[leitura suplementar] KAHN (1981) The origins of social contract theory

Prévia do material em texto

/ a a ' \ ^ !>
JL^ ' <£ fb , V J ( e i l o o i U a
( a *> 4 -^ ' v-^- ^ \ / f v ) | ^ ^
CHA RLES H. KAHN
T H E O R IG IN S O F SO C IA L C O N T R A C T TH EO R Y
In the last two decades the theory of the Social Contract has made a stunning 
comeback. Twenty years ago such doctrines might seem to be only of historical in­
terest. 1 Today contractarian theory tends to be at the center of philosophical discus­
sion, at least in English. This is largely due to John Rawls’ Theory o f Justice, 
published in 1972. We also have a Lockian approach to political philosophy in 
Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974); and even earlier Kurt Baier 
had presented a moral theory explicitly founded upon an argument from Hobbes 
(The Moral Point o f View, lsted. 1958). More recently J. L. Mackie has defined the 
object of morality by reference to contractarian considerations which he recognizes 
in Plato’s Protagoras as well as in Hobbes and Hume (Ethics: Inventing Right and 
Wrong, 1977, ch. 5). So this may be a good time to reconsider the origins of social 
contract theory in classical Greek thought.
Unfortunately the early statements of this theory have been lost, and their date 
and character can only be inferred indirectly, with an inevitable dose of speculation. 
My aim will be to keep the speculation to a minimum, by framing the simplest 
hypothesis that can give a coherent account of the evidence. My thesis will be (a) 
that theories of a social contract were first formulated in the fifth century B. C., 
~ probably in the second half of that century, as a variant on earlier naturalistic ac- 
' counts of the origins of civilized life in society, and (b) that these accounts in turn 
formed paito t a rhore^^efaTtheoryorh^w'the cosmos, living things, and human 
beings originally came into existence. The first part of my thesis connects the con­
tract theory with texts referring on the one hand to the origins of law, justice, and life 
in cities, and on the other hand to the origin of the arts. From the beginning, I 
suggest, the political and technological accounts of the rise of human culture belong 
together. The second part of my thesis connects this whole set of theories about 
human pre history with the still older tradition of rational speculation about how 
things were “in the beginning” : the tradition of Ionian natural philosophy. In short, 
my claim is that the general scheme by which these three types of theory - 
cosmological, technological, and political - are connected in the narrative of 
Lucretius in Book V represents the original matrix within which social contract 
theory arose. And I shall also suggest some connections between these theories of
1 In the 3rded. of G. H. Sabine’s A History o f Political Theory ( 1961), the latest index entries un­
der “Contract theory o f government” refer us to the refutations by Hume and Burke. Contrast now 
David Gauthier, “ David Hume, C ontractarian”, The Philosophical Review 88 (1979) 3-38.
The Origins of Social Contract Theory 93
human prehistory and the important fifth-century debates about the role of Nature 
and Convention in the foundation of morality. But I want to insist that these con­
nections are, from the point of view of the original theory, secondary and derivative. 
I propose to regard the early theories of the rise of human society as politically 
neutral; they formed part of an essentially theoretical explanation of how things 
came to be as they are, from beginnings that were quite different. Exactly when and 
how the notion of contract or “agreement” was introduced into such an explanation 
we do not know. But the early evidence suggests that this part of the thory was also 
intrinsically neutral, or at least that it could be used equally well either to attack or 
to justify the claims to moral authority made on behalf of the established laws. It is 
natural to suppose that the early versions of the theory presented the development 
of civilized life in a Greek polis as a positive achievement, and thus regarded the out­
come (including the rule of law) with satisfaction or even admiration. But this 
positive evaluation is not an intrinsic part of the developmental theory, as various 
negative applications of the same theory will show.
Where one finds the origins of social contract theory will depend upon what one 
is looking for. By a theory of the social contract I mean any doctrine of the standard 
type represented by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, of which the essential 
features are: (1) it assumes a primitive condition of mankind, a “state of nature”, in 
which human beings are living without political government and without any 
regular social organization; (2) it identifies some principle of insecurity or instability 
within this primitive state that makes the development of organized society either 
desirable or inevitable; and (3) it traces the legitimacy (or the alleged legitimacy) of 
government and positive legislation back to an ensuing compact or agreement 
between the interested parties. I attach no importance to the question whether or not 
there is a literal belief in the historical reality of this sequence of events. Contrac­
tarian theories today do not involve any such belief; the philosophers of the 17th 
and 18th centuries were not always clear on this point; and concerning the ancients 
it would be idle to speculate. What is important in the narrative form is not any 
historical claim but the analysis into stages which separate the pre-conditions and 
the consequences of general consent as foundation for the moral and political order 
of society, a consent based upon what is perceived to be the common interests of all 
(or of the majority) concerned.2
2 I pass over one issue of real philosophical importance, namely, the question whether the term 
“social contract” (or “ compact”) as traditionally used refers in fact to two quite distinct notions, two 
stages o f consent: (1) agreement on a pact of association, where in principle unanimity is required, and 
which constitutes the people as a political unit, and (2) a pact of government, presupposing the ex­
istence o f the people, who establish a particular constitution or enter a contract with a particular 
sovereign, as in a pact or exchange of oaths specifying the terms on which the ruler is to rule and the 
people (or subjects) to obey. For this distinction between the pact of society (which Gough calls the 
social contract proper) and the pact of subjection or of government, see J. W. Gough, The Social Con-
94 Charles H. Kahn
As it happens, there are few if any fifth-century texts which speak unambiguously 
of a contract or agreement. (The best evidence is probably the repeated reference to 
“agreement” as basis for the laws in the fragment of Antiphon cited in n.3, below.) 
But there are a number of texts which attribute the origin of laws to human speech 
(logos) or persuasion (peithein), a fifth-century substitute for consent. And there are 
still more passages which speak of men as “establishing” (tithesthai) laws or cities, 
without any further detail. So for the sake of clarity we distinguish three versions of 
my hypothetical model: the minimum theory T, which describes'laws as man-made;'' 
the more informative theroy T. 1, which attributes them togpersuasion ;_and the
special theory T.2, which describes the political union in terms of a contract or___
mutual agreement. T. 1 and T.2 are obviously compatible, though I do not know of 
any text in which they are actually combined. They are both special cases of T, the 
assumption that laws are a human invention.
Now in Lucretius Book V we have an account of the origin of society based upon 
a compact (foedera) “neither to hurt nor to be harmed” (V. 1020), following upon a 
description of an earlier, more bestial condition of life which is itself part of a general 
account of how the world took shape and life arose. So the connection of ideas 
which I suggestis fully documented in Lucretius’ text; what is hypothetical is only 
the more informative theory T .l, which attributes them to persuasion; and the 
special theory T.2, which describes the political union in terms of a contract or 
have not carried conviction, I think, because they have been more concerned to 
identify the lost original (e. g. with Democritus) than to follow up the filiation of 
ideas that are amply attested in Ionian speculation and in Attic literature.
Probably the earliest unmistakable evidence for T.2 is to be found in the Platonic _ 
dialogues. Curiously enough, the only text from classical Greece which develops a 
doctrine of the political compact in any detail is altogether atypical: in the Crito 
Socrates argues that it would be wrong for him to escape from prison because he 
has tacitly agreed to obey the laws of Athens by freely remaining in the city all his
. Although Socrates~repeatedly makes use of theliemi-technical word for "coin- 
pact” (ouvdf|icri), his theory is not of the standard form. Not only is there no 
reference to an earlier state of nature nor to the establishment of civil society as 
such: the pact is not presented as an agreement between the citizens (or future
tract (Oxford, 2nd ed. 1957), pp. 2-3 and passim, with reference there to the earlier literature, notably 
O tto von Gierke, Althusius und die Slaatslehre (2nd ed. 1902).
There is a certain parallel in Rawls’ distinction between agreement in the original position and the 
later stage of a constitutional convention. The more detailed ancient accounts also often mention two 
or more phases of political agreement: see Plato, Laws III. 678 E fT., 680 E ff., 681 D 7,683 A 7 with 
684 A (four distinct phases); Polybius VI. 5 -6 ; Lucretius V. 1019 ff. and 1143 fT. For Lucretius the 
first compact is social rather than political; cities, kings and landed property came later (v. 1108 ff.), 
and laws later still (1144) after a war of all against all (1141-2) - the latter coming well after the 
primitive situation, as in Roussea
O
The Origins of Social Contract Theory 95
citizens) as in standard theory, but as a one-sided commitment made by Socrates to 
obey the laws of the city.3 Such a doctrine of implicit compact, made not by the 
citizens to one another but by an individual citizen to the state, has no parallel in an­
tiquity as far as I know.4 1 take it that this is a brilliant innovation of Plato himself 
(or perhaps of Socrates), adapting the familiar notion of a social compact between 
citizens to the personal obligation of an individual citizen, and replacing the quasi- 
historical narrative of the creation of law by the more plausible and hence more 
cogent claim that an agreement to obey the law has been made “in deed but not in 
word” (52 D 5; cf. 51 E 3). The contrasting reference to an agreement in words 
(A.oycp) is most naturally understood as an allusion to some contract theory of the 
standard form.
In the search for origins, then, the Crito tells us only that the notion of a compact 
or syntheke was sufficiently familiar at the beginning of the fourth century for Plato 
to make use of it for his own (i. e. for Socrates’) purposes. More information on the 1 
earlier form of the doctrine is provided by C.lanrnn’s speech in Rppuhlir IT. where 
“the point from which men began to establish laws and covenants (ai>vflf|K:a<;) 
among themselves” is said to be in the decision that it is advantageous “to make an 
agreement (ouvftfoftai) neither to do nor to suffer injustice” (359A). Almost the 
same formula is used by Epicurus, who defines justice in terms of a compact or 
covenant (ouvfrf|KT|) “neither to harm one another nor to be harmed”. (Kuriai Dox- 
ai XXXI-XXXV = D.L. X. 150-51.) It is just possible that Epicurus is echoing the 
phraseology of Glaucon’s speech (despite the change of verb from dSucetv to pXdrc- 1 
tetv), but much more likely that both he and Plato reflect a lost fifth-century state­
ment of contract theory in which this formula occurred. It is presumably the same 
theory Antiphon the sophist has in mind when he speaks of law as based upon an 
“agreement” among the parties concerned.5 If so, our T.2, the contract theory 
proper, can be securely dated not later than the last third of the fifth century.
3 For aovdf|ioi and auvtideoO ai see Crito 52 D 1-2,54 C 2. The parallel (and predominant) use of 
6|ioXoyia and 6noAxjyeiv (49 E 6, 50 A 2, C 5, 51 E 3, 52 A 7-8, C 2, D 2, etc.) might be a Socratic 
touch: cf. 48 B 11,49 A 8, D 1. But note tot x<bv v6n<ov 6noAx>YT)devra, tou? onoAoyTiaavrac;, etc. in 
Antiphon B 44 A (DK II, p. 347).
4 Burnet (in his commentary on the Crito, p. 200) cites as a parallel (pseudo-) Demosthenes 25.16, 
where vonoi; is defined as noX E to? 6e auvdr|icr| koivt|, KaO’flv n&m npocrr|K E i i^ v to!<; tv rfi noXei.
But this rhetorical use of compact language implies an agreement which is common to all the citizens 
(since they or their predecessors have established the laws by their vote), and presumably a compact 
between them, not between the State and the individual as Burnet claims. Compare Aristotle, Politics 
III. 9 , 1 2 8 0 b 1 0 , for the view of Lycophron the sophist that vono? is c u v O t i k t i icai i y y u T i r p t ; dXA-fjXoii; 
t< jl>v 8 i i c a i c o v ; cf. 1 2 8 0 b 3 0 ( K o i v c o v i a ) xou ( i f | d S i K E t v oq>at; avroiii;, a clear allusion to the formula for 
a compact. See below n.5.
5 See the quotation from Antiphon in n.3 above. Glaucon claims to be expressing the views of 
Thrasymachus and “ thousands of others” (357 C 7-8). And cf. too jiij ASuceiv acpdt; aotooq in the 
passage from Politics 1280 b 30 cited in preceding note. The parallel to Lycophron there suggests that 
he might be one contemporary source for the formula in Plato. On Lycophron see Guthrie, A History 
o f Greek Philosophy III, pp. 131 f.
96 Charles H. Kahn
Now the Epicurean formula recurs in Lucretius’ description of primitive 
mankind: the verse we have cited from Book V (1020: inter se nec laedere nec 
violari) is, as Bailey notes, a direct translation of Epicurus’ words. If Lucretius (via 
Epicurus) has preserved a fifth-century theory, we may look to him for clues as to 
the nature of the original. The principal features in Lucretius’ account, ignoring the 
cosmological and biological background, are the following: 1) The primitive condi­
tion preceding the compact, in which men are described as living without organized 
social groups, “in the manner of wild beasts roaming at large” (V.932, transi, after 
Latham) - a description which had an unmistakable impact on Rousseau’s portrait 
of primitive man. 2) The compact itself (1019-1027). 3) The compact is preceded 
by the discovery of fire, and preceded or accompanied by the origin of domestic 
arts, including houses and clothing (1011 ff.). 4) It is accompanied or followed by 
the development of language (V. 1028-90). 5) It is followed by the origins of religion 
(V. 1161 ff.). 6) Finally we get an account of metallurgy, domestication of animals, 
weaving, agriculture, and the civilized arts generally (V. 1241 ff).
The outlines of Lucretius’ narrative can be traced in Rousseau’s Discourse on the 
Origin o f Inequality more than 18 centuries later.6 Our task now is to trace the ele­
ments of this scheme back some 400 years, to the fifth century B. C. Simplifying a 
bit, we can recognize three elements as essential: the bestial condition of primitive 
mankind, the origin of social and political life, and the origin of the arts. We may 
note that all three are also present in a passage in Isocrates’ Nicocles, where 
mankind’s escape from “beastly life” ({hipuoôôç Çf\v) is ascribed to speech and per­
suasion, by which we are distinguished from the animals and by which we are able 
to “found cities and establish laws and discover a r ts ;. . . it is speech (logos) which 
has legislated about right and wrong. . . and without such ordinances we would be 
unableto live together with one another”.7 In this discourse (which the Budé editors 
date c. 368 B.C.) there is nothing about a contract as such, but the connection 
between persuasion and social life nicely illustrates T. 1, which we thus find combin­
ed with the origin of the arts. The decisive role assigned to logos reflects the rhetori­
cian’s own special interest; but Isocrates is obviously drawing on a commonplace 
when he speaks in one breath of the origins of cities, laws, and arts. A similar com­
bination had been presented 15 or 20 years earlier in Plato’s Protagoras. In most
6 For parallels between Rousseau and Lucretius, see A. O. Lovejoy and G. Boas, Primitivism and 
Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1935), pp. 240-242, who quote with approval Robin’s opi­
nion: ‘les emprunts de Rousseau sont très probables” . J. Starobinski notes the parallel in Pufendorf 
but adds: “ Pufendorf cite longuement Lucrèce (V. 923 sq.) que Rousseau a sans doute relu au mo­
ment de la composition du Discours”, J . J. Rousseau, Oeuvres Complètes, ed. de la Pléiade, III, p. 
1307(1964).
7 Nicocles 6 -7 , echoed in Cicero, De Inventione 1.2 (where there are also parallels to Lucretius V). 
Because Cicero’s original orator is described as sapiens, this passage is sometimes traced to 
Posidonius; but the most enthusiastic admirers of the latter will probably not want to find his influence 
in Isocrates.
The Origins of Social Contract Theory 97
surviving texts from the fifth century, political and technical inventions are mention­
ed separately, according to the preoccupations of a particular author. But our suspi­
cion that they originally belonged together (as in the Protagoras, the Nicocles, and 
Lucretius) is confirmed by a famous ode in the Antigone, where “learning (or 
“teaching oneself1 i5i5a^axo) the tempers that regulate cities” (doxuv6(xoi dpyai) is 
mentioned after speech and thought and before medicine, in an enumeration of the 
achievements of mankind (Ant. 355). We will return to the arts in a moment; but 
first we consider some fifth-century texts on the origin of law.
II.
The earliest surviving narrative of the sort we are looking for is probably the 
Sisyphus fragment assigned in Diels-Kranz to Critias the tyrant, on the authority of 
Sextus Empiricus (DK 88.B 25). Like Diels, most scholars have followed 
Wilamowitz in accepting the ascription to Critias. But there is also ancient 
testimony in favor of Euripides: and A. Bihle has>ecently given rather conclusive 
arguments for attributing the fragment to K,uripides’,'satyr-play Sisyphus, which is 
known to have been performed in 415 B.C^'SWce it is not the author but the 
doctrine and date which interest us here (and even if Critias were the author, the 
date would not be significantly different), I shall cite the text by the name of the 
dramatic speaker, Sisyphus. The fragment begins with a description of the “beast­
ly” state of nature in rather Hobbesian terms, followed by the creation of law.
There was a time when the life o f mankind was disordered, like the life o f wild beasts, subject 
to the rule o f force, when there was no reward for good men nor any punishment for the bad. 
And then, I believe, human beings established laws (v6|ioi) for punishment, so that justice 
might rule and hold crime in subjection, and anyone was punished who did wrong. Then the 
laws prevented them from committing open deeds o f violence, but they went on doing such 
deeds in secret. (D K 88. B 25).
What follows is the real point of the whole passage: how religion and fear of the 
godsJiad-lQ-heintroduced in order to make jaw and morality effective. It is to il­
lustrate this cynical view of religion that the passage is quoted by ancient authors; 
and this is clearly supposed to be Sisyphus’ own contribution (for which he will have 
been amply punished in the sequel). By contrast, his account of the state of nature 
and the origin of civil law is brief and entirely subordinated to the explanation of 
belief in the gods. I suggest that in this respect the author is not innovating but mak­
ing use of some earlier account of how “human beings first established laws”, an ac­
count similar to that which Glaucon refers to in Republic II. Although Glaucon’s 
formula “(agreeing) neither to do nor to suffer injustice” is not in evidence, the un­
8 A. Dihle, “D as Satyrspiel ‘Sisyphus’” , Hermes 105 (1977) 28-42. The older communis opinio is 
reflected in B. Snell, TR. G. F. I, where our text is 43. F 19 (but Snell notes ‘res est incerta’, p. 170 on 
43.2). Other things being equal, Sextus would be a more reliable source than Aetius. But in this case 
Dihle has shown that other things are not equal.
98 Charles H. Kahn
derlying thought is the same: originally men suffered from the violence of other 
men, and they set up a system of laws and legal punishment to prevent acts of 
mutual aggression. The theory is rather of type T. 1, since there is no reference to a 
contract as such. But in the context Sisyphus emphasizes the role of logos (vv. 26, 
38) and persuasion (rceioat v. 41).
The accounts of Glaucon and Sisyphus agree that human beings, if left to 
themselves, will do harm and violence to one another, and that a system of laws and 
justice is required for them to live peacefully together.9 A similar thought is express­
ed in a fragment of Democritus: “The laws would not prevent each one from living 
according to his private discretion, if one man did not harm another. For the result 
of envy and ill-will (phthonos) is to bring on civil strife (stasis)” (fr. 245). 
Democritus’ text does not refer unmistakably to any pre-legal period or to a time 
when laws were first established. But there is a good deal of indirect evidence to con­
firm our intitial impression that these are traditional elements in the Sisyphus story. 
There is first of all the political myth which Plato puts in Protagoras’ mouth, in the 
dialogue that bears his name. However, I prefer not to invoke the evidence of the 
Protagoras at this point, since that dialogue belongs to the fourth century and how 
much of its contents can reasonably be ascribed to the sophist himself, in the middle 
of the fifth century, largely depends upon what we think we know about the state of 
the discussion at that time. So it would be dangerously circular to use the 
Protagoras to reconstruct the historical background for the Sisyphus fragment.10 
On the other hand, our evidence for the title “On the State of Things in the Beginn­
ing” (nepi tfjq tv dpxt) KdTacrtdaewc;) for a lost treatise of Protagoras (D.L. IX.55 = 
DK 80. Al) may be a good indication that such topics were under discussion in the 
middle of the century.11
There is one more feature of the Sisyphus text which can be widely paralleled: the 
description of the initial condition of mankind as “disordered and like that of 
beasts”, ataktos and theriodes. Both adjectives occur in a similar context in the pre­
history recounted by Diodorus (1.8.1) in the first century B.C., which certainly 
follows an earlier version; but Diodorus’ original must be an historian or 
cosmologist, not a satyr play. Closer in time to the Sisyphus text, and probably by 
the same author, is the brief account of the origin of culture given by Theseus in Eu­
ripides’ Suppliant Women. The benefits of civilized life are here attributed to a god
9 So likewise in Anonymus lamblichi, D K II, p. 402, 26-29; Isocrates, Nicocles 7.
10 The same is true for the parallel account o f the origin o f law and justice in the Anonymus 
lamblichi (D K II, 402.24-403.10). Like Plato’s dialogue, this text is good evidence for the existence 
of our hypothetical theory T in the fifth or early fourth century; but the exact date o f the original can­
not be determined.
11 I should mention here the suspicion expressed by Dodds (The Concept o f Progress, p. 9, n.4), 
which as he says is not so easy to dismiss, “that this title has been merely inferred from Plato’s myth”,as Diels thought was the case for another title in the list (cf. Diels’ note on B 8).
The Origins , of Social Contract Theory 99
(and the focus is on the arts, rather than on the state); but the primitive condition is 
similarly described as “messy and beastlike”.12
The date of Euripides’ Suppliants is uncertain, but generally set around 422 B.C. 
A more definite terminus ante quem for T, that is, for the earlier theory used by 
Sisyphus, is indicated by Aristophanes’ Clouds, produced in 423 B.C. Most of the 
references in the play to ethical doctrine are concerned with the nomos-physis an­
tithesis as we find it articulated in the fragments of Antiphon and utilized by Calli- 
cles in the Gorgias; and this contrast between Nature and Convention need not im­
ply a two-stage development, as in our standard theory T. But we do find an allusion 
to such a narrative sequence in Pheidippides’ defense of father-beating. When his 
father protests that such behavior is nowhere approved by law or custom (nomos), 
Pheidippides answers:
W asn’t it a man who established this law in the first place, a man like you and me, who per­
suaded the ancients by his speechmaking? Am I any less free to lay down a new law for the 
future, that sons should beat their fathers in return? (1421-24)
Pheidippides is attempting to undermine the authority of nomos, as something es­
tablished by mere men “like you and me”, and is appealing instead to the natural 
standard of “beastly” behavior on the part of roosters and other animal offspring 
towards their parents (1427 ff.). But his reference to persuasion as the original basis 
for nomos identifies this as an example of T .l.
It is true that, as Dover says of Pheidippides in commenting on this passage, he 
and Sisyphus are “characteristically Greek in thinking of nomos not as a ‘behavior 
pattern’ which is eventually codified but as the product of one man’s conscious 
design and one assembly’s consious decision” . (We may compare the similar con­
ception of the role of the nomothetes in establishing language, according to one line 
of thought pursued in Plato’s Cratylus.) But this characteristically Greek way of 
thinking about the origins of law and custom is precisely what gives rise to social 
contract theory, or at least what confirms the doctrine once it has been formulated. 
And this mode of thinking naturally connects the narrative pattern of the Sisyphus 
fragment with the nomos-physis antithesis as formulated by Antiphon, 
Aristophanes’ Unjust Logos and Plato’s Callicles, even though the doctrine of 
natural morality and the attack upon nomos need not presuppose any developmen­
tal theory. Hence the striking similarity between Callicles’ ideas on justice and those 
expressed by Glaucon in Republic I I (358 E-359 B), although the former relies 
upon the nomos-physis contrast and the latter upon the contract (our T.2).
Even without using Plato’s Protagoras, then, we have enough evidence to sup­
port the claim that the notion of an initial state of anarchy followed by a deliberate 
establishment of law, as illustrated in the Sisyphus fragment, is old enough to be
12 Supplices 202 (ploxoq) itE(popnEvo? icai dripi<u6T|q. See Guthrie, History, III, 80, n.2, pp. 82-84 
(with 82, n.4) for other parallels, including Eqwpov eTkti n a v ra in Prometheus B ound (v. 450). On the 
date o f the Prometheus, see below. The verbal coincidence and similar context suggests that Euripides 
is echoing the older play: hence the anonymous reference to a god as source of the arts.
100 Charles H. Kahn
taken for granted in the Clouds and in Euripides’ Suppliant Women, in other words 
that our original theory T was formulated no later than about 430-425 B.C. We 
could set the date at least a decade earlier, or perhaps two, to 440-430 or even 
450^440 B.C., if we could trust the title of Protagoras’ lost treatise “On the State of 
Things in the Beginning”. And I note that i f we think Plato is reflecting the contents 
of this treatise in Protagoras’ speech, then we can document all three of the basic 
i elements in Lucretius’ narrative: (1) a primitive stage, with human beings living as 
i rather underprivileged beasts, (2) a technological stage, and (3) a political stage, 
with the introduction of justice and morality. But we have agreed not to beg any 
I questions about the historical reliability of Plato’s presentation of Protagoras. Even 
I if the earlier date for T is correct, as I think it is, what follows is not that the theory 
Plato assigns to Protagoras is historically accurate, but only that it is historically 
plausible.
Furthermore, even if we actually possessed (or could reconstruct) the 
Protagorean version of T, our problem would not be solved. It would be just the 
same as if we could accept the closely related thesis of Reinhardt and Thomas Cole 
which derives the prehistory in Lucretius, Diodorus, et al. from the Mikros 
Diakosmos.13 Suppose that we possessed both the pre-history of Democritus and 
also Protagoras’ account of primitive man. We would still be left with the question 
how much one of these thinkers borrowed from the other, or how much both of 
them borrowed from one or more of their predecessors. Since we do not even have 
the basis for asking, much less answering these questions, it seems best to continue 
to speak not of the theory of Protagoras or Democritus but of the schematic and 
anonymous archetype T, and to leave open the possibility that this is a composite 
work belonging to several different Presocratic thinkers. (Some of the more promis­
ing candidates will be considered in a moment). And in drawing the parallel between 
the Protagoras/social contract problem and the Democritus/prehistory problem I 
want to suggest that the time has come to transform our quest for the origins of 
social contract theory into the search for an older, more general developmental 
scheme that will inevitably produce an account of the origins of human society in 
naturalistic terms. Having begun from below by tracing the antecedents of the
13 Thomas Cole, Democritus and the Sources o f Greek Anthropology (1967). Unfortunately, 
despite the valiant efforts of Cole and others, following Reinhardt, we have no definite textual 
evidence to show that Democritus actually presented a connected account of human prehistory. Fr. 
144, which says that music is later than the “necessary” arts, would fit nicely into a history of civiliza­
tion but does not unambiguously require such a context. The same is true for fr. 154, on how men 
learned certain arts by imitating animals. The best evidence is perhaps DK 68 A 139, which reports 
Democritus’ account of the origin o f men and other animals from moisture and mud. On the other 
hand, I see no reason to doubt that the immediate model for Lucretius’ account was to be found in 
Epicurus. For an excellent recent discussion, see D. J. Furley, “ Lucretius the Epicurean” , in Entre- 
tiens H ardt 24 (1977), pp. 10 ff.
The Origins of Social Contract Theory 101
Epicurean theory of contract back as far as the texts permit, it is time to begin from 
above, and to consider the tradition of speculation from which a theory like T will 
have emerged.
Lucretius presents his pre-history as a stage on the long road of development that 
leads from the initial emergence of the cosmos to human life as we know it. There 
are well-known parallels in Diodorus and elswehere.14 But these Hellenistic ac­
counts follow a genetic pattern that is as old as Milesian cosmology. Anaximander 
himself had asked the question: how did living things in general and human beings 
in particular first come to be produced? And the answer he gave seems to have in­
fluenced later speculation on the origin of life, which often speaks of the formation 
of vital bubbles or membranes from heat and fermentation in the moist regions of 
the earth.15 So we can trace the archetype for the biological section of the Hellenistic 
pre-histories back to Anaximander.But how did primitive man survive? What kind 
of a life did he lead? Once one has seriously begun this line of speculation, such 
questions necessarily arise. And the answers to them give us our first description of 
the State of Nature. And this in turn will call for some version of T, an account of 
the transition from the natural state to civil society.
When were such questions first asked and answered? We do not know, and had 
best admit our ignorance. All we can say with some assurance is that it occurred in 
the period between Anaximander and Protagoras inclusive, i. e. between 560-550 
and 440-430 B.C. We can and will say a bit more. But since the evidence for this 
period is so scanty, it is more important to establish the firm conclusion that some 
theories of the origin of human society were formulated in this long Presocratic cen­
tury than to defend more precise and more flimsily supported claims about just 
which theories were expounded when and by whom. What is at stake here is not 
simply a question of date. It is important to distinguish between the origins of social 
contract theory, as a naturalistic or quasi-historical account of how human society 
(and, in particular, the Greek polis) arose, and the political or rhetorical use made of 
such a theory in attacking or defending the authority of law and morality, or in 
celebrating the achievements of civilization. These “practical applications” are of 
course conspicuous in the extant texts. But behind them lies, as I suggest, an essen­
tially theoretical explanation, in the spirit of Ionian natural philosophy.
14 Compare the passage from Tzetzes in DK 68. B 5.3, with discussion in Cole, op. cit. pp. 20 ff., 
28 ff. etc. Diodorus breaks off his narrative before the rise o f political institutions, because he wishes 
to stress the limits o f historical knowledge concerning early times (1.8.10-9.2). For other parallels see 
W. Spoerri, Späthellenistische Berichte über Welt, Kultur und Götter (Basel, 1959), and W. K. C. 
Guthrie, In the Beginning (1957), chs. 2 and 5.
15 See my Anaximander and the Origins o f Greek Cosmolgy ( 1960), pp. 110-12 for some parallels 
between Anaximander and Diodorus. For Epicurean parallels, see Guthrie, In the Beginning pp. 
35 ff., Spoerri op. cit. 123 ff.
102 Charles H. Kahn
III.
If we examine the fragments and doxographic reports, we find that the earliest 
thinker for whom a theory of this kind is explicitly attested is Archelaus of Athens, a 
pupil of Anaxagoras and reputed to be the teacher of Socrates. The doxography is 
pitifully brief, but it gives us the information we need. After a general cosmogony 
and an account of the origin of animals including man from the heated earth, all of 
them at first nourished by slime, we are told that “human beings were distinguished 
from the other animals, and they set up rulers and laws and arts and cities and the 
rest” (DK 60. A 4,5-6). Here we find the three essential elements from Lucretius 
Book V (and roughly the same three as in the Protagorean myth): (1) an early state 
for mankind like that of other animals, (2) the compact itself, i. e. the establishment 
of rulers and laws, (3) the development of the arts (technai). The reference to “cities 
and the rest” suggests that Archelaus’ account of the arts and civilized life had 
further subdivisons, as in Lucretius. Since he is elsewhere reported to have been “the 
first to declare that the production of speech is due to the impact on the air” (DK 60. 
A 1.17), Archelaus may also have speculated on the origins of language, as we 
know Democritus and Cratylus did soon afterwards. If so, the only feature missing 
here from the Lucretian scheme would be the origin of religion; and even this might 
well be covered in “the rest” (icai xd SXka auvearr|oav). Again, theories of the origin 
of religion are attested in the next generation for Prodicus, Democritus (frs. 30 and 
166), and the Sisyphus fragment.
We cannot determine whether speculation on language and religion was part of 
the version of T formulated by Archelaus. But there are two points which deserve 
attention in this doxographic report. One is that the physical biological account of 
the origin of man and other animals in the earth, “which provided them with a slime 
like milk for food” (DK 60. A 1.17), shows so many parallels with Democritus, 
Epicurus, and the later prehistories, as well as some contact with Anaximander, that 
it should probably be regarded as a standard doctrine of the Ionian school rather 
than as a personal invention of Archelaus.16 The other noteworthy point is that one 
version of the doxography connects Archelaus’ theory with the nomos-physis con­
troversy: “He said the just and the shameful are based not on nature (physei) but on 
convention (nomoi)” (DK 60. A 1.16, A). This formula may represent an 
anachronistic paraphrase; it nonetheless reveals the close connection in Greek 
thought between theories of the origin of society and controversies about the basis 
of morality. As we have seen, although the doctrine of the social compact and the 
attack on Convention in the name of Nature are certainly not the same doctrine and 
neither one logically entails the other, they belong closely together.17 They reflect
16 Guthrie, In the Beginning pp. 32 f., 35-38, with nn. 6-10.
17 Both actually appear together in Aristophanes’ Clouds and also in the fragments o f Antiphon, if 
I am right in supposing that the agreement referred to by Antiphon is an initial compact.
The Origins of Social Contract Theory 103
the same view of the laws as man-made, and hence can lead to the same doubts as to 
the binding status of such laws. Our general theory T is simply the physis-nomos 
distinction presented as two successive stages in the development of mankind. I 
suspect that this is the form in which that momentous distinction was first ar­
ticulated.
IV.
If we could accept the surviving doxography as a complete record, we might 
simply identify Archelaus as author of our hypothetical theory T, and regard 
Protagoras and Democritus as contemporary (or slightly later) adaptations of the 
same doctrine. But what reason do we have for believing in the originality of 
Archelaus? In my opinion, none whatsoever.18 Our doxography is not so much a 
full record as a scrap-heap in which a few pages have been preserved from a lost 
library. In this situation the argument from silence can prove nothing. How much of 
the doctrine attributed to Archelaus did he actually borrow from his master Anax­
agoras? We do not know, and even if we did, the same question would return to 
plague us: where was Anaxagoras innovating, and where was he adapting the views 
of Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, or some other philosopher whose 
name happens to have escaped us?
There is no sound basis for answering these questions, and hence no way to 
specify the date and authorship of T, beyond claiming that it is at least as old as 
Archelaus. But I do want to consider a few hints of the existence of such a theory in 
the earlier period.
In the Prometheus myth of Plato’s Protagoras the acquisition of the arts and 
crafts (together with religion and language) precedes the establishment of a civic 
order of justice and morality; in the Epicurean narrative of Lucretius the civic order 
is preceded by the discovery of fire and the domestic arts, accompanied by the 
development of language, followed by religion, agriculture, metallurgy, and the rest. 
Now the role of Prometheus in the Protagoras follows the lines of the tragedy at­
tributed to Aeschylus, where all the technai are described as gifts of Prometheus to 
mankind, beginning with carpentry and housebuilding, including the domestication 
of animals, the arts of sailing and medicine, and concluding with divination and 
metallurgy. (The origin of language is not mentioned, as not constituting a techne, 
but number and writing are; religion is represented by divination.)19 The enumera­
18 Thedoxography (D.L.II. 17 = DK 60.A 1) makes him the firs t to give a physical explanation of 
speech. But, as F. Heinimann points out (Nomos und Physis, p. I l l , n.3), this is contradicted by 
Aetius’ report for Anaxagoras (D K 59. A 106). Heinimann also suggests Protagorean influence on 
Archelaus (ibid. p. 113), which is possible, but for which we have no evidence.
19 Prometheus Bound 443-507. Translation of this and the chief parallels in Guthrie, History III, 
pp. 79 ff.
104 Charles H. Kahn
tion of these distinctive achievements of human culture has well-known parallels in 
Sophocles and Euripides (referred to above, p. 97 and 99), suggesting some common 
source on the rise of human civilization. The nature of this source could not be inferred 
from the poetic versions alone. But the material in the tragedians is fully accounted for 
by an early, rather detailed version of T, with a primitive state where men lived like 
beasts, followed by the development of the arts and the creation of a civilized life in 
society.
How old is the version of T reflected in these tragedies? If we could be sure that 
the Prometheus as we have it was the work of Aeschylus, our theory T could be 
securely dated before the death of the poet in 456 B.C. But scepticism on the ques­
tion of authorship has been considerably strengthened in the last few years, and a 
recent discussion dates the play as late as 440 B.C., after the A ntigone.20 The earlier 
date would make Anaxagoras more likely than Archelaus as the common source 
utilized in Prometheus, Antigone, and Euripides’ Suppliants (and also as the in­
direct source for the account of nomoi in Sisyphus and the Clouds). The later date 
opens the field to Archelaus and Protagoras as well; but I think it still leaves Anax­
agoras as the front-runner. For there is in fact clear evidence for Anaxagoras’ in­
terest in prehistory in one of his few surviving fragments.
And human beings have been formed as well as the other animals with life (psyche). And there 
are cities inhabited by human beings living together and fields cultivated, as with u s , . . . and 
the earth produces for them a great diversity of things, of which they gather and bring the most 
beneficial ones into their dwellings to make use o f them. (fr. 4).
The point of this passage is to show that human civilization has developed 
“elsewhere, and not only with us”, where “elsewhere” probably means “on other 
parts of the earth’s surface”. But Anaxagoras’ argument certainly presupposes that 
it was just such a development that led to the civilization of Greek city-states with 
their systems of law and government.
The fact that in this text Anaxagoras can assume that such a development took 
place “with us”, while feeling obliged to argue that it takes place elsewhere, might 
mean that the latter doctrine is an innovation while the former was already part of 
his tradition. By itself this fact would not be decisive, of course, since it is possible 
that Anaxagoras presented (and argued for) the development of Greek or M editer­
ranean civilization in a lost portion of his treatise. But there is one more piece of 
evidence in favor of an older developmental theory, in a brief quotation from 
Xenophanes:
Gods did not point out all things to men from the beginning, 
but in the course of time they seek and find what is better, (fr. 18)
20 M. L. West, “The Prometheus trilogy”, J H S 99 (1979), 130-148, following M. Griffith, The 
Authenticity o f "Prometheus Bound" (Cambridge, 1977), p. 253. West (p. 147) ascribes the 
“ Prometheus culture-myth” to Protagoras himself, on the strength of Plato’s dialogue! West’s faith in 
Plato as historian is so great that it permits him to date Protagoras’ two visits to Athens, the first of 
which would be some 20 years before Plato was born.
The Origins of Social Contract Theory 105
We have no context for these two verses, but since we know ( 1) that the original for­
mation of mankind is a topic discussed by both Anaximander and Anaxagoras, and 
(b) the development of civilization according to the latter includes a recognition of 
“what is most beneficial” (xà ôvi|una), it is reasonable to suppose that when 
Xenophanes speaks of “finding out what is better” he is also referring to the gradual 
achievement of civilized life by the use of reason rather than by the gift of 
Prometheus.21
V.
In summary, we have been able to trace our hypothetical theory T, the earliest ac­
count of the origin of law and justice within a general development of civilized life, 
back at least to the time of Archelaus in the middle of the fifth centrury. The use of a 
formula for contract (csuvdf|KT|) or agreement (0n.oA.oyia) may be later, but it is 
presupposed by Plato and Lycophron, and probably by Antiphon as well. The 
developmental account of civilization is certainly older, attested in Anaxagoras and 
Xenophanes; an account of the origin of the human species within a general 
cosmogony goes back to Anaximander and Miletus. Now there is another tradition 
of scientific inquiry which begins in Miletus and exerts a powerful influence on the 
fifth-century discussions of law and morality: I mean the ethnographic reports on 
customs or mores (nomoi) of non-Greek cultures, which originate with Hecataeus 
of Miletus and are most fully represented for us in the Researches of Herodotus.
Anaxagoras and Archelaus on the one hand, Herodotus on the other mark the 
moment when Ionian philosophy and historié take up residence in Athens. What 
used to be called the Sophistic movement, and is now better described as the Greek 
Enlightenment, is in part just this: the popularization of Ionian science, its diffusion 
within the leading circles of Athens and the wider domain of Athenian culture and 
literature. In historical terms, the discussions of nomos in late fifth-century Athens 
can only be understood as a response to these two converging traditions, both of
21 The importance of Xenophanes and Anaxagoras in this connection is stressed by L. Edelstein, 
The Idea o f Progress in Classical A ntiquity (Baltimore, 1967), chs. 1 and 2. But Edelstein neglects the 
background for Xenophanes’ rem ark in Milesian natural philosophy and hence overestimates his role 
in the rise of a naturalistic account of civilization. W hat Edelstein calls “ the problem posed by 
Xenophanes” (p. 21) had, in effect, been posed by Anaximander; like the latter, Xenophanes also dis­
cussed the physical origin of men and other animals (frs. 27, 29, 33). E. R. Dodds’ discussion of the 
Xenophanes fragment in The Ancient Concept o f Progress (Oxford, 1973), pp. 4 ff. seems to me out of 
focus because of a similar failure to identify the relevant intellectual context. W hat Dodds calls “ the 
idea of progress” in Prometheus Bound (p. 6) and “ the humanistic interpretation of progress” 
reflected in the Antigone (p. 8) is ju st the standard Ionian theory o f cultural evolution (our theory T 
broadly construed to include the arts), which each poet exploits for his own purposes. The term 
“ progress” is misleading here, since it conflates the developmental scheme (from primitive to civilized) 
with a positive evaluation, and even with an optimistic view of the future.