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VitriolicViolet t1_j78xn36 wrote

Reply to comment by Purely_Theoretical in There Are No Natural Rights (without Natural Law): Addressing what rights are, how we create rights, and where rights come from by contractualist

its legitimacy is recursive (its legit because enough people say it is) its consented too by birth (assuming you are not moving somewhere else) and when the state breaks it nothing inherently happens, if the population decide the sate has lost legitimacy then it has lost legitimacy.

personally i dont think 'social contract' theory holds up well in the absence of 'no mans land' ie for social contract theory to be legitimate you need to be able to refuse it and all others.

i would argue it currently holds no legitimacy due to relying purely on force and coercion (i cannot build my own home and farm my own food anywhere on the planets surface ie it is illegal for me to leave the social contract as they apply to every square cm of the globe)

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Bodywithoutorgans18 t1_j79341o wrote

>its legitimacy is recursive (its legit because enough people say it is)

It is recursive down to a group level and not an individual level though, which makes it stronger than other things that are recursive. "The State" can be recursive down to an individual level, anarchy exists for example. Even within pure anarchy though, there is still some sort of implied social contract.

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tbryan1 t1_j7je1iz wrote

"i would argue it currently holds no legitimacy due to relying purely on force and coercion (i cannot build my own home and farm my own food anywhere on the planets surface ie it is illegal for me to leave the social contract as they apply to every square cm of the globe)"

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This logic is self defeating because if you don't follow a social contract then there is no such thing as ownership of land. There are no laws at all. Your implying that an entire civilization out to destroy itself so people can see what it's like to live without one. The reality is a social contract is a necessary component of a civilization, so no level of enforcement can be coercion so long as you are in that civilization.

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