OK, trying to get this group going... What are your thoughts about the social contract?
Is the social contract legitimate? Can the natural rights of future people (i.e. children) be delegated away by the people signing a social contract? What if there's a minority of people who disagree with the contract?
Political Atheists Blog
[cultism]
Have you read Geoffrey's paper on this, dear brother?
[/cultism]
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Jon Irenicus: [cultism] Have you read Geoffrey's paper on this, dear brother? [/cultism] -Jon
lol. It does get that way sometimes.
But seriously, read the paper if you haven't
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
There is no such thing as a social contract because it completely rests on tacit consent. Tacit consent is not genuine consent. Just because I live here does not mean that I consent to be governed.
Where I come from, the women don't glow, but the men definitely plunder.
I was out of the country and away from my email when this post originally came out, but I wanted to make a contribution to the discussion.
The Social Contract concept is one of the more depraved power grabs, and is completely contrary to natural law. While we clearly suffer from the bad choices made by many people who came before us, and continue to suffer from those all around us who continue to make poor choices, it is completely wrong to assume that any person living is bound in any way by decisions made by others before him. This is such an afront to human dignity as to be beyond the pale. It amounts to a kind of slavery to the dead.
The idea behind the socail contract is simple, the agreement between (two or more) people to live acordingling, to put it simply "I wont smash you with this rock if you help me find food" to put it crudely. To imply that there are even natural rights seems to bring the idea of a social contract to another realm. People are all on an equel plane. No one has intrinsic rights, other then that to prosper and propagate. Nobody should be able to dictate someones rights. Rights are gained through concenses of people, they are not doled out by some supreme power. Even rousseau spoke exstensivly of "the general will of the people", calling it "indestructable" and "inalianble". Social contracts can be voided as soon as they are formed, as long as the majority feel that it is nessecary. To answer the question of "What if there's a minority of people who disagree with the contract?" I see two possible answers. The first being a forcfull revolution, similar to that of the american revolution, and the current G20 riots and the 1999 seatle incidents. The other is through information, and having the minority slowely becoming the majority through spread of information, and convincing the masses.
Peter Longo:To imply that there are even natural rights seems to bring the idea of a social contract to another realm. People are all on an equel plane. No one has intrinsic rights, other then that to prosper and propagate. Nobody should be able to dictate someones rights. Rights are gained through concenses of people, they are not doled out by some supreme power.
Natural rights have been proved in this group in a series of two posts:A Refutation of the Fact/Value DichotomyandRassmusen: Groundwork for Rights (JLS)
All human action is derived from human life. Man must follow his nature in order to achieve the goal of human life. Thus, any action which is not within nature, is not "natural," is contradictory and therefore wrong and immoral. From human nature and the necessity of actions promoting human life, we derive the fact that people have natural rights. Freedom is a prerequisite for life and negative rights are a prerequisite for freedom.
Peter Longo: Social contracts can be voided as soon as they are formed, as long as the majority feel that it is nessecary. To answer the question of "What if there's a minority of people who disagree with the contract?"
Social contracts can be voided as soon as they are formed, as long as the majority feel that it is nessecary. To answer the question of "What if there's a minority of people who disagree with the contract?"
Here's an inherent problem with Peter's assertion. It is also a disaster when promoted. His premise is social and not cognizant of the individual. This would make it difficult for Peter to therefore, as he states, recognize natural rights. Therefore the assumption is already based on Peter's assertion that natural rights are insignificant easily erased, trampled upon, and abolished by his acts. Lacking any principle that would recognize the individual and promoting a bias evolving theory (social contract) anything described by natural rights, life, liberty, and property, would slowly be decayed and life turned into a brute world. It is a vicious cycle. Social contract theorizing is detached from the individual from the start is not of the individual to begin with. It is null and void from the get-go. For any individual can dismiss it as a fabrication since it is easily not based on any one person, the liberty of said person, and the property of any person. it could be of another person, but can't be shown to be of each person. Thus why the nature of social contract theory involves a bias to how a society is to be. Social contract theory therefore is more a social engineering tool based on another's interpretation rather than the potential good of any natural spontaneous human action.
Wilderness, I think you have it quite right. "Social contract theory ... is more a social engineering tool". It is one person saying to another, "you have agreed to allow me to rule you". Social contracts are constraints placed on you by others in the past, not agreements you make with others in the present. Rousseau was wrong about the need or usefulness of that particular tool, though it has served well those who dominate others.