If a group of people were to set up an island community they would have to make some decisions – about dividing up the work, about organising living spaces and so on. It seems very likely that early on these people would have some sort of island meeting, to thrash out a set of rules to govern these activities - maybe to appoint a leader. There would be decisions to be taken – who is to be leader, and decisions about decisions – how are we to decide who is to be leader? This idea of free individuals coming together, and thrashing out a set of rules is the idea behind a social contract.

The idea is a very attractive one – it’s there in the great thinkers of political philosophy like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, as well as in contemporary thinkers like John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon. To many modern ears, the social contract idea sounds devastating against the patriarchal account of obligation. The social contract argument corrodes our deference towards, and blind trust in rulers as father figures.

But there are some problems with the argument, which make it vulnerable to the third option – philosophical anarchism. If the obligation I have to obey the law is not natural, but a product of some sort of promise, then I can get out of it very easily by pointing out that I never made a promise! For most states, there never was a time when the first citizens got together and thrashed out a set of rules. And even if there were, what difference would that make to the obligations of anyone now? Just because my great-great-great-great grandfather made a promise to behave in a certain way, how can that effect me?

Most advocates of a social contract approach, take a sharp intake of breath at this point, and say that the contract is a hypothetical device, designed to show what we would agree to if we were in a certain position. But the problem with this approach is – as one eminent objector puts it – ‘hypothetical agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re not written on.’ Just because I would agree, under certain circumstances to a particular deal, doesn’t mean I have to accept a similar deal now, when I haven’t agreed to it.

The difficulties in involved in trying to make people accept a deal negotiated by others on their behalf are shown by the failures of incomes policies negotiated by union leaders over the heads of their members. A breakdown of trust between trade unionists and the government scuppered the ill-fated ‘Social Contract’ policies of the seventies.

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Content last updated: 01/04/2002