This evening as I was taking a stroll in the city, I witnessed a disheartening incident. There was a man sleeping on the footpath besides the road. Judging by he's clothes he appeared homeless. Suddenly out of nowhere 3 Police officer appeared at the spot and he was awakened by them. They tried to drag him into the police van against his will. The homeless man continued to resist, this resulted in the officers assaulting him further. Infuriated by the ill treatment I decided to get myself involved. I asked the officers to handle the situation in a humane way and the reason for assaulting the poor man, to which they replied despite several warnings he keeps coming back to the same place to sleep and in allowing him, it will encourage other homeless to do the same, thus causing inconvenience in the locality. The Police took him into custody and was released later. As per my knowledge of the locality there are not many shelters for the homeless especially if you are a male adult.
On my way back home I was bothered by this thought of how far humanity has progressed and yet we haven't fixed poverty. We live in this capitalistic society that fails to accommodate the ones that don't perform. So I ask, What is society ? Why do we even need to abide by the rules? In the case of the homeless man, he was better off being free than be bound to the rules. We may also think of ourselves as free beings in this society, but how free are we ?
In 1651 Thomas Hobbes an English philosopher published a book called Leviathan on the entire existence of the society and why we need it. In his book he mentions that existing in free society where there is an abundance of freedom and literally no rules to abide by, as an absolutely chaotic place to live. He calls this hypothetical situation as the state of nature where living is brutal and short. Living in such a state of nature is pure chaos as there is no culture , no art , no security, and definitely not a place to do business. It will be a darwinian era where the fittest will only survive. Our entire civilization will collapse. So how to avoid such societal collapse ?!
Agree on a contract to trade your absolute Freedom for Security.
Imagine yourself in a lawless society as a farmer that grows Oranges, and in a nearby farm there is another farmer that grows Apples. Say One day you get tired of eating oranges and the other farmer gets tired of eating his apples. Now there are two option here, since both live in a no rules society, you could steal the apples and he could steal your oranges. Or both could agree upon a Social Contract that prevents stealing from each other and be willing to exchange oranges for apples.
The first option is violent and will always keep both on the edge. The second option completely avoids theft and violence. Both farmers as rational thinkers are motivated to go for the second option by signing a mutual contract where both give up their freedom to steal from each other for the safety of each other.
Thomas Hobbs believed in an authoritarian system where it was necessary to create rulers/kings as they would be the one to maintain and uphold the social contract. People as a collective decide on a ruler and give unlimited power to the ruler to maintain and uphold the social contract. The social contract here was simple, maintain peace and safety for the people, so people can focus on better things in life. But Thomas had a flaw in his theory, the idea of an authoritarian system was not an efficient one. From history we know that having unlimited power with one person or a small group of people results in a tyrant. A tyrant can then possibly create a chaotic environment same as the state of nature.
John Locke another philosopher believed in Thomas Hobbs idea of the state of nature. He Believed that humans were born completely free in the state of nature, however that doesn't mean that every act of humans were allowed.
Photo by Hansjörg Keller on Unsplash
In his book the two treaties on government he explains that humans start with basic rights like Life, Liberty, Property. Which means that No one can kill each other, no one can enslave anyone , and no one could steal from other.
These 3 basic rights need to be provided to each and every human by default. Locke didn't believe in the idea of an authoritarian figure like a king/ruler. He believed that people should collectively form a Government and it was the duty of the Government to protect and uphold the 3 rights through a social contract. The Government's role is to mediate and make sure that everyone is following this rule and punish those that aren't following it. And in an event of bad performance by the government we the people must have the power to overthrow the government and re-elect a new one. This is called the Democracy.
In modern society we give up some of our freedom in exchange for security and other benefits from the government. We pay taxes to the government and get to use public services like public roads, toilets, and in unfortunate events we get to use emergency services like the Ambulance, Police or firefighting services.
Under the Social Contract you don't get to choose if you agree to the contract or not. You are just forced into agreeing it by default. Like the homeless man who was born into the system and didn't have the choice to agree/disagree to the contract. Imo he could have lived a free life by not following to the rules of society. Stealing or begging was survival for him and that is not an immoral way of living because morality is a product of a social contract. If he didn't agree to the social contract in the first place then morality doesn't exist for him. We agree to what is possible and what is not possible with the social contract and that is how morality is born.
Imo social contracts sometimes can be unfair to people. Think of a gay person born into a society that doesn't allow homosexuality. Study shows sexuality/sexual preference is not something you get to pick but born with it. One just can't fathom the amount of discrimination gay people face on a daily basis.
Thank you for reading.
Posted from my blog
Feel free to check out my other posts here
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Astronomy : The antidote to Arrogance
Ethics In Artificial Intelligence : Why we need it ?
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