The thoughts on the social contract theory of two renowned thinkers, Charles Mills and Thomas Hobbes, are compared and contrasted in this study. The readings by the two authors have both similarities and differences, while the issue of human nature is present in the two literature pieces. Thus, the study argues that Charles Mills’s concepts in The Racial Contract come from discussing the racial aspect, while social issues arise in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan.
Thomas Hobbes is one of those philosophers who have defined and redefined the social contract theory. Humans, according to Hobbes, would live in a cutthroat existence if the social contract did not exist. Mills breaks with this tradition by arguing that a separate contract, a “racial contract” between whites, provides nonwhites with “a different and inferior moral status” (11). He explains that racism is systematically entrenched in the modern political structure, including its central political institutions, dominant social practices, and prevalent economic arrogance.
According to Mills, an individual cannot be classified as a person if there is a gap between them and the person group. The superior group or person is entitled to privileges, rights, and freedoms. In contrast, the inferior group or sub-person is only authorized to what the distinguished group allows them to be. Mills argues that a person group’s dominance over a sub-person group has always existed throughout history. Because all lower races are regarded sub-persons in racism, whites are considered persons and “beneficiaries of the contract” (Mills 11). Mills claims that the Enlightenment philosophers who coined the term “social contract”—Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant—discussed a race contract. Although these theorists maintained that the social contract would guarantee equality for all individuals, they also argued that non-white people were unworthy of living in a civilized society.
The state of nature is a concept that is described in Hobbes’s reading, while Mills offers examples to define it. Hobbes clarifies that the state of nature is a permanent state of war in which individuals live “nasty, brutish, and short” lives (89). He asserted that this heart condition never existed, but he further claimed that there were “the savage people in many places of America” (Hobbes 89). This apparent contradiction, according to Mills, is only feasible because Hobbes understood that the state of nature did not exist for white people. Despite making a clear moral and cognitive distinction between white and non-white people, Hobbes sparked controversy in Europe. Later social contract ideas differentiated white and non-white people more clearly.
According to Mills, the social contract tradition consists of moral and political contracts with conceivable links between them. According to one interpretation, the simple arrangement symbolizes “preexisting objectivist morality (theological or secular) and thus constrains the terms of the political contract” (Mills 14). This claim means that the state of nature itself should have an objective moral code that does not depend on any external circumstances. Thus, any community, government, or legal system founded should rely on that code. According to the second viewpoint, the political contract establishes morality as a collection of conventional rules. As a result, there is no objective moral standard that can be used independently.
According to Mills, the classic social contract is mainly moral than political. However, it is also economically sound in the end because leaving character is partly about ensuring a stable environment for the world’s dynamic appropriation. Readers are also reminded that “there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no Culture of the Earth” (Mills 32). As a result, the aim of establishing society is to safeguard what people have already accumulated.
Finally, Hobbes also made some comments regarding morality and its significance. His assertion that “injustice is no other than the not performance of covenant” is widely regarded as a declaration of moral conventionalism (Hobbes 100). Hobbes’s social morality relies on the combination of physical might and mental abilities in nature. Within this concept, the Racial Contract would be the natural result of a systematic difference in weapons and power between different nations.
In conclusion, the two readings are similar in the way that they admitted an inferior position of non-white individuals in society. However, the difference refers to the fact that Hobbes stipulated that a social contract could guarantee equality to people. Furthermore, Hobbes introduced the concept of human nature, but he brought controversy. That is why Mills’s thoughts should also be considered to understand that the misunderstanding emerged because Hobbes separately described human nature for whites and non-whites.
Works Cited
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Pp. 86-129.
Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Pp. 9-40.