2021-11-21

the illusion of public interest: a critique of early contractarianism

introduction

In this essay, I concern myself with the meaning of terms such as “common good”, “public interest” and “public will”, all of which are used, in some form or another, across the works of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, in defining the ends of political entities born from social contracts. For the purposes of this essay, I will generalise these collection of terms and conceptions under that of “public interest”, which I define to be that which attempts to express the disposition of a politicized collective, that is, a collection of individuals that have already escaped the state of nature/war through the formation of a political structure by way of social contract. I will then argue that any early contractarian description of the role of states that relies on “public interest”, as I have defined it, is either meaningless or contradictory to contractarianism’s own conception of human nature. For I will demonstrate that conceptions of public interest are only meaningful, in the sense that they carry a discernible meaning, in so far as they describe a collection of people with a unanimously shared interest. However, I will show, by contractarians’ own admission, that there is no natural reason to believe that this could ever be the case in the governments they outline.

I will begin by offering a brief overview of each author’s specific terminology in the context of their respective political theories, touching on their various conceptions of what I have categorised as “public interest” above. I will then outline my argument for the sole meaningful interpretation of the term, before highlighting its improbability under the conception of human nature that underpins the state of war. Finally, I will briefly consider and respond to the objection that public interests is implicitly defined as majority interest.

public interest in contractarianism

Hobbes

To Hobbes, humans are rational creatures driven by their passions. People’s attraction to certain objects and their aversion to others, is explained by their natural capacity for desire and fear. In turn, individuals look out for their own interests, not out of choice but out of natural necessity, the most primitive example of which being a person’s desire for self-preservation. With this, Hobbes presents the idea that the natural state of humankind is one of war and competition, riddled with misery and insecurity. One in which the natural conflicts of interests between people are resolved by each individuals claim to power, or more simply, each person’s capacity to enforce their interests over those of others.

It is upon this foundation that Hobbes goes on to suggest that people form mutual, artificial contracts between themselves (covenants) to subject themselves to a common power he calls the sovereign, all as a means of escaping the deplorable state of war. He claims that in subjecting themselves to the “terror of some power”, individuals’ “natural passions” can be subdued for peace and security to be established.

However, Hobbes explains that the role of this sovereign is, in reference to its members: “to keep them in awe, and to direct their actions to the common benefit” (Hobbes and A. 2008). He goes on to add that in coming together through social contracts people “confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will” (Hobbes and A. 2008). What’s more, to Hobbes, the sovereign is the sole judge in determining whether actions are done “for the public good”. (Hobbes and A. 2008)

Locke

Like Hobbes, Locke is concerned about the default state humans find themselves in without politics, but he focuses his attention on the idea of Property which he defines as the “Lives, Liberties and Estates” of individuals (Locke, Addison, and Goldie 2016). Under his theory, Locke suggests that people come together and Society is formed as a way for people to “secure and defend their Properties” (Locke, Addison, and Goldie 2016). This is achieved through the establishing of what he calls the “Legislative”, the commonwealth’s supreme power that sets the “standing Rules” that bound and ensure people’s property so that “every one may know, what is his.” (Locke, Addison, and Goldie 2016).

Unlike Hobbes, Locke focuses heavily on the place of Law in government and also highlights the significance of the public in guiding its behaviour. To such an extent that he gives the impression that the state is somehow run by the public. He speaks at length about the “publick Will of the Society” (Locke, Addison, and Goldie 2016) and how the powers of the commonwealth such as the Legislative, are to be understood as an expression of it. At the same time, he emphasises that not only should the government dedicate itself to “preserving the Community and the Members of it” but also that its power should be used “only for the good of Society”. (Locke, Addison, and Goldie 2016)

Rousseau

As for Rousseau, his main concern is not so much with managing private interests and enforcing peace like Hobbes, nor is it with creating structures to manage and maintain individual property like Locke; Rousseau turns his attention more towards individual freedoms and how these change in joining a social whole. This is made clear when he states that his problem is: “To find a form of association which may defend and protect with the whole force of the community the person and property of every associate, and by means of which each, coalescing with all, may nevertheless obey only himself, and remain as free as before.” (Rousseau and Tozer 1998)

Rousseau’s main argument is that there is a net gain in individual rights when a social pact is formed and a civil state established. Although he openly concedes that some rights are lost in overcoming the state of nature, he claims that “we gain the equivalent of all that we lose, and more power to preserve what we have.” (Rousseau and Tozer 1998) He goes on to say to say that this can be achieved through each person putting “his whole power under the supreme direction of the general will”. (Rousseau and Tozer 1998)

The concept of the “general will” is unique to Rousseau and he offers a personified definition of it, describing it as “a moral and collective body, which is composed of as many members as the assembly has voices, and which receives from this same act its unity, its common self (moi), its life and its will.” (Rousseau and Tozer 1998) He goes so far as to call it a “public person” (Rousseau and Tozer 1998), which under his theory, constitutes the state and therefore guides it.

the meaninglessness of claims to “public interest”: an error in abstraction

Whether it be “public will”, “public good” or “general will” the error committed by each author is the same: they assume of a collection properties that exist exclusively among its parts. More specifically, in trying to describe the disposition of a collection of individuals, contractarians have committed a fallacy that has condemned them to assumptively extend the only meaningful conception of “public interest” to describe that which cannot be described, or endorse a contradiction in their theories. A fact that comes to light when one considers the words “public” and “interest” separately.

A “public”, in a political context, is first and foremost understood in relation to a state, which is to say that the existence of a political structure precedes that of a “public”¹. From this, it becomes clear that “public” refers to the collection of people over which a political structure has dominion.

As for “interest”, in its most general sense, it can be understood as a predicate-like quality that is either assigned or not assigned to objects. After all, we speak of things as either being or not being in a particular subject’s interest. In this way, “interest” is purely a product of a subject’s interpretation (ie: subjective), and by extension nothing inherently carries this quality of “interest” (ie: relative), nor is it universal or absolute. And since, in the case of people, their experience of the world is individually interpreted, as evidenced by the innumerable examples in which multiple people share the same event but experience it differently, it follows that individuals are the sole authorities over what constitutes their interests.

However, the conjunction of both terms, asks not for a person’s interests but those of a public, that is, a collection of persons. But since there is no such thing as collective experience or interpretation, no interest can be derived from a collection of individuals. As a result, the only other conceivable meaning of the term is to describe that which is in the interest of all members of the public. Put more simply, “public interest” can only meaningfully describe a unanimously shared interest of a public.

For example, consider a case in which a collection of individuals did not unanimously share a particular interest. If I were then to speak of their interests, what would I effectively be referring to? It cannot be the disparate collection of their interests because there is no unified whole to speak of. This would be like referring to a box of Celebrations as a box of Mars bars, a semantic problem that is exacerbated in our abstract context because it de facto describes nothing by virtue of not describing anything precise². What’s more, I can’t be referring to the interests of a personified group since I have shown that the interpretation of experience from which interest is born, lies exclusively with the individual. Hence, it is entirely meaningless³ for me to speak of the interest of a collection if there is no unanimous interest to refer to.

This marks the beginning of where contractarians have erred.

In first succumbing to the composition/division fallacy in their abstractions, they wrongly assumed that because individuals have the property of particular interests then so must a collection of them in the form of a public. This is the same reasoning that would lead one to conclude that a table must be invisible since the atoms that constitute it are.

Because of this misstep, their readers are forced to fallback onto the only meaningful understanding of “public interest”, and interpret their various conceptions as descriptions of instances of a unanimously shared interest amongst the public. However, no explanation is given as to how such an alignment of post-state-of-nature individual interests is even possible, let alone how it could occur reliably and frequently enough to justify a government’s actions. Most confusingly of all, is that this seems inconceivable under contractarianism’s own conception of human nature. Such a contradiction is made apparent when Hobbes states that “men are continually in competition for honour and dignity” and that humans “strive, to reform and innovate” their governments, “one this way, another that way” (Hobbes and A. 2008).

objections

public interest is simply the interest of the majority

Although an interesting claim, it is one thing to refer to the interest of a majority, and another to refer the interest of its wider collective.

In suggesting that the interest of a collection of individuals is that which is shared amongst its greatest proportion, then one is suggesting that a whole should be defined by the majority of its parts. I will concede that this occurs in colloquial uses of language: a bottle of mineral water is referred to as water in spite of not being entirely composed of it. At the same time, it’s obvious that one wouldn’t call a bottle of 49% concentrated hydrochloric acid a bottle of water, despite the latter accounting for the majority of its composition.⁴

conclusion

I have shown that conceptions of “public interest” in early contractarianism, that is, attempts at describing the supposed disposition of a public body, have no discernible meaning unless referring to instances of a unanimously shared interest across a public’s members. Most notably because the public is not a person, nor does it inherit all the properties of one by being composed of them. What’s more, I have shown that this exclusively meaningful interpretation of “public interest” is seemingly inconsistent with the descriptions of human nature that underpin contractarian theories. Especially if one assumes free-will and non-determinism, under which any individual could plausibly define their interests in opposition to another’s.

Therefore, either all early contractarians, albeit to various degrees, have contradicted themselves in justifying the role of their states with an inconsistent concept. Or, they are each describing a meaningless concept about which nothing can be said.

References