Political Authority

Odds and Ends from the Lecture

1.
(First, a small correction to the lecture given 21 Feb 2018: it wasn’t Romans 12, but Romans 13,
specifically, 13:1-7.)
In a previous semester, a student asked this:
On Argument 1, Why do you need everyone in the room to believe in the God / King in order
for the God / King to have moral authority? Utilitarianism doesn’t have a claim to morality because
people believe in Utilitarianism, same for Deontology.
Good question! First, a clarification–my point is not that the Divine Authority as the basis for
Statism is a false doctrine, or even that it is unjustified. Rather, the fact that belief in an
appropriate god (or gods, or heaven, etc.) is not uniformly shared does present an argumentative
challenge to the Statist who hopes to convince people who are not already convinced. Here,
notice that Utilitarianism (for instance), is often in the same boat. If Norcross and Singer had
simply mounted Utilitarian arguments for their conclusions, do you think they will be able to
convince anyone who is not an Utilitarian already? Probably not. That’s also why they argued the
way they did–from a moral judgment they thought they could count on many people sharing (“I
would never eat at Fred’s…”, “I ought to save the child in the pond…”).
Obviously, the same problems don’t quite apply in countries where there is widespread shared
religious beliefs. Thought even in those cases, the same argumentative challenge arises were the
government of such countries attempt to justify their authority on the basis of divine sanction to
the world at large. There’s quite a bit more to the historical story, but I’ll forgo it for now.
2.
Another question from a previous semester:
Not all the countries in the world are democracies. How do other types of governments such as
autocracy/dictatorships justify their right to political authority since they do not do the decisions
for their entire population but of their own will?
In some cases, they do attempt to justify themselves as if on the will of the people–the full name
of the North Korean state is the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. In many such cases,
the dictator presents himself as acting in the name of the will of the people, as if were. (You
probably shouldn’t believe it, of course; but isn’t it interesting that they still prefer to present
themselves this way?)
3.
The point about how, depending on the set up of your electoral system, it’s possible for people
who were supported by less than 51% of the population to form the government. The video below
explains how this can happen.
Political Authority and Utilitarianism

I looked through the questions posted on Archipelago. Some of them are answered in the lecture
itself, others are interesting though they will take me further afield. I’ll find time to come back to
them. In this post, I’ll answer (in a slightly roundabout way) the most popular one:
Q1: What if we use the utilitarian perspective and say that the government’s acts can be morally
permissible if they do the act to maximise the alleged happiness of all citizens of the state?
In a nutshell, could we mount a Utilitarian (or maybe a Consequentialist) argument in support of
Political Authority?
First, a recap on what it means for government to have political authority over its subjects, if such
a thing is real:
 Government has moral permission to give orders to its subjects.
 Subjects have the moral duty to obey the orders of government (it’s morally wrong for
them not to obey).
 If a subject does not obey, government has the moral permission to coerce or threaten
coercion so as to get him to obey…
 (…or so as to warn other subjects against disobeying.)
Here’s an easy way for there to be political authority of a sort under Utilitarianism (I’ll explain why
it doesn’t really work in a bit). So according to Utilitarianism, the right thing for an agent to do, is
to undertake the action among the available options that would have produced the greatest balance
of happiness over unhappiness in the world. Conceivably, scenarios can arise where the right thing
for a subject to do at a particular point in time under Utilitarianism is to do the thing that is, as a
matter of fact, ordered by the government. Analogously, scenarios can also arise where the right
thing for a government or a government agent to do at a particular point in time under
Utilitarianism is, as a matter of fact, to order and coerce the citizens to make them do
something. But here’s the problem. The above is not really the sort of outcome that brings comfort
to a true Statist.
Keep in mind the two positions:
Statism: Some governments (i.e., the properly constituted ones) have political authority over their
subjects, some of the time (i.e., when due process has taken place).
Anarchism: No government has political authority over its subjects; political authority is an
illusion.
Under Utilitarianism, if the action in question is morally right, it is not
because the government in question has a special moral status–it has political authority–such
that the package of permissions and obligations listed previously obtains. If I, as a citizen, ought
to do something that counts as “obeying the government’s order”, it won’t be because I have an
obligation to obey the government’s orders, strictly speaking. Rather, it’s because my doing the
thing will promote the world’s happiness. It just happens that there is a happy
coincidence between the verdicts of Utilitarianism and Statism (a bit like saying that a clock that
is otherwise spoiled and stuck at 12 will still be ‘right’ twice a day). And as soon as the verdicts of
Utilitarianism and Statism diverge–for instance, there is a small gain to net happiness for the world
if I were to disobey–then Utilitarianism requires that I disobey. A similar reasoning applies to the
government agent’s permission to coerce me under Utilitarianism. Given the above, it’s hard to
say that government really has authority over me, or that I have a moral obligation to obey
government.
What the Statist wants is a way to justify the idea that government–or at least certain types of
government (e.g., democracy), under certain conditions (e.g., when due process has been followed
in framing the order)–has political authority over its subjects. At the end of the day, this is not best
understood as a claim that a certain specific action is morally permitted or required at a certain
point in time, but a more general claim that a class of actions undertaken by a specific type of
people (those constituting government) has authority over another class of people (the subjects of
the government).
The more likely Utilitarian justification for Political Authority will thus not be one that focuses on
individual acts, but on rules. So instead of a doctrine that says the right thing for an agent to do
at any point is to do the one among the available options that would have produced the greatest
balance of happiness over unhappiness (in the world), or is called “Act-Utilitarianism” in modern
discussions, the Statist will probably have a better time with a variant doctrine that says the right
thing for an agent to do at any point is to follow the rules that, if adopted and complied with,
would have produced the greatest balance of happiness over unhappiness in the world, or
what is called “Rule-Utilitarianism“. (Some Statist theorists have attempted to flesh out an
account of Political Authority in this direction.) Finally, note also that the combination of the State
of Nature with the hypothetical consent version of the Social Contract is very close in spirit to this
proposal and can be developed in this direction.

Further Thoughts on the Social Contract

Introduction
Last year, after reviewing the webcast for the lecture on Political Authority, I thought that my
treatment of the Social Contract Theory was not as good as it should have been. So I wrote a
series of blog posts to supplement the lecture. I’m somewhat happier with my subsequent lectures ,
but since these posts were already written, I might as well make them available. Note that the
below will probably make more sense if you have already followed the lecture and have the slides
handy. And since there are three different versions of the theory considered, I will do this over
more than one post. This one will introduce the issue and consider the first version, where the
Social Contract is meant to be an actual, or explicit agreement.
But let’s first keep squarely in mind the intended target, namely, Michael Huemer’s argument
for Anarchism. The stated conclusion of Huemer’s argument is that government coercion is
morally wrong. If the conclusion holds, then Political Authority becomes problematic. As I
explained in the lecture, we can think of the idea that government has political authority in terms
of the following claims:
Government has political authority over its subject if and only if
  Government has moral permission to order its subjects to do various things.
 The subject has a duty to obey the orders of the government.
 If a subject does not obey an order, government has the moral permission to coerce or
threaten coercion so as to get the subject to obey…
 …or so as to warn other subjects against disobeying.
To say that government coercion is morally wrong is to deny that government has moral
permission to coerce, and so, to deny that there really is such a thing as Political Authority.
Now, Huemer’s argument proceeds through the claim that government coercion is morally
analogous to various acts of coercion by private individuals—the Tony’s of the world—that we
agree are morally wrong. In effect, it challenges defenders of political authority to step up and tell
us what constitutes the moral difference between government and Tony that confers the right to
coerce upon the former while denying it to the latter—beyond the mere fact that one side is
government and the other side is not. The various flavors of the Social Contract theory can be
seen as attempts to meet this.
Social Contract, Explicit Consent Version
The first version we considered was the idea that there is an actual and explicit contract between
each citizen and the government that requires the citizen to obey the laws, in exchange for the
goods and services that the government provides. That is, what the citizens are agreeing to in being
a party to such a contract is not just that they promise to obey, but more importantly, that they
grant government the right to coerce them when they fail to obey. (This is like, for instance, you
giving your friends the right to stop you from playing video games unless you have done your
homework…) In turn, government promises to deliver certain goods and services. The citizens’
obligation to obey and the government’s right to coerce are thus ultimately conferred by the
citizen’s consent to be subject to such authority.
The difference between government and Tony thus consists in the fact that while there is a Social
Contract which grants the former political authority, there isn’t one doing the same for Tony.
Ok, so what’s the problem with this first version of the Social Contract as a response to Huemer’s
argument for Anarchism? The straightforward one, also the one I mentioned in lecture, is that it
is factually false that any of us has ever signed such a contract, and historically fantastic to think
that there was any such contract in the past. In the absence of an actual contract, there won’t be
any explicit consent to speak of, and with no consent, no conferring of political authority. In
addition, even if such an agreement were to be historically factual, one can still wonder as to why
it should continue to apply to subsequent generations who did not explicitly agree to its terms.
(Though this second worry is not as big a problem—if you can imagine the actuality of an Explicit
Social Contract in the past, I suppose you are capable of imagining how such a Contract is explicitly
entered into by each new citizen.)
*****
A couple of footnotes:
First, in the usual telling of the story, the agreement (whether explicit, implicit, or hypothetical) on
the part of the citizens is conditional—we promise to subject ourselves to political authority in
exchange for government delivering certain goods and services. We can fail to live up to our end
of the bargain and thus invite justified coercion; and our counterparty—government—can also
fail to live up to its end of the bargain and thus invite justified rebellion. John Locke’s Social
Contract is in this ballpark. But conceivably, the Social Contract may also be unconditional: we
promise to subject ourselves to political authority, period. Maybe we do/did so because it is the
best way to secure peace, security, and the provision of certain goods and services. But the promise
being unconditional, government actually is under no obligation to do anything for us, and we
have no right to rebel if we feel that it didn’t do us any good. Second, I also briefly considered an
alternative formulation of the Social Contract in the lecture as an agreement between all of the
citizens to set up government, i.e., to confer upon the designated body political authority over
themselves. Note that in this version of the Social Contract, government is not itself a party to the
agreement. In fact, it is created by our act of agreeing among ourselves. In my estimation, Thomas
Hobbes’ version of the Social Contract is better taken as unconditional, and meant to be an
agreement between citizens rather than between citizens and government.
Social Contract, Implicit Consent Version
The second and third versions of the Social Contract forgo the idea that citizens explicitly
contracted with government thus conferring upon it the right to coerce them. They make do with
something less—either a contract constituted by implicit consent, or one constituted
by hypothetical consent. Let’s consider the implicit version first.
As you recall, I provided four different models for how implicit consent can be taken as having
been given to something in my lecture:
First, implicit consent can be indicated by a passive agreement, i.e., no expressed dissent, given
the opportunity or even invitation to express disagreement. The instructor asks the class: “So
everyone submit your work in MS Word? Anyone has a problem with that?” And no one indicated
any objections, not even the one open source fanatic sitting in the corner. We can reasonably
conclude that all present gave their implicit agreement.
Second, implicit consent can be indicated by the active acceptance of benefits. My restaurant
example is in this ballpark. By accepting the benefits (e.g., consuming the water, the bread, the
peanuts, etc.), you have implicitly agreed to ordering from the menu and passing over money to
the amount listed in the menu including any additional surcharges and taxes.
Third, implicit consent can be indicated through presence, your mere ‘sticking around’. Huemer
gave a nice example for this in his book: “While having a party at my house, I announce, loudly
and clearly to everyone present, that anyone who wants to stay at my party must agree to help
clean up afterwards. After hearing my announcement, you carry on partying. In so doing, you
imply that you agree to help clean up at the end.”
Finally, implicit consent can be indicated through your participation in some practice. If you and
your team participated in the NUS Inter-Faculty Games representing your Faculty, i.e., you signed
up, showed up, played in the games, etc.—then you have indicated that you agree to abide by the
rules and regulations of the event in question.
Now, if the four examples above are valid examples of implicit consent, then one assumption
we normally make is that even when the agreement wasn’t explicitly expressed, it was nonetheless
indicated by some voluntarily action (or inaction) of the agent. Part of what this meant is that
what she ‘implicitly consented to’ isn’t something that will be imposed upon him no matter
what she does or does not do. And just as importantly, there is a reasonable way for the agent
to opt out. And finally, should she explicitly dissent, we won’t count her as having given
implicit consent even if she did the other things in the examples. If these conditions aren’t present,
we probably shouldn’t say that we have a case of implicit consent.
So if it turns out that the open source guy was in fact fast asleep when the question about MS
Word came up, then he wasn’t voluntarily indicating a passive agreement. Or if the instructor had
added: “Anyway, I will deduct 75% off your grade if you object…” and everyone kept quiet, then
their passivity can’t indicate agreement—given the unreasonable cost of dissent. (Don’t worry, we
don’t do such things in NUS. At the very least, we provide you access to MS Word first…) Or if
the restaurant is really run by the mafia: once you go in, you need to eat and pay. If you don’t, the
goons will make you. Then, the fact that you did or did not accept the benefits really makes no
difference—the outcome of your having to pay is being imposed upon you—and so your eating
the steak can’t count as giving implicit consent to paying. Or if after the host of the part made the
announcement, you loudly say: “No way, I’m not helping to clean up!” Then even if you have
stuck around, you aren’t indicating by your presence an agreement to help clean up. (If you still
have an obligation to help, it could be because the owner of the house can set the conditions for
your using it, and not because of any—non-existent—implicit consent to his request that you help
clean up.)
The problem with the implicit consent version of the Social Contract is that—just as it is factually
fantastic to think that there was an explicit contract—it is actually not obvious that citizens have
made any implicit agreement of the sort that confers Political Authority, at least not without
begging the essential questions. This is because the situation facing a typical citizen of a country,
even most well-ordered ones, fails the usual conditions required for something to count as implicit
consent. It’s normally a costly affair to ‘opt out’. Even if your country allows you to go, it’s not as
if other countries (the ones worth migrating to anyway) will just let you in, no questions asked.
And what if you want to opt out of having to obey any government at all? Try the Atlantic Ocean.
Tough luck, basically.
Second, if Political Authority is ultimately conferred by implicit consent, then presumably, people
who explicitly ask not to be subject to government are not under that authority. Again, tough luck.
Try running that line the next time you face a fine. Third, whether or not you object, dissent,
participate or not participate in the electoral processes (and if voting is mandatory in your country,
as it is in Singapore, tough luck again), accept or does not accept the benefits from the government,
the government will still impose the same laws upon you. Under such conditions, it’s hard to
believe that if Political Authority exists, it’s grounded on implicit consent, given that such consent
(even though ‘merely’ implicit) may not exist
Social Contract, Hypothetical Consent Version
Finally, the third version where the consent underpinning the Social Contract is neither explicit
nor implicit; in fact, it is not even actual, but hypothetical. The thought goes something like
this: had you been able to think about it, consenting to government having the right to
coerce would have been the reasonable thing to do (in fact, one might add, you couldn’t
reasonably not consent). And this hypothetical consent lies behind the government’s authority;
so, supposedly, there is a moral difference between government and Tony after all.
(Additional note on terminology: There are two distinctions you should not confuse. There’s
the distinction between Explicit (directly expressed) vs. Implicit (not directly expressed, only
implied). Then there’s the distinction between Actual (actually exists) vs. Hypothetical (would
have existed if certain conditions are met). Both Explicit and Implicit are meant to be Actual,
and thus both are on the same side of the divide compared to Hypothetical.)
Hypothetical consent is not a completely bizarre idea. Consider some commonsense examples.
First, you are a construction supervisor overseeing some roadworks when you see someone about
to jog onto a bridge you knew to be unsafe (in fact, you were just getting the “Danger: No Crossing”
sign ready). If he had jogged onto the bridge, there is a high likelihood that he will get hurt. As
there wasn’t enough time to explain things, you forcibly stopped him. After all, had he been filled
in with the missing information and thought about it, he would see that consenting to be stopped
would have been the reasonable thing for him to do; in fact, he couldn’t reasonably not consent.
It would seem that you have permission to stop the jogger.
Second, you are a military doctor treating an unconscious soldier with a gangrenous leg. Given
your knowledge and experience, you have very good reason to believe that he’s not going to survive
if the leg is not amputated. You went ahead with the procedure. After all, he been able to deliberate
about his situation, he would see that consenting to be amputated would have been the reasonable
thing for him to do; in fact, he couldn’t reasonably not consent. It would seem that you have
permission to amputate the soldier.
Third, you inherited your grandma’s historical townhouse upon her passing. She told you on her
deathbed that you should endeavor to preserve the house against redevelopment. Later on, you
were approached by developers who wanted to purchase the land for a new welfare center for
children from disadvantaged families. While you are ready to rebuff them, you also know that your
grandma cared deeply about the children at issue (in fact, she was a major contributor in her
lifetime to the very organizations behind the development). You went ahead with the deal. After
all, had grandma been around to deliberate about the offer, she would see that consenting to the
offer would have been the reasonable thing for her to do; in fact, she couldn’t reasonably not
consent given her commitment to the children’s welfare. It would seem that you have permission
to sell grandma’s historic townhouse.
Fourth, your best friend’s birthday is coming up soon. You have a good sense that she would have
liked a surprise party, maybe because she had always enjoyed them in the past. So, you managed
to get her diverted away while you and other mutual friends sneaked into her place and set up the
party. When she came back, she had the surprise of her life. Ordinarily, sneaking into someone’s
place, rearranging furniture and putting decorations all over the place is not the sort of thing you
should do without their consent. But the case conforms to the general pattern: had she been able
to think about it, agreeing to having the surprise party planned and executed would have been the
reasonable thing to do given her desires; and if having the surprise party planned and executed is
the best, and perhaps even the only, way to secure what she would have wanted, one might add
that she couldn’t reasonably not agree.
If the above examples work, it does seem as if hypothetical consent is something that can exist,
and can plausibly confer moral status. But in each case, whether or not there really was hypothetical
consent depends on two conditions.
The first condition is that securing actual consent (whether explicit or implicit) is not feasible.
Normally, hypothetical consent is relevant only when it is not feasible to, well, just ask the person
(to give explicit consent) or perhaps watch his or her behavior (for implicit consent). There wasn’t
enough time to ask the jogger. The soldier was unconscious. Grandma has gone to a better place,
as they say. As for the surprise party, the very nature of the matter makes it such that the friend’s
explicit consent cannot be secured without compromising the thing she would have wanted. But
vary each scenario so that it becomes possible to directly elicit the relevant parties’ consent, then
the talk about hypothetical consent becomes moot. Suppose we sincerely judged that the person
would have consented when it was not feasible to ask, but later on, when it became feasible to ask,
the person gave us a contrary answer than what we originally expected. Then just as explicit dissent
trumps implicit consent, so likewise actual dissent trumps hypothetical consent (no matter how
accurate our earlier guess had been).
The second condition is that it would really have been the reasonable thing for the person to
consent if he or she had been able to think about the options, given his or her deeply held values
and significant desires and with all relevant information filled in. (After all, If the jogger was a
constitutionally reckless person who gets high exactly on the possibility of danger and injury, or
the soldier was a true follower of some Warrior Code which reckoned that there is more honor in
death than in a handicapped life, or grandma had different completely values and desires in her
lifetime, then we will need to revise our judgments about what would have been the reasonable
things for them to do, had they been able to deliberate about their options.)
Ok, so what’s the problem with the hypothetical consent version of the Social Contract as a
defense of Political Authority? It turns out that both conditions for hypothetical consent will cause
problem for any attempt to defend Political Authority using a hypothetical contract. The problem
on account of the first condition is straightforward—the citizens are right here: so why are we
talking about hypothetical consent when we should be asking them? Now, we are back in the
territory of the Actual and Explicit, or Actual and Implicit Social Contracts, and all the problems
they face.
But in fact, the problem goes deeper. Suppose consenting to giving government Political Authority
would have been the reasonable thing for people to do; in fact, let’s say that they couldn’t
reasonable think otherwise. But it seems strange that even so, such a thing can confer upon
government a right to coerce. To see the disconnect, imagine that accepting your offer of $1,000
for my stinky socks would have been the reasonable thing for me to do, in fact, I can’t reasonably
refuse. Now what if I then unreasonably decline the offer? The fact that accepting your offer
would have been the reasonable thing for me to do, or that I can’t reasonably not accept does not
seem to give you the right to coerce me to exchange my socks for your $1,000 once I
actually refused, no matter how ‘unreasonable’ that refusal may be.
As stated previously, just as explicit dissent trumps implicit consent, so likewise actual dissent
trumps hypothetical consent. The implication is that it doesn’t seem as if we can go from
“consenting to giving government Political Authority would have been the reasonable thing for
people to do; in fact, they couldn’t reasonable think otherwise” to “Government has the right to
coerce me”, especially when it is not infeasible to actually seek my consent, and in light of actual
dissent.
But even if we set that first worry aside, there’s still the matter of the second condition. So why
are Contract Theorists so confident that consenting to grant government Political Authority would
have been the reasonable thing for people to do; in fact, they couldn’t reasonable think otherwise?
Since that’s another long story, I’ll explain in the next post.
Conclusion
In the previous post, we saw one problem with the hypothetical consent version of the Social
Contract. Basically, it doesn’t seem as if we can go from “consenting to giving government Political
Authority would have been the reasonable thing for people to do; in fact, they couldn’t reasonable
think otherwise” to “government has the moral permission to coerce me”, especially when it is
not infeasible to actually seek my consent, and in light of actual dissent. In this post, we consider
a different worry, namely, whether consenting to grant government the right to coerce is the
reasonable thing to do, if we had been able to think about things; in fact, we couldn’t reasonable
think otherwise.
The basic situation is this. Social Contract Theorists aren’t really talking about what would have
been the reasonable thing for us to do, or what we couldn’t reasonable not do as if they intended
to go check on our actual desires and beliefs. If that were the case, they will probably just get
a variety of contradictory answers. To get at a determinate answer, the choice scenario needs to
be constrained, and an argument needs to be made to show that a certain answer is the right
one given the choice scenario. This is where the traditional Social Contract gets paired with the
idea of a State of Nature.
The Social Contract Theorists basically propose that we embark on a thought experiment. Imagine
what life would have been like if there were no government, laws, political authority, etc. This style
of argument is very old—you can find examples of it in ancient Chinese texts such as the Mozi and
the Xunzi, and not to mention in ancient Greek texts such as Plato’s Republic. But let me stick to
the usual (early modern European) suspects for illustrative purposes.
For Thomas Hobbes, human life in the state of nature would have been “solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short”, i.e., nothing that any of us would want. For John Locke, it wouldn’t be quite
that bad, but nonetheless filled with enough “inconveniences” that we would have preferred
something else. Here, it is important to note that Hobbes and Locke are not best taken as saying
that this was how human life was before there was government, but that this is how life would be
like, if hypothetically, government is removed from the equation. But the long and short is this:
suppose government were missing and our existence reverted to a “State of Nature”, then life
would be either quite terrible, or at least very inconvenient.
The question now is: What would you have done if you were a denizen of the state of nature? The
Social Contract Theorists now suggest that getting yourself into a social contract to confer political
authority upon government would have been the reasonable thing for you (i.e., people in the state
of nature) to do, or what you couldn’t reasonable not do—given that, surely, you would want to
escape from the nastiness and inconveniences of the state of nature.
We can now propose the following (implied) argument:
(1) If Government possessing Political Authority were not to exist, we would be in a State of
Nature.
(2) We strongly desire not to be in a State of Nature.
From (1) and (2), we can derive:
(3) If we were reasonable, we would desire the existence of Government possessing Political
Authority.
The underlying inference goes something like this. We want X. But without Y, we won’t get X. So,
if we are reasonable people, we really would want Y. (Think: the soldier (though unconscious),
wanted to survive. But without the amputation, he will perish. So if he were reasonable (and able
to think about his options), he would want/consent to the amputation.) If we are willing to give
the Social Contract Theorist (1) and (2), I think we have enough reason to say that hypothetical
consent for the existence of Government possessing Political Authority exists (assuming that the
problems identified in the earlier post are resolved).
So should we accept (1) and (2)? A lot will depend on your assumed anthropology. The point is
not exactly a historical one (what happened in the past), though historical evidence may be used
to make a case for what would happen today. To the extent that the Social Contract argument
(hypothetical consent version) has bite for us, it has to be about what what things would be like if
Government did not exist now, given people such as ourselves. (I’ve blogged a bit more about
this point for a different module here.) Relatedly, we will also need to figure out exactly what our
“State of Nature” is going to be like. Is it a war of all against war where life is “solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short”, or merely filled with “inconveniences”? How we answer that question will also
affect what the introduction of Government possessing Political Authority was meant to solve,
and thus, the scope of the powers that we can be said to have hypothetically conferred upon
Government. Since I’ve said a lot already, I’m going to leave the matter to you…
*****
Since I did mention that State of Nature style arguments can be found in ancient Chinese texts, let
me make good that claim with a quote from Mozi , for those who want to learn more. Like Hobbes
and Locke, he talked as if talking about what really happened in the past; but all four (Mozi, Xunzi,
Hobbes, Locke) are best understood as proposing thought experiment arguments (it’s a long story):
Our teacher Mozi says, “In ancient times, when people first came into being and before there were
governments or laws, each person followed their own norm for deciding what was right and
wrong. And so where there was one person there was one norm, where there were two people
there were two norms, where there were ten people there were ten different norms. As many
people as there were, that was how many norms were recognized. In this way people came to
approve their own norms for what is right and wrong and thereby condemn the norms of others.
And so they mutually condemned each other’s norms. For this reason, within families, there was
resentment and hatred between fathers and sons and elder and younger brothers that caused them
to separate and disperse and made it impossible for them to cooperate harmoniously with one
another. Throughout the world, people used water, fire, and poison to harm and injure one another,
to the point where if they had strength to spare, they would not use it to help each other, if they
had excess goods, they would leave them to rot away rather than distribute them to one another,
and if they had helpful teachings, they would hide them away rather than teach them to one another.
The chaos that ruled in the world was like what one finds among the birds and beasts. Those who
understood the nature of this chaos saw that it arose from a lack of rulers and leaders and so they
chose the best person among the most worthy and capable in the world and established him as the
Son of Heaven…” (Mozi, Chapter 11, “Exalting Unity”)
Mozi was using a State of Nature argument to establish not just that being ruled by a ‘Son of
Heaven’ (backed by a whole hierarchy of rules and leaders, in fact) but also that we live under a
unified moral code is what we would have wanted, given that we don’t want to be living in chaos
like among the birds and beasts