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Writer's pictureJames Rowell

The Invisible Social Contract

The social contract is famous in political theory since Rousseau and Hobbes.  There is a kind of real social contract, but it is much more complicated and fragile than we might imagine.  If you picture a real contract, for the moment, it is clear, written in ink.  It is a document you can sign or decline.  But the true social contract with humanity about is written in an invisible ink, with a language of trust in a vast group of people you do not know, and many of whom you cannot trust.  The moral commitment is hard because daily it requires a kind of faith and trust in our fellow human beings that is none-too-visible nor demonstrable.  So, to pave over and fix that insecurity we have bold ideas like “love they neighbor as thyself,” “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” or “act such that the maxim of your actions becomes universal law.”  It is faith in bold ethics like these ideas which helps fix the insecurity in our real, invisible social contract.

 



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