the ability to get others to do as you want willingly). However, as Filmer pointed out, the first authority was the father[1]. The state of nature lacks is entirely indivdiuals devoid of family. Filmer aptly notes: “I cannot understand how this right of nature can be conceived without imagining a company of men at the very first to have been all created together without any dependency one of another, or as mushrooms they all on a sudden were sprung out of the earth without any obligation one to another”[2]. Aristotle similarly pointed out how societies are formed by the grouping of families, not individuals[3]. Society is formed from families coming together, not individuals. Before the contract, authority still exists within families. Plemenatz summarises this: “men are born of women and into families, whose members have obligations towards one another; and children owe obedience to their parents.”[4] Obligation exists before society, yet the social contract requires obligation to be created with the political sphere. Therefore, the individuals needed for the social contract is not the origin of authority, but the parent. Hume continued to explain that, if it was a contract, then the ruler must have consented to this contract himself. Yet “We find everywhere princes who claim their subjects as their property and assert their independent right of sovereignty, from conquest or succession”[5]. Rulers constantly rule because they see God choosing them, they inherited the country as property, or they conquered the land and people. Social contract theorists want to say they are part of the contract, but when they explicitly reject it, how can they be the originator of society? The contract cannot be the origin of society, because many leaders – and subjects – reject the contract. Finally, I want to return to Filmer’s argument against Locke. While “he lives in our memories because he was Locke’s victim”[6], he makes many arguments that “Locke, when he comes to ‘demolish’ Filmer, never troubles to answer”6. The strongest argument is that of who consents. Of course, children do not consent – they cannot conceive of the notion. Indeed, most do not understand the social contract theory. So how can they consent to that which they have never encountered nor understood? Yet this is the precise people who are said to consent to the government. Similarly, unless we want to argue that those who have not studied the intricacies of political philosophy are immune from legitimate punishment from law, then we must conclude that they are not participants to the social contract. And if so, there must lie a different explanation for the origins of authority. With these three points in mind, I wait for my friend’s response. I look forward to hearing it. [1] Filmer, ‘Patriarcha’ in Political Works, p1-132 [2] Filmer, ‘Observations on Mr Hobbes’ in Political Works, [3] Aristotle, Politics [4] Plamenatz, Man and Society Vol. 1 [5] Hume, On the Original Contract [6] Plamenatz, Man and Society Vol. 1