Sources and References

• Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan (1651). Edited by Richard Tuck. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government (1689). Edited by C.B. Macpherson. Hackett Publishing, 1980.
• Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract (1762). Translated by G.D.H. Cole. Penguin Classics, 2004.
• Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty (1859). Edited by Elizabeth Rapaport. Hackett Publishing, 1978.
• Tawney, R.H. Equality (1931; 4th ed., 1952). George Allen & Unwin.
• Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice (1971; revised ed., 1999). Harvard University Press.
• Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001). Harvard University Press.
• Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). Basic Books.
• Cohen, G.A. “Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 26, no. 1 (1997): 3–30.
• Okin, Susan Moller. Justice, Gender, and the Family (1989). Basic Books.
• Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract (1997). Cornell University Press.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries: “Social Contract Theory,” “Liberalism,” “Distributive Justice,” “John Rawls,” “Robert Nozick.”

Chapter 1: The Social Contract Tradition: Introduction

1.1 What Is Social and Political Philosophy?

Social and political philosophy (社会与政治哲学) is the branch of philosophy that investigates the nature, justification, and limits of political authority, as well as the principles that ought to govern the distribution of benefits and burdens in a society. Its central questions include: What gives a government the right to rule? What is justice? What do we owe one another as members of a political community?

These questions are not merely abstract. They bear directly on law, public policy, and the lived experience of every person subject to political authority. This course traces a line from the early modern social contract (社会契约) tradition through contemporary liberal egalitarianism and its critics.

1.2 The Idea of the Social Contract

The social contract tradition holds that political authority is justified only if it could arise from, or be understood as arising from, an agreement among the people who are governed. The central metaphor is contractual: legitimate government rests on the consent (同意) of the governed.

The social contract tradition does not require that any such agreement actually took place in history. Rather, the contract is a thought experiment: it asks what rational individuals would agree to under specified conditions. Different theorists set up those conditions differently, and the results diverge dramatically.

1.3 The State of Nature

A key device in social contract theory is the state of nature (自然状态) – an imagined pre-political condition in which no government exists. By reasoning about what life would be like without political institutions, social contract theorists aim to identify why government is necessary (or desirable) and what form it should take.

The state of nature is not intended as a historical claim about how human beings once lived. It is a heuristic device that isolates the question of political justification: if we stripped away all existing institutions, what would rational agents agree to construct, and why?

1.4 Key Tensions in the Tradition

The course is organized around a fundamental tension: the tension between natural freedom (自然自由) and political authority (政治权威). Human beings are born free and equal in a morally significant sense, yet they live under governments that restrict their freedom and treat them unequally. The social contract tradition attempts to resolve this tension by showing how political authority can be reconciled with – or even required by – the freedom and equality of those subject to it.

A second tension runs through the later portion of the course: the tension between formal equality (形式平等) – equal rights and equal treatment under law – and substantive equality (实质平等) – the actual distribution of resources, opportunities, and power. Liberal egalitarians like Rawls argue that justice requires more than formal equality; critics from feminist, Marxist, and racial-justice perspectives argue that even Rawls does not go far enough.

1.5 Overview of the Course

The course proceeds in three broad movements:

1. The Classical Social Contract (Weeks 1–3): Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau develop competing accounts of the state of nature, the social contract, and the form of legitimate government.
2. Liberal Egalitarianism and Its Rivals (Weeks 4–8): Mill’s defense of liberty, Tawney’s critique of inequality, Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness, Nozick’s libertarian challenge, and Cohen’s egalitarian response.
3. Critiques and Extensions (Weeks 9–11): Feminist, disability-based, and racial-justice critiques that expose blind spots in the liberal tradition and develop alternative or supplementary frameworks.

Chapter 2: Hobbes: The State of Nature and Absolute Sovereignty

2.1 Historical Context

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) wrote Leviathan in 1651, during the upheaval of the English Civil War. The book is a sustained argument for the necessity of a strong, undivided sovereign authority. Hobbes witnessed the collapse of political order firsthand, and his philosophy is shaped by a deep conviction that the alternative to strong government is chaos and violent death.

2.2 Hobbes’s State of Nature

Hobbes’s state of nature (自然状态) is the most famously bleak in the social contract tradition. It is a condition of radical equality – not in the sense that everyone has equal moral worth, but in the sense that everyone is roughly equal in their ability to kill or be killed by others. No one is so strong as to be invulnerable, and no one is so weak as to be harmless.

Three causes drive conflict in the state of nature:

1. Competition (竞争): People compete for the same scarce goods.
2. Diffidence (猜疑): Even those who do not want to fight must do so preemptively, because they cannot trust others not to attack.
3. Glory (虚荣): People seek recognition and will fight to defend their reputation.

The result is the famous passage: life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Leviathan, Ch. XIII).

2.3 The Laws of Nature

Despite the bleakness of the state of nature, Hobbes argues that reason (理性) discovers certain laws of nature (自然法) – precepts that, if followed, would conduce to peace. The first and most fundamental law of nature is: “seek peace, and follow it.” The second is that each person should be willing to lay down their natural right to all things, provided others do the same.

2.4 The Social Contract and the Sovereign

Because the laws of nature are ineffective without enforcement, rational individuals in the state of nature agree to transfer their natural rights to a sovereign (主权者). The contract is not between the people and the sovereign; rather, it is a covenant among the people themselves to authorize one person or assembly to act on their behalf.

The sovereign thus created is absolute (绝对的). Hobbes argues that any division of sovereignty – for instance, between a king and a parliament – recreates the conditions of the state of nature within the government itself and risks civil war. The sovereign’s power cannot be limited, divided, or revoked (except in the extreme case where the sovereign fails to protect the lives of the subjects).

2.5 Rights and Obligations Under Hobbes

Subjects under Hobbes’s sovereign retain one inalienable right: the right to self-preservation. If the sovereign directly threatens a subject’s life, the subject may resist. But in all other matters, the sovereign’s word is law. There is no right to rebel, no freedom of speech against the sovereign, and no independent judiciary. The sovereign determines what is just and unjust, what is property and what is not.

2.6 Criticisms of Hobbes

Several objections have been raised against Hobbes’s theory:

• The authorization problem: If the sovereign is not a party to the contract, what binds the sovereign to act in the people’s interest?
• The absolutism objection: Is it truly rational to hand over all power to a single ruler who cannot be held accountable? Locke will argue that this is “worse than the state of nature.”
• The empirical objection: Is Hobbes’s portrait of human nature excessively pessimistic? Are human beings really incapable of cooperation without a coercive sovereign?
• The feminist critique: Hobbes assumes a world of competitive, atomistic individuals. Feminist critics (Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract) argue that the social contract presupposes and conceals a prior “sexual contract” that subordinates women.

Chapter 3: Locke: Natural Rights and Limited Government

3.1 Historical Context

John Locke (1632–1704) published his Two Treatises of Government in 1689, shortly after the Glorious Revolution that replaced James II with William and Mary. The Second Treatise is a defense of limited, constitutional government grounded in natural rights (自然权利).

3.2 Locke’s State of Nature

Locke’s state of nature is far more benign than Hobbes’s. It is governed by the law of nature (自然法), which Locke identifies with the law of reason and ultimately with divine law. The law of nature teaches “that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions” (Second Treatise, Ch. II, sec. 6).

Unlike Hobbes’s state of nature, Locke’s is not a state of war. It can, however, degenerate into one when individuals violate the law of nature and there is no impartial judge to resolve disputes. This inconvenience – not the sheer terror of Hobbes’s war of all against all – is what motivates the transition to civil society.

3.3 Property

Locke’s theory of property (财产) is among the most influential in Western philosophy. In the state of nature, the earth and its fruits are given to humanity in common. However, each person owns their own body and their own labor (劳动). When a person mixes their labor with unowned natural resources, the resulting product becomes their private property.

Locke argues that the introduction of money (货币) effectively renders the spoilage proviso moot, since money does not spoil. This permits the accumulation of unlimited wealth, a result that has been both celebrated and criticized by subsequent thinkers.

3.4 The Social Contract and Limited Government

Locke’s social contract differs from Hobbes’s in crucial respects. Individuals enter civil society in order to protect their pre-existing natural rights – life, liberty, and property – not to create rights that did not exist before. The government that results is therefore limited (有限的): its authority extends only to the protection of natural rights, and it may not infringe those rights.

The government operates through established, known laws applied by impartial judges – a vision of the rule of law (法治). Legislative power is supreme but not absolute; it is held as a trust (信托) from the people and may be revoked if the government acts contrary to the trust.

3.5 The Right of Revolution

Perhaps Locke’s most radical contribution is his defense of the right of revolution (革命权). If the government systematically violates the natural rights of the people, the people are justified in dissolving the government and establishing a new one.

3.6 Criticisms of Locke

• The labor-mixing problem: What exactly does it mean to “mix” one’s labor with an object? If I build a fence around a field, do I own just the fence or the entire field?
• The sufficiency proviso in the modern world: In a world where most land and resources are already owned, can Locke’s proviso ever be satisfied?
• Tacit consent: Locke argues that by continuing to live in a society and enjoy its benefits, one tacitly consents to its government. Critics object that this sets the bar for “consent” too low – one cannot meaningfully consent to something one has no realistic option to refuse.
• Exclusions: Locke’s theory historically excluded women, Indigenous peoples, and the propertyless from full political membership, despite its universalist language.

Chapter 4: Rousseau: The General Will and Popular Sovereignty

4.1 Historical Context

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) published The Social Contract (Du contrat social) in 1762. Rousseau is unique in the social contract tradition for his deeply critical view of existing society. While Hobbes and Locke seek to justify political authority, Rousseau begins from the premise that existing social institutions are fundamentally corrupt and asks how they might be reconstituted on legitimate foundations.

4.2 The State of Nature and the Critique of Civilization

Rousseau’s state of nature is neither Hobbes’s war zone nor Locke’s relatively peaceful commons. It is a condition of solitary, peaceful existence in which human beings are guided by two natural sentiments: self-love (amour de soi, 自爱) and compassion (pitie, 同情心). Natural man is neither good nor bad in any moral sense; he is simply pre-moral.

The problems begin with the emergence of society – in particular, with the invention of private property. Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755) contains the famous passage: “The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.”

4.3 The Social Contract and the General Will

Rousseau’s social contract is designed to solve a fundamental problem: “Find a form of association which defends and protects with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before” (Social Contract, Bk. I, Ch. 6).

The solution is the general will (公意, volonte generale). Each individual alienates all of their rights to the community as a whole. In return, each participates equally in the sovereign body that makes the laws. Because the sovereign is the people themselves, obedience to the law is obedience to oneself.

4.4 Popular Sovereignty and Direct Democracy

Rousseau insists on popular sovereignty (人民主权): the people themselves, assembled as a body, are the only legitimate sovereign. Sovereignty cannot be represented or delegated. Rousseau is therefore hostile to representative government: “The English people thinks it is free; it is greatly mistaken. It is free only during the election of Members of Parliament. Once they are elected, the people is enslaved” (Social Contract, Bk. III, Ch. 15).

The government (executive power) is merely the agent of the sovereign (the people); it can be changed or dissolved at any time.

4.5 Freedom and Forced to Be Free

Rousseau’s most controversial claim is that anyone who refuses to obey the general will “shall be forced to be free” (Social Contract, Bk. I, Ch. 7). This paradoxical formulation has been interpreted in two ways:

1. Benign interpretation: Since the general will represents the true interest of each citizen, compliance with it is not a loss of freedom but its realization. To be “forced to be free” is simply to be prevented from acting on short-sighted self-interest at the expense of one’s deeper, rational interests.
2. Totalitarian interpretation: Critics (notably Isaiah Berlin and Jacob Talmon) argue that Rousseau’s formulation opens the door to tyranny in the name of freedom – any dictatorship can claim to embody the “real” will of the people.

4.6 Criticisms of Rousseau

• The problem of identifying the general will: How can we determine what the general will actually requires? Rousseau provides no clear procedure beyond deliberation and voting, and he admits that the people can be mistaken.
• Scale: Rousseau’s model of direct democracy is plausible only for small, homogeneous communities. How does it apply to large, diverse modern states?
• The totalitarian worry: As noted above, the concept of being “forced to be free” is troubling.
• Gender: Rousseau notoriously excludes women from political participation (see Emile, Bk. V). His theory of the general will applies only to male citizens.

Chapter 5: Mill: Liberty, Harm, and Individuality

5.1 Historical Context

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) published On Liberty in 1859. Mill was a utilitarian, but On Liberty is often read as a defense of individual rights that sits uneasily with strict utilitarianism. Mill wrote during the height of Victorian Britain’s industrial expansion and was concerned not only with government tyranny but with the tyranny of the majority (多数人的暴政) – the power of prevailing social opinion to stifle dissent and individuality.

5.2 The Harm Principle

The central argument of On Liberty is the harm principle (伤害原则):

The harm principle draws a line between self-regarding actions (those that affect only the agent) and other-regarding actions (those that affect others). Society may interfere with the latter but not with the former. This rules out paternalism (家长主义) – the use of power to protect people from themselves – and legal moralism – the enforcement of moral standards that do not involve harm to others.

5.3 Freedom of Thought and Expression

Mill devotes the second chapter of On Liberty to a vigorous defense of freedom of thought and expression (思想与言论自由). He offers several arguments:

1. The argument from fallibility: We can never be certain that the opinion we are suppressing is false. If it is true, we lose the opportunity to exchange error for truth.
2. The argument from partial truth: Even if the prevailing opinion is partly true, it may be incomplete. Dissenting opinions may contain the missing portion.
3. The argument from dead dogma: Even if the prevailing opinion is wholly true, unless it is vigorously contested it will be held as a “dead dogma” rather than a “living truth” – people will not understand its rational grounds.

5.4 Individuality and Experiments in Living

Chapter 3 of On Liberty defends individuality (个性) as essential to human well-being and social progress. Mill argues that people should be free to conduct “experiments in living” – to choose their own way of life, even if others find it foolish or distasteful. Conformity stifles genius and prevents the discovery of new and better ways of living.

Mill draws on the Romantic tradition (especially Wilhelm von Humboldt) to argue that human development requires the free exercise of choice. A person who merely follows custom without reflection is not fully exercising their distinctly human capacities.

5.5 Applications and Limits

In the final chapters, Mill applies the harm principle to specific cases: he defends the freedom to trade, opposes prohibitions on alcohol and drugs (though he allows taxation), and argues against laws that restrict the freedom to marry or have children. He also discusses the limits of the harm principle: what counts as “harm”? Mill distinguishes between direct harm (injury, fraud, coercion) and mere offense or disapproval.

5.6 Criticisms of Mill

• The self-regarding/other-regarding distinction: Critics argue that very few actions are truly self-regarding. Almost everything we do affects others to some degree.
• The definition of harm: Mill never provides a precise definition of “harm.” Does economic competition count? Emotional distress? Environmental degradation?
• Utilitarian foundations: If Mill is a utilitarian, why does he treat liberty as nearly inviolable? Some critics argue that a consistent utilitarian would sometimes sacrifice individual liberty for the greater good.
• Cultural bias: Mill’s celebration of individuality and nonconformity may reflect the values of a particular (Western, educated, male) social class rather than universal truths about human flourishing.

Chapter 6: Tawney: Equality and the Critique of Privilege

6.1 Historical Context

Richard Henry Tawney (1880–1962) was a British economic historian and social critic whose book Equality (first published 1931, revised 1952) is a landmark of egalitarian thought. Tawney wrote against the background of interwar Britain, where stark class divisions persisted despite formal legal equality. He was a democratic socialist who sought to show that meaningful equality required not just political rights but economic and social transformation.

6.2 The Argument Against Privilege

Tawney’s central claim is that formal equality (形式平等) before the law is insufficient without substantive equality (实质平等) – equality in the conditions of life. A society that grants equal legal rights but permits vast inequalities of wealth, education, and social status is, in Tawney’s view, a society of privilege (特权) masquerading as equality.

Tawney draws a distinction between inequalities of personal qualities (which he regards as natural and unobjectionable) and inequalities of circumstances (which arise from social institutions and can be remedied). The latter include differences in access to education, health care, and economic opportunity that are traceable to the accident of birth rather than to individual merit.

6.3 Equality and Common Humanity

Tawney grounds his egalitarianism in the idea of a common humanity (共同的人性). All human beings, regardless of their talents or social position, share a fundamental dignity that entitles them to certain basic conditions of life. A society that allows some of its members to live in squalor while others enjoy luxury fails to honor this common humanity.

6.4 Class, Education, and Social Services

Tawney devotes particular attention to the British class system and to the role of education (教育) in perpetuating or overcoming inequality. He argues that a two-tier education system – public schools for the wealthy, inadequate state schools for the rest – reproduces class divisions across generations. Universal, high-quality public education is essential to the strategy of equality.

Similarly, Tawney advocates for universal provision of health care, housing, and other social services. These are not charity but matters of right – entitlements flowing from the equal dignity of all persons.

6.5 Tawney’s Influence and Criticisms

Tawney’s ideas profoundly influenced the British Labour Party and the construction of the postwar welfare state. His vision of substantive equality anticipates many themes in Rawls’s A Theory of Justice.

Criticisms of Tawney include:

• Vagueness: Tawney does not specify exactly how much equality is required. What level of inequality is compatible with “common humanity”?
• Efficiency concerns: Critics from the right argue that redistribution reduces economic incentives and overall prosperity.
• Paternalism: Does Tawney’s “strategy of equality” risk imposing a particular vision of the good life on people who may prefer to make their own choices, even if those choices lead to inequality?

Chapter 7: Rawls: The Original Position and Justice as Fairness

7.1 Historical Context and Overview

John Rawls (1921–2002) published A Theory of Justice in 1971. It is widely regarded as the most important work of political philosophy in the twentieth century. Rawls revives the social contract tradition in a new form, using the contract device not to justify the state but to derive principles of justice (正义) for the basic structure of society.

7.2 The Basic Structure

Rawls argues that the primary subject of justice is the basic structure (基本结构) of society – the major social, economic, and political institutions that determine how rights, duties, opportunities, and resources are distributed. The basic structure includes the constitution, the economy, the family, and the legal system.

7.3 The Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance

To determine what principles of justice rational agents would choose, Rawls constructs a thought experiment called the original position (原初状态). In the original position, parties choose principles from behind a veil of ignorance (无知之幕): they do not know their race, sex, class, talents, or conception of the good life. They know only general facts about human psychology and social organization.

The veil of ignorance is designed to model the moral idea of fairness (公平): principles of justice are fair when they are chosen under conditions that are themselves fair. This is why Rawls calls his theory “justice as fairness.”

7.4 The Two Principles of Justice

Rawls argues that rational agents in the original position would choose two principles, ordered lexically (the first takes absolute priority over the second):

The difference principle (差别原则) is Rawls’s most distinctive and controversial contribution. It permits inequalities only if they improve the position of the worst-off group. For example, higher salaries for doctors are permissible if they incentivize medical training and thereby improve health care for the least advantaged.

7.5 The Maximin Argument

Rawls argues that agents behind the veil of ignorance would adopt a maximin (最大化最小值) strategy: they would choose principles that maximize the minimum payoff, because they cannot know whether they will end up among the worst off. This is a risk-averse strategy appropriate to the high-stakes, one-time choice made in the original position.

7.6 Reflective Equilibrium

Rawls does not claim to derive his principles from a single foundational premise. Instead, he uses the method of reflective equilibrium (反思平衡): we go back and forth between our considered moral judgments about particular cases and the general principles we find plausible, adjusting each in light of the other until we reach a state of coherence.

7.7 Primary Goods

Rawls identifies a list of primary goods (基本善) – things that every rational person is presumed to want, regardless of their particular plan of life. These include rights and liberties, opportunities, income and wealth, and the social bases of self-respect. The principles of justice distribute primary goods, not happiness or well-being directly.

7.8 Criticisms of Rawls

Rawls’s theory has generated an enormous critical literature. Key objections include:

• Nozick’s libertarian critique (see Chapter 8): The difference principle requires continuous redistribution, which violates individuals’ rights to their justly acquired holdings.
• The communitarian critique (Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor): Rawls’s original position presupposes an implausibly “unencumbered” self, stripped of the commitments and attachments that give life meaning.
• The feminist critique (see Chapter 10): Rawls treats the family as part of the basic structure but does not apply the principles of justice within it.
• The egalitarian critique (G.A. Cohen, see Chapter 9): Rawls allows too much inequality by limiting the demands of justice to the basic structure and not to individuals’ personal choices.

Chapter 8: Nozick: Libertarianism and the Minimal State

8.1 Historical Context

Robert Nozick (1938–2002) published Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974, three years after Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. The book is a systematic defense of libertarianism (自由至上主义) and a direct challenge to Rawlsian egalitarianism. Nozick argues that only a minimal state (最小国家) – limited to the protection of persons and property against force, theft, and fraud – can be justified.

8.2 The Entitlement Theory of Justice

Nozick’s entitlement theory (权利理论) holds that a distribution of holdings is just if it arose from just acquisitions and just transfers. Justice is entirely a matter of history and process, not of patterns or end-states.

8.3 The Wilt Chamberlain Argument

Nozick’s most famous argument against patterned theories of justice (including Rawls’s) is the Wilt Chamberlain argument (威尔特·张伯伦论证):

8.4 Self-Ownership

The philosophical foundation of Nozick’s libertarianism is the principle of self-ownership (自我所有权): each person has an absolute right over their own body and labor. Because people own themselves, they own the fruits of their labor, and no one – not even the state – may take those fruits without consent. Taxation for redistributive purposes is, on this view, “on a par with forced labor” (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Ch. 7).

8.5 The Minimal State

Nozick argues, against anarchists, that a minimal state can arise from the state of nature through a process that violates no one’s rights – a “dominant protective association” gradually acquires a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. But the state may not go beyond the minimal functions of protection and contract enforcement. Any more extensive state – including the redistributive state that Rawls envisions – violates the rights of individuals.

8.6 Criticisms of Nozick

• The self-ownership premise: Critics question whether self-ownership can ground all the property rights Nozick claims. Even if I own myself, it does not follow that I own all the products of my labor when that labor depends on social cooperation and natural resources.
• Initial acquisition: Nozick’s Lockean proviso (that acquisition must leave “enough and as good” for others) is extremely difficult to satisfy in a world of finite resources. If initial acquisitions were unjust, then all subsequent transfers are tainted, and the entitlement theory collapses into a theory of rectification with no clear standard.
• Voluntariness: Are market transactions truly voluntary when parties have vastly unequal bargaining power? A starving person who “voluntarily” accepts exploitative wages is not exercising meaningful freedom.
• Social cooperation: Rawls argues that the wealth of a society is a product of social cooperation, not of isolated individual effort. Justice therefore concerns the fair division of the cooperative surplus, not merely the protection of individual holdings.

Chapter 9: Cohen: Egalitarianism and Personal Choice

9.1 G.A. Cohen and “Where the Action Is”

Gerald Allan Cohen (1941–2009) was a Marxist and egalitarian philosopher who, in his influential 1997 article “Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice,” launched a sustained internal critique of Rawls. Cohen argues that Rawls’s restriction of justice to the basic structure of society is a mistake: justice also makes demands on individuals’ personal choices and attitudes.

9.2 The Incentives Argument and the Difference Principle

Cohen’s target is the standard justification for the difference principle (差别原则): that inequalities are permissible when they benefit the least advantaged, because talented people need material incentives to be productive. Cohen argues that this justification is self-undermining.

Cohen concludes that a just society requires not only just institutions but also a pervasive egalitarian ethos (平等主义精神) – a shared commitment among individuals to limit the inequalities they demand.

9.3 The Site of Justice

Cohen distinguishes between the site of justice (the things to which principles of justice apply) and the grounds of justice (the reasons that support those principles). He argues that Rawls is wrong to restrict the site of justice to the basic structure. Personal choices – career choices, consumption patterns, salary demands – also fall within the scope of justice.

9.4 The Basic Structure Objection

Rawls (and his defenders, such as Samuel Scheffler) respond that restricting justice to the basic structure is essential to preserving individual freedom. If justice governs every personal choice, then no sphere of life is exempt from moral scrutiny – a result that many find oppressively demanding.

Cohen replies that this objection confuses two things: the claim that personal choices are subject to principles of justice and the claim that they should be legally enforced. Justice may demand that I share my wealth, but it does not follow that the state should compel me to do so. The egalitarian ethos is a matter of moral culture, not of legal coercion.

9.5 Criticisms of Cohen

• Demandingness: Cohen’s egalitarian ethos requires individuals to suppress self-interested motivations to a degree that many find unrealistic.
• The role of institutions: Rawlsians argue that focusing on personal virtue rather than institutional design is politically naive. Institutions are more reliable than individual goodwill.
• Autonomy: If justice demands that I not exploit my talents, does this limit my freedom to choose a career based on my own preferences and values?

Chapter 10: Feminist Critiques of Social Contract Theory

10.1 Introduction: Gender and the Social Contract

Feminist political philosophers have argued that the social contract tradition, from Hobbes through Rawls, is structured by assumptions about gender that render it inadequate as a theory of justice. These critiques do not simply add women to existing theories; they challenge the foundations of those theories.

10.2 Carole Pateman: The Sexual Contract

Carole Pateman’s The Sexual Contract (1988) argues that the social contract has always been accompanied by a hidden sexual contract (性别契约). The social contract establishes civil freedom for men; the sexual contract establishes men’s political right over women. The “individual” of social contract theory is implicitly male, and the “private” sphere of the family is exempted from the principles of justice that govern the “public” sphere.

10.3 Susan Moller Okin: Justice, Gender, and the Family

Susan Moller Okin (1946–2004), in Justice, Gender, and the Family (1989), offers a critique of Rawls that is both sympathetic and penetrating. Okin argues that Rawls is right to include the family in the basic structure of society, but wrong to fail to apply the principles of justice within it.

Okin identifies several ways in which gender inequality within the family undermines justice in the broader society:

1. The vulnerability of women in marriage: Women who perform unpaid domestic labor become economically dependent on their husbands and are vulnerable to poverty in the event of divorce.
2. The gendered division of labor: When women bear a disproportionate share of child-rearing and housework, they have less time and energy for paid employment and political participation.
3. Socialization: Children raised in unjust families learn to accept inequality as natural, undermining the sense of justice that a just society requires.

10.4 Eva Feder Kittay: Dependency and Care

Eva Feder Kittay (Love’s Labor, 1999) argues that the social contract tradition’s focus on independent, self-interested rational agents ignores the fundamental human reality of dependency (依赖性). All human beings pass through periods of dependency (infancy, illness, old age), and someone must provide care during those periods. A theory of justice that ignores the labor of caregivers and the needs of dependents is radically incomplete.

10.5 Implications for the Social Contract Tradition

Feminist critiques do not necessarily reject the social contract framework entirely. Some feminists (like Okin) argue for extending and completing the framework by applying principles of justice within the family. Others (like Pateman) argue that the framework is fundamentally patriarchal and must be replaced. Still others (like Kittay) argue that the framework must be supplemented with an account of care and dependency.

Chapter 11: Oppression and Historical Injustice

11.1 Beyond Ideal Theory

Rawls’s theory is an example of ideal theory (理想理论): it asks what a perfectly just society would look like, assuming full compliance with the principles of justice. Critics argue that ideal theory is inadequate for addressing the real-world problems of oppression (压迫) and historical injustice (历史不正义), which arise precisely because societies have not been just.

11.2 Iris Marion Young: Five Faces of Oppression

Iris Marion Young (1949–2006) argues in Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990) that oppression is not simply a matter of unjust distribution. It is a structural phenomenon with at least five distinct dimensions:

1. Exploitation (剥削): The transfer of the fruits of one group’s labor to another group.
2. Marginalization (边缘化): The exclusion of entire groups from useful participation in social life.
3. Powerlessness (无权力): The lack of authority, status, and autonomy experienced by those at the bottom of occupational hierarchies.
4. Cultural imperialism (文化帝国主义): The universalization of the dominant group’s experience and culture as the norm.
5. Violence (暴力): The systematic threat of physical violence directed at members of certain groups.

11.3 Disability and Justice

Disability theorists argue that the social contract tradition excludes people with disabilities in at least two ways. First, by modeling political agents as fully rational and physically capable, social contract theories render people with cognitive and physical disabilities invisible. Second, by treating the principles of justice as the product of a bargain among rough equals, these theories fail to account for the additional resources required to include people with disabilities in social life.

Martha Nussbaum (Frontiers of Justice, 2006) argues that the capabilities approach (能力路径) – developed by Amartya Sen and Nussbaum herself – is better suited to addressing disability than the social contract tradition. The capabilities approach asks what each person is actually able to do and be, and demands that society provide the conditions for each person to achieve a threshold level of central human capabilities.

11.4 Historical Injustice and Reparations

A persistent question in non-ideal theory is whether and how societies should make reparations (赔偿) for historical injustices – slavery, colonialism, the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Several philosophical issues arise:

• Standing: Who has the right to demand reparations, and from whom? Can descendants of victims claim reparations from descendants of perpetrators?
• Form: Should reparations take the form of monetary payments, land return, public apology, institutional reform, or some combination?
• The non-identity problem: If the historical injustice had not occurred, the specific individuals who now exist would not have been born. Can they claim to have been harmed by the injustice?
• Forward-looking vs. backward-looking: Some theorists argue that the case for reparations rests not on backward-looking claims about historical wrongs but on forward-looking claims about persistent structural disadvantage.

Chapter 12: Racial Justice and Political Philosophy

12.1 Charles W. Mills: The Racial Contract

Charles W. Mills (1951–2021), in The Racial Contract (1997), argues that the social contract tradition is not merely incomplete but actively complicit in racial domination. The “social contract” that actually governs Western societies is a racial contract (种族契约) – an agreement among white people to categorize certain groups as subpersons and to exploit them accordingly.

12.2 Three Dimensions of the Racial Contract

Mills argues that the racial contract operates on three levels:

1. Political: The racial contract establishes a racial polity in which only white people are full persons with full political rights. Non-white people are categorized as subpersons – beings with diminished moral and political standing.
2. Moral/epistemological: The racial contract produces an epistemology of ignorance (无知认识论) – a systematic pattern of not-knowing that allows white people to remain ignorant of the realities of racial oppression. This is not mere lack of information but an active cognitive dysfunction that serves the interests of the dominant group.
3. Economic: The racial contract underwrites the economic exploitation of non-white peoples through slavery, colonialism, and ongoing structural racism.

12.3 Mills’s Critique of Rawls

Mills argues that Rawls’s ideal theory is inadequate for addressing racial injustice because it abstracts away from the very features of society – racial hierarchy, structural racism, the legacy of slavery and colonialism – that are central to the experience of non-white people. By imagining parties behind a veil of ignorance who do not know their race, Rawls removes race from the conversation at precisely the point where it matters most.

Mills does not reject the social contract framework entirely. Instead, he argues for a non-ideal contractarianism that takes the racial contract as its starting point and asks how to dismantle it. This requires not only reforming institutions but also confronting the epistemology of ignorance – learning to see what the racial contract has made invisible.

12.4 Structural Racism and Institutional Reform

Contemporary political philosophers working on racial justice emphasize the concept of structural racism (结构性种族主义) – racism that is embedded in social institutions and practices rather than (or in addition to) residing in individual attitudes.

Addressing structural racism requires more than prohibiting explicit discrimination. It requires active institutional reform – affirmative action, investment in under-resourced communities, criminal justice reform, and changes to the structures of political representation.

12.5 Intersectionality

Intersectionality (交叉性), a concept developed by Kimberle Crenshaw (1989), holds that systems of oppression – racism, sexism, classism, ableism – do not operate independently but interact and compound one another. A Black woman, for example, does not experience racism and sexism as separate phenomena; she experiences a distinctive form of oppression that is not reducible to either category alone.

Intersectionality has significant implications for political philosophy. It suggests that theories of justice must attend not only to individual axes of oppression (race, gender, class) but to the ways these axes intersect and compound. A theory that addresses racial injustice without attending to gender, or vice versa, will inevitably leave some forms of oppression unaddressed.

12.6 Toward a More Inclusive Political Philosophy

The critiques examined in Chapters 10–12 share a common theme: the social contract tradition, for all its aspirations to universality, has historically been a tradition by and for a specific subset of humanity – propertied white men. Extending the tradition to include women, people of color, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups requires not merely adding new members to the original position but rethinking the assumptions, categories, and methods of political philosophy itself.

This does not mean that the insights of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill, and Rawls are worthless. On the contrary, many of the principles they articulated – the equal moral worth of persons, the demand for justification of political authority, the priority of liberty, the concern for the least advantaged – remain indispensable. But those principles must be understood in their historical context, purged of their exclusions, and extended in ways that their original authors did not envision.