The Social Contract: A Basic Contradiction in Western Liberal Democracy

Abstract

Abstract: The social contract and state of are accepted legitimating myths in the liberal democracies, yet do not correspond to reality. In contrast, a theory of natural law (lex naturalis, the law of the jungle) combined with ius naturalis (natural justice - right reason in accord with the law of nature) is internally consistent and externally verifiable and thus an adequate description of reality - natural law is a consistent and complete system with more than purely formal value. Yet, natural law theories were rejected by late modernity in favour of pure positivism and voluntarism - with disastrous consequences. Natural law arguments are the basis of the individual rights underlying the social contract model of liberal democracy and so the rejection of natural law should entail the rejection of social contract theory. Contemporary theorists such as Dworkin, Rawls and Nozick struggle to this very day with the concept of the social contract and state of without however consciously developing or deploying any theory of natural law and are thus doomed to irrelevance and failure because both the social contract and the state of are ahistorical myths. A reconceptualisation of the foundations of the state requires recognition of the validity of natural law and the rectitude of the Aristotelian view that the state is inevitable and a natural phenomena. The social contract is no answer to the problems of state formation or legitimation. Liberal democracies would more consistently and coherently legitimate themselves by reference to laws founded not on a mythical social contract but which reflect the facts of human nature.The Social Contract: A Basic Contradiction in Western Liberal Democracy 1I. Natural Rights 5A. Foundation of natural law in intellectual realism 5B. Human rights 111. The central function of human rights is political legitimation 122. The idea of human rights is necessarily ambiguous 12a. Universal terminology is a source of ambiguity in human rights 12b. The multiplicity of theoretical sources of law is the source of the ambiguity inherent in human rights 13c. The multiplicity of legal sources also at the root of the ambiguity of human rights 13d. The quest for political legitimacy based on human rights as unworkable because of the ambiguity inherent in the idea of human rights. 13II. Social Contract Theory 14A. The State of 15B. The Social Contract 15III. Contemporary Social Contract Theorists 18A. Ronald Dworkin 18Dworkin on Natural Law and Positivism 19Principles and Policies 20Intensive Reiteration to Exhaustion of a Fundamental Principle 21The Inductive Deductive Method 21Dworkin on Law and Economics 22Conclusion: A Potentially Powerful Synthesis as yet Undeveloped and Rife with Contradictions Due to Absent Resolution of Conflicting Presuppositions 23B. John Rawls 231. The original position 232. Rawls and the School of public choice 273. Rawls Contrasted with Aristotle 27Origin of the State 27Human Inequality 28The Theory of Justice 29A Catholic Inspired Synthesis of Rights Theory and Jus Naturel? 30IV. Libertarians 31A. Introduction: Commonalities between different anarchisms 31Points of divergence among anarchisms 32B. Anarcho-Capitalistes (libertarians) 331. Nozick - the political theory of anarcho-capitalism 341. Nozick's Ultraminimal State 362. David Friedman - the economic theory of anarcho capitalism (libertarianism) 383. Conclusions: 40a. Anarcho-capitalism is unrealistic 40b. No dissolution of private property 41c. Privatization of state functions. 41d. A negationist thought 41V. Criticisms of the Social Contract 431. Criticisms of the Social Contract from within its own terms 43a. The state of nature is an impossibility 43b. The Social contract is but a fiction 432. Criticisms of the Social Contract from outside its own terms 44a. The Necessity of Government 45b. The impossibility of an end of history 45VI. Conclusion: Explaining the success of the theory of Social Contract Theory 45