Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: Classical Contact Theory; Contemporary Contract Theory (Part 12)

Classic contract view of the state that holds that the authority of the state rests in the consent of the governed and as a result of the individual's decision to accept it. So that the authority of the state can be likened to the obligation we have to a promise that we have made. There is consent given to this promise, and therefore I've got to fulfill it. In the same way I've consented to be governed by the state and I must fulfill my obligations to the state. The view is that we have put ourselves under the state's authority voluntarily, either to protect ourselves against the state of nature as it's found in Hobbes, or in the case of Locke, to make up for deficiencies in the state. The community vest authority in rulers in order they would execute the will of the community. And for that reason the community can dismiss the executor of its will if it fails to do the community's will. So that, unlike with Hobbes, there are strings attached to our submission to the state. Hobbes, in a sense, can be likened to the view that submits to the state for the sake of survival at any price. Whereas in Locke, you submit to the state in order to gain fair procedures from the state and to accomplish certain ends, and if those ends are not being met and the fairness of those procedures is not being recognized, then you're no longer under obligation. So Locke is closer to, if you will, a contract or covenantal view where there's mutual obligation and Hobbes would tend in the direction of authoritarian state. When you put yourself under the authority of the state, you do so unconditionally. So the leviathan, the monster, can do whatever it wants to do. Now, for Locke, being under law is a condition that is required by reason itself. Being under law isn't simply a convenience gaining the execution of the community's will, but reason should lead you to want a life that is submission to law and regulation, a life of principle rather than just arbitrary whim. So in the case of Hobbes, fear leads you to submit to the state. In Locke's case, reason leads you to submit to the state to gain the community's will. There might be another motivation for submitting to the state. It might be argued that we agree to be governed by the general will. The general will, represented by the state, out of necessity to survive. The general will, determined by a vote of informed citizens, will promote our common good, such that even the losers in an election will be obligated to obey the general will because they are truly getting what they desire. And when we put pressure upon renegades and anarchists and those who want to be individualist, we put pressure on those who want to dissent from the general will of the majority. We are really putting pressure on them simply to force the renegade to be free. Interesting dialectical way of expressing yourself. We are going to force him to be free. Force him to be free, that is to say, to act out of self interest. Genuine freedom, Rousseau said, is to act out of self interest. Now, where do you learn your self interest? By whatever the informed citizenry, the majority of the informed citizenry says that's going to be in your self interest. And so if somebody dissents from the majority vote and you force him to do what the majority said, you're really forcing him to do what is in his own interest. And by forcing him to do what is in his own interest, you're forcing him to be free. So Rousseau holds that we agree to be governed by the general will out of necessity to survive. The general will is determined by a vote of the informed citizens, a vote which will promote the common good. So that even the losers in an election are going to be under obligation to obey the majority because they're going to truly get what they desire. And what lies behind this is the thought that the majority knows best and we all are pursuing our own good, our common interest. However, not all of us see very clearly what will really be conducive to our not all of us clearly perceive what is best for us, and so we look to the majority to tell us what is best. Now, somebody thinking about the contract theory of the state might come to the natural conclusion that if I'm contracting to obey the state, that I obey the state out of a sense of I've given my consent, I'm under the obligation of an oath or a promise, and if I go to the election and don't get my way, well, then I just won't consent to that state. I'll just go elsewhere or form a new state, or a sub society within this society, or a government that's in exile against the government that now rules. Why shouldn't the contract view lead to just anarchism, you see, where every little group does what it wants to do. The Mafiosis society, the Warlord society, where instead of the minority saying we'll submit to the will of the majority, we'll just go off and form our own majority. In fact, there won't be any majorities, there'll just be complete unanimity. And every time there's a Little difference. Then there's a new society formed. What should keep the contract theory from degenerating into that? Well, Rousseau had an answer to that. Rosseau said that the minority in an election is still under obligation to obey the will of the majority because the will of the majority is recognized as being in the interest of all people. And you're under obligation to pursue your own interest, and therefore you're under obligation to do what the majority says. Now, I think if you're going to put into. If you're going to put any teeth into this, you're going to have to say that this requires a very mature minority, a minority that says we don't agree with what the majority said, but in principle we've already said the majority knows best. And so even though we can't see that the majority knows best, we will in fact faith follow the majority as really knowing what is best for us. I don't suppose it's impossible that that has happened in history and could happen, but it certainly is not human nature. It's not very likely. A minority usually likes to hold out vindictively so that in four years they can prove they were right, that the majority didn't know what it was talking about, and that they did have the wrong regime come to power and the wrong policies enacted. So anyway, Rosseau has an answer, but we can at least ask whether it's a very credible and realistic answer. Let's more specifically criticize each one of these. Each one of these, excuse me, each one of these consent theories, contract theories of the state's authority. First of all, Hobbes. Hobbes says that we consent to the state out of fear. And our opening question would, I think, have to be Is fear alone the motivation to keep contracts about respecting life and property? Is that the only motivation that we have for respecting life and property? Agreeing to the authority of the Leviathan? Do covenants only arise out of the condition of fear? Is that the only thing internally that brings about a willingness to submit to a covenant or a promise? Isn't it true that moral beliefs and shared values can also create covenants? Isn't it not possible that people could willingly come to agree to a certain condition in their society, a certain rule in their society, because they share certain values? Not just that I fear that you might get the better of me if I don't have a government over us, but because I agree with you that life is sacred, or I agree with you that private property is something to be defended. Why can't we share values and create covenants, and not simply create covenants out of fear of one another. Moreover, one begins to wonder if giving as much authority to one man as Hobbes wants to give to the Leviathan, if that doesn't in fact increase fear rather than diminish fear. You see, let's think through Hobbes reasoning here. Hobbes says, we're fearful that in the state of nature the bullies of this world may take advantage of us. So we all get together and we agree we're going to give unlimited authority to one man to be our ruler, to kind of keep things in line. Now, if you stop and think about it though, what if that one man becomes the bully? What if he wants to rule over us in a tyrannical way? What if the Leviathan really is a Leviathan, turns out to be a monster like the book of Revelation portrays, what then? Well, then fear is increased. And so it certainly would be ironic, wouldn't it, if out of fear we give all authority to the Leviathan and then Leviathan in fact increases our fear. Now, there might be some people who could think that through in advance. You know, not all people have to learn by the hard knocks of experience. And so if we're supposed to enter into a contract to have a civil state rule over us and people stop and reflect on it, they say, now wait a minute. Having a dictator isn't really my idea of a happy and pleasurable life. And so I'm fearful of giving this much authority to any one individual, and therefore I'm not going to enter into the contract at all. Then Hobbs contract theory, it seems to me, falls to the ground. Moreover, I think we have to say that people want more out of life than mere survival. He says out of fear for the sake of survival, we give authority to the Leviathan. But that isn't true to human nature. Survival isn't the only thing that people are interested in. We want worthwhile, valuable, free survival. You notice that we just had a number of hostages come to our country and the value that's being exalted above all is freedom. Freedom. You notice we don't say, isn't this great? They're coming home to survive. I don't deny that some of it, because we might always be fearful that as hostages their lives might be taken away from them. But that isn't the main thing. It isn't survival, but it's survival under conditions of freedom that counts. Survival under conditions of dignity, conditions of worthwhile living. And so, Hobbes, it seems to me, is just not being true to human nature. It's not being true to the nature of contracts. He's not seeing that there's more to life than just survival, more to motivation than fear. Let's turn from Hobbes fear approach to the contract to Rousseau's, if you will, the majority knows best approach to the contract. Government is only an agent of the citizens to be obeyed only if it truly represents their common good. But remember, we have no way of knowing how informed and well motivated the voters really are going to be. Rosseau has this kind of qualification, this cop out where he says the minority must submit to the majority when the voters are an informed electorate. An informed electorate. Now, one of the reasons I think we in this country see through the difficulty of Rousseau's theory so readily is that we know very well that large number of the people who go to the polls in this country don't really know the issues. In fact, in many southern states, well, that isn't fair to lay it just on the South. In many states, although the methods of bringing people to the polls may be different. But in many states there are people who don't even know how to read, who are gathered up by, I won't say which political party and taken to the polls and people just told where to put an X down there. Okay? And an election can be swung, a close election especially can be swung one direction or another just on not the informed vote of an individual who says, I know the issues. I know this candidate stands for this and this for that. I thought through the implications of their policies and platforms and it seems to me in my best judgment that this person is going to do me good. No, what you have is just people going for $5 or for a bottle of wine or something and putting an X in a box. So we know very well that the majority isn't always right and not always educated, not always informed. So Rousseau had great a kind of little escape clause here. He said the majority, when it's an informed electorate, are going to do what's right. Well, we don't have any way of knowing though, do we, how informed the electorate is. Now, in the case where you have farm workers picked up on a flatbed truck and driven to the polling booth, you might have some real strong initial evidence. But this is not an informed electorate. These people are just, you know, putting X's in a box to be paid off in one way or another. But apart from those examples, how do we evaluate the information that has been received by an electorate? The reflection that's gone into it and the reasoning ability of people. You stop and think about it every once in a while. In my more depressed moments, it seems to me that nobody should be allowed to vote but me. I mean, because anybody who disagrees with me obviously hasn't thought through the issues. Ever had that kind of self centered feeling, you know, or my political party. Anybody who votes against my political party just doesn't know what's going on. Okay, now how do you distinguish that opposite obvious rationalization and selfish attitude or self centered attitude? How do you distinguish that from an impartial, objective, mature judgment that well, these people just haven't thought through the issues in a real and genuine sense? A lot of people were against giving the vote to 18 year olds. I suppose even more people would be against 8 year olds, against 18 year olds because. Because it was thought they were not mature enough at that age to think through the crucial issues of government and life and war and economics and that sort of thing. The difficulty however is that I know a whole lot of 28 year olds that don't seem to be mature enough to read what the platform says, what the candidate stands for, to consider as record likelihood of performance and a number of things. Well, where do you draw the line between selfish interest, mature judgment as to somebody not really being a position to know better, and then the very obvious case of the workers in the field being driven into the polling place and told what to vote for or who to vote for? That's very hard. And so Rousseau, it seems to me, is not even in a position where his theory can be tested because obviously you can only test his theory under conditions that. Under the conditions that all of his qualifications have been met. But we don't know when this qualification about the informed electorate has been met. And there doesn't seem to be any objective way of deciding. We have no way of knowing how informed and how well motivated the voters really were, do we? And even then, and even if we knew that the voters were informed and well motivated, it would not follow that the majority therefore did what was right. It would not follow that a majority of people, well informed with goodwill will always do right. The majority can even do perverse things under the motivation. Well under what appears to be honorable motivation. Okay, out in the Wild west we understand that men were often lynched and not always were men lynched just because they didn't have enough friends in the crowd to secure their due process in a court of law. Men were lynched often because they were rightly seen as a menace to society. Rapists, sexual preference perverts, murderers. Often it was thought that the only way to protect society was to lynch the person and to do so immediately. Now that might be seen as an honorable motivation. It's out of concern for our women and for our children and for the safety of our society that we do this, which is a very perverse thing to do. Nonetheless, majorities don't always, even when they have their facts straight, do the right thing. And thus it is dubious that the minority can be assured that they are only being forced to be free. They are only being forced to do what is in their best interest. I doubt very seriously that we would entertain that the coercion that has come upon racial minorities in our country could be persuasively argued to be in the interest of the minority. As a matter of fact, some groups do take advantage of other groups, and they are not always pursuing the common good. And so Rousseau seems to me taking a flight from reality when he says the minority can be coerced and it's right to coerce it because we're only doing it in their best interest. Now, sometimes the minority is coerced because they're being oppressed and taken advantage of of as well. Now what if Rousseau responds? He says, oh, I've got an answer to that, though the contract creates moral rights according to Rousseau. On this hypothetical answer, Rousseau responds that the social contract creates moral rights and they do not precede the contract. There's no idea of moral rights in the state of nature. You don't go in the state of nature and say, well, here's this inherent law around us. Somehow in our environment, we can extract from the facts about us in our situation what the right thing to do is in a situation, because there are no moral rights in the state of nature. Rights are created by the social contract. So if Rousseau responds that the contract creates moral rights and they do not precede it, then we have to ask, how can the contract transfer rights to the majority or itself be binding? You see, in Rousseau, there is no logical sense to the notion that the general will could be morally wrong. It's impossible for the majority to be wrong in the nature of the case. And by definition, the majority is right. There's no logical sense in the general will being somehow morally wrong. And then a final criticism that might be made is that the contract language that is often used in the literature of Rousseau seems to be nothing more but a disguise for the true self theory of the state. You'll remember from our lecture last hour the true self theory says a lot of what Rousseau has been intimating in our little discussion of him as well. Okay, let's turn to John Locke now as another proponent of the contract, the classic contract theory, And let's ask this question. Locke says, we all consent for the sake of reason. It's the reasonable thing to do to supply the deficiencies of nature by adding a civilized state to our environment. But in Locke, there are no real alternatives to the consent, for it is so natural and reasonable. There are no alternatives. He says, reason and nature just don't provide you any alternatives. A natural thing to do, and the reasonable thing to do is to consent to a civil state. Well, if that's the case, if this is natural and reasonable, how serious a role can consent play? How serious a role can consent play? Imagine that we're at a church picnic, and I bring over a platter of sandwiches, and here there's supposed to be a variety of sandwiches from which you can pick, okay? And here we have egg salad sandwiches you can pick from, and tuna salad sandwiches you can pick from, and mud sandwiches you can pick from. And, oh, by the way, everybody who's eaten the tuna this afternoon has gotten deathly sick to their stomach because obviously the tuna has gone bad on us. Now, what would you like, sir? Would you like an egg salad sandwich, contaminated tuna salad sandwich, or would you like a mud sandwich? Okay, and the person eats the egg salad sandwich. And now somebody comes along and is discussing the morality of eating egg salad salad sandwiches. And I respond as the server of the sandwiches, well, he consented to eat the egg salad sandwich. You'd say. Well, consented, yes, but after all, there weren't many alternatives, were there? You see the point that when all the viable alternatives have been reduced to one, consent doesn't have a whole lot of thrust to it, doesn't have a whole lot of meaning or significance. Now, Locke says the only option you have is to consent to the state. That's the only natural and reasonable thing to do if you're going to survive. How is that any different from saying you consented to the state willingly, when in fact that was the only option laid before you if survival was going to be maintained, how serious a role can consent plus if the natural inclination for people and the only reasonable option is to consent to the state? Now, Locke's state of nature is not like Hobbes and Rousseau's state of nature. The state of nature, for Locke, is already a moral state, as there are moral norms that are part of the state of Nature. In Rousseau's case, if the state of nature had no moral norms, as we asked, then what sense does it make to say that the majority, that people have transferred their own rights to the state? What sense is there to speaking of a contract being made if there are no moral obligations prior to the contract? How can the contract create moral obligations when we're not under a previous obligation to honor our promises anyway? If in the state of nature there is no morality, then there's no such thing as a promise, and therefore a contract couldn't even be made. That is a promise made to consent to the government. But Locke doesn't face that problem because for him, the state of nature is already moral. And in that way, the contract can transfer rights from individuals to the organized state. And the performance of the executor of the general will of the populace does have an objective and evaluative standard that can be used. We can look at the natural morality around us, if you will, and use that as a criterion to judge what the state is doing as an executor of our will. But what actual role does consent play? What actual role does consent play? When we look at the entering into a civil state, is it plausible, is it a plausible reconstruction of the concept of political obligation to say, the people have consented to be governed? Now, Locke had an interesting answer to this question. He presumed that consent had been given to be governed, and he presumed that consent from the fact that there has been no indication of disagreement, that is, you're born into a civil state, you don't give any indication of disagreeing, and therefore, tacitly, you've given your consent to be governed. The difficulty that I have with that is that as a matter of fact, there was no genuine choice about the matter. There was no genuine choice about the matter. If somebody comes to me and says, well, you obviously don't want to go to the moon because you've not disagreed with the fact that you're stuck here lecturing rather than taking a trip to the moon today. My answer might be, if I happen to have. Have aspirations to go to space. My answer would be, I didn't even know I had a choice. So I'm born into a civil state. Nobody ever came to me someday at my 13th birthday and said, now do you choose to be a citizen of the state, or do you choose to be a renegade? Do you choose to live in the state of nature or in the state of civilization? There was no actual choice given to me. And therefore. Therefore the idea that I didn't disagree and therefore I gave tacit consent is really weaseling. Secondly, how long does the contract bind me? Let's say that I did tacitly give my consent. How long did I give my consent for? Did I consent for a week or for a month? Or was it a year? Maybe it was a five year term. Did I consent for my whole life to this state? If you're going to give some notion to a covenant, a contract, the idea of consent here, you're going to have to be able to flesh out the terms of the contract. And what are the terms of the contract? How does the contract bind me? How long does it bind me? You know, with moral reason, good moral reason, persuasive moral reason. I might later on regret that I consented to be governed by this state. However, Locke says that power never reverts to the individual once consent has been given. Once I've given up my rights and my individuality, once I've said I will consent to be governed by the state, that power never returns to me. This is the a lifetime investment when I consent to go under the state. And then the tragic thing about this is I never had the opportunity to explicitly decide. I just tacitly decided to do so. It doesn't strike me as a plausible reconstruction of political obligations. That's all it amounts to. Nor does it seem to me entirely fair or historically accurate. And so let's go to the contemporary contract theory that is advanced by John Rawls and see if this can improve somewhat on the classic contract theory of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. A contemporary contract theory might be characterized as hypothetical consent or a hypothetical contract has been made with the state over against the tacit consent that Locke spoke of. Now Rawls says that a presuppositional commitment to the view that equal liberty is necessary if we are to explain and justify how people are bound to political rule must be made. We must commit ourselves presuppositionally to the view that equal liberty is necessary if we are to justify how people are bound to political rules. You cannot justify political rules unless you are committed, first and foremost, basically, fundamentally, presuppositionally to the goal of equal liberty. That whatever freedoms I have, I must share equally with the others. It isn't right that I have a freedom and that that is deprived to some other person in my society. Now this is a point of view that is shared with Locke and Rousseau. Equal liberty is necessary if we are to explain and justify how people are bound to political rules. Now Rawls says, and I here quote Very briefly, principles, however logical, says that power never reverts to the individual once consent has been given. Once I've given up my rights and my individuality, once I've said I will consent to be governed by the state, that power never returns to me. This is a lifetime investment when I consent to go under the state. And then the tragic thing about this is, you must remember I never had the opportunity to explicitly decide. I just tacitly decided to do so. It doesn't strike me as a plausible reconstruction of political obligations. That's all it amounts to. Nor does it seem to me entirely fair or historically accurate. And so let's go to the contemporary contract theory that is advanced by John Rawls and see if this can improve somewhat on the classic contract theory of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. The contemporary contract theory might be characterized as hypothetical consent, or a hypothetical contract has been made with the state over against the tacit consent that Locke spoke of. Now, Rawls says that a presuppositional commitment to the view that equal liberty is necessary if we are to explain and justify how people are bound to political rules must be made. We must commit ourselves presuppositionally to the view that equal liberty is necessary if we are to justify how people are bound to political rules. You cannot justify rules unless you are committed, first and foremost, basically, fundamentally, presuppositionally, to the goal of equal liberty, that whatever freedoms I have, I must share equally with others. It isn't right that I have a freedom and that that is deprived to some other person in my society. Now, this is a point of view that is shared with Locke and Rousseau. So equal liberty is necessary if we are to explain and justify how people are bound to political rules. Now, Rawls says, and I here quote very briefly, principles of justice may be conceived of as principles that would be chosen by rational persons. Let me say that again, principles of justice may be conceived of as principles that would be chosen by rational persons. And that's why we call this a hypothetical contract or hypothetical consent view of the state's authority. This is what would be chosen by rational persons. Principles of justice are those principles that rational persons would have chosen. And so tacit consent is no longer the issue for us. Rather, we ask, are the existing political rules morally acceptable? We find ourselves born into a civil state and we ask about its rules. Are they morally acceptable? Would we have chosen such an order for society if we had been given a choice among alternatives? If the door had been swung open to take this, that or the other alternative is this, the one we would have chosen hypothetically, are these the rules that rational agents would have chosen? Now, in order to know what is just, it is important that the choice made by a rational agent be made behind what Rawls calls a veil of ignorance. And you'll recall this device of a veil of ignorance in my discussion of rule egoism earlier in our course on situational and teleological ethics. The choice as to what is just must be made behind a veil of ignorance so as to ensure maximal equality and to make sure that choices are made on a principled rational basis rather than on a self interested, arbitrary basis. That is, if I, if I, if I know that in society that I'm going to have the position of being the president of an oil company, then I might choose laws which are favorable to the executives of an oil company. Whereas if I know that I'm going to be a distributor of gasoline in a society, then I might choose laws that are favorable to the distribution distributor of gasoline in society. And so Rawls says, obviously if you know where you're going to be in society, if you know what your social station is going to be, then you're going to very likely be prejudiced in the rules that you choose as a rational agent. So to make sure that just rules are adopted by rational agents, we must make our choices behind a veil of ignorance. Not knowing where we would be and making the choices, we do so as to ensure equal liberty to all individuals, equal rights for all individuals, so that wherever I turn out to be in society, I will have the same advantage or disadvantage as anybody else. So choices must be made behind a veil of ignorance in order to ensure maximal equality and to make sure our choices are principled, rational choices, rather than self interested and arbitrary. Now, according to Rawls, this restriction on the rules that rational agents hypothetically would choose is a restriction that is part and parcel of the very idea of fairness. He's not adding anything new to our fundamental moral notions that the very idea of fairness calls for this veil of ignorance. Now then, the aim of government, says Rawls, the aim of government is to ensure that the demands, to ensure the following demands, that these principles, the demands of these principles are met. First of all, each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties, compatible with a similar system of liberties for all. Let me repeat that. Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties, which is compatible with a similar system of liberties for all. Secondly, social and economic equality Equalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit. They're to the greatest benefit and to the least advantaged. Social and economic equalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit, the least advantaged. Consistent, however, with a just savings program principle that limits the accumulation of capital on the basis of its effect on future generations and attached to offices and positions open to all people who are under conditions of fair equality of opportunity. So social and economic equalities are to be arranged so they are to the greatest benefit of. Of the least advantage, consistent with the just savings principle that limits accumulation of capital on the basis of its effect on future generations and attaches this to positions open to all people under conditions of equal opportunity. Government acts, says Rawls, as the primary agent of an association made up of equal citizens. The government is not the Leviathan of Hobbes. It's not just the executor of the general will. It is rather a primary agent in a society of people of equal citizens. It's one agent among many, one operative among many in the society. Now, we have a duty to obey the state, says Rawls, because it tries to enforce a just and efficient legal system based on the principles that we've spoken of. That each person has an equal right, along with a similar system of liberties for all people, and that social and economic equalities are geared so that the greatest benefit will be brought to the least advantage in society. When governments act in that way, then we have a duty to obey them. We have a duty to obey the state just because it is trying to enforce a just and an efficient legal system based on the principles we've spoken of, principles that are accepted as morally principles that are accepted by us as morally free and equal agents. And these principles amount to the terms of cooperation in society. Now, for Rawls, no act of consent is required here. The only thing that is required is that if we stop and consider hypothetically what rational and free and equal individuals would choose for a system of government, that what we now have amounts to that system of government. If that is the case, then hypothetically, that's the contract we have made with the government we have hypothetically contracted to have a group of men rule over us for the ends that we have already spoken of, to ensure that the demands of the principles of equal right to the most individuals and economic equalities arranged for the disadvantage that these goals are met. Now, no active consent is required, therefore, just as long as the government's matching up to hypothetically what you would consent to if you had the opportunity to think through behind a veil of ignorance, all the factors. I'm not really satisfied with this theory, as you might guess. And I'm not satisfied because it seems in the first place that Rawls has really eliminated what is essential to the contract theory of government. He's eliminated that essential notion that obligation must in some sense be grounded in a promise. The whole idea of a tacit promise in the classic contract view maintains the essence of a contract view of government. But in this contemporary contract theory, promises are irrelevant. What is important is hypothetical decisions made by rational agents. And with the idea of promise being eliminated altogether, where no act of consent is required, not even a tacit act of consent, it seems to me that the contract theory has lost its true character, its essential core. Rawls is focusing on what we can consider consistent with human nature. That is, Rawls is really in the basic school of thought that we have called the True Self Theory. He's saying you obey the state because the state is doing what is in your best interest. Hypothetically, if you could think through all of these things as a rational agent behind a veil of ignorance, seeking equality for all citizens, if you could think it through hypothetically, this is what you'd choose. It is in your best interest. But that's the True Self theory coming out again. So I think Rawls is really basically connected with the True Self theory rather than the contract theory. And if he is, then he's with all of the problems inherent in the Hegelian perspective that we've already discussed. Now, Rawls also wants to hold that not all the individual's wants are rational wants. He wants to hold that a moral agent acts from principles rather than from personal interest. And therefore he all the more fits into the True Self theory that says you need to objectify an individual's will so that he doesn't simply rationalize what he is doing and his best interest is not served. So what I'm saying is Raw has a paternalistic view of the state. It's a father knows best view of the state paternalism. You may want to do one thing, but the state knows better. And so it's in your interest to submit to the authority of the state because you'll really get what you're really looking for in life in the long run. Now, you will not find these criticisms in Abbott's book, A Preface to the Philosophy of the State that I'm going to go into here. But I have the advantage of sitting through ethics seminar with John Hospers, where a Good deal of attention was given to Rawls view of justice. And Hospers, as most of you will know, even though he's a pagan in his outlook, is a very sharp philosopher, insightful philosopher. And his criticisms of Rawls are the following. First of all, Hosper says we already need to have some concept of justice. We need to have some concept of justice before we can even get the project off the ground that Rawls is interested in. Before we can even get involved in standing behind the veil of ignorance and making decisions on the basis of, of equality and all the rest, you have to have some primitive notion of justice. But what Rawls tells us is that his theory defines justice, that justice comes about through this procedure. But of course you would never be interested in that procedure if you didn't already have a concept of justice to begin with. Secondly, Rawls wrongly assumes that nobody behind the veil of ignorance is going to gamble. See, the idea of getting behind the veil of ignorance is that nobody will know what station he has in life. And therefore the rules that he lays down, the laws that he will enact, are the laws which will give an equal opportunity to both sellers and buyers in the market. For instance, the assumption is, since you don't know where you're going to be, you're going to want to protect both sides. But Hotspur says, aren't there any gambling people in this world? People say, well, I think it's very likely that I'm going to be the president of an oil company rather than somebody who pumps gas. Now I'm willing to gamble on that. I'm willing to say, hey, you know, let the richies take it all. And I'm going to. I'm going to gamble that I'm going to be with those guys. I'm going to be with the guys with have power and the guys who have prestige and the guys who have pull in this world. I would gamble that my station in life is going to be one of a rich person and therefore I'm going to make laws favorable to the rich. Hosper says that is part of human nature too, at least for many people to gamble. And Rawls not only has to put us behind a veil of ignorance, which we all know is unrealistic, but unrealistically he has to say, and nobody's going to be a gambler. He has to suppress some elements of human nature. Thirdly, John Hospers notes that ignorance does not guarantee uniformity and unanimity. Ignorance does not guarantee that there's going to be a uniformity of decision and unanimity among people and what they decide behind the veil of ignorance. Okay, let's say that we all are ignorant of our station in life. Now what kind of rules should we have? Nobody gamble now, nobody gamble as to where you're going to be when you step out from behind the veil of ignorance and resume your position in life. You know, even if we were ignorant of our position in life and stood behind that veil, we might still have differences of philosophical outlook as to what is right and what is wrong. For instance, Rawls thinks that we ought to make economic laws that favor the disadvantaged. And I believe, I trust, based on the word of God, that our laws should not favor the poor or the rich. We should make laws that don't allow your economic status to have any influence with respect to your political rights treatment in society. Now we obviously standing behind a veil of ignorance, are not going to resolve that just because we're ignorant. Just because Rawls doesn't know where he's going to be in the world and I don't know where I'm going to be, that doesn't mean we're going to have agreement as to the laws that should be passed. And therefore the veil of ignorance isn't going to help when all is said and done. Fourthly, Hospice says that that Rawls approach in effect replaces the traditional view of justice. Then playing out or explicating the traditional view of justice. Rawls view does not so much explain to us what our common sense view of justice is. He is really giving us a new sense of justice where the disadvantaged have to have things weighed in their favor and things like that. Fifthly, Hosper says that this theory is something of a first cousin to the ideal observer view of justice, the ideal observer theory of ethics, where right amounts to what an ideal observer would approve of. And the defect of Rawls view therefore is the same defect that holds in the ideal observer theory of ethics. It tells you about certain people, observers, not about the acts that are condoned or approved. Let's say that we have this ideal observer behind the veil of ignorance who's going to make all these decisions about what's right and wrong, what's just and unjust. Well, the theory ends up telling us what the observer thinks rather than telling us what is just and what is not just. There's a difference between a person's opinion about justice, even a well informed person's opinion about justice, and what justice itself is. Let's say I write a book and one of my critics responds to my book. Well, I'm just not convinced by this argument. I think the appropriate response to that line of attack is that tells me something autobiographical, but it doesn't tell me anything about my book. I mean, it may very well be that you're not convinced by the book, but is the argument a good one or not? The fact that you're not convinced doesn't decide it one way or another. And so the ideal observer theory of ethics tells us something autobiographical about the observer, somebody who's in a, if you will, privileged position, but it doesn't tell us whether what he says is right or wrong. And then finally, Hospers points out that Rawls theory would call for omniscience, for knowing every conceivable possibility and all the consequences of every possibility. And that from behind a veil of ignorance, after all that we're supposed to be ignorant of certain things, but we also have to know all the effects of certain laws and decisions that might be made. And so you have the. The unenviable position of being an ignorant, omniscient observer. And that seems to be somewhat contradictory in pulling in contrary directions. So there are a number of reasons to reject the idea of the contemporary contract theory of Rawls, along with rejecting the classical contract view of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Both of these views make consent the essence of political authority. Governments have authority because of a tacit consent or because a hypothetical consent that would be made by rational agents. But we found both of these theories to be wanting as well. When we come back from our break, I'd like to turn to two views where consent is seen as a moral mistake. We've seen four views work. Consent is irrelevant to the state's authority, two views where consent is essential to its authority, and then finally, two views where consent is absolutely wrong and we shouldn't consent to the state whatsoever. The views of anarchism and Marxism. Let's take a break.