The Social Contract and Moral Obligations

Thank you BSH1 for your arguments. They have inspired much thought. Responding to Con’s case Contention One: The Social Contract Is Seriously Flawed “P1. There is no True Consent in the Social Contract” This is an interesting premise. I am curious what Con would define as “true consent.” (a) Consent cannot be Implied. Con here argues that “implied consent is no consent at all.” In the broad view of social contract theory, consent is not implied. It is expressly given. That stated, Social Contract theory does accept the reality that children, newborns, and other similar cases are unable to give any kind of consent whatsoever in their present state. Point being that they CANNOT rather than DID NOT. As there is no feasible way to “choose” where you are born and as you are not born with the ability to consent others do so reasonablely on your behalf. For example, in the U.S. those under the age of 18 are unable to vote. Their interests are ideally expressed and protected by society and especially their parents. During this state in their life they do not give consent of their own volition as they cannot but it is given for them. Then, when they reach the age of reason, or capability (which the U.S. has placed at 18) they are then endowed with the ability to give their consent through voting. While this does give an heir of implied consent, it is only in place until such time that consent can feasible be given. Aside from this It is worth noting that the social contract is a contract between the government and the governed as a whole. A contract to society. Again, using the U.S. as an example, society as a whole determines and consents to the contract. In this it is clear that the people do have sovereignty and willingly enter into a contract as a whole. It is utterly absurd to expect each person to have a separate and distinct personalized contract with government. Counter point: The current standing contract. Thus when we are born into a society with a contract that we did not and indeed could not consent to we are given the current standing contract. When able we enter society as a full-fledged and equal part in expressing or withholding our consent. (b) Implied Consent Justifies Immoral Governments. This sub premise is not on point. It is not my burden to show that Social Contract applied spawns only “moral” governments, or that governments formed under a social contract do not or could not act immorally. Rather, it is my duty to show that Due to the social contract, governments have moral obligations to their citizens which are superior to those it has towards non-citizens. (c) The Social Contract Justifies Exploitation, Murder, and a Parade of Horribles. See response to last sub premise as this contention is also not on point. (d) Consent is not Hereditary. Con argues that “The problem with binding succeeding generations to the contract is simple: my forefathers cannot reasonable consent for me. “ It is more reasonable for your forefathers or parents to consent on your behalf than to argue that an unborn person or even an infant could consent. This is the case in a social contract. “As an individual, with my own free will and my own autonomy, only I can consent for myself.” Parents in society often consent for their children as is only reasonable. When old enough, people in a social contract based society are able to then alter, amend, reject etc the standing contract. “We could point to a reasonable facsimile of a social contract, i.e. the U.S. Constitution, and apply this argument quite effectively. Why should the decrees of people living in 1787 and 1788 apply to me, many generations removed?” Indeed it is worth noting that the U.S. Constitution as a social contract has been molded and changed through consent to this present time. Thus the current contract is not the one of 1787 but of 2015. “The document specifically talks about securing liberties for "posterity" and makes plans for a system of government designed to last years." Yes as a matter of necessity, the unborn cannot negotiate or consent, but the liberty secured is that future generations with have the sovereignty and ability to alter or reject standing contacts. “P2. The Feminist Critique” (a) Economic Man. “social contract as a means by which to maximize his own individually considered interests is gendered in that it does not take seriously the position of either children or the women." As has been previously demonstrated. My burden is not to show the morality or functionality of a social contact itself, but to argue that if there is a social contract is the moral obligation increased. We see that it is. While this feminist critique is intriguing, we do see that because people do have the ability to offer or refuse consent that over time women and children have secured more rights. (b) Dependence in Relationships. The author of “The Social Contract” Jean-Jacques Rousseau explains that "The most ancient of all societies, and the only one that is natural, is the family: and even so the children remain attached to the father only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. The children, released from the obedience they owed to the father, and the father, released from the care he owed his children, return equally to independence. If they remain united, they continue so no longer naturally, but voluntarily; and the family itself is then maintained only by convention." Con argued that “Perhaps a relationship built on caring for dependents or those more closely related to us, purely on those bases, would be preferable.” The social contract is not in conflict with this, in fact it acknowledges as a whole that the first societies and the building block of society is the family. Thus what con argues is not something that can be “preferable” to the social contract, but is a part of and underlying premise of the social contract itself. Flawed or not, the social contract is a contract and functions as a contract. It has been demonstraed that social contract theroy is grounded in the ideal of consent of the governed and rightly so. Contention Two: The Social Contract Cannot Convey Moral Obligations “Awareness is a prerequisite to having obligations. While it may be fair to say that the government has a function or functions, it would not be correct to assert that it has obligations. I could not oblige a rock to do anything, as a rock is inanimate. How can an entity that lacks any connations at all bear responsibilities?” I confess myself perplexed by this contention. The government in a social contract is not inanimate but interacts and is a living entity. Otherwise how could one commit treason or a crime against the state? Can I commit a crime against a rock? I cannot, the State as an actor is empirically evident. back to con.