 A social contract theory is probably one of the first real attempts at trying to give an account of morality that doesn't really depend upon, you know, some external condition like culture or, you know, just what people believe or what people say. Now, it's a little bit of a sticky road, but in the end there's at least going to be a claim that this is going to appeal to some kind of independent standard regardless of what people think or believe. What's interesting about social contract theory is that the theory does already start out with the idea that you have to consider what other people are going to do. You have to consider other people's interests. The other ones so far really haven't done that, you know. Culture relativism didn't really care so much about what other people did. It's just this is, you know, culture relativism says this is what the culture says it is so we're going to do this. Same thing with subjectivism. Subjectivism kind of sort of ignored everybody else, right? Same thing with egoism. Egoism, at least on a surface, is dealing, you know, just with number one. Social contract theory starts out with the presumption that you're going to have to consider other people and what are you going to do in light of that situation. So the chapter starts out with this talk about the state of nature. It's a hypothetical scenario. Hobbes is not trying to say social contract theory is true because the state of nature happened. That's not what's going on. He's trying to imagine a scenario. What will happen if we try to make our decisions, what's in our best interests, but not considering anybody else. Same thing with the prisoner's dilemma. The prisoner's dilemma is looking at what choices and what are the consequences of those choices, what's going to happen if you're looking out for your own interests but you're not considering anybody else. At the heart of social contract theory is the idea that what fully rational people would decide to do and what they would agree to do when they're considering their interests and everybody else's interests, what they would agree to do is what is moral. So, you know, just this definition of social contract theory. I'm not going to say it verbatim off the top of my head. It's in the chapter, it's in italics so you can read it. But the idea is that this is what fully rational people would decide to do and agree upon when they're considering their interests and especially when they're considering an interest of everybody else. Now that would be an uncomfortable fall. It's kind of dangerous out here. Got some steep edges, rough terrain, a little bit rocky ground, sometimes not that solid a foundation. Not really many people around here. If I already get hurt, I'd be on my own. I've only got some water with me. Don't really have any food. Well, this is kind of the situation that Hobbes is talking about when he talks about the state of nature. He's not talking about trees. He's not talking about wild animals. What he's trying to describe is the situation that we're in when we are separated from each other or we're not relying on each other. So, really big thing is there's not a whole lot of resources. I've just got some water. Another thing is that there's no real clear strongest power here. Even if I came across somebody who was a lot stronger than me, that person, you know, that guy might be stronger than any individual, but he or she wouldn't be stronger than a group of us. Nobody's really gonna help in this situation. There's, you know, it's just not a whole lot of people willing to kind of help somebody out here. So, this idea behind the state of nature is that you're on your own. You're on your own. Now, Hobbes, I don't know, he might have, it's an interesting question in the history whether we were ever in the state of nature, but that's not the point of thinking of the state of nature. The point of the state of nature is to think of what it would mean for us just to completely work independently of each other, to not worry about how our actions affect anybody else. You know, even more importantly, not worry about how somebody else's actions affect us. And you know, to kind of think that it doesn't matter what I do so long as I'm just looking out for myself. It doesn't matter how my actions affect anybody else. And that's the idea behind the state of nature. I'm gonna avoid that. It might be the state of nature, but it's not all bad. So, imagine the following scenario. Imagine that you're traveling, say, your vacationing in a country that's not too well known for the protection of human rights. Let's just phrase it that way. And suppose during your vacation, you have been picked up by the police. You and actually a random stranger on the street were picked up by the police. When you're brought into the interrogation room, you're told that you and this stranger whom you have no contact with, complete, you know, you aren't able to talk with this stranger, you don't know who this person is, that you and this stranger are going to be charged with robbing a bank and you will be found guilty, whether you did or not. They just don't care. All they're concerned about is charging you with a crime and finding somebody guilty of the crime. But they give you an option. They say, look, we'll give you the opportunity to confess to robbing the bank and also to implicate, you know, to accuse the, you know, the other guy that we picked up. So the idea is you say you rob the bank that both of you robbed the bank, right? And you confess to it and you accuse the other guy. And here's the deal. If you confess and accuse the other guy and if he doesn't confess, if he keeps silent, then he goes to jail for 10 years and you go free. On the other hand, if you keep silent and he confesses and accuses you, then you go to jail for 10 years and he goes free. Now, if both of you confess and accuse the other, you're both obviously guilty. So we'll send you to jail for five years. But if you both keep silent, that's annoying. We're still going to convict you. We're still going to find you guilty, but we'll send you each to jail for one year. When I look at this situation, suppose the other guy remains silent. If he remains silent and you also remain silent, then you go to jail for one year. But if he remains silent and you confess, then you go free. You get to go home. Okay? Well, suppose that he decides to confess and also accuses you. Well, if he confesses and you remain silent, then you go to jail for 10 years. Now, if he confesses and you confess, then you go to jail for only five years. So what this means is in the first case, if he remains silent and you remain silent, then you go to jail for one year. But if you confess, you go free. So that means in the first case, if he remains silent, if you confess, then you spend less time in jail, specifically no time. In the second case, if he confesses and you remain silent, then you go to jail for 10 years. But if he confesses and you confess, then you only go to jail for five years. So you spend less time if you confess. Well, now what that means is that no matter what the stranger does, you spend less time in jail by confessing. So it seems like the rational thing to do in this situation is to confess, is to accuse the other and go to jail. And send him to jail, I'll just say. Now, look what happens. If both of you do the rational thing, you both spend five years in jail. I mean, he's thinking the same way you are, right? He's done the math, too. He realizes that if he doesn't confess, he goes to jail for a longer amount of time. But if he confesses, then he goes to jail for a lesser amount of time. So both of you do the rational thing, you spend five years in jail. But if you're just thinking of yourself, you both go to five years in jail. But if you think about what the other person is going to do, and what's better for the both of you, then you both remain silent and you go to jail for only one year. So this raises an interesting problem. No matter what the other guy does, if you confess, you spend less time in jail. But if both of you do the rational thing, you spend less time in jail. This raises an interesting problem. How are you supposed to make a decision here? Do you make a decision based upon your own best interests and go to jail for five years? Or both of you should say, do both of you make a decision based upon each individual's best interests and go to jail for five years? Or do both of you make a decision based upon what's best for everybody and only go to jail for one year? Well, imagine the scenario is a little bit different. Imagine this. You're driving in San Antonio traffic. You're in a hurry, and so is everyone else. Now, you're trying to enter into the lane to get onto the highway. Now, if people are entering the lane, they're going on one by one, and you see a space up ahead. So if you were to speed up and kind of get into that space, then you'd be late. I would say you'd be on time. But especially if enough of you were doing it, you make everybody else late. There's lots of people who are trying to speed up ahead to get into that spot. Everybody behind would be late. We'll say, you'll get to your place on time, and everybody else would be at least 30 minutes late. Now, suppose that you're already in the lane, or you have the choice to either enter the lane or to speed up. And suppose that you decide to enter the lane at your turn, right? There's a whole line of cars in front of you, entering onto the highway, which you've gotten into line, and a whole lot of people have gone ahead and taken up those spaces. In which case, now you're 30 minutes, at least 30 minutes late, and they're going to get to their job on time. Now, you could all try to speed up ahead. If you all try to speed up on head, you know, there'll be a jam on the road, and you kind of squeeze in there. It'll cause a problem, but you know, you'd probably just be 20 minutes late, 20 minutes late. On the other hand, if everybody takes their time, enters into the lane, when the opportunity first provides itself, you're just getting in line to get onto the highway, you enter into the lane, all of you will be only like five minutes late. So you have a choice. Now, suppose everybody just enters into the lane. You could enter into the lane too, and you'd be five minutes late for work, or you could speed up ahead and get to either work or class on time. So what that looks like is, if everybody else is entering the lane, you spend less time in traffic if you speed up on a head. Well, suppose everybody else speeds up on a head, and you can either enter the lane or you can speed up with them. Well, if you enter the lane, then you're 30 minutes late. If you speed up with them, then you're 20 minutes late. So it looks like if they're speeding up on a head, you'll spend less time in traffic if you speed up ahead. So what this means is, if you're looking out for just yourself, then you're going to spend less time in traffic. If you speed up on a head, no matter what everybody else is doing, you're going to spend less time in traffic. That means that you're looking out for yourself. Now, other drivers on the road are thinking the same thing. So that means that all the drivers that you want to speed up on a head because you spend less time in traffic, they're thinking the same thing. They're going to speed up on a head, but it looks like everybody's going to wind up at least 20 minutes in traffic trying to get onto the highway. However, if everybody just enters the lane at their turn, if everybody considers everybody else's interest as well, everybody spends less time overall in traffic. You may never be captured in a country, but the reasoning behind the prison dilemma applies to your everyday life. You can either choose to look out only for your own interests or you can choose to look out for everybody's and looking out for yourself. If everybody makes the same choice, everybody suffers. A lot. If everybody cooperates, if everybody makes the same choice to look out for everybody else, everybody's better off. So we talked about the state of nature and we talked about the prison dilemma. So how are they supposed to be related? Well, Hobbes wasn't necessarily thinking of the prison dilemma, at least not explicitly when he talked about the state of nature. But the state of nature is the situation where we are not relying on each other. We haven't made any agreements on how to behave with regard to each other. And that's kind of like the situation you're in if you're captured by this government and made a prisoner. You have no contact with the stranger, with the other person who could either accuse you or not accuse you. In that situation, it seems perfectly rational to confess, to accuse each other, to turn on each other, to look out only for one's own interests. But as we saw, if everybody's rational in that way, if everybody only looks out for themselves, everybody suffers. So what Hobbes suggests then is that we can remove ourselves from that situation and make agreements with each other. Imagine the situation where you and the stranger have a moment to talk and say, look, how about we both just remain silent, then we'll only serve a year in jail. So this is supposed to be a solution to the state of nature, that we come together and we make agreements on how we should look out for each other. And therefore, we're better off than the situation where we're just looking out only for ourselves, where we're maybe even stepping on each other a little bit to reach the top. And the prisoner's dilemma, it applies to your everyday life. You do make choices regarding the prisoner's dilemma. So here's where Hobbes suggests this idea of the social contract theory. And this is supposed to account for what is moral. What is moral is what rational people would decide to do or decide to agree to in order to look out for everybody's interests. So rational people, what rational people would decide to do in order to look to everybody benefits so everybody is better off. So this is an interesting claim. Social contract theory doesn't want to drift over to cultural relativism, although it's starting to kind of sound like it. But the difference is that your cultural relativism says that what is moral just is what the culture says. The difference here, the social contract theory is trying to push upon is what is moral is what fully rational people would agree upon. And the idea is that there's going to be a factor in the matter of what fully rational people agree upon because what is rational is not something that's relative, what is rational is something that's absolute. So that's the main motivation and the main idea behind social contract theory. It's what rational people would decide to do decide to agree upon in order to in order that everybody would benefit more.