Idea Of Social Contract Research Articles

The logic, life, language and limit of contractarianism on punishment

The objective of this article is the critical assessment of contractarianism as an alternative approach to the justification of punishment. In doing this, the article focused on the logic, life, language and limit of contractarianism. The article discovered that even though the theory of contractarianism, when viewed from the perspectives of its life, logic, language and limit, is not a completely convincing alternative to traditional theories on the justification of punishment, however, it expresses emphasis on the unambiguous utility of the social contract idea in the justification of punishment. Also, the article discovered that contractarianism, in its theoretical justification of punishment, hinges on contractarian ideals such as human rationality, consent, voluntary commitment, agreement, enjoyments of benefits and the desire to see to the sustenance of society, as a morally acceptable and praiseworthy basis for the justification.Contribution: The article concluded that an essential part to the merit of this theory of punishment is its positive allusion to and plausible accommodation and acknowledgement of the philosophy of preservationism.

Rodney, Mills and Rousseau: Revisiting the Social Contract Idea

ABSTRACT Some scholars tend to argue that Black marginality is due largely to the exclusion of Blacks from meaningful economic participation as well as generalized social exclusions. This, owing to the division of the world’s populations along a racial hierarchy on the one hand, and in geopolitical terms along the dichotomy of Metropoles and dependencies. While there have been some cosmetic changes, particularly in relation to the complexion of the ruling personnel in the aftermath of Independence, the view adopted here is that the colonial structure remains largely intact. This is because the material base of colonial countries or regions remains fundamentally predisposed toward satisfying the economic interest of industrialized Western powers, the former colonizers. The argument advanced here therefore, is that such marginality is due not from exclusions per se but rather from inclusion albeit only as junior, and therefore inferior, partners. So at the root of the problem is the problem of “white supremacy,” which establishes and maintains asymmetrical relations between the races. This system underlies as it underpins the standard contract and thus functions as a clandestine and unofficial political system. The article thus delves into the social contract theory, particularly the works of Charles Mills and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with the view of ascertaining how their ideas help us understand the modern world in terms of race relations. Furthermore, Walter Rodney’s concept of “white power” is appropriated as it provides a useful framework within which to understand the white power complex.

ОБЩЕСТВЕННЫЙ ДОГОВОР: PRO ET CONTRA М. БАКУНИНА

The article is about an evolution in the ideas of the social contract in such works by M.A. Bakunin, as “Confession” (1851), “Federalism, Socialism and Antitheologism” (1867), “Statehood and Anarchy” (1873). Based on primary sources, the author shows the intellectual evolution of the thinker from criticism of the idea of social contract to the idea of federalism. Bakunin considered the weak point of the theory of social contract to be the replacement of the concept of “society” with the concept of “state”, while the state not only puts itself above society, but also tries to absorb it. He highlighted those features of the state that do not allow concluding a social contract with it; the denial of the individual freedom; pressure on the free will of the individual by collective power; distortion of the natural relationship between good and evil; replacing religious morality with secular (atheistic) morality. The idea of a social contract by M.A. Bakunin contrasts the idea of federalism. The thinker’s views about the concept of “federalism” also changed: if until the mid-1860s. it was a form of state arrangement (“Slavic” or “European” federation), then by the end of the 1860s the concept of “federation” acquired the meaning of an alternative way of social organization, freed from power of any kind. Ultimately, he came to the conclusion of free organization, an ascending hierarchy representing a set of alliances for creating a universal world.

Faure’s new social contract fifty years later: Promises and evolutions

The International Commission on the Development of Education set up by UNESCO in 1971 was chaired by Edgar Faure. The conceptualisation of a new social contract in his work between the 1960s and 1970s had a strong influence on the final report prepared by this commission. Published in 1972, Learning to be: The world of education today and tomorrow is commonly known as the Faure report. Although not explicitly mentioned in the report, the idea of a new social contract provided a political framework for re-establishing the particular relationship between education and society, based on a strong belief in an educational democracy which considered citizens as real agents of change. Fifty years after the publication of the Faure report, another report commissioned by UNESCO, on the Futures of Education, has taken up the idea of the social contract, conceiving it as a means to transform education to harness greater cooperation towards more sustainable futures. However, while the understanding of the social contract elaborated by Faure translated into a clear vision of the emancipatory function of education for the fulfilment of individuals within democratic societies, the political discussion on the relationship among the institutions that should govern the new social contract for education presented in the Futures of Education report appears less explicit. This article discusses the extent to which the principles underpinning the new social contract for education, especially the notion of education as a common good, provide the political framing of a new social contract for education. It examines the relevance of the political discussion of the relationship between education and society elaborated in the Faure report fifty years ago with regard to the formulation of a new social contract for education.

Teorija društvenog ugovora Tomasa Hobsa i Žanžaka Rusoa - ujedinjeni ili suprotstavljeni?

Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are among the most important modern political philosophers, who base their theories on the idea of social contract. Both authors start from the natural equality of all people and the uncertainty of the natural state, but at first glance they end up with completely different perspectives on sovereignty and relations within a political society. Rousseau insists on the common sovereignty of all citizens, who have a guaranteed economic minimum and the inalienable authority to enact laws and care for the general will, by which they all together simultaneously constitute those who are governed. Hobbes, on the other hand, dictates that the people elect a sovereign who is always in their natural state and must have great power in order to fulfil their role as protector. Yet, the paper argues that their positions are not really that different, bearing in mind Rousseau's executive power and wise legislators, and Hobbes' strong rights of subjects. The thesis of the paper is that in both of them the people authorize and supervise, and someone else rules.

Relating Locke’s Idea of Social Contract Theory and Political Accountability in Tanzania

Locke opines that, a State is created through the medium of a contract in which each individual agrees with each other to give up to the community the natural right of enforcing the law of reason, in order that life, liberty and property may be preserved. In modern States, such contract exists in their constitutions. The constitution grants power to citizens to hold the government accountable. The aspect as to whether the Locke’s idea of accountability works in Tanzania attracts an interesting debate. This article explores the mechanism (s) used in Tanzania by citizens to hold political leaders accountable basing on Locke’s idea of social contract using 2010 and 2015 general elections as case study. Data were collected through reviewing documents including the constitution of Tanzania and literatures on Locke’s social contract idea on political accountability. The study reveals that, it is through general elections citizens hold the government accountable hence, conforming to the said contract idea. The mechanism has its pros and cons in the country though debatably, the study opines that the cons seem to outweigh the pros. While the state moves on using the mechanism revealed, it can think of application of other mechanisms like referendum to better conform to Locke’s idea of accountability in Social Contract Theory. Keywords: Political accountability, Locke and Social Contract Theory DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/68-09 Publication date: September 30 th 2020

ETHICS OF LIABILITY K.-O.APELY IN THE LANDSCAPES OF CONTRACTUALISM

The purpose is to analyse comprehensively the work of the famous German philosopher K-O. Apel through the light of the urgent needs for a comprehensive study of modern contractualism and the development of new variants of philosophical anthropology. In this context to reveal April’s thesis that the main background for the possibility of understanding between people is the ideal communicative community and its attempts to discourse ethics, new, practical content. Methodology. In order to make a sequential analysis of the basic components and principles of ethical responsibility in K-O. Apel’s view of counteractualism the author uses genealogical, hermeneutic and comparative methods that allow to reconstruct Apel’s philosophy as the ethics of global responsibility and solidarity of communicative interaction under the conditions of global environmental and social crisis and the urgent need of vital combination of social contract idea, fairness and responsibility. Scientific novelty. The purpose of the article is clearly defined and productive methodological principles consistently enabled the author to find out that Apel perceives the source of social agreement in rational desire of each participant to obey voluntarily the relevant rules and procedures. And a true freedom and responsibility are based on the correlation of the rights and duties; respect them, which is more significant for the enforcement of their conventional or forced recognition. It is also investigated the attempt of K.-O. Apel to enable such an agreement and understanding between people, which would take into account the following important human virtues and aspirations, respect, justice and solidarity. And above all they are important as being the social and existential foundations for a new philosophical and anthropological discourse. It is consistently proved that in the context of substantial interest of justification was established the algorithms of universal values of modern philosophical anthropology, which will become the core of Apel’s responsible person. Excluding the ethical component of this or that agreement, the essence of democratic behaviour changes to rational behaviour of the participants and to the law validity of agreements belongs only the effectiveness in achieving the best interests of their members. It was reconstructed the memories of K.-O. Apel and Y. Habermas about the need and methodological importance of significance of epistemological (or methodological) solipsism of modern philosophy and its replacement by the concepts of "understanding", "agreement", "communication" within which even a single person can know and understand the world. Conclusions. An important feature of the latest philosophical theories, which include communication philosophy of K.-O. Apel is their organic belonging to the realm of discussion about the search of moral foundations of modern society where basic ethical guidelines and values must leave and eventually leave the sphere of private life, indicating that real attempts to overcome the fragmentation and dispersion of responsibility of the individual. It was exactly K.-O. Apel who stresses that collective irresponsibility should be replaced by collective responsibility.

Richard Vernon: Cosmopolitan Regard: Political Membership and Global Justice

We live in a time of ‘‘cosmopolitan regard,’’ when there is widespread acknowledgement that every person has moral importance. At the same time, most of us affirm and practice particular regard for our family, friends and compatriots, despite knowing that in our contemporary world, every day, many people, in many places, are treated like nothing. Are cosmopolitan and particular regard fated to be irreconcilable features of our moral lives? Are the grounds for our moral duties to our fellow citizens fundamentally different from, and potentially in conflict with, the grounds of our moral duties to others with whom we share no political association? What is required in the way of political morality by cosmopolitan regard? Does it require symmetry between our particular and universal obligations? Under what conditions may asymmetrical accounts of obligation be justified? Richard Vernon’s book makes an elegant contribution to debates in contemporary political philosophy about the moral basis of our political societies and its implications for the duties we have to those who fall outside of our associative universes of belonging. One of those implications that should interest readers of this journal is that the legitimacy of our particular regard for the members of our own bounded political associations is conditional on making good faith efforts to fulfill our cosmopolitan regard for outsiders, including the establishment of an international criminal justice system to hold accountable those who pervert state power and commit crimes against humanity. Vernon adopts a contractualist framework for thinking about the justification and legitimacy of our particular political associations. The idea of a social contract in the history of political philosophy has served the functions of explaining and justifying the state and political association, the basis of political obligation, as well as the scope and content of principles of justice, or what claims members of a political society can legitimately make on one another. Two quite divergent positions regarding the content and scope of our moral duties may be generated by appeal to the social contract idea. Contractarianism (Hobbes 1994; Gauthier 1986) is committed to viewing agreement between rational, self-interested persons seeking mutual advantage through social cooperation as

Contractualism vs. contractarianism

The author insists that, within contemporary theory, common division of social contract tradition on ?Hobbesian? and ?Kantian? line of thought is entirely justified. Analyzing the theories of David Gauthier and Thomas Scanlon, he also indicates the important difference between ?moral? and ?political? dimension of the idea of social contract. Finally, he rejects recent attempts of identifying contractualism with constructivism.

Focusing on the Wrong Front: Historical Displacement, the Maginot Line, and "The Bluest Eye"

Recent theoretical work has examined ways that abstract idea of bodiless citizen has marked women and non-white Americans as outside boundaries of full citizenship, because attention paid to various markings of gender or race on their bodies precludes them from being categorized as unmarked, representative norm. Peggy Phelan most clearly explains rhetorical and imagistic gender marking, in process making a distinction between invisible marking of abstract value and visible bodily marking of difference: male is marked with value; female is unmarked, lacking measured value and me.... He is norm and therefore unremarkable; as Other, it is she whom he marks (5). As Deborah Tannen says, corporeally there is no unmarked woman because women's bodies and choices they make in of appearance and self-identification in public sphere always mark them in specific, gendered ways. Examining marking in light of political theory, Carole Pateman analyzes how language of Constitution, premised as it is on idea of social contract, accords white male citizen privilege of abstracting himself into concept of disembodied citizen, whereas women, in contrast, can never achieve this state of disembodiment because sexual contract precedes social contract. Drawing on such political theories, Lauren Berlant considers corporeal implications of theory of disembodied citizenship for racial and gendered subjects. When abstract, disembodied citizen is figured as white and male, all others cannot embody such citizenship because they are hyperembodied by racial and/or gendered markings visible on their bodies. Thus, women and African Americans, in particular, Berlant contends, have never had sign of real authority; that is, the power to suppress that body [i.e., facts of one's historical situation], to cover its tracks and its traces (113). Considered in light of this division between unmarked and marked, disembodied and hyperembodied, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye can be read as a commentary on artificial boundaries of citizenship, gender, race, and history. While theories of Berlant, Pateman, and Phelan enable us to understand marking of boundaries of citizenship, race, and gender, difference between marked and unmarked history needs some explanation. Unmarked history refers to historical narrative that features as its prime actor deeds of abstract, disembodied citizen. Once this history is marked as having cultural value, its centrality is soon seen as unremarkable; that is, as representative. In order to centralize this one story, however, others need to be shifted to periphery and soon become remarkable only in their relation to center. According to Priscilla Wald, what unmarked history leaves out resurfaces when experiences of individuals conspicuously fall to conform to defini tion of personhood offered in narrative, and Morrison's Breedloves are certainly conspicuous for their ill-fitting selfhood. By carefully outlining history of their exclusion from terms of full and equal personhood, Morrison demonstrates that this family's unequal position is a product not of their intrinsic inadequacy, but rather of systematic reinforcement of a racial and gendered criteria for full citizenship (10). This critique, in turn, disrupts official stories that feature United States as a brave defender of democracy and staunch critic of racialized nationalism abroad. In setting her story of quest for and repercussions of Pecola Breedlove's desire for blue eyes and unmarked whiteness they represent against backdrop of World War II, Morrison recounts history of this significant year from vantage point of those who have been marked as peripheral in accounts of this era of American history. …

Contra Contract: A Brief against John Rawls' Theory of Justice

Une critique du « Theory of Justice » de John RawlsLe « Theory of Justice » de John Rawls constitue une importante contribution à la tradition libérale du contrat social. La recherche d'une contre-proposition à l'utilitarisme amène Rawls à tenter de formuler deux principes de justice sociale qui soient fondés sur la seule connaissance générale de l'univers el non sur des circonstances individuelles (telles le sexe, la situation historique, la classe sociale et la race) susceptibles d'en altérer l'application: l'optimisation de la liberté et la distribution des biens sociaux qui favorise la classe la plus démunie.Selon l'auteur, cette analyse comporte d'importantes faiblesses. Premièrement, les principes généraux de Rawls lui apparaissent inacceptables en tant que spécifications delibératives d'une part parce qu'ils sont difficilement applicables aux situations impliquant des problèmes de justice sociale et d'autre part parce que l'ensemble des connaissances scientifiques concernant l'être humain et son environnement ne peuvent fonder des principes généraux de justice sociale dans la mesure oû elles demeurent encore aujourd'hui au cœur de la problématique normative. Deuxièmement, Craig considère que l'argumentation employée par Rawls pour défendre son principe d'optimisation de la liberté n'est pas très persuasive puisqu'elle repose sur un supposé consensus concernant la liberté de pratique religieuse, consensus qu'elle érige en paradigme applicable à toutes les libertés. Enfin, l'auteur souligne que, dans la structuration des circonstances délibératives de ses principes, Rawls écarte a priori toute considération des théories non libérates de la justice.