Social Contract

Can a Social Contract kill a man? Man joins in a "social contract" in order to create some stability in his life. It is the first step toward a form of government and away from anarchy. If you don't kill me I won't kill you, is the most basic of social contracts. They obviously progress from there, agreement by agreement, until you have reached where we are today with the United States Constitution.

Contracts

Tomb of Thomas Hobbes - geograph.org.uk - 1592556

The Social Contract

For obvious reasons this question seems very ironic. If social contracts are made to protect man then how can it kill man? The issue arises when the social contract is broken. The social contract was thought of because of the evil human nature in people, so just because you make a contract with somebody it does not mean that they will follow it to the word or at all. A great example of a social contract killing a man in our society is capital punishment. Taking a man's life for a crime he is found guilty of committing.

Although I do not agree with the government having the power to decide who lives or dies, in times much earlier when governments did not exist there was no other choice but to kill a man who is known to be dangerous to your own life. Dying do to a social contract generally follows the concept of "an eye for an eye".

Our society is much more socially advanced than to resort to taking someone's life like societies were doing thousands of years ago. I would rather see a serial killer or terrorist, convicted of course, tortured, the degree of the torture depending on their crime. Killing someone who is insane enough commit atrocities is giving them the easy way out in my opinion. When...