We’ve established that we form societies for our mutual benefit, but that we’re also dealing with everyone having their own mix of good and selfish motivations. That means we have to figure out how to balance personal freedoms with our collective interests. We need a social contract.
Our Individual Freedom
If our goal is to maximize our personal fulfillment, then we might we want a society that permits us to do whatever we want. If we want to exist in a society with others safely, then we know that there have to be some limits to those freedoms. This concept is broadly summarized in the famous phrase that “the freedom to swing your fist ends at the beginning of my nose”.
In other words, a great society will try to allow people to do whatever they want, so long as it doesn’t substantively harm others. Once it represents a potential harrm, then we start to weigh the harm in restricting a freedom with the harm in not restricting it. These decisions form the basis of our laws and ordinances.
In real life, we often run into situations where two people’s rights and freedoms can’t co-exist. At that point we start balancing potential harms and freedoms. Take an example like yelling a slur. The person yelling it has the freedom to say what they want. The target has a right to safety though. And since slurs far too often are precursors to physical violence, they represent a threat to that safety. So we generally recognize that some slurs/hate speech shouldn’t be covered by freedom of speech, because they violate others rights to exist in society free from terrorization.
Enforcing Our Collective Priorities
How we balance freedoms is rooted in our collective priorities. Once we start putting our priorities into rules, then we come to the question of what happens when someone decides to ignore those rules. In smaller, less structured, groups, we might be able to address issues simply through group agreement. History shows us that will range from restorative to barbaric depending on the group. As groups get larger, we have to start implementing systems, and delegate folks to enforce and adjudicate the rules. These of course are our laws and justice systems.
Deterrence
When we decide the rules and consequences for breaking rules, we generally set them up based on the idea of proportional consequences. Ideally the consequence is just enough to make breaking that law undesirable. This is where we get the idea of deterrence. For instance, if we don’t want someone stealing our car, we probably want the consequence to be bad enough that you choose not to.
But we also know that deterrence doesn’t eliminate all law-breaking. Some people might be willing to take the chance they won’t get caught. So typically we emphasize enforcement to discourage that risk-taking. Even that won’t completely solve it though.
Unfortunately we tend to get caught in a cycle of ever increasing consequences and enforcement, hoping we can get to a level of severity that prevents crime. But this is where understanding that all of this is based on a social contract is really important. The social contract presumes that you are benefiting from society enough to want to avoid the cost of the consequences. You aren’t going to steal someone’s car, because you risk lose your freedom, job, opportunities, etc.
Who benefits from the social contract?
But what happens when you have been excluded from enough of benefits of the social contract that you have nothing left to lose? Risking a job that doesn’t pay enough to be financially secure, with no hope of things improving, isn’t much of a risk. What is the risk of stealing when you don’t even have housing? Why devote your effort to invest in skill and career building when you can’t get hired or promoted in those fields?
In a society with a selective social benefit, order can only temporarily be maintained by escalating deterrence into a reign of terror and force on those it already exploited and trampled.
That’s when we begin to understand that we have to take stock of our fellow citizens and see who is falling through the gaps in society. We have to create solutions to make sure everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of being part of a society.
We start to see that bigotry, current and historical, excludes people. We realize that the ever escalating cycle of consequences and draconian enforcement are also further excluding people from having any stake in a stable society. If those are the only tools we use to create a stable society, they quickly become counterproductive.
A balanced approach is required. One that addresses the gaps in our systems, expands social incentives and safety nets, allows for restitution and restoration where appropriate, and then takes the least oppressive means to enforcing the priorities of society.