Social Contract Theory: Limitations

Social Contract Theory and Its Discontents

• Commentators have argued that social contract theory has flaws and limitations when considering justice for women and racial minorities.
• Critics argue that the contract model only allows mutual agreement within the boundaries of an "in-group/out-group" frame.
• The contract model privileges men and denies recognition to women, according to Pateman.
• Similarly, Mills has claimed that contract theory puts African Americans at a disadvantage.

The “Outlier Problem” and Disability

• Recent versions of the "outlier problem" claim that social contract theory poses an obstacle in achieving justice for individuals with disabilities.
• Social contract theory, when understood as bargaining for mutual advantage, is allegedly too flawed to provide justice to persons with disabilities.
• Critics propose replacing social contract theory with an ethics of care (Kittay) or a capability theory of the good (Nussbaum) because of their perceived responsiveness to the situation of the disabled.
• The core idea of distributing benefits due to mutual cooperation among those who contribute exacerbates the difficulty.
• The focus on just distribution of resources becomes a luxury reserved for "in-groups," potentially overlooking the need for procedural justice for “outliers” before any kind of distribution can begin.

Exclusion of the Disabled: Nussbaum's Perspective

• Nussbaum suggests replacing the emphasis on procedural justice with goals for the distribution of the good to address these issues.
• According to the author, contract theory alone does not necessarily exclude the disabled as "outliers."
• Rather, the problem lies in imposing a "successful bargainer paradigm" on the concept of contracting.
• The philosophical understanding of the social contract need not conform to prevailing definitions of a legally enforceable contract.

Hampton's Reading & Trust-Based Approach

• A broader conception, akin to Hampton's reading of the social contract as social conventions is introduced.
• Social contracting is seen more as a project for engendering trust rather than a bargaining session.
• The principles of justice, when emphasizing the importance of cultivating a culture of trust may not differ dramatically from idealized strategic bargainers. Still, their source is not an exclusionary "in-group" process.
• Developing consensus through mutual trust differs from reaching agreement through bargaining.
• Disabled people can play an important role in strengthening a climate of trust for cooperation, even if they cannot bargain.

Contracting and Cultivating Trust

• Contracting through cultivating trust can promise disabled people and other outliers inclusion, as distinct from exclusion which is a central theme of a trust culture.
• In a trust culture, unlike in a bargaining culture, disabled and nondisabled can equally participate in and benefit from the goals of systematic fair treatment in social contracting.
• As Baier notes, any system—economic, legal, or political—requires trust to stimulate supportive activities in uncertain or risky situations.
• Contracting with trust may be a promising way of pursuing progressive justice for "outliers".

In-Groups and the Emphasis on Homogeneity

• Contemporary justice often envisions social contracting in terms of conversations among parties who reach an agreement on justice.
• To make agreement plausible, participants are considered to be roughly equivalent in strength, smartness, sensibilities, and status and resembling each other in seeking sovereignity.
• The homogeneity of negotiating parties contributes to each party taking the others seriously as themself, so that the ideas themselves decide the outcome.
• On a Rawlsian account, contract relies on parties being sufficiently similar to underwrite good faith in the bargaining process and the agreements achieved.
• Homogeneity still can prompt each to understand the others in the same terms each understands themself, and it can explain how even the most self-absorbed parties are attracted to agreements to act with others.

Criticism of Homogeneity Emphasis

• Theorists for nondominant social groups criticize the emphasis on homogeneity.
• Social contract theory might be exclusionary and can promote what will seem unfair because “outliers” do not fully possess properties essential for contracting to a sufficient degree.
• Lack of homogeneity may lead to doubts about legitimacy as participants.
• Dominant insiders may engage with "outliers" in ways that violate good faith, even though these same “outliers” seem most in need of justice.

Historical Marginalization and Exclusion

• There can arise concerns that justice, as conceptualized by the qualified, is too narrow or restrictive in addressing the needs of marginalized groups.
• Justice operates as if people who have been historically marginalized did not participate to its principles.
• The absence of certain kinds of people may condemn them to suffer on a practical level from social and political disadvantage.
• It posits an idealized dynamic among agents pursuing individual interests in a context in which none is in a superior position.

Cudd and Irredeemable "Outliers"

• While past inequities and biases should be rectified when excluding their victims, according to Cudd.
• On the assumption that nonwhites and women can benefit and reciprocate benefits, social contract theory can show the fundamental irrationality of unresponsiveness contracts to how interests are inflected by race/sex.
• Rawls's approach shapes justice to individuals whose physical and mental abilities enable them to equally participate in bargaining cooperative schemes.
• He does not offer means to permit participation by less able people because "specifying the terms of social cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal means that everyone has sufficient intellectual powers to play a normal part in society and no one suffers from unusual needs that are especially difficult to fulfill.

Rawls's Idealization/Normalcy Provision

• Rawls proposes an idealized approach that considers "normal and fully cooperating members of society over with" (a complete life).
• People who cannot reciprocate others fall beyond justice, ignoring the perspectives of anyone judged to be incapable of contributing at normal levels/standard ways.
• Central positioning is required to prevent, and any permitted social and political participation may be a form of consensual subordination.
• Normalcy Provision stipulates what properties agents behind the veil substantively possess, making the veil prevents properties from influencing justice. Imposing properties as influential.

Nussbaum and Social Contract Theory

• Nussbaum offers the most recent comprehensive version in an exegesis which lays bare the roots of the "outlier problem."
• Social contract theory denies participation by those who are physically and mentally disabled those political principles are chosen by and are made for.
• Access to the disabled is denied (developmental account to justice) by invoking standards of rationality, moral capacity, and ability to communicate as conditions for participating in designing the principles of justice.
• Political principles cannot help but be shaped mainly to the interests of individuals capable who calculatedly represent their advantages.

Premise of Exclusion & Nussbaum Critique

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Historical Arguments for Disability & Social Contract

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Representation Arguments and Nussbaum

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Capabilitites and Trusteeship

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