5 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

• NullPrefix 2y ago
  The description of social contract does not imply that it was signed by me
  • tomrod 2y ago
    Yet you are a significant beneficiary to it, ergo society has claim to you.
  • netsharc 2y ago
    Not a lawyer, but: When you order food at a restaurant, the law assumes an implied contract—you agree to pay for what you consume. Even without a written agreement, courts recognize this as a valid contract based on common practice. I wonder if a future society can allow geniuses like you to opt-out of the social contract, and there'd be outlaws roaming the lands, ready to rob you that evening, hey you agreed to opt out of police protection!
    • palata 2y ago
      In one sentence: "contract" does not not mean "legal contract" here.
    • NullPrefix 2y ago
      >When you order food at a restaurant once again, this is an implication that I ordered it. If you put a gun to my face and demand that I order a McBurger, that does not mean that we entered a contract.
• pfdietz 2y ago
  As Hume called it, a convenient fiction. It isn't how any government came to be, and a contract imposed under threat of force isn't valid anyway. I'm reminded also of that meme cartoon with the annoying person coming out of a hole and observing the suffering citizen is still participating in society, "how interesting".
  • int_19h 2y ago
    Depends on where. There's a place on Earth that has an actual bona fide document titled "social contract", enacted and regularly updated via referendums: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Democratic_Autonomous_Administration_of_North_and_East_Syria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Democratic...
    • pfdietz 2y ago
      And if you disagree, well, that's where the government's guns come in. Welcome to the social contract! Optionality is not included.
      • palata 2y ago
        You don't understand democracy, do you?
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
        • pfdietz 2y ago
          Tell me about this democracy where laws don't ultimately require physical coercion for their enforcement.
• Dracophoenix 2y ago
  Which one? Hobbes's, Rousseau's, Locke's, or Spencer's? Generally, these so-called contracts are morally fashionable bandwagons attempting to appeal to some vague authority. They lack at least two elements that make a contract in the proper sense of the term: mutual consideration and clear, well-defined, promises of fixed duration and scope. There's no contractual obligation to keep a society "alive" indefinitely and for its own sake anymore than there was one to keep the British Empire in tact.
  • palata 2y ago
    Because it's not exactly a legal contract, rather a concept in philosophy. I'm genuinely shocked seeing how many people didn't know about it.