Social Contract Theory
Social Contract Theory (SCT)
 Originally proposed as an account of political authority
(i.e., essentially, whether and why we have a moral
obligation to obey the law) by political philosophers
working in the liberal tradition (broadly construed):
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke (1632-1704), JeanJacques Rousseau (1712-78) and others.
 In contemporary times – in particular, by David Gauthier
(1932- ) – applied more specifically as an account of
morality…
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SCT: General Explanatory Strategy
At an abstract level: We seek to understand something—
specifically, morality and/or political authority. Assume
that that something does not/did not exist. How could it
come into existence? SCT proposes: Through a bargain,
a contract.
The upshot: “Morality consists in the set of rules,
governing behavior, that rational people will accept, on
the condition that others accept them as well” (Rachels,
85)
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
In Leviathan (1651) Hobbes offers an
explanation of how rules could emerge
from a situation in which there were none.
Hobbes’ explanation does NOT involve any appeal to
God’s will, nature’s purposes or ‘natural’ human altruism.
 In fact, Hobbes assumes simply that human beings are
a) naturally self-interested and b) instrumentally
rational…
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Some Further (Factual) Assumptions
1. Equality of need: We all need certain things in order to
survive. There may be variation (e.g., a diabetic’s need for
insulin), but we are all essentially alike in this respect
2. Scarcity: The things we need are not so abundant that they
come without effort or potential conflict
3. Essential equality of human power: Some may be
stronger or smarter than others, but “the weakest has the
strength to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or
by confederacy with others”
4. Limited Altruism: We cannot rely on the goodwill of others
The State of Nature (SON)
 Imagine a world in which there are no rules (political or
moral). In that world people would be in a state of
maximum liberty (since, by hypothesis, nothing would
be forbidden).
 But, given our assumptions about the conditions of
human life, Hobbes reckons it would also be a state of
war, a continual “war of all against all,” a state of:
“…continual fear, and danger of violent death and the life
of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (quoted
in Rachels, 83)
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The Social Contract (SC)
 On Hobbes’ view, the SON is so utterly bad that any
rational individual would be willing to strike a bargain – to
make a deal – in order to get out of it.
The deal: A rational individual will give up some of her
liberty in order to gain the benefits of having some rules
(moral rules informally enforced by everyone; laws
formally enforced by the state).
 But…that deal is only rational (i.e., a good deal) if
everyone (or nearly everyone) agrees to the same terms
and complies with them…
The Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD)
Bob
Confess
Don’t
Confess
Confess
5,5
0,10
Don’t
Confess
10,0
1,1
Ann
Both Ann and Bob want to minimize their sentence (each is individually
self-interested). The minimum sentence possible, according to the payoffs
in the decision matrix, is 0 years. But, just because Ann and Bob are
rationally self-interested, neither is going to achieve that outcome…
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PD Explained
Ann reasons:
1. Either Bob will confess or he will not.
2. If he does confess and I do also, then I’ll get 5 years.
3. If he does not confess, then, if I don’t confess, I’ll get 1
year, whereas if I do confess I’ll get 0 years.
4. So, no matter what Bob does, I ought to confess.
But, of course, Bob will reason in exactly the same way
and, so, will end up confessing as well…
PD & Collective Action Problems
Notice what has happened:
 No one gets the individually best payoff (0 years)
 No one gets the collectively best payoff (1 year each
for keeping mum)
 Instead, precisely by acting in a rationally self-interested
manner, each ends up with the second worst outcome (5
years each). The PD is a collective action problem…
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Collective Action Problem (CAP)
A situation in which everyone (in a given group) has a choice
between two or more alternatives and where, if everyone
involved acts in an instrumentally rational manner, the outcome
will be worse for everyone involved, by their own estimation,
than it would be if they were all to choose some other
alternative (i.e., if they were all to act in an instrumentally
"irrational" way).
 Notice further that if Ann and Bob had been allowed to
communicate prior to their interrogation, they could have
made an agreement (a contract): ‘No squealing’
 But that agreement would have to be enforceable – it
would have to include real penalties – otherwise the
rational thing to do would be to break the agreement
(i.e., to walk away with 0 years while the other person
takes the fall by not confessing).
Hobbes: “covenants, without the sword, are but words
and of no strength to secure a man at all.” (Leviathan,
XVII)
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‘Ordinary Morality’ and the PD
Following Gauthier, the decision about whether to accept
ordinary moral rules can be modeled on the PD.
Suppose you face a choice between two basic strategies
for living your life:
A. Act egoistically – Pursue your own self-interest
exclusively at all times, not concerning yourself with
others.
B. Act (mostly) benevolently – At least sometimes put
your interests on hold in the interest of serving others’
interests (‘constrained maximization’)
1. Free ridership: You are an egoist and everyone else is
benevolent. You gain all of the benefits provided by
others without bearing any burden.
2. Ordinary Morality: Everyone (including you) is mostly
benevolent. You give up complete liberty, but you gain
the benefits of social cooperation.
3. SON: Everyone is egoistic. There is little or no help from
others.
4. Sucker: You are benevolent and everyone else is an
egoist. You give but never receive.
[Individual payoffs are in descending order, best to worst]
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Mirabile Dictu…!
 The rational self-interest that leads to (collectively)
suboptimal outcomes in the PD is the same rational selfinterest that leads us out of the Hobbesian SON!
 But, once again, enforcement is crucial: Only
enforceable (indeed, enforced) rules will allow us to
move from the SON into the condition of ‘ordinary
morality’
To Recap…
SC theories, like Hobbes’, attempt to explain morality
(and related rule systems like law) by:
a) Theorizing an ex ante situation in which the rules do
not exist (the SON), and then,
b) Showing how such rules could come into being (via
the SC), given only minimal (but apparently reasonable)
assumptions about human nature (specifically, that
human beings are instrumentally rational)…
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…Given the assumption that human beings are
instrumentally rational (but not naturally altruistic), it
follows for SCT, that ex post enforcement is crucial to
making a system of rules sustainable.
 Instrumentally rational agents, by definition, will always
seek the outcome that is best for them as individuals.
 Yet, models like the PD show that there are
circumstances in which acting to achieve what’s
individually best will lead predictably to collectively bad
outcomes. (i.e., CAPs)
Compare: “The Tragedy of the Commons”
Contrast: “The Invisible Hand”
 This is the sense in which, according to SCT, morality
can be understood to be “the solution to a practical
problem that arises for self interested human beings”
(82).
Having enforceable (and enforced) rules prevents the
disasters that would result from giving free reign to
individual self-interest. (I.e., rules solve CAPs).
 Moreover, any (instrumentally) rational person can make
this assessment for herself (no special assumptions
required): Morality is a good deal.
Since, in addition to solving CAPs, enforceable rules
also bring about the benefits of cooperation.
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So, SCT in a Nutshell:
An explanatory device/fiction called the ‘social contract’
specifies the rules that (instrumentally) rational people
will accept provided that others accept them as well.
Rational people will accept (and enforce) those rules
because they are a good deal from their individual
perspective:
‘Ordinary morality’ may not be as good as ‘free
ridership’, but it’s a lot better than the SON.
SCT: A Lot to Love
1. Rules are justified insofar as they are to
our mutual advantage—but no further.
Probably all rational people have an interest
in rules that proscribe lyin’, cheatin’,
unjustified killin’, etc. Such rules are
necessary if we are to cooperate for our
mutual benefit.
But it’s at least not obvious that all rational people have
an interest in rules against homosexuality, sodomy,
private recreational drug use, etc.
SCT makes clear was is, and what is not, our business.
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2. The justification for following rules is a rational
justification.
When it comes to the law (i.e., political rules), it is
(always?) rational to avoid coercive punishment; when it
comes to morality, it is (always?) rational to avoid
informal negative sanctions—blame, shame, distrust,
etc.
More importantly, our (tacit) acceptance of the SC
rationally commits us to adopt the intentions and
dispositions of compliance.
3. Cooperation is made dependent on reciprocity.
When someone violates the terms of the SC, we have a
clear explanation of why we are entitled to treat them
differently—they have broken the agreement. (Hobbes:
They have returned to the SON; effectively declared
war against the rest of us.)
This implies a theory of punishment. Punishment is
justified because a) the violator has violated the norms
of reciprocity and b) the SC as a whole depends on
enforcement.
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4. We can see fairly clearly what morality does, and does
not, require of us. That is, SCT allows us to distinguish
between the obligatory and the supererogatory.
SCT does require some self-sacrifice (e.g., obeying the
law, paying taxes), but it also suggests limits.
For one thing, being asked literally to lay down your life
raises questions about enforceability (“What are you
going to do, kill me?”)
More generally, however, SCT can’t demand from us
compliance with rules that are so onerous that others
won’t follow them.
Civil Disobedience
 Hobbes: Any rational person
ought to agree that any law is
preferable to no law at all.
Implication: We ought to obey the
law no matter what; no matter how
unfair or unjust it might seem.
Rosa Parks fingerprinted by
Montgomery, AL police,1955
 But Hobbes’ view has struck many people, even within
the SCT tradition, as unreasonably authoritarian.
Sometimes, surely, we are justified in disobeying the
law, in particular when the law is flagrantly unjust or
immoral…
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SCT can accommodate this demand.
 Locke: We enter into the SC only in order
to better protect God-given rights that we
already have. If a regime fails to protect those rights, the
people (collectively) have the right to replace that
regime.
 More generally: Are we obliged to respect rules that treat
us unfairly and/or fail to offer us (members of an
identifiable minority, say) a fair share of the benefits of
cooperation? …
 If the unfairness and/or deprivation is sufficiently severe,
“the disadvantaged are…released from the contract that
would otherwise require them to follow society’s rules”
(94-5)
In this respect, the SC is like an ordinary contract (e.g.,
for goods or services): Non-performance—a
‘fundamental breach of contract’—voids the deal.
 Question: Just what counts as a ‘fundamental breach’ in
the case of SC? It may be easy to overestimate this.
Denial of fundamental rights enjoyed by others
presumably counts. But should bad luck?
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SCT: Objections
A. The SC is an historical fiction. There was no such actual
agreement.
How can I be bound by a agreement I never had a
chance to negotiate? How can an agreement
(supposedly, maybe) negotiated by my ancestors bind
me in the present?
Response: ‘Fair Play’—You have enjoyed/will enjoy the
benefits of cooperation and if you want the benefits of
playing the game, you have to play by the rules.
B. The SC implies that we have no duties toward parties
that do not or cannot consent to the contract, including
non-human animals, human infants, severely disabled
people.
Old School Version (Hobbes):
“…to make covenants with brute beasts, is impossible”
“...it is manifest that he who is newly born, is in his
mother’s power before any others, insomuch as she
may rightly, and at her own will, either breed him up or
adventure him to fortune.” (De Cive, § 2, 9)
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New School Version (Gauthier):
We have only limited duties toward those do not/cannot
contribute toward the benefits of social cooperation.
Response: From Rachels, none. The theory is “flawed.”
That may be giving up too soon, however.
John Rawls: What if we revised SCT so that parties
were choosing the terms of the contract without knowing
their own powers or interests? (“the veil of ignorance”)
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