Constante de hiperbolicidad y cuello de un grafo

It is hard to believe that Hobbes mobilized this larger theoretical apparatus just in order to acquaint us with certain facts about the genesis of political societies or to establish that I am or must have been a signatory to an actual social contract that brought the state into being, as the simple-consent model would have it. A better way to characterize Hobbes’s argument, on the more complex account just laid out, is to see it as a kind of hypothetical ‘‘thought experiment’’ intended to demonstrate the rationality of accepting state authority, given the alternatives.

One can think of that thought experiment as inviting us to consider a series of hypothetical questions. In the absence of a state, would we presume that individuals have the right to seek their self-preservation as they (individually) choose? If so, would we want to remain in a situation in which everyone retained this right? Assuming that we would not, given the resulting insecurity, on what terms would we be willing to abandon this right for the sake of peace? When we reflect on this, Hobbes thinks that we must eventually grant that the only formula likely to do the trick

will be a social contract with the structure he recommends. The particular shape of this formula is important for Hobbes, not because he thought it accurately represented the way in which states were historically founded, but rather because it properly describes the relationship between state authority and our rational will.

Understood in this way, Hobbes’s thought experiment attempts to reveal something about our own rational dispositions that is not at first obvious. As we normally experience it, submission to the authority of the state seems to involve recognizing constraints on our ability to act as we would want, that is, constraints on our own will. For example, in recognizing speed limits as authoritative legal requirements, I recognize that I am not free to drive at whatever speed I like in (say) built-up areas. But if it succeeds, Hobbes’s argument enables me to see these apparent limitations on my choices as something that I should rationally will for myself, given the alternative.

Thus, in the absence of a state with the authority to enforce rules about safe driving, each of us would retain the right to drive in whatever ways we judge necessary to our self-preservation. This would likely be very dangerous for all of us: a Hobbesian state of nature equipped with cars would give new meaning to the term ‘‘aggressive driving.’’ When we imagine the likely results of each of us retaining the right to drive our cars in whatever ways we judge necessary for our self-preservation, the irration- ality of each trusting to our own wills in this way becomes vividly apparent. So it seems rational for us to defer to the judgment of a will other than our own in deciding where, how, and at what speeds to drive, as long as everyone else is disposed to do so as well. For Hobbes, surrendering judg- ment in this way represents the rational attitude to take to state authority, and the purpose of his thought experiment is to induce this realization in his readers. If it works, the argument makes it possible for us to think of acceptance of state authority, not as a limitation on our rational will, but actually as conforming to it at a deeper level.

Before assessing it, it may be helpful to notice the contrasts and con- tinuities between this revised version of the social-contract argument and the structure of the common-good arguments we met in previous chapters. The two sets of arguments resemble each other in that they hinge more on judgments about rationality and rational action than on the truth of empirical or factual claims. As we saw in the previous chapter,

Plato and Aristotle did not build their theories around facts about what individuals desire or what they are actually interested in; rather, their arguments rest crucially on an account of agents’ real interests that is, an account of the goods that it is rational for agents to seek, whether or not they are in fact interested in them. Similarly, Hobbes was not very concerned to uncover facts about what people have chosen or willed in the past. Rather, he hoped to bring to light what we ideally ought to will for ourselves, once we properly perceive the alternatives we actually face.

But whereas the common-good approach is organized around concep- tions of our real interests in achieving various forms of well-being, the social-contract argument is organized around a conception of our rational will. Clearly, these two notions are not sharply distinct. After all, if we are rational we presumably will our well-being. But there is a crucial dif- ference in the way in which these two theories access these assumptions about our interests and our wills. On the common-good approach, we understand our real interests by reference to some substantive ideal of human well-being and happiness. But on the social-contract theory, there is no need to construct an elaborate account of human well-being, or for a perfectionist account of the good life. The question of what we ought rationally to will for ourselves is settled simply by reflecting on an imagined choice between pertinent alternatives.

Since, as we saw in the last chapter, disagreements about the correct conception of well-being are extremely difficult to settle, the ability of social-contract arguments to bracket this whole issue seems to count strongly in their favor. By isolating the narrower and more immediate choices at stake in the decision to accept or reject state authority, the social- contract theorists hoped, like the peace parties in Pacifica and Atlantis, to change the subject and to proceed with political justification on a less contentious basis.