Politics and the Social Contract: Hobbes and Rousseau

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Politics and the Social Contract Hobbes and
Rousseau
Clark Wolf Iowa State University jwcwolf_at_iastate.
edu
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Argument for Analysis

• Fairness requires that people should own the
  products of their own labor. But if you hire me
  to produce goods, then my labor produces goods
  that belong to you. So its unfair for you to
  hire me to produce goods.

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Argument for Analysis

• Fairness requires that people should own the
  products of their own labor. But ownership of
  labor also means that we should have the right
  and the ability to alienate or sell our labor
  to others whenever we regard it as advantageous
  to do so. When I sell you my labor, you are the
  owner of the labor, so you should also be the
  owner of the product made through that labor.

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Argument for Analysis

• Hobbes believed that people in the state of
  nature would be selfish and violent. But he
  believed this only because the people he saw
  around him were selfish and violent. The people
  around him werent in a state of nature they
  were corrupted by exposure to modern society. In
  a real state of nature, people would not acquire
  the passions that lead to selfishness and
  violence, and they would have a natural
  disposition to be compassionate toward others.
  But while people in a state of nature are
  compassionate, people who have grown up in modern
  society and who are then turned out into the
  state of nature really may behave selfishly and
  violently. Hobbes mistake was to imagine what
  people as he knew them would do in the absence of
  state coercion. He should have gone further, to
  imagine how people would be essentially different
  if they grew up in circumstances of freedom.

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NOTICE

• Those who would like to re-take midterm or Quiz
  may do so on Friday between 1200 and 300. Catt
  Hall 407.
• If you cant make it then, see me!
• Anyone may re-take these exams. The new grade
  will not replace the old, but will be taken into
  account in your final grade for the course.
• FINAL EXAM 11 December 1200-200
• No Surprises
• Study session

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Argument for Analysis

• Since people have fundamentally equal rights and
  abilities, radically unequal distribution of
  wealth and goods is fundamentally unjust. But
  where political institutions protect rights to
  private property, radical inequalities are sure
  to arise. Since the right to property leads to
  injustice, property rights are unjust.

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Argument for Analysis

• If property rights can arise without the
  violation of anyones rights, then property
  rights are permissible. If property rights are
  required for implementation of Natural Law, then
  property rights are required by justice. But the
  protection of property rights leads to radical
  inequalities. It follows that radical
  inequalities are sometimes consistent with
  justice.

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Argument for Analysis

• Locke argues that we can gain property in land
  by mixing our labor with it, as long as we
  dont appropriate more than we can use without
  waste, and as long as we leave enough and as
  good for others. But Lockes theory cant
  justify existing property rights the world is
  finite, and the human population of the earth is
  large. At this point, there is no land left to
  appropriate. So previous appropriation cannot
  have left enough and as good in the common, so
  it must have violated the enough and as good
  requirement. So on Lockes view, existing
  property rights in land are illegitimate.

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Argument for Analysis

• 1) Locke specifies that legitimate appropriation
  must leave enough and as good for others.
• 2) At present there is no land left in a common.
  
• 3) previous appropriation did not leave enough
  and as good in the common.
• 4)Previous appropriation was unjustified.
• 5) on Lockes view, existing property rights in
  land are illegitimate.

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Argument for Analysis

• The political theories of Hobbes and Locke are
  irrelevant. Hobbes and Locke both describe
  civil government as arising from a pre-social
  state of nature, where society is unorganized and
  has no strucuture. But people have never lived
  in such a state, so we cant learn anything about
  real societies by looking at such an artificial
  construct.

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• 1) Hobbes and Locke both describe civil
  government as arising from a pre-social state of
  nature, where society is unorganized and has no
  structure.
• 3) But people have never lived in such a state,
  so
• 4) we cant learn anything about real societies
  by looking at such an artificial construct.
• 5) IP If we cant learn anything about real
  societies from the works of a political theorist,
  then that theorists work is irrelevant.
• 6) The political theories of Hobbes and Locke
  are irrelevant.
• Two kinds of answer
• People really are (or have been) in a state of
  nature.
• Conceiving of political institutions on the model
  of a contract can still inform us about their
  essential properties.

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Argument for Analysis

• Soujourner Truth, Women's Convention in Akron,
  Ohio, 1851
• Well, children, where there is so much racket
  there must be something out of kilter. I think
  that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the
  women at the North, all talking about rights, the
  white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But
  what's all this here talking about?
• That man over there says that women need to be
  helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches,
  and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody
  ever helps me into carriages, or over
  mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And
  ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I
  have ploughed and planted, and gathered into
  barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a
  woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a
  man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as
  well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen
  children, and seen most all sold off to slavery,
  and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none
  but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
• Then they talk about this thing in the head
  what's this they call it? member of audience
  whispers, "intellect" That's it, honey. What's
  that got to do with women's rights or negroes'
  rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and
  yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to
  let me have my little half measure full?
• Then that little man in black there, he says
  women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause
  Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come
  from? Where did your Christ come from? From God
  and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
• If the first woman God ever made was strong
  enough to turn the world upside down all alone,
  these women together ought to be able to turn it
  back , and get it right side up again! And now
  they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
  
• Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old
  Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

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Argument for Analysis

• Either Ill stay on campus between classes, or
  Ill go home. If I go home, my roommate will
  distract me and I wont get my Philosophy reading
  done. But if I stay on campus, I wont have
  anyplace quiet to work, so I wont be able to get
  my philosophy reading done. I guess I wont get
  my reading done!

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Argument for Analysis

• 1) Either Ill stay on campus between classes,
  or Ill go home.
• 2) If I go home, my roommate will distract me
  and I wont get my Philosophy reading done.
• 3) But if I stay on campus, I wont have
  anyplace quiet to work, so I wont be able to get
  my philosophy reading done.
• 4) I wont get my reading done!

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Dilemma

• 1) Either C or H
• 2) If H then D P
• 3) if C then W and P.
• 4) P

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Argument for Analysis

• If we arm campus police, then there will be more
  guns on campus because the campus police will
  bring them. But if we dont arm campus police,
  then the criminals will bring more guns to
  campus. So no matter what we do, there will be
  more guns on campus.
• If there are guns on campus, its better that
  they be in the hands of the police than in the
  hands of the criminals. So we should arm the
  police.

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Argument for Analysis

• There can be no such thing as justice unless
  there are institutions to punish people who break
  their promises and contracts. Justice involves
  the rational requirement that people should keep
  their promises and abide by the contracts to
  which they freely agree. But unless there are
  public institutions that will punish people who
  break promises and contracts, it is not rational
  for people keep them. Since requirements of
  justice must be requirements of reason
  (rationality), it isnt just to keep contracts
  where there is no punishment, its just
  irrational and foolish.

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Argument for Analysis

• 1) Justice involves the rational requirement
  that people should keep their promises and abide
  by the contracts to which they freely agree.
• 2) But unless there are public institutions that
  will punish people who break promises and
  contracts, it is not rational for people keep
  them.
• 3) Since requirements of justice must be
  requirements of reason (rationality), it isnt
  just to keep contracts where there is no
  punishment, its just irrational and foolish.
• 4) There can be no such thing as justice unless
  there are institutions to punish people who break
  their promises and contracts

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Argument for Analysis

• Terms like good and beautiful essentially
  refer to the attitudes of the person who uses
  them to say that something is beautiful is to
  say that one likes looking at it to say that
  something is good is to say that one appproves of
  it. Since different people find different things
  beautiful and good, such terms change their
  meaning when they are used by different people.
  But reasoning requires terms that have a stable
  meaning proper reasoning cannot be done with
  terms that have a different meaning for
  different speakers. Ethics is the philosophy of
  good, just as aesthetics is the philosophy of
  beauty. It follows that there can be no
  reasoning in ethics or aesthetics.

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Argument for Analysis

• 1) Ethics is the philosophy of good, just as
  aesthetics is the philosophy of beauty.
• 2) To say that something is beautiful is to say
  that one likes looking at it to say that
  something is good is to say that one approves of
  it.
• 3) Since different people find different things
  beautiful and good, such terms change their
  meaning when they are used by different people.
• 4) Reasoning requires terms that have a stable
  meaning
• 5) Therefore, there can be no reasoning in
  ethics or aesthetics.

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ROUSSEAU

• 1) Is social inequality natural or artificial?
  In Rousseau's work, this seems to be a question
  about the justification of inequality Are vast
  inequalities justified by the law of nature or
  are they unjustifiable and horrible?
• 2) What social circumstances make it possible
  for some people to subjugate and enslave others?
• 3) What features of human beings are natural,
  and what features are social accretions? And how
  can we tell?
• 4) When we look around the world, we see people
  oppressing one another and perpetrating
  unspeakable violence on one another. What makes
  people capable of such brutality? What must a
  person believe or desire in order to have the
  ability to brutalize other human beings?

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PROPERTY, EQUALITY, AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

• The Problem of Distributive JusticeHow should
  the burdens and benefits of social organization
  be distributed?
• Egalitarianism These goods (and bads) should be
  distributed equally. People should not be treated
  differently unless there are good justifying
  reasons for unequal treatment.

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PROPERTY, EQUALITY, AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

• Rousseau "...since inequality is practically
  non-existent in the SON, it derives its force and
  growth from the development of our faculties and
  the progress of the human mind, and eventually
  becomes stable and legitimate through the
  etablishment of property and laws. Moreover, it
  follows that moral inequality, authorized by
  positive right alone, is contrary to natural
  right whenever it is not combined in the same
  proportion with physical inequality" a
  distinction that is sufficient to determine what
  one should think in this regard about the sort of
  inequality that reigns among all civilized
  people, for it is obviously contrary to the law
  of nature, however it be defined, for a child to
  command an old man, for an imbecile to lead a
  wise man, and for a handful of people to gorge
  themselves on superfluities while the starving
  multitude lacks basic necessities."

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PROPERTY, EQUALITY, AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

• Propertarianism (Locke) Give to each person what
  she or he is entitled to. People own whatever
  they legitimately acquire. Acquisition is either
  creation, original appropriation, or transfer
  from another legitimate owner.
• What considerations support property rights
  (Lockean or otherwise)? The notion that people
  are entitled to things they've made with their
  own efforts is ancient, and has roots in widely
  divergent social traditions. It may not be
  "natural" in the sense that Locke thinks the
  laws of Acquisition don't seem to be objective
  universal truths like the laws of physics or
  mathematics. But they may be natural in the sense
  that it's easy to understand how people could
  come to feel proprietary. Where laborers have
  been forced to work without gaining any
  entitlement to the fruits of their labor, they
  have often resented their situation as unjust.

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PROPERTY, EQUALITY, AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

• What considerations support egalitarianism? The
  notion that social institutions should treat
  people equally also has an ancient history, and
  once again the idea has sprung up in widely
  different societies around the world. Oddly
  enough, equality seems most likely to be
  articulated as an ideal in societies that are
  most flagrantly inegalitarian.
• Question Are these conceptions of justice
  "natural?" What would it mean for a conception of
  justice to be "natural?"Perhaps not in the sense
  Locke implies. But it may be that common
  properties of human beings and common features of
  the human condition lead people to develop
  notions of property and equality, and to regard
  these notions as a kind of ideal.

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PROPERTY, EQUALITY, AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

• PROBLEM These two conceptions of distributive
  justice are not compatible. Where property rights
  are guarded, ineqalities will eventually arise.
  Over time, inequalities will become more
  pronounced, until eventually some are
  extravagantly wealthy while others are destitute.
  Or so argues Rousseau. Was he wrong?
• Locke's Solution Property rights are clearly OK
  (they're part of Natural Law). So if property
  rights generate inequalities, then some
  inequalities must be OK. As long as no one's
  rights are violated, there's no limit to the
  extent of justified inequalities.
• Rousseau's Solution Extreme Inequalities are
  pernicious, oppressive, and clearly can't be
  justified as part of the "Natural" order of
  things. If property rights are sure to generate
  these inequalities, then property rights must be
  illegitimate (un-natural).

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Rousseaus Conjectural History

• 1) "Natural Man" (Sprung from the ground
  overnight, full grown like a mushroom expresses
  many of Rousseau's own prejudices and
  idealizations)
• 2) Families stay together
• 3) Villages of families (tools huts). There
  are problems already at this stage (803).
• 4) Agriculture (property rights arrive on the
  scene...) (878) Dependence introduces
  possibility of oppression (878)
• 5) Notions of Right and Justice set in stone the
  oppression of the weak, lead them to see their
  oppression as part of the natural order of
  things. (Locke, Hobbes)
• 6) Devotion to Abstractions like Natural Right
  and Natural Law (These are just artificial
  creations, says Rousseau.)
• 7) Nationalism Devotion to abstractions of group
  identity. (889) (Atrocities become possible.)

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Rousseaus Conjectural History

• The Psychology of Rousseau's "Natural" Human
  Being
• 1) Two Principles of Natural Motivation Empathy
  and Self Interest.
• 2) Hobbes was wrong to suggest that lacking an
  idea of goodness, human beings would be vicious.
  868 (Did Hobbes really hold this view?)
• 3) Pity a natural disposition to virtue (869)
• 4) Sentience, not rationality, is source of
  moral concern. (870)
• 5) Other virtues spring from pity (870)
• 6) Reason can eliminate this natural source of
  virtue. (870)
• 7) Philosophical accounts of morality always get
  things wrong. (855)
• 8) Pity takes the place of Law in the SON (870)

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Rousseaus Conjectural History

• None are more completely enslaved than those who
  falsely believe themselves to be free.
• -Goethe

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Rousseaus Conjectural History

• Question There are many points at which some of
  us probably don't agree with Rousseau. If we're
  unconvinced by his account of "Natural Human
  Beings," does it follow that his account of
  oppression and inequality is also flawed?
• Consider the reasons he gives why we should
  believe the account he gives (883) 1) supposed
  "right of conquest" could not arise in any other
  way. (Referring to the notion that the wealthy
  are justified as Conquerors) 2) words "strong"
  and "weak" are equivocal, since we're naturally
  equal from the metaphysical/natural perspective.
  These then stand in for "rich" and "poor."3) The
  poor had nothing to loose but their liberty, and
  could not rationally have submitted that for any
  price. (As Locke's argument against Hobbes!) 4)
  Further, it's reasonable to believe that a thing
  was invented by those to whom it is useful rather
  than by those to whom it is harmful.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• Example 1 "Case No. 14- Isabella Read, 12 years
  old, Coal Bearer "I carry about 125 pounds on my
  back. Have to stoop much and am frequently in
  water up to calves of my legs. When first went
  down, fell frequently asleep while waiting for
  coal and from heat and fatigue. I do not like
  the work, nor do the lassies, but they are made
  to like it. When the weather is warm, there is
  difficulty breathing and frequently the lights
  go out." -Great Britain Parliamentary Report,
  Ashley Mines Commission, 1842.
• Example 2 Nike worker in micronesia, working 15
  hour days, earning less than the price of a days
  meals.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• Question What is exploitation?
• Case 1 I find you stranded with a flat tire in
  the desert. Knowing that you will die of thirst
  without my help, I offer you my help... but only
  on condition that you sign a legally binding
  document that gives me title to your house, car,
  and all your worldly possessions.
• Problem Obviously my offer is unfair, but
  without me you would be even worse off than you
  are with my help. How can my act be harmful or
  wrong, since it results in your being better off
  than you would have been without my help?
• Case 2 Same as case 1, except that you are
  stranded because I put holes in your tires before
  you set off. I then set off to find you, knowing
  that my act would cause you to be stranded so
  that you will need my help... and so that you
  will be willing to offer me most anything to get
  that help.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• 1) The general conception of exploitation
  Exploitation occurs iff a person A harmfully
  utilizes a person B as a mere means for A's
  benefit. Exploitation is the harmful, merely
  instrumental use of persons for the benefit of
  others who utilize them.
• 2) The Transhistorical conception of exploitation
  in the labor process This conception is more
  specialized than (1). It is limited to relations
  within the labor process, while (1) is not.
  According to Marx, each type of social formation
  in the history of class divided societies has its
  own distinctive labor process in ancient
  city-states, it was slavery, in the Middle ages,
  it was the Feudal system of serf labor, in modern
  capitalist society, it's wage-labor. The
  following conception is 'transhistorical' in that
  it picks out elements common to all the labor
  processes of the various class divided societies.
  These elements are
• 1) The labor is forced2) Part of the labor is
  uncompensated3) the labor produces surplus
  products4) the worker doesn't have control over
  the product.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• Surplus product is the value created by the
  worker which goes beyond the value embodied in
  his wages. According to Marx, the worker receives
  only compensation for his necessary labor (the
  amount of labor necessary to provide for his
  subsistence needs) and that the surplus goes to
  the owner.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• 3) The concept of exploitation in Capitalism
• (The Wage Labor Process)
• Even more specialized applies only to
  capitalist societies.
• 1) Labor is forced not through violence, but
  through monopoly, by which the capitalist
  provides the only means of production the worker
  must work for the capitalist to survive.
• 2) Worker is paid only for part of the value he
  or she produces
• 3) there is surplus value created
• 4) the worker does not own the product, since
  the owner has legal rights over it.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• THEORY OF ALIENATION1) Shows how people can be
  used as means-- as things.2) shows why this is
  harmful to people.
• WHAT CONSTITUTES ALIENATION OF LABOR?1) Labor is
  external to the worker2) labor is forced3)
  worker puts value into commodity4) worker's
  value (objectified) is no longer his own5) this
  value is used as a means to his continued
  oppression

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• HOW ESTRANGED LABOR HARMS THE WORKER1)
  alienates 'nature from man' (object is no longer
  the workers')2) 'man from himself' (put into the
  object)3) alienates man from man4) turns man's
  species-being into a being alien to him, and a
  means of his individual existence.
• SPECIES BEING The property that distinguishes us
  from other things the thing that's special about
  us. According to Marx, what's special about us is
  our capacity for creativity and productivity the
  capacity to work.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• MARX ON THE VALUE OF WORK135?1145 an animal
  is not distinct from the activities it
  performs.1351146 animals create only in
  response to need, but Humans create even when
  free from physical need, and truly produces only
  in freedom from such need. Animals produce only
  according to the standards of need, while human
  beings produce according to standards of
  beauty.1341144 Alienated laborers are "at
  home" only in their animal functions, and are
  "not at home" when they are exercising their
  highest human capacities. Alienation as the "loss
  of self."
• According to Marx, Alienation makes a person's
  "species life" a mere means to physical (animal)
  existence.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• "Let me hunt in the morning, fish in the
  afternoon, breed cattle in the evening, and
  criticize after dinner, just as I like, without
  ever becoming a hunter, fisher, herdsman, or
  critic." (The German Ideology)

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• Marx on the DEVALUATION OF THE WORKER "The
  devaluation of the worker (and the worker's
  misery) is in direct proportion to the power and
  volume of the worker's production." (1143)133
• 1) As the worker produces more, the owner becomes
  richer. (Where there's a surplus of labor,
  impersonal working conditions, and few employers,
  the worker's subsistence wages don't change as
  s/he works harder) 2) The wealth of the owner
  just is the work of the worker the worker sells
  work to the owner. 3) But work is the creative
  product of the worker it is the worker's value.
  (In selling this human value to the owner, Marx
  believes that the worker has entered a kind of
  slavery contract.) 4) Through the labor process,
  a worker objectifies his or her human value by
  changing labor into a commodity.5) Except for
  wages, this is surplus value and is the property
  of the owner, not the worker.6) To the ownder,
  this surplus value is power. (As the owner
  becomes richer, s/he gains more power.)7) The
  owners power is used to maintain the status quo,
  and to find better and more efficient ways to
  make workers work harder (to oppress the
  workers). Thus the inverse relation between the
  value of workers and the volume of their
  production.) 9) Ultimately, it is the worker's
  own value which is the means to his and her
  oppression.

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• MEASURING EXPLOITATION SURPLUS VALUE AND WAGES
• SURPLUS VALUE (value produced by the worker -
  value of wages paid) In a monopoly, it is most
  economically rational for the monopolist to pay
  the worker as little as he can. That is, just
  enough for him to subsist. Since there's no way
  for the worker to survive except by working for
  the monopolist, he will be willing to work for
  mere subsistence.
• Rate of Marxian exploitation
• surplus value/value of wages (time
  worked-'time required to produce value of
  wages)/value of wages

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Karl Marx Alienated Labor

• Questions on Marx
• 1) What is the characteristic that distinguishes
  human beings from nonhuman animals? Compare
  Marx's view on this question to Aristotle's view.
  How is this capacity related to Marx's theory of
  exploitation? 2) What does Marx mean in claiming
  that exploited workers are alienated (i) from
  nature, (ii) from themselves, (iii) from one
  another? 3) What, in general, is Marx account of
  exploitation? What is the difference between the
  general account, and the more specific accounts
  of the way exploitation takes place in difference
  kinds of societies? 4) How, according to Marx,
  are workers exploited in capitalist societies?5)
  Compare Marx, Rousseau, and Thrasymachus on the
  nature of "justice," explaining similarities
  differences. Don't worry about this one!6) Why
  does Marx believe that workers will be more
  deeply oppressed the harder they work? 9) Why
  does Marx believe that workers' wages will be
  bare subsistence wages? 10) What is the value of
  "work" for Marx? How is our capacity for work
  connected with our need for freedom? 11) Explain
  the elements of Marx's concept of "alienation"
  estrangement of labor.