The Philosopher and the Wolf by Rowlands Mark

Author:Rowlands, Mark [Rowlands, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847082978
Publisher: Granta
Published: 2010-03-31T20:00:00+00:00

4

The first thing the theory of the social contract shows is our peculiarly human – or, more accurately, simian – obsession with power. The theory has a glaring consequence: you have no moral obligations to anyone significantly weaker than you. You contract with people for one of two reasons: because they can help you or because they can hurt you. You need some help? No worries: someone else will help you if you agree to help them when they need it. You want to safeguard yourself against murder, attack and enslavement? No problem: others will agree not to do this to you if you agree not to do it to them. But this means that you have reason to contract only with people who can help you or hurt you. The whole idea of a contract makes sense only if we assume at least a rough equality of power between contractors. This is an idea on which just about everyone who believes in the contract agrees. The consequence is that anyone significantly weaker than you – anyone who can neither help nor hurt you – falls outside the scope of the contract.

But remember that the contract is supposed to provide the justification for civilization, society and morality. Those who fall outside the scope of the contract fall outside the scope of civilization. They lie outside the boundaries of morality. You have no moral obligations to those who are significantly weaker than you. That is the consequence of the contractual view of civilization. The purpose of morality is to garner more power: that is the first thing the theory of the social contract shows – the first assumption on which the theory is based. Wildness or civilization: which is really red in tooth and claw?

If we dig deeper, we find the second unacknowledged assumption. The contract is based on a deliberate sacrifice for an anticipated gain. You give up something only because you anticipate getting something better in return. You sell your freedom for protection, because for you protection is superior to freedom. To be afforded the protection of the contract, to have others protect your interests, you have to be willing to protect theirs. And this can cost you – time, energy, money, your safety, perhaps even your life. The sacrifices you make to be afforded the protection of the contract are not always minimal; sometimes they are significant. You make them only because you believe you will get more in return.

But here is the critical loophole. You don’t really have to sell your freedom. You don’t really have to make these sacrifices. What is crucial is not that you make your sacrifices, but that other people believe that you do. I’ll watch your back, you say, if you’ll watch mine. But it doesn’t matter whether you really watch their back. What matters is that they believe you are watching it. The truth of your sacrifice is irrelevant. In the contract, image is everything. If you can acquire the rewards

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