Social Contract: About Approaches to Its Theoretization and Its Philosophical Prospects

Rakhinsky Dmitry Vladimirovich ORCID: 0000-0003-4971-7523 Doctor of Philosophy Professor, Department of Public Health and Healthcare, Professor V.F. Voino-Yasenetsky Krasnoyarsk State Medical University; Professor, Department of Civil Law and Procedure, Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University 660022, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, Partizan Zheleznyak str., 1, room 354 siridar@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Panasenko Galina Vasilevna Doctor of Philosophy Professor, Department of Social Work, Siberian Federal University 660049, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, Mira str., 65, office 1 galina-panasienko@mail.ru Ravochkin Nikita Nikolaevich Doctor of Philosophy Professor, Department of Pedagogical Technologies, Kuzbass State Agricultural Academy; Professor, Department of History, Philosophy and Social Sciences, Kuzbass State Technical University named after T.F. Gorbachev 650003, Russia, Kemerovo region, Kemerovo, Markovtseva str., 12/1, office 24 nickravochkin@mail.ru Morozova Ol'ga Fedorovna Doctor of Cultural Studies Professor, Department of Philosophy, Siberian Federal University 660025, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk Worker str., 89, office 15 ofmorozova@mail.ru

Mineev Valerii Valerevich Doctor of Philosophy Professor, Department of Philosophy, Economics and Law, Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University named after V.P. Astafyev 660062, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, Krupskaya str., 16, office 26 vvmineyev@mail.ru

Introduction

The social contract (in Russian—speaking contexts, the phrase "social contract" is more common, which, however, does not cancel their interchangeability) is a concept of social philosophy that is of key importance for discussing a variety of issues related to the ontology of norms that form the social order, the processes of their revision and change, as well as overcoming collisions that may arise between various actors of social interaction. Ideas about the social contract are actively used in the discussion of two blocks of socio-philosophical problems — the issues of the foundation of moral and legal obligations arising in the interaction of social agents, and the issues of legitimization of state-legal institutions.

Most often, the phrase "theory of the social contract" appears in the context of historical retrospectives of the development of the theory of state and law, it correlates with the names of New European thinkers, such as T. Hobbes, J. Locke, J.-J. Rousseau et al . At the same time, it would be unfair to consider the social contract only as a legacy of the past of social philosophy: it, like many other philosophical concepts, is characterized by "timelessness" (by which we should understand at least the essential stability of the semantic content, ensuring the preservation of the concept with the passage of time and the movement of philosophical discussions). "Contractual" ideas actually exist and are developing up to the present day, supplemented and strengthened by all the theoretical and methodological means characteristic of modern philosophy. In the following review, we will identify the most significant features of modern ideas about the social contract and make an assumption about the philosophical prospects for their further development.

Anticipating the following discussion, a few remarks should be made regarding the English-language terms "contractualism" and "contractarianism", which are used to denote ideas and theories for which the concept of a social contract is fundamental. Perhaps the first indication of the existence of meaningful discrepancies between them in the Russian literature was carried out by M.V. Gavrilov and A.T. Yunusov ^{[1, p. 91]}: they believe that the concepts denoted by the terms differ on a historical and philosophical basis. If the term "contractualism" ^[2] is used in application to representations dating back to the works of Rousseau and Kant, then "contractarianism" is the designation of neo-Hobbesian representations. However, they themselves indicate the ambiguity of such a distinction, and therefore, in our opinion, the question of the terminological relationship needs further clarification.

In fact, such a basis for differentiation is also used in foreign literature (see, for example, the work of S. Darwell ^[3]), but if you look at the substantive grounds for differentiation, it becomes clear that the discrepancy is somewhat deeper, and the historical and philosophical foundations of the corresponding ideas lie much deeper than the New European discussions about contractual grounds social reality. If we turn to the articles of the Stanford Philosophical Encyclopedia on contractualism (authored by E. Ashford and T. Mulgan) and contractarianism (authored by E. Kadd and S. Eftekhari), then we can pay attention to the fact that in both articles contractarianism correlates with the idea that the formation of contracts stems from the desire of social actors to protect individual interests, then how contractualism is consistent with the understanding of the contract as a public justification and manifestation of the norm regulating the actions of social actors ^[4,5]. In the first case, the personal interest of the participants in the interaction is put at the forefront, in the second — their moral status.

It seems that the discrepancies between contractarianism and contractualism refer to much earlier (first appearing in the philosophy of antiquity) discussions about whether a person is inherently "evil" or "good" by nature, whether his activity is directed only to satisfy his own interests or whether it is limited to recognizing the equivalence and equivalence of the interest of another. So, if the socio-political philosophy of Meng-Tzu is characterized by the idea that benevolence and love for one's neighbor is immanent to a human being, then in the philosophy of Xun-Tzu the idea of the original malice and egocentricity of a human being is carried out, and, accordingly, such significant elements of culture as morality and law are considered in it as means of ennobling human nature ^{[6, p. 167-169]}. One of the first distinct cases of the realization of the idea of a social contract as a tool for protecting the interests and well-being of individuals is also noted in Epicurean philosophy ^{[7, pp. 111-112]}. In the course of the further development of the history of social thought, the ideas of man as a being who is primarily addressed to his own interests, or, on the contrary, is open to the interests and needs of another, are developed and supplemented in various ways, nevertheless, preserving the basic attitudes, a kind of "anthropological ideals" that endow human beings with these or other features of goal-setting in social action. Contractarianism and contractualism, based on this, can be considered as representations of the conclusion of social contracts between "egocentric" or "altruistic" agents in terms of their moral attitudes and goal-setting.

The discrepancy between contractualism and contractarianism can be considered as a field of discussion regarding the problem of the grounds for establishing agreements. Questions about the role played by the equality of the moral statuses of the parties to the agreement for its establishment, about whether the agreement can be fully implemented only on the basis of finding optimal ways to satisfy the mutual interests of the parties involved, as well as about the conditions and "mechanics" of the general agreement that constitutes the content of the social contract - these are just some of the key issues determining the discrepancy between these concepts. We assume that a thorough analysis of the points of agreement and divergence between contractarianism and contractualism requires a lot of independent research. In the framework of this consideration, in turn, we should start with the question of what a social contract is, whether it is a metaphor, a model, some kind of heuristically valuable abstraction.

Social contract as a subject of comprehension

The same question applies to all contexts of discussion of the social contract (moral and political-legal): what, strictly speaking, is meant by a social contract? Is the establishment of contractual relations in such cases metaphorical (in this case, a remark made in a recent article is indicative: state power was presented by thinkers of the past as a contract between rulers and society ^{[8, p. 21]}), or does it indicate the specific circumstances of the conclusion of an agreement? Finally, can we confine ourselves to recognizing that the social contract is nothing more than a metaphor, or should we talk about the existence of a class of "contractual" models that contribute to the effective representation of the genesis and/or functioning of systems of norms and mutual obligations in society? To answer these questions, it is worth considering various contexts of using ideas about the social contract.

Most likely, the most striking example of a literal understanding of the establishment of a social contract is found in Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise. The Hebrew state and religious institutions are directly characterized as the result of the people's contract with the patron deity, implying the acceptance of many practical obligations to fulfill ^{[9, p. 201-217]}. Moreover, the establishment of contractual relations is consistent with a specific episode of Old Testament history: with the receipt of the divine commandments by Moses on Mount Sinai. Spinoza describes in detail the political and legal structure of the first Jewish state, which arose on the basis of an established contract ^{[9, pp. 204-206]}. Of course, this plot can be considered as a reproduction of an attempt at theological legitimization of the political and legal structure of the Jewish state by its founders, and the contract itself is a metaphor, not a specific historical event. Nevertheless, this case is one of the few in which the establishment of a contract is associated with a specific event in the history (albeit in its theological interpretation) of a single people. Interestingly, in this case, the contract is based on both religiously determined moral obligations and the political and legal structure.

If we turn to T. Hobbes' treatise "Leviathan", one of the key works with which the emergence and spread of ideas about the social contract correlates, then we find rather a metaphor of the contract, the value of which lies in demonstrating the mutual transfer of rights and the distribution of responsibility. Hobbes does not speak of the contract as a specific historical event, he uses a productive analogy between contractual relationships and the emergence of the state in order to describe and comprehend the essential features of the latter. The general basis of contractual relations, according to Hobbes, is the mutual transfer of law ^{[10, p. 92]}. The purpose of transferring the right is considered to be the receipt of a benefit by an individual transferring the right to another. Having considered the specifics of contractual relations, Hobbes builds a discussion of the emergence of the state and law on the basis of a productive analogy with the sphere of contractual relations. First of all, the metaphor of the contract is used to emphasize the artificiality of the state as a phenomenon, its man-made nature ^{[10, p. 118]}.

Hobbes does not consider the social contract in relation to specific events of world history, but uses the contractual analogy as a universal way of describing all situations of the emergence of state entities. For Hobbes, the social contract is also an illustration of achieving the highest degree of agreement, unanimity in the transfer of law in order to ensure common security and well-being (interestingly, Hobbes also uses a theological metaphor: he speaks of the state as "a mortal god to whom we owe our peace and protection" ^{[10, p. 119]}, however, the "deification" of the state occurs in this case precisely after the unanimous transfer of the relevant powers to it, and does not pre-exist to this act). The contract is preceded by the appointment (separation) by the company from its environment of a person (group of persons), who are further entrusted with the powers under the terms of the contract. The state here is not a party, but the result of a contract, i.e., a universal unanimous expression of will fixed at the level of the social relations that have arisen in order to preserve peace, safe conditions of existence, order ^{[10, p. 119]}. Despite the fact that Hobbes distinguishes two ways of forming power relations — establishment and acquisition, the metaphor of the social contract is applicable to both: based on his assumptions about the forms and varieties of agreements, the establishment of power relations by acquisition can be considered as an agreement concluded under the influence of fear (moreover, the "natural state" does not imply the impossibility of concluding contracts with the preservation of this state, it is terminated only by the establishment of a certain universal contract) ^{[10, p. 96]}. In turn, the emergence of power relations based on establishment is preceded by the conclusion of an agreement between everyone and everyone ^{[10, p. 120]}: in this case, the contractual metaphor is used to characterize universal consent legitimizing the decision on the delegation of authority.

Of no less interest as a source of formation of modern ideas about the social contract is the work of J. Locke's "Two Treatises on Government". The formation of a civil society is considered by Locke as the establishment of an agreement involving the extension of the laws of society to each of its constituent individuals ^{[11, pp. 316-317]}. Locke uses organic metaphors to explain the functioning of a community (state): it is considered by him as a single political organism, driven by the will of the majority (this is a certain difference from the understanding of the social contract formed by Hobbes, since the latter assumes the universal unanimity of numerous individuals who become parties to the agreement, passing into real unity). The action of the majority is considered as determining the strength of the state, considered in its political integrity ^{[11, p. 318]}. The delegation of authority during the act of consent, therefore, does not occur in favor of the person/group of persons expressing the general will, but in favor of the majority of the community ^{[11, p. 319]}.

In contrast to Hobbes' views on the social contract, Locke considers the mechanism of its conclusion not as the conclusion of an agreement, but as an expression of consent to unite and join the community ^{[11, p. 319]}. It is interesting that Locke considers such an expression of consent to be a historically real phenomenon, and not a metaphorical device, a productive analogy for understanding the genesis of states: according to Locke, history tells us practically nothing about finding people in a natural state, since the innate desire for sociality and the inconveniences experienced led to the fact that by uniting, people immediately realized necessary consent mechanisms ^{[11, pp. 319-320]}. He traces the applicability of the proposed model of the formation of the state as the conclusion of a social contract by consent in favor of the majority on the basis of examples of ancient history (refers to the emergence of the Ancient Roman state, as well as the facts reported by J. Acosta on the development of the political culture of the peoples who lived and live in different parts of the American continent ^{[11, pp. 320-321]}). Of course, in the context of this review, Locke's ideas about the social contract are interesting not from the point of view of the possibility of considering them as a theory of sociogenesis and/or the genesis of the state, but from the point of view of those innovations in the problematization of the socio-philosophical understanding of contractual relations that they introduce. Thus, the introduction of ideas about the key role of the majority in establishing social consent leads to the formation of issues related to the definition of the majority and the possible variability of its composition depending on the subject on which agreement is needed, as well as the justification of the fairness of decisions taken on the basis of majority consent, etc.

Another significant figure in the development of ideas about the social contract is J.-J. Rousseau. The social contract is considered by him as an act of consent aimed at forming an association that would contribute to ensuring the protection of the interests of each of its members, and in which at the same time everyone would preserve their freedom, while merging into a kind of collective moral and political whole ^{[12, p. 20]}. For Rousseau, the model of concluding such contractual relations is consistent with the task of explaining both sociogenesis and the formation of political and legal institutions: "This public personality <...> is now called a republic, <...>, which is called by its members a state when it is passive, and a sovereign when it is active" ^{[12, p. 20-21]}. An agreement, according to Rousseau, is a compensatory mechanism, since there are no natural grounds for establishing a person's power relations over his own kind, but the formation of legitimate power is necessary ^{[12, p. 14]}. The contract becomes for Rousseau a universal model for explaining the processes of formation of states and societies, while he raises significant issues related to the moral and legal status of participants in contractual relationships, with the possibility of unilateral withdrawal from the agreement, etc.

It is possible to draw attention to the fact that even at the level of works associated with the formation of ideas about the social contract, the contract itself is simultaneously considered both as an independent subject of study (the relations of individuals concluding contracts), and as a metaphor for the purposes of discussing the genesis of moral and legal norms and political institutions, and as a model of the genesis of society and the state, in some cases even correlated with specific historical events. But is it possible to say that there is a "theory of social contract (social contract)" precisely as a class of systems of principles? We can agree with this, considering only that in each case it is necessary to pay attention to what is considered under the name of a social contract — a model for discussing the consent of individuals regarding certain institutions, or a metaphor sufficiently demonstrative to illustrate the transition from a state of unregulated and normative uncertainty of social relations to a state of their normative stabilization and orderliness.

Of course, we cannot say that a full-fledged sociological, political, or historical-legal concept of the emergence of the state and law can be formed on the basis of the idea of a social contract (skepticism about this possibility is found among both domestic ^{[13, p. 133]} and foreign authors ^{[14, 223]}). At the same time, social contract theories can and should be used to understand specific situations of establishing an agreement entailing the acceptance of certain obligations and the introduction of norms regulating activities. In the context of social and political philosophy, the concept of a social contract has broad significance for illustrating and understanding issues of achieving social (or, on a smaller scale, group) consensus on significant issues. Ultimately, the significance of the concept of a social contract is to demonstrate the possibility of rational justification for the adoption of a set of norms and principles for the regulation of social interaction. The adoption of the "contractual" nature of generally accepted regulations and principles may allow us to raise an important question about what determines the general agreement of the members of society on the need for their adoption. Ideas about the social contract allow us to turn to the origins of regulatory regulation, which are immanent for society itself, and not external to it.

At the same time, it is always necessary to take into account that any model is an idealization suitable for solving certain tasks. The universalization of ideas about the contractual nature of the emergence of political institutions, social norms and moral obligations can hardly be called productive and useful for the development of social knowledge. Accordingly, the methods of theorizing the social contract and/or the metaphors involved in concluding the contract should be meaningfully relevant to the research tasks that take place. The simplest example of the classification of "contract" models is the dichotomy of horizontal and vertical social contracts: in this case, contracts are classified based on the position of the parties involved in their conclusion. A horizontal contract implies equality of status of the parties, whereas a vertical contract implies the presence of qualitative differences ^{[15, p. 11]}. It is obvious that if horizontal contract models can be successfully used to describe the emergence of obligations and mutual responsibility between equal participants, then vertical models seem convenient for illustrating the public responsibility of the state and political institutions (interestingly, the New European concepts of social contract discussed above combine "horizontal" and "vertical" aspects of contractual relations). The social contract, therefore, can be considered as a heuristically valuable philosophical model (or, in some cases, a metaphor) for considering the ontological grounds for the emergence of norms and mutual obligations between single— and multi-level social.

Modern ways of theorizing the social contract

Within the framework of modern socio-philosophical discussions, various approaches to the discussion of the social contract are being implemented from the point of view of their theoretical and methodological attitudes. They are distinguished by the involvement of data and methods of social sciences, as well as an increase in the degree of theoretical rigor of consideration: various methods of formalization are used, probabilistic and statistical tools are involved, logical and linguistic tools developed within the analytical tradition are included ^[16]. Of course, the range of currently existing theoretical models is quite wide, which is why we will focus only on the most significant features and vivid examples of their implementation. Let's consider some of the modern experiences of the reception of ideas about the social contract from the point of view of their fundamental methodological innovations and distinctive features.

Modern ideas about the social contract differ in that the discussion of the actual establishment of contractual relations (except in some cases related to the analysis of local contexts) comes to the consideration of hypothetical agreements ^[4]. Perhaps one of the specific exceptions to this rule is the concept of D. Buchanan ^[17], which assumes a real general agreement, revealed by fixing the results of the expression of will. Buchanan's view, as rightly noted in the literature, raises many questions related to the normalization and evaluation of the results of such consent procedures ^{[18, p. 53]}. The discussion of the social contract today is connected with the modeling of rational grounds for the formation of consensual decisions, the analysis of the dynamics of changes in social attitudes that become the subject of an "agreement" of the parties to social interaction. The idea of rational hypothetical consent of social actors today plays an important role in understanding the generally significant problems of social reality, such as the use of force ^[19] or the implementation of large-scale social transformations. The theorization of the social contract today is often associated with the search for conditions of fairness and permissibility of regulatory decisions, the ratio of principles on the basis of which a regulatory decision can be considered as fair ^[20]. Justice is considered by modern social contract theorists in various contexts of its implementation — both in moral (a vivid example is the study of T. Scanlon ^[21]) and in political, for example, at the level of constitutional establishment (the goals of such consideration are pursued in the works of D. Rawls and D. Buchanan ^{[17, 20]}).

A significant feature of modern ideas about the social contract, which distinguish them from the New European ones, is the orientation to the consideration of social attitudes, rather than individual obligations. The focus is on the formation of the content of consensus, and not the coordination of individual expressions of will. For the purposes of modeling the formation of the content of consensus, ideas about the game-theoretic rationality of the behavior of actors of social interaction are involved: social consensus is considered by a certain circle of authors as a Nash equilibrium (for example, J. Harsanyi ^[22]). Proponents of using the tools of evolutionary game theory, such as B. Skems ^[23], suggest that the social contract should be understood in terms of reproducing more successful strategies of social interaction. Evolutionary models of the social contract are actively used in the context of modeling sustainable social development ^[24,25]. The promising nature of such models is due to the naturalistic nature of their content and the formal rigor of the methods used, the emphasis on quantitative parameters for evaluating the effectiveness of strategies.

Conclusion

It seems quite fair to conclude that the idea of a social contract is a rather promising conceptual tool of modern social philosophy from the point of view of the possibilities of its development. The key purpose of its use is to identify and then describe the grounds for the establishment and implementation of social norms, the formation of social institutions, as well as the emergence of conditions for the implementation of mutual obligations. Contractualism and contractarianism as thematic contexts of the application of social contract models for the study of moral and political issues can include both normative and descriptive "contractual" theories aimed at different-scale studies of the functioning of social norms and obligations, as well as procedures for legitimizing political and legal institutions. Summarizing the results of our consideration of the issues of the content specifics of the ideas about the social contract and the current state of their development allows us to draw the following conclusions:

1. The social contract can be considered as an effective concept for describing the ontological foundations of the processes of constitution and functioning of social regulations (in moral and legal aspects), as well as for identifying the grounds for legitimizing political institutions. These functions can be distinguished already when considering the earliest cases of the use of "contractual" representations in the context of socio-philosophical reflection. At the same time, depending on the scope of application of ideas about the social contract, we can talk either about the analysis of valid regulations under the agreement, or about the creation of productive analogies with the procedures for concluding contractual agreements for the convenience of describing the mechanisms of formation and functioning of such social phenomena as morality, the state and law.

2. The differentiation of modern and historical ideas about the social contract based on the fact that the first are mainly hypothetical contracts (the contract is reduced to a "contract model", a conditional situation), and the second attempts to assert that the emergence of such social phenomena occurred during the real event / events of the conclusion of the contract, requires significant clarifications and additions, because the analysis of sources shows that for historically existing forms of ideas about the social contract also include an episodic recognition of its hypothetical nature.

3. Modern methods of theorizing the social contract involve the substantive detailing of the use of "contract" models (many local contexts of their use are formed in relation to moral, legal and political subjects of discussion). They are distinguished by naturalization and formalization in theoretical and methodological terms, active involvement of means of quantitative modeling of the phenomena of consent, the processes of establishing agreements, changes in the strategies of interaction of social actors. Just as in the early cases of their application, "contract" models and metaphors are involved in the processes of understanding social justice and political legitimacy, however, there is a transition from their speculative to theoretically rigorous and subject-specific application.

4. A significant perspective for the development of ideas about the social contract is the formation of an ontological conceptual framework for describing both static and dynamic characteristics of regulatory systems regulating the behavior of social actors. Equally important is the possibility of using modern models of the social contract to study the processes of legitimization of political institutions, acts of political will, as well as political agreements existing in societies.