[NOTE: This is the seventh in a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law. It builds off of the posts that have come before it.  If you have not already read The Natural Right to Contract, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former and everything that comes before it.  I also ask that you understand, while this is not technically a formal argument, neither is it a casual argument.  Thus, it is not necessarily the easiest thing to read, but then, this is because I am trying to explain some difficult concepts in a manner as easily understood as I know how.  I trust that you will bear with me.  In return, I will break the whole into smaller, more easily digested posts.]

Now that we have established a definition for Natural Rights; learned how to extrapolate them from our primary Natural Right of free will; discovered that how we act toward each other regarding these rights creates universal morality; and discussed how our natural right to contract cannot be used to give up our Natural Rights or demand that others give up theirs; and discovered how willingly agreeing to do something for another can create a personal duty to the person with whom we contracted; now we have to deal with a reality of life – there will always be people who chose to violate the Natural Law governing individual Natural Rights.  This is why we create communities, States and Nations: so that we can help each other protect our individual Natural Rights and liberty from those who would otherwise trample them.  When we do so in accordance with Natural Law, the communities, States and Nations we form are created by an extension of our individual Natural Right to contract with each other.  Taken together, we call this the Social Contract.

The Social Contract is that agreement to which every individual belonging to a given community willingly agrees in order to benefit from a collective effort which can justly be aimed at serving only one purpose: the equal protection of the individual rights and liberty of every individual party to the contract.  Essentially, a person grants the community (i.e. government) the authority to exercise certain aspects of their free will on their behalf.  Instead of exercising the individual right of self-defense, by agreeing to the Social Contract, individuals agree to set up a cooperative system of laws, courts and associated enforcement systems.  It is from this willing agreement to limit our individual free will and to grant limited authority to exercise and protect it on our behalf that all just government derives and maintains its authority over a community.  Should the government abuse its authority, the individuals who created that government retain the authority to alter, replace or abolish it through the inalienable nature of the Natural Rights.

Now, a person need not agree to the terms of the Social Contract, but that individual needs to understand that, should they choose not to agree to it, they are not entitled to any of the benefits of the contract.  They are not entitled to the benefit of whatever courts that community creates; to the mutual protection of the police, fire fighting services or any other civil assistance; to any military defense the community may organize: they are not entitled to anything that community has promised to each other as a term of the Social Contract which formed and governs it because they are not Party to the contract.  That means they have no rights under it.  At the same time, every member who agrees to the Social Contract that forms and governs their community willingly creates a Natural Right for the rest of the community against which they can justly demand the individual comply with the terms to which they agreed.  Harkening back to our last post on the Natural Right to contract, we also see that the individual creates a duty for themselves toward every member of the community as an extension of their act of free will that made them Party to the Social Contract.

In other words, if I agree to join a community, I have agreed that I will willingly do everything the contract demands of me – so long as they are in accordance with the limitations of Natural Law.  What’s more, when I agree to be Party to the Social Contract governing a given community, that act of my free will extends a Natural Right to each member of the community against which they can justly demand and even force my compliance.  This is how I become subject to the laws of that community: because I agreed to subject myself to them as part of the contract (remember, there are limits on what the contract can demand).  Finally, as an inherent part of my agreeing to be part of the Social Contract, I also create a personal duty to each member of the community.  I am bound – by Natural Law – to perform these duties to the best of my ability, whether the rest of the community does the same or not.  This is part of what it means to be a citizen: to be a self-governing equal in the maintenance and operation of a free and self-governing community and to conduct one’s self according to the Natural Law governing the behavior of every individual within that community at all times.  And, when called upon to do so, to defend the individual rights and liberty of every individual in the community, be it by participating in the civil and criminal justice system, or the community’s military organization.

Now, just as there are limitations on the Natural Right to contract, there are limitations of the Social Contract.  One cannot grant an authority through the Social Contract that an individual does not possess.  In other words, you can only give the government authority to do on your behalf that which you have an individual Natural Right to do on your own.  Nor can you agree to give up, or demand that others give up their Natural Rights as part of the Social Contract.  And most important, the whole can never become greater than the sum of its parts.  In other words, the community which is created by the Social Contract is the equal creation and servant of each individual that agreed to create it.  It owes an equal duty to every individual in the community, and is equally bound to every individual.  It can never become greater than any one person, or even the sum of every individual within the community.  The community is nothing more than the function of the Social Contract.  It is not and can never become an entity in itself, and allowing it to even be thought of in this manner is a violation of Natural Law.  When it is allowed to actually function as a living being, then that is an abomination to Natural Law which will devour Natural Rights and Liberty to feed itself.

This is the essence of the Social Contract which forms a society and grants just authority to that society’s government, and the limitations which govern the extent to which this Social Contract can reach.  In our next post, we will discuss the glue that binds this all together.

[NOTE: This is the sixth in a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law. It builds off of the posts that have come before it.  If you have not already read The Pursuit of Happiness Under Natural Law, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former and everything that comes before it.  I also ask that you understand, while this is not technically a formal argument, neither is it a casual argument.  Thus, it is not necessarily the easiest thing to read, but then, this is because I am trying to explain some difficult concepts in a manner as easily understood as I know how.  I trust that you will bear with me.  In return, I will break the whole into smaller, more easily digested posts.]

Now, going back to the work we did in earlier posts, we can extend our Natural Right to our free will to include a Natural Right to contract with other individuals.  Essentially, this is an extension of our free will because it is an agreement we willingly chose to make with another or other individuals who willingly agree to the same agreement in return.  Thus, the mutual agreement is entirely based on a choice freely made; on an act or exercise of free will.  But there are conditions that restrict that to which we can and cannot agree.   A failure to understand these restrictions will inevitably lead to the creation of many avoidable problems, the same sort of problems from which our society now suffers.

First, we must remember that our Natural Rights are inalienable.  Because they are a gift from the Creator and are as much a part of who we are as individuals as anything else, we can never agree to surrender our Natural Rights.

“If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

–Samuel Adams

If your will is the essential element of who and what you are as a person, how can you agree to give up your will?  That is impossible.  Even if you were to sell yourself into slavery, your will would remain yours and yours alone.  Even if you kill yourself, your will would still remain (albeit, it would remain in whatever condition it may be subject to after we depart this world).  Therefore, it is a violation of Natural Law to agree to give up something that is not yours to give up, and which you couldn’t give up even if it were.  Conversely, you cannot require another individual to give up their Natural Rights for the same reason.  To do so is not only as impossible for them as it is you, but also a claim against their Natural Rights, which would be a twofold violation of Natural Law.

Now that we have established that we cannot willingly agree to give up our Natural rights, nor demand that another individual give up theirs as part of an agreement, there is something to which we can agree: to willingly limit the extent to which we will exercise those Natural Rights.  As long as we agree – before hand – then we can voluntarily agree to limit the extent or degree to which we will exercise our Natural Rights in relation to another group or individual in return for something we find to be of equal or greater value than the full limits of our Natural Rights.  This is the foundation of all human interaction and economic trade.

But notice the primary requirement for a contract to be in agreement with Natural Law: it must be a willing agreement freely entered into by all parties to which it applies.  If there is any coercion on the part of any party involved, it is a violation of Natural Law.  Any time an individual is forced to do something against limits of their will as defined by Natural Law, it is a clear violation of that same Natural Law.  In other words, if I am forced to agree to limit the extent that I can grow food to sustain my body and life, and thus my free will, then this is a violation of Natural Law.  However, since I cannot use my free will to force another person not to grow their own food, if I was forced to leave that person alone so they could grow the food they need, this application of force against my will would not be a violation of Natural Law because I do not have a Natural Right to trample on the Natural rights of others.  This is the foundation of universal morality, from which the understanding of all human justice is derived.

Finally, after when two or more individuals willingly entered into a contract, they create an obligation for themselves to fulfill the terms of that contract – even if the other party or parties do not.  Once you have agreed to do something that does not involve giving up or demanding the Natural Rights of another person, you have given the other parties of that agreement a just claim to whatever you agreed to do, and they have given a similar claim to you.  However, you may not exercise that right to claim whatever you agreed to unless or until you have met your part of the obligation.  It is only by meeting your part of the obligation that you cement your claim.  Once you do so, it then becomes a Natural Right because you have used your free will to direct your labor to the purpose for which it was agreed.  Once again, your labor – as an act of your free will – is the means by which you obtain a Natural Right to your part of the agreement.  This is a crucial point that we need to understand, but it is a difficult point for many of us to understand because we have not been taught to think in these terms.  So I will try to illustrate it for you.

Suppose you agree to grow pineapples for me if I will make hoes for you in return.  We both agree to the exchange and enter into the pact of our own free will.  At that point, I have a claim to the pineapples you agreed to grow, and you have a claim to the hoes I agreed to make.  However, until I actually make a hoe for you, I do not have a Natural Right to the pineapples I promised: all I have is a just claim to them.  But once I use my labor to make the first hoe, then I have a Natural Right to the pineapples you promised in return because I used my labor to do something intended to sustain my life.  Furthermore, because I willingly entered into an agreement – as an act of my free will – I imposed an obligation of myself to make the hoe.  Even if you break your end of the deal and do not grow any pineapples for me, or you refuse to trade them in return for the hoes I make, when I willingly agreed to our contract, and I did so with the understanding that you were making the agreement to help sustaining your life.  So, because our Natural Rights are ultimately the property of our Creator, whether you keep my part of the contract or not, once I agree to do something to help you sustain your life, I am obligated to do so by my duty to our Creator and because I agreed to help you in a way you intended to sustain your life.  Not to do so would be a threat to your life and, therefore, a threat to your free will.  This would constitute a violation of your Natural Rights and Natural Law.  This is why we should be careful to make sure we understand what we agree to do for one another and why, if we do agree — no matter what the other party does or doesn’t do — we must do what we promised: because we gave them a Natural Right to our part of the agreement by exercising our free will and agreeing to do so.

This is a complicated point, and I will write a supporting post to help clarify it more because it is essential we understand the Natural Right to contract.  It is the foundation of any free society because it is the foundation for the Social Contract, which will be the subject of my next post.