Society

Kappar

Arising out of the Conception of man thread. There are two main philosophers in this area. Hobbes and Locke

They both see the needs to create the system for the protection of man. In the state of nature trade is impossible because contracts made for a trade are practically unenforceable insofar as the strongest will not necessarily comply with the terms of the contract. Thomas Hobbes uses theory of social contract. Social contract is basically the agreement between people to nominate and independent person or persons that is sovereign to ensure that all parities comply with the terms of the contract.

In Hobbes' social contract the sovereign is granted unlimited rights. The sovereign may do anything he wishes because Hobbes sees that living under a sovereign is not as bad as living in the state of nature. He says that no matter what the sovereign does it is still better to live under a tyrannous sovereign than to live in state of war all against all.

Locke takes a less extreme approach social contract. Locke believes that every person is born with some natural rights. He says that these rights in the state of nature are too easily infringed making trade and life difficult. He does say that entering social contract is what man would want to do. Says that in social contract man transfers his rights to a sovereign.
These rights transferred from us to the sovereign entrusting him with our rights the sovereign cannot however unjustly infringe these rights or else you will be living in state worse than state nature contrary to what Hobbes believes that any state would be better than the state nature.

Hobbes rationale behind giving the sovereign absolute power stems from the fact that he does not believe that the sovereign can enter into contract with anyone therefore cannot be be unjust.

Society is created when parities come together forming a contract one of the simulations of this contract is that a sovereign would be created to protect this contract. This is the origins of social contract, these people are express consenters, In today's society we have tacit consenters. Locke says "I say that every man that hath any possession or enjoyment of any part of the dominion of any government doth thereby give his tacit consent"

This is as much as I can think of now in regards to the area of society. I am sure there are other theories about how society is formed but this to me seems like a very plausible one.

ecksor

Should this have been a reply instead of a new thread? I can merge if you wish ...

Kappar

Should this have been a reply instead of a new thread? I can merge if you wish ...

No They decided in the Conception of Man Thread that I should start a new thread since this does not necessarily concern the conception of man.

Thanks Anyway.

ecksor

Ah ok, although the point was self-contained, it just read like a reply. I see what you mean now.

Kappar

Yeah there was a bit at the top that i deleted by mistake that I am not rewriting so I just stuck a bit of an intro to it now.

m1ke

Hobbes contract is only valid on the terms that it can be enforced by the sovereign, also the sovereign could be an asshole . It is one formed out of desperation to escape chaos - I think his theory was coloured by the fact he wrote it during the English civil war. However, I think Locke's state of nature / social contract is much more plausible (and it owes its roots to Hobbes) and is more or less reflected as the founding philosophy of the USA.

I think the idea of a social contract is fairly plauside too, although there's no need to have an individual sovereign. You can voluntarily transfer some of your rights to the "community" in return for security of life and property.... and then the nitty gritty detail of what rights you can retain can be hammered out.

But, Rawls had a more interesting idea... that could form the basis of a social contract - the "veil of ignorance."

"By conceiving of ourselves as potential constructors of a mythical just future society, but being ignorant of our racial, social, and economic position within that society, Rawls strips away all those pieces of information he considers to be irrelevant to questions of justice. From this "original position," he considers that the response of a rational person would be to secure only two basic principles of justice."
- definition ripped from some website.

Kappar

also the sovereign could be an asshole

This is the best argument against Hobbes that I can see.

I think his theory was coloured by the fact he wrote it during the English civil war

Yes, It may be that he devised this theory because of his favour of monarchy over Republicanism.

and is more or less reflected as the founding philosophy of the USA

True, in fact the founding fathers did have Locke consciously in mind writing the Constitution which it evident in their letters where they refer to him by name. Especially in the 5th amendment barring incriminating oneself. Locke believed that man should not be forced to act in a manner that would cause him grave harm.

But, Rawls had a more interesting idea... that could form the basis of a social contract - the "veil of ignorance."

This sounds interesting I will need more time to look at it before I comment though.

fitz

Originally posted by Kappar
True, in fact the founding fathers did have Locke consciously in mind writing the Constitution which it evident in their letters where they refer to him by name. Especially in the 5th amendment barring incriminating oneself. Locke believed that man should not be forced to act in a manner that would cause him grave harm.

Interesting that the should ground their core social philosophy in his ideas and then go on to implement military drafting...

DadaKopf

But, Rawls had a more interesting idea... that could form the basis of a social contract - the "veil of ignorance."

It's an interesting idea but absolutely impossible. Imagine, getting loads of people in a room discussing the best way to run a society but on the condition that they have to erase all their knowledge about themselves, the others, the whole world? (A whole other thread could be started discussing just who decides what groups are considered eligable to participate in the drawing of the contract - a process which is more a metaphor than anything else)

To invent what? A purely rational legal superstructure that's true and good only by virtue of its immanent rationality? Then what? We implement it in the real world and it doesn't work?

Even Rawls admits this is impossible. All he says is it's what we should aim for because so long as we at least try to adhere to the rationally derived concept of 'justice as fairness' and commit ourselves to distribute the 'primary goods' required for freedom fairly (though not equitably), then we'll be alright.

I'll give it to Rawls that he at least dedicated his career to crushing utilitarianism, an other ontologically and methodologically dubious political philosophy.

I'm just not convinced by any of these guys' visions of individualism and freedom and the purpose or usefulness of their kinds of social contract.

People are not free in the negative sense, we are not entirely seperate from the world and other people - the world is constructed intersubjectively and so we're always connected, always situated in a historical time and place and are the product of that historical process. So freedom is always positive - hence Sartre's mistaken (and paralysing) pronnouncement, "hell is other people". If man is time-bound and place-bound, the original position is an impossible proposition, an incorrect conception of politics. A new conception is required.

Moreover, Hobbes, Locke and Rawls make the mistake of relying on rationalism as the only source of truth and objective revalation. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, among many others, made powerful polemics against Rationalist discourses, revealing them to be highly subjective and inherently political - the exact opposite of rationalism's advocates. No matter how much Rawls tells you universal, transcendant rationality is the key to constructing a system of justice, there's no such thing as a universal, transcendant rationality. As the international political economist, Robert Cox, famously said, "theory is always for someone, for some purpose".

If rationalism is a dam squib, then we need some other explanation of freedom and justice, a different politics that doesn't make the mistake of ignoring history and the concrete reality of everyday life (which, clearly, the veil of ognorance is intended to ignore). How on earth can people politically engage with one another if we leave everything we know about ourselves and each other at the door?

I share my sentiments with Hobbes and Rawls that a form of social contract is required. The problem with their kinds of social contracts is that they're one-offs - it's assumed that a social contract will be more or less permanent. But the world doesn't stay the same, it's a system of perpetual dynamic change, therefore, a social contract that is constantly open to renegotiation is required.

When people renegotiate their contract, people should place all their cards on the table and engage in real issues, not wish them away. Contracts are grounded in the real world, warts and all. Otherwise, all they do is give the powerful a tool for concealing domination and exploitation.

m1ke

I would argue that rationality is not a damp squid. It is a human trait that is achievavle by all and can prevent violence. Fair enough, it creates biased discourses but what are the alternatives? discourse through emotion? America would have probably planted nukes all over the middle east by now if that was the case. However, these alternative modes should be evaluated constantly but consigned of secondary importance until we have a more indept understanding of human nature, based on reason. I would take Habermas' side here - only through language, under conditions of rational argumentation, that social actors can coordinate their actions in terms of an orientation to mutual understanding.

Otherwise, I agree with what you have to say about the social contract, whether that is practicable though, is another story. I believe Habermas has advanced upon Kant and Rawls, with his theory of communicative action that provide an even firmer basis the sort of social contract that you describe.

DadaKopf

I would argue that rationality is not a damp squid.

I said 'rationalism', not rationality.

It is a human trait that is achievavle by all and can prevent violence. Fair enough, it creates biased discourses but what are the alternatives? discourse through emotion?

Are you saying rationality can be excised from 'emotion'? I don't think it can, which is my point. I'm also not saying that emotion is 'irrational'. I honestly am not sure what emotions are.

Everyone thought rationalism could permanently avoid war by setting up the League of Nations, by (allegedly) basing a new world order on the immanent truth and righteousness of legal circumscription. As we all know, it didn't work.

Habermas' ideal speech situation would be nice - Habermas' project to reconcile Kant and Hegel is laudable, and I'm a big fan - but it's a very tall order, as Habermas himself admits (RE: legitimation crisis). Habermas suggests that, when engaging in political discourse, we declare our powers and interests so that we can communicate in a way that results in affimitive corrective action that expands our freedoms, rather than reduces them, as is usually the case. Obviously, he's on to something.

My point was, and still is this: rationalism attempts to posit universal truths by systematically erasing the reality of powers, interests and the historical process. There is a clear historical example of this, relating back directly to the post WWI world.

Kees van der Pijl, a Dutch international political economist, wrote The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class, in which he explained how the League of Nations (vis-a-vis the exportation of a universalist liberal internationalist ideology) was more about securing US business interests than preserving peace for the good of all. The assumption wasn't that rationalism preserves peace, but that free trade preserves peace. Business carried on as usual; yes, the US stabilized her economy through enforced market expansion but this directly contributed to WWII (Immanuel Wallerstein considers WWI and WWII as one long war with a build-up in between). The Kantian assumption that Truth is a self-positing universal good must, surely, be questioned. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points embody both a US aspiration to global supremacy and a recourse to an ideology that covertly legitimates this supremacy. Did the legal institutions of the League of Nations prevent war? Certainly not.

The Universal Declaration of Human rights is even more expansive in its univeralist tone, and perhaps even more blatant in its ideological underpinnings, although its drafting was certainly (on the face of it) much less unilateral.

It's in the interests of the powerful and the weak - probably everyone, really - to hide real motivations. There's also the problem of those who internalise the ideologies of the powerful and the weak unknowingly and contribute to the buttressing of a particular, let's say, 'false consciousness', or subject-position.