The (unspoken) social contract can only work if we assume everyone is a good person and then everyone acts accordingly. Unfortunately, we know this is not true and this is why we have government.
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The (unspoken) social contract can only work if we assume everyone is a good person and then everyone acts accordingly. Unfortunately, we know this is not true and this is why we have government.
That doesn't make sense, because the "social contract" is what supports the idea of government in the first place in modern political philosophy. Democracy relies on the presumption that people are virtuous in the voting booth, but need a government to curb their perversity at all other times. There is no social contract, and government operates by coercion rather than consent. Politics creates the incentives for abuse and destruction.