by Thomas P. Vogl January 11, 2003
To what does the semantic label 'social contract' refer? I suggest that it refers to a constellation of properties/activities/attitudes/beliefs that are the emergent property of an ensemble of interacting individual entities that allows for the generation of group actions/attitudes/beliefs that are adopted/accepted by a significant subset of the ensemble members and tolerable to a majority. Note that this definition does not address motivation, volition, free will or any of the other metaphysical constructs with which the label 'social contract' is often laden. It does not address the question whether the results of engaging in the contract are beneficial or counter-productive. Nor does it address the (presently) unresolvable question of where social contract lies on the hard wired vs. learned scale. I submit that, much as philosophers like to engage in discourses (develop stories - see below) of these admittedly fun but none the less extraneous and experimentally unverifiable issues, they are not germane to the study of how social contracts arise and how they play out.
In my opinion, the germane question is: What are the characteristics/properties of the entities in the group that allows/facilitates the emergent property to arise. A subsidiary question is: What, if any, are the time dependent characteristics of the emergent property and what drives them.
The approach: The approach that appears to offer the most promise (at the moment) is to ask what other systems do we know that have similar properties, how similar are they, and do we need to introduce any additional properties to make the model of those systems apply to the human condition. Applying Occam's razor* prospectively, such additions should/will not be made unless required by the data.
Systems that exhibit similar properties are, fortunately, numerous. The range from mathematically now accessible chemical systems to cooperative systems of cells, such a slime molds, mammalian heart cells, etc. (1) through systems such as ants, bee hives, blue jays (2), to wolf packs and dogs (3), meerkats, monkey troops, and primates (Jane Goodall and (4)). My own observations on guinea pig herds and chicken flocks, as well as flocks of mixed species birds all confirm these general properties. The evidence strongly suggests that all non-solitary mammal and bird species exhibit behavior that falls within the definition of a 'social contract'.
This still leaves the question of whether the roots/infrastructure of social contracts of H. sap.** differs in significant qualitative ways from those of other species. One area that occurs to me worthy of consideration in this respect is quantitative, rather than qualitative. Sufficiently large quantitative differences can, under the right circumstances, qualify as qualitative. An example of what I mean by this is that both an evening summer shower and a monsoon are both just 'rain'. None the less, the quantitative difference in the amount of rain and the subsequent flooding make a summer shower and a monsoon qualitatively different; likewise a breeze and a hurricane.
I conclude that there is nothing about H. sap.'s social contract that is not inherent in the biology of almost all non-solitary higher vertebrates, with the possible exceptions of range and relaxation time.
There appears to be a much broader range of 'text' for the social contract among H. sap. than among other vertebrates. What I mean by this is that variation in social contracts among wolf packs, or even apes, is relatively small and the behavior within and among wolf packs is consistent in both space and over time (although the experimental evidence over time is limited to a few hundred years - which is 2-3 times the number of human generations in that time period.) It is noteworthy that in the course of the human-driven genetic modification of wolves into dogs (3), the social contract of the animal changed qualitatively. What is equally interesting, is how quickly that social contract can revert: Owners of city bred and raised dogs "let out for a run" at night are horrified at the destruction that these ad hoc packs of "friendly and well behaved pets" will create in chicken and sheep herds within a few hours -- reversion to the wolf social contract. Is this what happened to H. sap. in Nazi Germany and in Cambodia on a national scale and at My Lai on a local scale?
While it could be argued that the content of human social contracts also has a relatively narrow range, the quantitative differences appear to be worthy of exploration. In particular, a fundamental question arises regarding the effects of perturbations on outcome. I will make one reasonable assumptions and call attention to one observation:
1. the process of development of a social contract is a chaotic process (in the technical sense of the word), that is, that the process is non-linear and its outcome can depend crucially on extremely small changes/perturbations in the initial conditions; and
2. the 'text' of the human social contract takes much longer to return to a mean/moderate/average/'typical'/common configuration (its "relaxation time") than it does for a wolf pack (the unit of time being a generation to account for differences in life span).
I set forward the hypothesis that the difference in relaxation time as well as the phenomenon of the rise and fall of cultures/civilizations (defined as populations having a common social contract) share a common explanation (Ockham's razor at work).
As suggested by the research that forms the basis of the overview by Fels(5), H.sap. differs from other mammals in the overwhelming need to superimpose pattern (provide an explanation, no matter how fantastical) for anything and everything (6) - Note particularly the description of Skinner's experiments on pigeons. Even as simple an explanation as a semantic label will often suffice. The mythology of many [all??? I would appreciate any documentation the reader can supply regarding exceptions] groups of H. sap. emphasizes the importance of knowing the name of an entity if one wishes to control it.
[Examples: A patient walks into a doctor's office. The doctor listens to the patient's complaints, examines the patient, and announces that the patient has 'recurrent circulatory foobar'. The patient responds: "Oh, so that's why my legs hurt, thank you doctor, you have relieved my mind; I feel better already." Every physician knows that labeling a condition, even with an invented name, as above, increases the patients sense of well being, because the label is an 'explanation' of the pain. Until about 75 years ago, that is about all any physician could do for any patient. Another example, in Jewish mythology the name of god must neither be spoken or written, lest …]
What are the consequences of this need for explanations/stories? I would suggest that they are two-fold:
First, by serving to 'explain' random phenomena, they incorporate the explanation into behavior. Consequently, the range of behavior becomes wider, rather than reverting to the mean. Thus the diversity of the 'text' of social contracts is increased and accounts for the large variation in tolerance of personal idiosyncrasies/deviations (e.g., U.S. vs. Japan), tolerance for violence (e.g., Europe vs. the Near East), nudity [e.g., U.S. vs. France, Greece], acceptance of authority [e.g., U.S. vs. Germany], etc.
Second, because the stories become incorporated into the mind-set of the group, they become validated not only in their own right, but also as the basis of 'explanations' of future events as they unfold, irrespective of the validity of the explanation with respect to the original event, let alone subsequent events. Since the probability of the 'explanation' being correct is small (even though those actions may have 'improved' (usually by a fortuitous association) the situation in the first instance), the probability of actions based on that explanation yielding positive results in subsequent situations is highly unlikely and the success of action based on the 'explanation' the next time becomes remote. Yet that does not stop the action from being repeated. Good examples can be drawn not only from U.S. history (the war on alcohol [prohibition], the war on drugs [prohibition redux], the war on unwed sex [abstinence- prohibition tried once again], etc.,) but also from the history of any other civilization one may care to examine. I submit that the generation of these stories is the essence of the text of the social contract in H. sap. It is the cause of both the rise and the fall of civilizations. The former because the stories provide a common bond in the population, and the latter because the actions dictated by the stories become increasingly counterproductive with the passage of time and the associated changes in the environment (broadly defined).
There is a most interesting parallel in psychology. When an individual develops a behavior pattern it is (as close as it is possible to come to) always a result of a perceived benefit from that action. In Skinnerian terms (6), it is reinforced; in more neurobiological terms, it becomes a component of an associative chain that, for example, engages the pleasure centers. If the individual continues to employ this learned response even when it becomes counterproductive, it is termed a 'neurosis'. [E.g., a child that only received a response from a parent by hugging them, may continue to hug people as an adult in a workplace even when that is a counterproductive action.]
The similarity between individual neurosis and societal 'neurosis' is striking, and both are most readily explained by the innate drive for pattern/stories/ explanations that are an integral part of H. sap.'s genetic inheritance.
To quote Terry Pratchett (7), "Plenty of creatures are intelligent, but only one tells stories. That's us, Pan narrans***. And what about Homo sapiens? Yes, we think that would be a very good idea …"
Pan narrans being what Pan narrans is, it follows that science is also a story/belief system. It is, however, the first independently verifiable story that Pan narrans has managed to produce. Maybe, just maybe, it is Pan narrans' first small step toward Homo sapiens.
* William of Occam, more properly, William of Ockham (Ockham, Surrey or Ockham, Yorkshire, both UK) d. April 10, 1349 or 1350 who said: "It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer". That is, never make unnecessary assumptions. I have found this a most useful precept throughout my life.
** H. sap. = Homo sapiens = thinking man
*** Pan narrans = story telling ape.
Acknowledgement: I want to thank Stephen Schneider for calling this most interesting problem to my attention. In the process of contemplating this piece, it has occurred to me that I have been mistaken all these years in thinking about H. sap. as the pattern recognizing ape. A far more accurate description, and one that is isomorphic with Terry Pratchett's Pan narrans, is the pattern questing ape. I emphasize this semantic difference because H. sap. not only can recognize patterns (and has exquisitely sensitive hard wired talent to do so), but, in fact, has an overpowering urge/need to do so.
References:
I would have been pleased to be able to include the full text of these references on this web site. Unfortunately the absurdity of current copyright laws prevent me from so doing. If you, the reader, like me, the author, take exception to such foolish laws, please write to your congressman and senators to that effect.
(1) Arthur T. Winfree, On Emerging Coherence. Science, 298: 2336-2337, 20 Dec 2002.
(2) Michael Mesterton-Gibbons and Eldridge S. Adams, The Economics of Animal Cooperation. Science 298: 2146-2147. December 13; 2002
(3) Elizabeth Pennisi, A Shaggy Dog History. Science, Vol 298, p 1540.
22 November 2002.
(4) Carel P. van Schaik, Marc Ancrenaz, Gwendolyn Borgen, Birute Galdikas, Cheryl D. Knott, Ian Singleton, Akira Suzuki, Sri Suci Utami, Michelle Merrill, Orangutan Cultures and the Evolution of Material Culture. Science 299: 102-105, 3 January 2003.
(5) Anna Fels, M.D., The Mind Explains It All. N.Y.Times.com December 17, 2002.
(6) David Newnham, Hostages to fortune. The [Manchester] Guardian, Thursday December 12 2002
(7). Pratchett, T., Stewart, I, Cohen, J. The Science of Diskworld II: The Globe. Ebury press, London,. UK (2002). ISBN 009-188273-7.