Contract by Convention

The notion of contract commonly carries with it the implication of explicit agreement. While the literature on social contract may not provide convincing arguments for any specific social contract, it nevertheless seems compelling in its common assumption that people can obligate themselves by implicit agreement. As Lewis argues, “Many social contracts will be sustained by the moral obligation of tacit consent or fair play, as recognized by the agents involved.” ¹ Such contracts may arise by convention, in a technical sense to be defined below, which involves calculations of self-interest. The self-interest may be somewhat muddled by norms or moral codes which themselves are sustained in part by other conventions, perhaps held by a larger or partially different population. Few would agree that there is any overarching social contract of the stature of Locke’s or Rousseau’s that carries with it obligations to contemporary or otherwise-designated “nations.” Nevertheless, one could reasonably explain a large part of the group-oriented collective action in advanced, diffuse nations as contract by convention.