I’ve been reading the essay collection Social Justice and the Indian Rope Trick by Anthony de Jasay, and despite his unusually opaque style of writing, there are definitely some interesting ideas here.
One that I’ve been playing around with has been his explanation of where the burden of proof must lie in determining whether an action is free or not.
He argues that it’s incorrect to attribute the presumption of freedom (the idea that acts are permissible unless proven otherwise) to a love of freedom; rather, he points toward an interesting logical characteristic of that presumption.
In essence, the presumption of freedom is logically necessary because the opposite presumption requires one to prove a negative. Invalid or groundless reasons to forbid some particular action are unlimited, and therefore it is impossible to disprove all of them.
What is needed is a single valid reason why said action should be forbidden, and it is possible for the challenger to propose and verify a valid reason.
Taking the complementary argument, I extend de Jasay’s point to contracts, social or otherwise. For complex or nuanced contracts, it is impossible to prove that some proposed action is not in the contract, but it is possible to prove something is in the contract.
Therefore, social contracts, if they exist, must be interpreted in the narrowest possible scope, and attempts to read additional powers into them is not only wrong, it is evidence that the whole contract is invalid due to overreach.
In the video, I discuss these ideas in detail and also talk a bit about some of the books I’m reading.
Books mentioned:
Social Justice and the Indian Rope Trick by Anthony de Jasay
Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick
Provoked by Scott Horton