"Persuader Sans Convaincre" : a Rousseauan Approach To the Insoluble Problem of the Social Contract

Abstract

rT nHE insoluble problem of the Social Contract1 finds its most striking formulation in the familiar matrix of the Prisoners' Dilemma Game (PDG): Reflecting on the multiple symmetrical confrontations between single individuals and the anonymous collectivity in the State of Nature, the dominance of a strategy of defection clearly bars the possibility of the emergence of a cooperative Civil Society.2 Attempts to clear up or clear away this fundamental problem of collective action abound. At stake is not merely a plausible historical reconstruction, but, more importantly, a normative justification: the quest is for an argument supporting voluntary civic and ethical behavior, independent of necessarily fallible external controls. Happily, this latter task admits of a Humean corrective: if no rational explanation of the initial emergence of political norms is found, at least a rational justification for their continued maintenance by self-interested individuals should be provided. The problem in this formulation is part of the tradition of political philosophy since the forceful appearance of Callicles and Trasymachus, though the ancients never considered the emergence of society for them a natural process its equivalent. Only the rise of the notion of consent as the sole ground of legitimacy forced the