reject social contract

JOHN RAWLS

Rawls social contract theory of rights appears to be a reasonable argument on first glance, but after further evaluation it doesn't hold up in a few key categories. His social contract theory is what kind of government institutions would be needed and legitimate if one did not know what station in life one was going to be born into, present theories being biased toward advantaging ones current status. He presumes all rational people could agree on the same principles, but this would actually lead to branding of people as irrational if they disagreed. (Could one not wish to be left to starve to death if one did not work or is this irrational?) This theory lacks continuity in time, seeing how ones answers to the question would vary quite considerably pre and post industrial revolution, and into the unforeseen future. It also relies heavily on peoples present biases against disability, poverty, and dumbness to presumably justify more government powers to alleviate these things. Also the theory may hold up for one time era but is not geographically universal; the world has a lot of people and it would be impossible for all of them to have social contract derived rights because of limited resources and unlimited material wants. The theory is an attempt to justify redistributive 'rights'(wealth) claims and is therefore just an imaginary government as social insurance agency, playing God, removing individuals freedom of responsibility.