Hume's Contract

1. What is the author’s central question of the text? Is there explicit text giving a concise statement of this question? What is it?

Hume's central question is asking how the foundation or origin of government was established. He challenges and works with the ideas of John Locke in Social Contract theory when he states "…all lawful government on an original contract, or consent of the people…" meaning that authority and government power cannot be forced/is not a right. Governments are only lawful if it is established through an agreement amongst the people/society.

2. What is the author’s thesis? Is there an explicit sentence capturing it? What is it?

Political authority is established and essential to ensure stability and peace for the people.

  • "when it appears, that both allegiance and fidelity stand precisely on the same foundation, and are both submitted to by mankind, on account of the apparent interests and necessities of human society"

  • "The general interests or necessities of society are sufficient to establish both."

Both of these excerpts from the text describe political authority/government as a best interest to society. Humes argues that government arises from the necessity to maintain order and security.

3. What is the big-picture structure of the argument?

Hume's big-picture structure of his argument is that the formation of a government doesn’t just happen voluntarily. Something that challenges what humans deem as a natural right has to arise (an act of violence, unlawfulness, force, etc.) for an agreement to form an authority to happen. Humes argues that society needs a government for social stability or to maintain order not because humans have the natural instinct to have the best interest of each other in a society.

4. Are any central terms/concepts that the author uses key to the argument?

Humes uses terms like consent to describe the social contract theory and how obligation and agreement play a role in the formation of a government, allegiance to describe what the government owes to the people in a society to maintain security, social order, and peace, and artificial duties which are necessary to maintain a society (rules that form as an experience due to living without them).

5. What was most interesting to you? Why?

I think the most interesting take by Humes was his argument of a poor peasant. He argues that because this man knows no other way of living he is forced to live under an "agreed" government or authority. A person who only knows one way of living is forced to obey because there is no room for "tacit consent." They have no means/ability to leave even if they wanted to. This analogy or comparison challenges the idea that everyone in a society consented to the formation of one political authority.

6. What questions do you have for discussion?

  1. What utilities are limited if political obligation is formed on consent?

  2. How does Hume's contract theory challenge the ideas of a democratic society today?

  • "Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few."

    • Why do we put it with it ?

    • Life is complicated and we have to work in practice (experience)

    • Don’t put to much faith in fear, pay attention to what happens in the real world and live to that

Original Contract

  • "something approaching equality"

  • "…nothing but their own consent could, at first, associate them together, & subject them to any authority."

  • Implicit conditions (large governments have written down rules)

  • "The people, if we trace government to its first origin in the woods & deserts, are the source of all power & jurisdiction, & voluntarily, for the sake of peace & order, abandoned their native liberty, & received laws from their equal & companion."

    • Consenting to be part of it, expectations, & rules

State of Nature

  • We need society

  • Force, ability, & security

  • Hobbes, Locke

    • "…nothing…in the least corresponds to their ideas…"

    • Humes sounds like he agrees with Hobbes & Locke (but doesn’t)

  • Conflict-> leader-> persuasion-> force-> government

Conquest or succession

  • Prices take power

  • People feel obliged to obey

  • "independent of our consent"

  • "it is not justified by history or experience, in any age or country of the world"

    • Everyone agrees to make one person a leader

    • Nothing to do with consent of the people

    • Look at history and how they do it (most times there has not been a physical contract)

Legitimacy

  • On a social contract

  • But why should we keep our word

  • What gives the contract force?

  • "If the reason be asked of that obedience, which we are bound to pay to government, I readily answer, because society could not otherwise subsist."

    • Not because we consent to it, but because we need it (government)

Conventions> Promises

  • "This convention is not of the nature of a promise: For even promises themselves, as we shall see afterwards, arise from human conventions."

    • Authority has to be presupposed

    • There is no obligation to obey or keep a promise

  • "It is only a general sense of common interest; which sense all the members of the society express to one another, & which induces them to regulate their conduct by certain rules."

Moral Duties

  1. "Natural instinct or immediate propensity"

  • Love of children, gratitude, pity

  • It all comes down to feel (what is wrong/right (human nature))

  • We recognize things as right and wrong (ex. murder, lying, stealing (existence of gray area))

Natural Bond

  • "the first & original principle of human society"

  • "the natural appetite betwixt the sexes."

  • Family

    • The family is the source of social cohesion, morality, & justice

    • It overpowers selfishness

  • Natural & Artificial

    • We're by nature suited to live in small groups

    • We have the required sentiments naturally

    • Virtues needed for living in large societies, including justice, are artificial

      • We have to learn to care about other people

      • We naturally care about the people closest to us

      • To have a working society we have to learn to care for others

    • Our natural instincts are to be partial (ourselves & those we love)

Moral Duties

  1. "Necessities of human society"

  • Justice: respect property of others

  • Fidelity: keep promises

Conventionalism

  • "justice takes its rise from human conventions"

    • We create justice based on human necessity

  • "tis only from the selfishness & condin'd generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin."

    • We are naturally selfish (not totally), some element of generosity, concerned with our own well-being

    • Satisfied one moment, another not

Cooperation & convention

  • We cooperate with strangers

  • We set up conventions that govern relationships

  • Because we benefit as a result

    • Our desire to cooperate with others

  • Property rights, promise keeping, truth telling, social norms

  • Convention

    • A widely shared rule or regularity chosen, often unconsciously & implicitly, by a group of people

    • Hume: "a sense of common interest; which sense each man feels in his own breast, which he remarks in his fellows, & which carries him, in concurrence with others into a general plan or system of actions, which tends to public utility."

    • David Lewis

      • Everyone in the group has similar preferences

      • Conforms to the regularity

      • Expects everyone else to conform to it

      • Gives each member a good reason to conform to it

    • "I observe, that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession of his goods, provided he will act in the same manner with regard to me. He is sensible of a like interest in the regulation of his conduct."

    • "When this common sense of interest is mutually express'd, & is known to both, it produces a suitable resolution & behaviour."

    • "the actions of each of us have a reference to those of the other, & are perform'd upon the supposition, that something is to be perform'd on the other part."

Coordination

  • Adjusting your actions to what others do to promote good outcomes for all

Conventionalism

  • Something arises from, rests on, is determined by, or is grounded in convention

  • Does conventionalism entail relativism

  • I'll help you this time if you help me next time

The Farmer's Game (adapted from David Hume)

  • My crops will be ready next week, yours two weeks later

  • Each of us do better if we harvest together than if we harvest alone

  • You will help me if you expect help in return when you harvest

  • I'm selling my farm when my crop comes in & I am retiring to Florida

  • Suppose you do help me. Now consider my decision about helping you. What will I do?

Breaking Convention

  • Sometimes, violating a convention would be in our interest

  • Why don’t we?

  • We sympathize with potential victims

  • We're motivated to restrain ourselves

  • We understand the value of the convention

  • Promises

    • "All of them, by concert, enter into a scheme of actions, calculated for common benefit, & agree to be true to their word"

Social Capital

  • "features of social organization such as networks, norms, & social trust that facilitate coordination & cooperation for mutual benefit"

    • Why do you trust that I'll keep my promise and how do I trust you

  • Francis Fukuyama: "the ability of people to work together for common purposes in groups & organizations"

  • "the existence of a certain set of informal values or norms shared among members of a group that permit cooperation among them"

  • Forms of social capital