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History And Logic Of Modern Social Contract Theory

Posted on:2008-10-01Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q F LinFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360215953579Subject:Political Theory
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
If we cast our research on the classical liberalism philosophy pedigrees from Hobbes to John Stuart Mill, two different theoretic models can obviously be found in classical liberalism-- the social contract theory and utilitarianism. The social contract theory, represented by Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke, had been dominating western political trends from the 16th to the 18th century, but since the early half of 19th century, the political argumentation of liberalism had changed dramatically, from the social contract theory of revolution and criticism into utilitarianism of moderate and pragmatic. Depending on great minds'classical works, topicalized on state building in modern western world and based on the rise and decline of the social contract theory as clues, this paper focuses on history and philosophical development of the social contract theory from the 16th to the 19th century, and analyses the political and philosophical transition of modern liberalism and its significance. Taking modern western state building into consideration, this paper holds that liberalism is not only a political theory, but even more a social movement.In western society, the concept of contract had been long ignored, but just until the 16th - 17th century, the social contract theory came to be a dominant political theory. The reasons why the social contract theory went to prosperity lied in that: the thinkers successfully grafted the contract theory in political traditions onto the thought resources of the natural law, and timely transformed the existed linguistic system and the political argumentation model, so the political argumentation was built on the basis of civil society, and finally a kind of liberalism political philosophy, which meet the needs of political practice in modern national states, was well formed. A most distinctive feature of the reformed social contract theory was that an organic combination of two even conflicting thought traditions (the contract theory and the natural law) changed the orientation of the natural law fundamentally, a shift from natural obligations to natural rights. The social contract theory opened up a new method to argue the state's origin and reasons of legitimacy: firstly, they viewed the state as an agreed result established by people, which was a"fictitious"artificial creation. This view thoroughly denied natural attributes of the state in the classical sense; secondly, their view that the state was an agreed result rather than a political organism meant they emphasized rights of the individual prior to those of political communities, and also meant a new kind of equal concept. That is to say, in their opinions, the society no longer had a hierarchical structure as the universe, nor had different physical parts as human bodies, in which every part had its independent values and played a different role (major or minor) according to its functions. So, they abandoned the ancient equal concept, which differentiated people according to their qualities, instead adopted a new equal concept, which treated all people alike and believed each individual had same qualifications and values. In a word, the social contract theory changed the understanding of "natural" nature in western traditional thoughts and established human's central position in the universe and moral independence; also, it freed political argumentation from early natural model or theological model, which made the political argumentation an independent area. This method of political argumentation in theory meets the actual requirements of the transition from Absolutism to modern states, and in practice guided the constitutional government construction of modern states, what's more, it directly contributed to the development and spread of Enlightenment.In the late 18th century, with a more revolutionary stance, the British system formed social contract theory spread rapidly in France. Just under this historical background, such a group of French Enlightenment thinkers as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Encyclopedism absorbed the British social contract theory and made it more revolutionary. Armed with the theories of natural rights,natural law and social contract, they directly pointed to the darkness of the old system; they advocated freedom, equality, human rights and other Enlightenment values; they believed that the dissemination of truth would enlighten people's souls and then brought changes to the political system. The widespread of the contract theory thoughts in France greatly changed the French people's political concepts and grandly ushered in the French Revolution. Rousseau, the spiritual director of the French Revolution, thoroughly followed the logic of the social contract theory. He based the state's legitimacy on the approval of the individual, managing to find out how to defend the independence and integrity of personal freedom more effectively as well as to make the individual in political communities obey orders and authorities. Therefore, he proposed a radical idea of people sovereignty, which embodied collective freedom, direct democracy and public-opinion principles. However, the social contract theory– especially Rousseauism -- did not obtain the expected results in the practice of the French revolution. Blood, slaughter, along with the distortion of freedom, equality and democracy, directly revealed the inherent difficulties encountered by the social contract theory. Under such circumstances, Kant tried to remove the utilitarian colors and radical elements agitating revolution from the contract theory, so that the contract theory would become purely standardized moral philosophy, with which he could explore the basis of the legitimacy of the state's origin. However, Kant's efforts to save freedom did clearly reflect a radical thinking model of either-or, the drawback of this theory.As a social political movement directed by the contract theory, the French Revolution started with freedom but ended in autocracy, which brought a great spiritual shock in western intellectual circles. Stimulated by its negative effects, the social contract theory was confronted with questions and interrogations from conservatists, romanticists and utilitarians and in consequence declined gradually. Against the danger of blurring boundaries between freedom and democracy in the French revolution and its guiding theories, Constant and Tocqueville responded from different aspects, that is, how to defend personal freedom under the conditions of safeguarding equality and people sovereignty. Yet, Edmund Burke and Maistre with religious reverence warned people to cherish historical traditions and experiences of the human society. They criticized that the Enlightenment contact theory and the French Revolution philosophy showed blind confidence and optimism in the abstract rational capacities and common qualities of humans. In their eyes, the absolute and mechanical doctrines of the social contract theory destroyed the historical traditions bearing morals, orders and civilizations in the society and national life. German romanticists used a creative and representational self-concept to reject the individual-self-concept with common features advocated by the social contract theory; they applied pluralism of culture and values to resisting universalistic political ideals of the social contract theory; they also used the love feelings to challenge the instrumentalist rationality proposed by the social contract theory. During this period, thinkers questioned and criticized the social contract theory, which indicated this theory would be plunged into the political philosophy crisis.What should be paid special attention is that, the successors in the liberalism camp including David Hume, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill also reflected upon and criticized the social contract theory and natural law theories. They made such significant revisions to liberalism that liberalism were not only in tune with the times but also took a new appearance of utilitarianism. Among the three thinkers, Hume's criticism was the most subversive: firstly, he challenged the rational basis of the social contract theory and natural law theories with emotions, pointing out that moral values were not conclusions of human rationality, but decided by human feelings and emotions; secondly, he objected the concept of natural birthrights from theoretical origins, holding that justice was not a guarantee of natural birthrights assumed by the contract theorists, but originated from people's convenience and needs. That human beings entered the political society was fundamentally because the governments could bring widespread benefits to the public. Jeremy Bentham's contributions consisted in the fact that he established a systematic utilitarian theory while criticized the social contract theory, and made utilitarianism another important theoretical form of liberalism after the social contract theory. But here, all kinds of happiness and suffering only differed in quantities, not in qualities, and the government should assess the effectiveness of laws, system and policies with utilitarian principles so as to achieve the greatest happiness of most people. John Stuart Mill revised the theory, and reconstructed liberalism comprehensively at two levels—the political legitimacy level and the rationality level. At the legitimate level, John Stuart Mill believed, people's voluntary compliance to public rights did not depend on the commitment and obligation theory promoted by the social contract theory, but on that the governments could give the greatest happiness and interests to most people. Different from Bentham, John Stuart Mill realized that happiness differed both in quantities and qualities and among those that could bring us greatest happiness, the most important is to defend the freedom and individuality and promote social progress Just for this difference, his theoretic focus and topic shifted from the political legitimacy to political rationality. This shift marked the perspective and methodology of political philosophy had undergone a drastic change, also predicted classical liberalism had begun to transit into new liberalism.In the Mid-19th century, liberalism changed its theoretical basis to keep up with the needs of western state building and evolved into a theoretical model built on utilitarianism. As far as utilitarian original form is concerned, it was a moral theory about justice, put forward by thinkers from the ancient Greek such as Epicures and developed theoretically in modern times by Hobbes, Locke, Helvetius, Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers. Through theoretical transformations by Bentham, John Stuart Mill and others, this old moral theory became a systematic political philosophy, which was assigned a theoretical core of liberalism. What we are concerned is how utilitarianism could maintain its distinctive features of liberalism after subverting the social contract theory. According to this paper, the classical utilitarianism contained many important theoretical principles: the hedonism principle, empiricism methodology, the individualism principle and the principle of harmonious interests and so on. It is these principles that give utilitarianism a clear liberalistic feature. By reinterpreting these principles, utilitarianism established a concept of legal rights and political freedom based on individualism. As a new method of political argumentation, utilitarianism defended the core values of liberalism, and at the same time, it changed the utilitarianism principle into a practical principle, which guided the political and legal reforms and promoted the process of democratization in the 19th–century western society.
Keywords/Search Tags:Liberalism, Social Contract Theory, Utilitarianism, Political Argument
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