Of the many moral and ethical codes presented by philosophers throughout history, few have remained intact for any long period of time. As years pass, old ideas are debated, revised, or discarded to make way for new avenues of thinking. What is important, then, is to seek out the partial truths in any given philosophical position and use them for what they are, instead of either accepting or rejecting the entirety of the belief set as objectively true or false. Even those theories that seem to be completely refuted serve an important purpose by the arguments used therein. A perfect example of this lies in Social Contract Theory, as presented by John Rawls and others. Social contract theory presents the belief that morality is an agreement made amongst humanity. Each of us has, by being part of society, “signed” this unwritten contract that compels us to behave in a certain way. Those who violate the contract are shunned by society in some way, while those who abide by it gain the benefits of being an accepted member. This is not to imply that morality is entirely relative; moral codes are changed only when there is some significant event that actually affects society itself in some way. Instead, Rawls presents the idea that the code we agreed to abide by should be created by an impartial observer operating from what he terms the Original Position. This perspective is that of a person who has no perception of their own place in society. They have no idea of their gender, economic status, ethnicity, or any of the countless other things that differentiate people from one another. A person operating under these assumptions would, by necessity, create a moral code that was unbiased, since they would never know on which side of a particular bias they might actually be. The exact nature of such a code is debatable, but it could be argued that it would be constructed in such a way that each aspect would seek to reduce the chances of causing harm as much as possible. The idea of minimizing harm is not necessarily the same as the utilitarian position of maximizing good. To utilitarians, one might be justified in sacrificing a dozen people in order to benefit a hundred, because the net amount of good outweighs the bad. In contrast, social contract theory might state that one should always seek to do the least harm. Thus, the only reason one would ever permit life to be taken would be to prevent even more lives from being taken. An example would be capital punishment of a serial killer. The killer’s death is justified because without doing so, more people would likely die when they otherwise would not have. Thus, harm is minimized. However, killing one person to potentially improve the lives of several unrelated people would not be morally justified. In that situation, not killing the person allows the individual to live while leaving the others unaffected; they would remain in the same position they were previously in. They have not been helped, but neither has anyone been hurt. This is, I believe, an essential difference between the two philosophies. The concept of morality by minimizing harm is potentially one of the most important and beneficial ideas to come out of social contract theory. There is a saying that is often repeated with little thought given to what it really means; “By seeking to please everyone, one often ends up pleasing no one.” This idea is a reflection of an idea that we seem to intrinsically understand as humans but rarely practice. We seem to realize that, because people are so different, it is nearly impossible to do anything that will get universal approval. Inevitably, someone will disagree with or even be harmed by even the most benevolent of actions. Despite this, governments, laws, and morals often seem to run counter to this and try to establish guidelines intended to help everyone that end up doing more harm than good. Examples of this can be found in all aspects of society. In economics, the government often seeks to regulate prices on essential goods, which is intended to prevent businesses from abusing the supply and demand system to profit from unavoidable needs. In practice, overregulation often stifles development of new and better products, since the company has no financial desire to do so when they are already making the maximum allowed profit. When the regulations began, consumers benefited by getting needed goods at reasonable prices. As time goes on, however, they are still paying the same price for the same goods, while research and risk-taking could have provided companies the means to produce the same product more cheaply or a superior product for the same price. In this situation, the desire to “do the most good” resulted in a small, short-term benefit at the cost of a larger, long-term detriment. While this is not precisely a moral conflict, it is a physical illustration of how a nonphysical idea operates.
Social contract theory and the idea of minimizing harm point out a potential alternative to the ever-present conflicts in such a system. In the above example, someone taking this approach might handle the situation much differently. Without knowing whether or not they are on the side of business or the consumer, someone in the Original Position might choose not to regulate prices at all. While the potential for harm exists, as it always will, doing nothing is not making harm any more likely. Thus, without any convincing reason to believe the consumers would be harmed, there would be no reason not to allow the greater potential for gain. If the circumstances changed and one party was being harmed, the observer could then enact laws to correct for this while still seeking to minimize harm to the opposing side. Such a system would then be self-correcting; anything that caused harm would be acted against, while anything that did not would be left to grow as it needed.
This idea absolutely applies to morality as well. In many systems of belief, individuals are told what they are required to do in order to be “good.” One is required to do beneficial acts and help others in order to be seen as a good person. However, as Ross demonstrated in his discussions of deontology, what is ultimately “right” is often a very difficult concept to pin down. Thus, in trying to do good, many people often end up harming others unintentionally. In a system based on minimizing harm, much of this conflict is avoided. In any given situation, one only needs to decide what action causes the least amount of harm. Instead of seeking ways to do good, many situations could be resolved simply by not interfering and thus avoiding the potential to cause harm. Only in situations that present a clear potential to harm someone would intervention be morally required.
Social contract theory, as a unified whole, is not a practical approach to morality. The idea of an entirely unbiased, impartial observer that is also human is one incompatible with itself. Like so many other viewpoints, however, the overall failure of the theory does not mean nothing can be gained from the reasoning used to develop it. In fact, the minimizing harm concept is potentially more valuable in an applied sense than many entire theories that stand more solidly on theoretical grounds. When combined with the truths contained within other theories, the overall picture of how we interact with and potentially determine morality becomes just a little bit clearer.