Social contract

{{sources needed}}{{politics}}The '''social contract''' is a [[political]] concept proposing that there is an implied agreement between individuals and the [[society]] to which they belong, in which they agree to adhere to that society's [[law]]s and norms in exchange for the benefits of thereto belonging. In simpler terms, it is the idea that people naturally give up a small degree of individual liberties in exchange for the protections of society.<ref>[http://americanhistory.about.com/od/usconstitution/g/social_contract.htm The Social Contract]</ref>

The theory was largely developed during the [[Enlightenment]] and parts of it formed the basis for many of the ''advances'' in political freedoms during that time (not the other way around). As a theory which attributes natural [[rights]] to natural law rather than a deity, the social contract is a popular example of [[secular]] [[morality]].

==Plato on the social contract==
The first known exposition of social contract theory was made by [[Plato]] in his short dialogue {{wpl|''Crito''||.}} In the dialogue, [[Socrates]] is jailed and about to be executed, but when offered a chance to be sprung from jail, refuses it by saying, essentially, "I made my bed and now I have to lie in it."

The dialogue contains this description of social contract theory, in which Socrates assumes the voice of "the Laws":
{{cquote|We further proclaim and give the right to every Athenian, that if he does not like us when he has come of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him; and none of our laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and the city, and who wants to go to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, and take his goods with him. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him.}}

==Epicurus==
[[Epicurus]] argued for a form of contractarian justice, contemporary with Plato. He stated that justice is "an agreement of mutual benefit" and a "compact neither to harm or be harmed."<ref name="Epicurus on Justice">[http://www.iep.utm.edu/epicur/#SH5e Epicurus on Justice], Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy</ref> Epicurus' account guided him to many modern positions in [[ethics]], including considering [[women]] and [[slave]]s as [[equality|equals]] to free men in his [[philosophical]] commune called "The Garden."

==Developments during the Enlightenment==
The [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] version of the theory, made chiefly by [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[John Locke]], and [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], was about the same in effect, but different in principle.

It started out with a concept of "natural rights," or rights to do things that can be done. There is, for example, a natural right to think or eat, but there is no natural right not to suffer a nasty fall when one jumps off a cliff. A primitive person, living in a "state of nature," has all their natural rights.

Of course, when [[human]]s start living together in society, there will be conflicts when different people start exercising their natural rights. This means that to live in a society, a person must surrender a small number of his/her natural rights by means of the implicit social contract.

Further refinements supplemented this notion of an individual surrender of rights with a collective one (''e.g.'' [[government]]s ruling by the "[[Democracy|consent of the governed]]" — thus addressing early objections by [[David Hume]]<ref>[http://www.spr.tcdlife.ie/seperatearticles/xixarticles/theoryhume.pdf David Hume’s political philosophy: The farce of sovereign authority], ''Social and Political Review''</ref>). These concepts eventually worked their way into the [[U.S.]]' [[Declaration of Independence]] and [[France]]'s [[French Revolution|Declaration of the Rights of Man]] in the late 1700s.

==Applications in secular ethics==
[[Secular humanist]] organizations, such as the Council for Secular Humanism, applaud the social contract's history of breaking the power of [[Theocracy|regimes based on divine right]], and see in its principles a way to promote [[morality]] in society without involving the [[supernatural]].<ref>[http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/100_humanist_20.2.htm. 100 Humanist Events That Changed the World], ''Free Inquiry''</ref>

==Criticisms of the social contract==
===Religious===
{{cquote|Let all souls be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.|||{{bible|Romans|13}}:1}}
A common [[religious]] criticism of the social contract runs something like this: "You have no natural rights. [[God]] [[creationism|owns you]], so you have to do what he says. [[self projection as god|Which, incidentally, is the same thing as what I say]]. [[Appeal to consequences|OBEY OR BURN]]!"

Strangely enough, many of the people making this argument also pretend to accept the principles of the Declaration of Independence, probably because they like the idea that they have the ''right'' to kick out a government that is stopping them from bringing in a [[theocracy]].

This also pointedly ignores a common thread of [[NOMA]] regarding interactions with secular society by the religious:
{{cquote|Render therefore unto [[Julius Caesar|Caesar]] the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.|||{{bible|Matthew|22}}21}}

===Anti-government===
{{cquote|"A sale," said Rearden slowly, "requires the seller's consent."|||[[Ayn Rand]], ''Atlas Shrugged Profusely''}}
One secular criticism against the idea of the social contract, made by American individualist [[anarchist]] Lysander Spooner, is that it is not really a contract at all, that it is unilaterally imposed on the people who must "give up" their rights. It's (supposedly) a click-wrap EULA you don't get to read first.

According to this argument, since people do not choose where they are born, their presence in a [[country]] cannot possibly imply their acceptance of the social contract: claiming that a person has "freely chosen" to accept the social contract is like chopping someone's legs off and then saying they are "freely choosing" not to walk. After all, babies born in [[America]] cannot simply refuse to become American and join, say, [[Chinese]] society just because they want to, right?

Whereas Plato had said, in the passage quoted above, that Athenians who did not wish to abide by the city's laws and customs were free to leave, this is not true of modern societies.  Individuals can only emigrate with a valid visa, and will still be entering another society, with similar [[democratic]] laws in many cases.  Arguably, asylum seekers can be said to have rejected the social contract of their homeland and be seeking a social contract in a less oppressive society. It does not hold that another society will let them settle. In addition, those who reject the social contract altogether have nowhere to go, since virtually the entire planet is bound by laws and government. This is commonly despised by [[Anarchy|anarchists]].

Similar arguments are made by [[Objectivists]] and [[libertarian]]s, who argue that one can only sign away one's natural rights to ''private'' parties, not the government, because the government is, in their words, upheld by initiation of force, or in this case also fraud.   

Their alternative for this... borders on the [[utopia]]n. The [[irony]] that the negotiation between private émigrés and an interlocking oligopoly of prospective societies precisely mirrors a private market (jobs) which these same libertarians oppose [[Trade union|any intervention in or reform to]] is, of course, not appreciated.

Another argument is that there are certain [[human rights]] that cannot be signed away at all; e.g., to refute [[Phyllis Schlafly]]'s view of [[marital rape]], one might say that a woman cannot sign away her right not to be [[rape]]d. This may seem obvious, but it's not to some; in fact, until the 20th century, the legal doctrine of {{wpl|coverture}} said that women, upon being [[Marriage|married]], gave up all rights. Famously, it was put (accurately) that "husband and wife are one person and that person is the husband." So in this case, the wives not only could not control their income, if they had one (no joint accounts, sorry), but they also ''could not be legally raped by their husbands'', since the husband would be ''raping himself''. Ah, the [[good old days]]. Yeah... [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneTrollLogic if reading that made your head hurt], don't worry — you're not alone.

==See also==
*[[Tax]]
*[[Deontology]]
*[[Secular humanism]]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Political philosophies]]
[[Category:Political theory]]

Categories: Political philosophies, Political theory