Political Crossfire Forums

[B-Town_babe1322]

okay i have to write apaper and i want to connect social contract theory to politcs in an interesting way that is not difficult to write about for 21 pages... I know it is a wide suject hence my asking for any ideas...

[B-Town_babe1322]

please please cause i have all the information on social contract theory and it's many revisions over the years and i find it extremely interesting but i am not swure about which approach to the political standing on it...

[Luap]

It's been a philosophical question for a while now: What gives the state its authority? History has seen such answers as divinity, or that the state is a natural phenomenon meant to exercise absolute authorty over ordinary citizens. (Socrates drinking the poison, for example). I heard that someone came up with the idea of a "social contract" before Rousseau, but I forget who or when.

Anyway, I see the social contract as entirely related to politics. Political institutions, government, the state - these are all manifestation, in my opinion, of the social contract. Very simply, the social contract is synonymous with the general will, which has authority over "deviants" and "exceptions." For example, most people would concur in our society that murder is wrong; the general will is that murder is wrong. Hence, we have laws that say it is wrong and that there are dire consequences of murder. And what carries out the investigation and prosecution of a murder? It would not be possible without governmental institutions such as law enforcement.

Essentially, the state is given its authority by the people and their general will. When the majority of people decide that they don't want their state to have authority anymore, you see popular uprisings, revolution, suppression. Historically, the state was seen as disconnected from the common man; i.e. Louis' statement, "I am the state," or the doctrine that the monarch or emperor is the voice of God on earth. In modern times, the state is seen more as the governmental arm of the social contract and the means of enforcing the authority of that social contract. You can see that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence - the people have the right to overthrow a government when they don't believe it represents them, their general will.

[Fido]

B-Town_babe1322 wrote: okay i have to write apaper and i want to connect social contract theory to politcs in an interesting way that is not difficult to write about for 21 pages... I know it is a wide suject hence my asking for any ideas...

I think you should reference Law and Revolution by berman for an actual instance of it rather than theory, and then I would try to make the point that it is much older, and perhaps a necessary transition from a tribal and feuding society to a society as we say, governed by laws.
Justice was not any further than the nearest weapon for ancient peoples, and each was obligated to avenge their blood. As the Arabs used to say in planning revenge- our blood has been spilled. Look at the Orestian trilogy and see how Orestes was bound to avenge his fathers death, but look also at the social conflict in Athens that bought that myth to the play writes attention.
I would look at Muslim Society and Arab society in particular as having no social contract. I would personally redefine the contract differently from what is current, in this fashion. The right to vengeance was universal, which caused a lot of blood shed, often innocent because it involved the notion of group responsibility. This is like us attacking the whole of Dar al Islam because of the actions of a few Muslim individuals. So, the way it stood was each person as the guarantor of their own rights, liberty, peace, and justice. Mostly under the pressure of the church which pushed a more individualized notion of Justice that spared the innocent, -tribes, and individuals were encouraged to submit their cause to councils- moots, and dooms, and to accept the decision of the court. The essential change was of giving up immediate justice for a promise of justice that involved the whole community which is how we consider law, with the aim of widespread peace. Each person was also obliged to take up a hue and cry, that is to make an issue of anothers loss through crime or theft, and hound out the criminal. It was never a simple trade of weapons for peace, or justice for law. Rather, a more just justice was at the end of it, that smoked out the guilty and spared the innocent. The reason we even bother to talk about it is that while the population is generally peaceful justice is not forthcoming. We see some of our population slipping into tribalism because the social contract is a farce. It was once an obligation to bear arms to have membership in a community, and the result of giving up the right to vengeance for the promise of justice through law is that even the ability to defend ourselves and to have vengeance as a last resort if necessary is being taken from us. If we are not armed our willingness to avoid violence is meaningless, because our unwillingness is so futile.
The social contract has bought us peace over larger and larger areas of the world, but it has empowered people without regard to their justice. Just as in ancient Greece, the law changes the relationship between people to one in which justice has no intrinsic meaning, and where justice became relative rather than absolute, in the end it worked to empower the dishonorable. The honor which was stolen from a man with every theft, and killed with every murder of a loved one has become a meaningless word. What is the point of pursuing what does not exist?
Since the people of Iraq and Afghanistan still commerce in honor, and we with our law are there to see which is the stronger concept; we can see the contract has yet to be signed and counter signed.

[social]

Would it not help to describe social contact theory in your own words to enable us, the audience, to "connect social contract theory to politcs in an interesting way"?

[Fido]

social wrote: Would it not help to describe social contact theory in your own words to enable us, the audience, to "connect social contract theory to politcs in an interesting way"?

Because people have lost touch with their own ability to guarantee justice with violence even in the school yard- their surrender of this right for the promise of justice through law has become an abstraction. People never learn they have that right, and never conclude they have that right because they are never informed they had the right, and when they learn of it at all it is painted in caricatures like the Hatfield's and McCoys. It is nonsense to say the people are sovereign when the people are physically powerless and mentally impotent. When we do not get justice, and when laws are made not to achieve justice; but to prevent justice, all we can do is shrug our shoulders and scratch our heads.
We don't know what to do because we don't usually read anthropology, sociology, and history back to this almost universal fork in the road; and so we look at people like the Muslims who have an absolute right to justice tempered only be the restraints and precepts of their religion as madmen. Their societies work. Our society would work if we did not lose touch with both ends of the social contract. Justice is our right. Justice is every persons right. Justice is the price of peace. No one want violence, but without justice violence is demanded even by law, which, when found without justice is violence.

[thefranzkafkafront]

I'd suggest a Brief Essay Strucutre.

Intro - what it basically is key terms , also use plently of illustrations
History- Its development Thomas Hobbes, Rousseau that sort of stuff.
Pro of Social contract theory
Criticism and Critics, Libertarian Authors and thinkers be good at this point. Some Anarchist ones be good two, Max Steiner and his 'egoism' be a personal fave.
Conclusion

Spinkle liberally with quotes from famous philosophers throughout.

21 pages is a bit of a beast though good luck.