I will model a hypothetical bargaining situation in which individuals must adopt principles to establish and govern their social institutions. Within limits set by the nature of justice, we can freely select the conditions establishing this bargaining situation and its framework and rules in order to logically entail or make most probable a particular social contract. Presumably, this situation will manifest, even explicate, our fundamental beliefs and feelings about justice and our perspective on humanity and society. The model is then an integrated whole consisting of initial conditions, bargaining situation, the actual proposals and arguments, and the resulting bargain or social contract.⁴ To use Rawls' terms, as a whole it is a "reflective equilibrium"⁵ between its various parts, and should be evaluated as such.

In this way a particular social contract, or peace, is given a clear context and explicit, even systematic, framework and argument. It provides a clear normative model for accepting a social contract. To be sure, this is not a form of proof, any more than a mathematical theory of society provides proof for the social "laws" deduced from it. The empirical confirmation of a mathematical theory, which is always and necessarily contingent,⁶ is based on testing its deductions or predictions against reality. Likewise, the test of the social contract is the general reasonableness and persuasiveness of its particular social consequences. If the consequences are undesirable, then the ethics or justice of the social contract are in serious question.⁷

Although I have argued that universality, prescriptiveness, and morality are necessary metaethical properties of ethics, and thus justice, I do not believe that these properties can so restrict the social contract model as to entail a specific ethical or just social contract.⁸ In so far as the social contract constrains fundamental ethical or just principles, therefore, the final appeal is to our common feelings and emotions--in sum, to our attitudes,⁹ as developed through experience and thought and as imbued with the historical lessons embodied in our culture and society.

The social contract model I will develop here, therefore, is to my theory of a just peace as the mathematical structure of social field theory¹⁰ is to the empirical perspective of previous volumes. Moreover, the specific conditions, framework, and rules establishing the bargaining situation are then comparable to the specification and interpretation of the concepts within an empirical theory (model). The outcome of the contract model is the social contract; that of an empirical theory is an explanation or prediction.

Surely, this ability to model the choice of just principles is a powerful reason for selecting the social contract approach, But there are several other important reasons. First, the model enables me to establish a bargaining situation whose outcome is a just social contract, which is consistent with my view of (a) society and peace as a social contract,¹¹ and (b) social contracts formed out of a balancing-of-powers (bargaining) situation.¹² I can thereby rationalize and justify the choice of a particular kind of society. Second, the social contract lends itself easily to individualism: as developed in Vol. 1: The Dynamic Psychological Field, my psychological perspective is individualistic;¹³ my fundamental unit for analyzing and evaluating a community is the individual.¹⁴

Third, the social contract model is consistent with my own attitude toward justice. I believe in the autonomy, dignity, and freedom of the individual. Therefore, a situation in which all people choose and commit themselves to the fundamental principles under which they will live expresses a basically just process. And if the bargaining situation guarantees impartiality and fairness, then I believe the principles that free people would thus select and assent to are just. (I hasten to add for devotees of other ideologies that their position also will be considered in the bargaining situation, and that the outcome will allow free scope for their perspectives on justice.) But why should anyone accept such an admittedly personal outcome? Because, readers should accept my propositions on justice in the same way they accepted the empirical propositions in Vol. 4: War, Power, Peace: the logic, reasonableness, and evidence should convince. Similarly, if one grants my metaethics, then one should be persuaded by the logic of the social contract model, one's attitude toward the basic just premises, and the truth of whatever empirical premises are used.¹⁵ In the final analysis, I appeal to the reader's reason, understanding, attitudes.¹⁶ But this is no less true of empirical claims than it is of ethics.¹⁷

I now can outline my model. It has four aspects: conditions establishing the bargaining situation, the framework (or parameters) structuring the situation, the bargaining rules, and the decisions or outcome. I will discuss each in turn in the following chapters. But before we focus on details and are carried away by the hypothetical situation, I want to be sure the core idea is clear. Justice is, in Rawls' words, a "first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought,"¹⁸ and that societies are just that are structured by moral principles all people would select freely, fairly, and impartially.

Scene: Earth, in the near future. All awake and conscious, mature human beings, wherever they are and whatever their activity, simultaneously receive this message.

"People of earth. Please do not be alarmed. You are now receiving an urgent message telepathically beamed to you from outer space.

"We are the Conservers, a conservation association of the galactic society whose space includes your planet. We are dedicated to saving all rational and intelligent life forms from extinction by causes beyond their control. You are now faced with such a natural event endangering your species.

"A galactic warp station in your sector recently reported that a warp storm has developed near your solar system and is moving toward it.¹⁹ Unfortunately, this storm generates a radiation unknown to you but deadly to your life forms. And we calculate that it will reach your planet in 237.3 of your days, at which time all human life will terminate.

"We can protect your species from this extinction and have contacted you for this purpose.

"We have located in a distant solar system another planet whose life-support environment is similar to Earth and devoid of intelligent life. We are prepared to transport all of you to this planet with little discomfort and loss of time. We must be sure, however, that the conditions of this relocation satisfy our galactic species conservation laws, which are meant to protect you and guarantee your good start in the New World.

"The Conservation Laws are these.

"(1) Species Self-Determination. You must determine your own social structure in the New World. Your present social structures may be inadequate or unsuitable. The geography and resources of the New World differ radically. We cannot transfer whole cultures or nations to the same area; inevitably large cultures, nations, societies will become mixed, although large families, clans, or neighborhoods can be kept together.

" (2) Minimize Intraspecies Violence. We are dedicated to protecting rational species from both natural events and self-destruction during their growth to maturity as a species. We will make sure, therefore, that the principles guiding your New Society will minimize the social violence of your adjustments to the New World.

" (3) Universality. All of you, excluding children or mentally diseased or disabled, will be equally able to propose, debate, and vote on the social principles that will govern your New World. These principles must achieve a consensus among you; they must be unanimously accepted by those who will live under them.

" (4) Voluntariness. In the global discussion, debate, and voting, each of you will be anonymous: your votes will be secret. Those of you who cannot accept the social principles that win dominant support are free to remain on earth. Moreover, those who wish to remain for whatever reason also may do so.

"In accepting these laws you must know our limits and powers. With our technology we can atomize and transport your nuclear patterns through hyperspace to your new planet and reconstitute them there. However, we cannot promise that your mind and bodies will be kept together. Some, maybe most, even possibly all of your minds, may be transferred to new bodies. Your mind would then assume the memories and biochemical personality of the resident brain, so that you would not know a mind-body exchange had occurred.

"That is our limit. Telepathically, we do have these powers, however. We can mentally link all your minds so that you can collectively discuss and determine your New Society. Since this Global Convention of Minds communicates by pure thought through us, we can organize and speed up your discussion and voting so that the time involved is inconsequential.

"Billions of your minds will be involved in the Convention. To avoid creating something of a babble, we will pattern your arguments, ideas, and proposals and reduce these to the most popular competing principles. We can also assess seriousness and commitment and will assure that only principles emerge to which you will dedicate yourself in the New World. Finally, while this will be a convention of pure minds and thought, your minds will retain your memories, knowledge, and personality. Your individual selves will be fully involved.

"This message will be repeated hourly for one revolution of Your planet. At that time the Global Convention of Minds will commence. This concludes our message. "

A. Prescriptivity.²⁰ The just peace to be negotiated by the Convention will be a new and future global social order. Its principles will not simply state what was or is. And since the environment of the New World will radically differ in unknown ways from the present, a principle simply cannot be a social trend line extended into the future. Moreover, it is axiomatic that people generally will select principles expressing what they socially desire and believe to be good, right, and just. The principles chosen in the Convention therefore will reflect what humanity collectively believes or feels ought to be. That is, the first condition of the model assures that the principles will be prescriptive.

B. Universality. The universality of a just statement means that it applies to all subjects, unconditioned by time or place.²¹ That the principles agreed upon by the Convention will apply to all without qualification is assured by the transfer condition 2 in Table 5.1, framework parameter 1, and the consensus and unanimity rules 1 and 2. Whatever social principles are adopted will cover all those who voted for it, with the obvious exception of children and the mentally handicapped.²² The latter, in any case, would not participate in the Convention.

As to the logical universality of whatever social principles emerge, conditions 3 and 4 in Table 5.1 protect against particularization. No one will know their future resources, nor their future age,²³ race, religion, height, birth, personality traits, or relative abilities. In other words, they are ignorant of any essential detail of their future circumstances to which they could tailor the principles of justice. Not even probabilities will be of much help.²⁴ Therefore, even the most self-centered of minds²⁵ must strive for a universality and benevolence of principle that would benefit others as they would want to be benefited.

C. Morality. Morality means obligation, duty, responsibility.²⁶ By adopting the point of view of a convention of minds we are expressing our moral nature as free, equal, and rational persons.²⁷ The outcome of the Convention of Minds will be a social contract--determined through free discussion and bargaining (parameter 2) and voting (rule 3) as shown in the Table. The decision among those who will live under the social principles must be unanimous; those who are unwilling must stay behind (rule 4). Also, by condition 5, those who for any reason prefer to remain on earth may do so even though they agree with the final principles. Thus, the final contract is freely determined and voluntarily accepted.²⁸ And each person thereby promises to abide by it. The resulting contract--principles--carries the moral force of any voluntary contract.²⁹ Since, as far as we know, the keeping of promises is a universal ethic, subscribed to in some form by all cultures, the morality involved should be general to all in the Convention.³⁰

One other moral aspect needs mentioning. By parameter 3 in Table 5.1 all minds will have their superegos³¹ engaged. That is, each mind will be influenced by its moral attitudes in deciding on such basic questions as how society should be structured, the poor and rich treated, laws determined; who should have what power and what rights. In other words, in the Global Convention of Minds are all the basic social questions that have been at the core of thought about society and government. Surely we can expect that the most fundamental moral attitudes of humanity would be given hard labor. And whatever emerges as consensual social principles must thereby lie at the center of gravity of these moral attitudes.

D. Practicality. Ought implies can.³² Whatever principles of a just peace are selected should not be utopian; they must provide a framework for a society that can actually function (needs can be satisfied), be stable, and evolve. This possibility is enhanced by parameters 4 and 5 in the Table. There is no thick "veil of ignorance"³³ here. Each mind can draw on its personal, social, and cultural experience and matrix; each mind's perspective transformation-its well-honed view of life and reality directly participates. Thus, each mind is a delegate for a specific sociocultural and sociopolitical life-path; the Convention thus draws on humanity's collective historical experience and cultural development. All aspects of justice in practice and as an outcome of a long historical development thereby are involved, which includes each mind's sense for historical entitlements,³⁴ fairness, equality, impartiality, just laws, and the like.³⁵ Moreover, each mind's abstract knowledge of psychology, society, and culture informs the bargaining. Finally, each who accepts the social principles determined by the Convention and transportation to the New World would live, at least initially, under these principles (condition 2). Each therefore has a personal stake in selecting practical principles and a reservoir of personal experience and knowledge for evaluating his realism. And the Conservers cannot intervene in this evaluation, for by galactic law they are prohibited from adding their knowledge to the Convention, aside from predicting the social violence that certain proposals will create in the New World (as will be discussed below).

E. Impartiality. Since the above requirements are satisfied by the model's conditions, parameters, and rules, whatever social principles chosen by the Convention will be principles of justice (as a quality of social institutions). However, I also will include three requirements specific to justice. The first is impartiality--in Shakespeare's words, "This even-handed justice."³⁶ Justice means, among other things, that just decisions are not weighted by irrelevant circumstances or particularities.³⁷ Justice is treating all similarly according to universal rules. That the outcome of the Convention will be impartial principles of justice is facilitated by conditions 3 and 4 in Table 5.1--environmental and corporeal indeterminacy.

No one knows how he will benefit in the New World from any principles he proposes or accepts. Moreover, impartiality is further enhanced by the Convention's rules. Since unanimity on the principles is required among those transported, the interests of each must be considered.³⁸ Further, the arguments and votes taken are anonymous (rule 5) and the debate public (rule 6), thanks to the Convener's telepathic power. These rules exclude coercion, force, or buying votes during the convention or afterwards (by conditions 3 and 4 in the Table). They also exclude weighting arguments by knowledge about a participant's background or authority (whether a mind belongs to a professor of philosophy, an Indian peasant, or Arabian monarch is unknown). Principles will stand or fall on the basis of pure argument, general acceptability of evidence, and appeal to humanity's common experience and attitudes.

F Fairness. This is the second requirement specific to justice.³⁹ Fairness means giving people their due, treating equals equally and unequals unequally, judging others equitably and without bias, and being honest.⁴⁰ Several aspects of the Convention assure fairness. First, all minds are involved (parameter 1 in Table 5.1) in the deliberations to whatever degree they wish (rules 3 and 5). Second, all must accept the principles of justice if they are to live under them (rule 2). Therefore, each will live within a new society to which each has consented. Finally, each counts as one; none more than one (rule 7).

G. Rightness. Justice also carries the meaning of right in law, equitable in practice; justifiable as a claim or obligation. What is right about a society therefore refers to its status quo,⁴¹ which delimits rights, obligations, duties, and the like. And this status quo is what will be delineated by the principles of justice (condition 1 in the Table). Moreover, rightness concerns interests--indeed, what is right is believed, especially by legal positivists, to be particularly concerned with the clash and balance of interests in society.⁴² In the Convention of Minds, interests are fully engaged (parameter 6), for each mind is a complete and dynamic psychological field, not only able to reason but also motivated by needs, attitudes, and interests.⁴³

Particularly important in assessing right is individual entitlement to benefits or resources. Actually, for many entitlement or merit is a basic criterion of justice. For this reason I make explicit in the framework (parameter 7) in Table 5.1 historical entitlements, although these are already contained in parameter 6. By historical entitlement I mean the rightness and legitimacy that have become historically attached to roles, positions, and property in society, such as the rights of the father in traditional Asian families. Thus, across societies, different roles and positions have developed different entitlements, as of the merchant, priest, soldier, teacher, or parent. Then there is entitlement to property (land, for example). No doubt some of these entitlements are cultural; some are based on a particular class system. In any case, the bargaining over social principles should take them into account. And whatever is accepted as right in the New World must be agreeable initially to all (rule 2).

H. Peace. Since defining a just peace is the purpose of all this, peace must also be a requirement. But peace is a social contract, as established in Chapter 2. Whatever principle agreed upon by the Convention would be a social contract and, ipso facto, peace. However, by a just peace I mean something more than any social contract.

Besides fairness, rightness, and impartiality, justice also implies order. A society in a constant state of social violence, insecurity, and war is hardly just. Justice must assume a prior state of law and order to which we can then apply questions of fairness, rightness, and the like. Of course, there may be justice in defending oneself even through violence. And for me the idea of a just war is not a self-contradiction. But this defines justice at the individual level, and situationally. It is contradictory to call a violent society just.

The social contract that defines a just peace must not only be just, therefore, but must also frame a relatively nonviolent system of relations. Accordingly, the peace requirement (Table 5.1) of the social contract model means this. A just peace is a just, global social contract structuring a system of minimal social violence.

But how will this requirement be met? Is the Convention to assess alternative principles as to their potential global violence? No. This would leave to the judgment of popular majorities a social science question. Rather, as indicated in the message, once a consensual set of principles has emerged from the Convention, the Conveners will assess whether they tend to minimize global social violence. If so, a final vote will be held. Of course, "the Conveners will assess" means our weighing the social principles in the perspective of these volumes.

In the division stage proposed principles are offered, discussed, and debated by all. With their somewhat unusual telepathic and mental capabilities, the Conveners will mediate, organize, and pattern this exchange among billions of minds to sharply delineate the primary differences so that the basic, alternative principles of justice can emerge.

The consensus stage involves negotiating and compromising toward a single set of principles. By consensus I mean wide or general agreement, not necessarily unanimity. Specifically, a consensus should involve more than two-thirds or even three-fourths of those voting (some may prefer to opt out of the bargaining and voting for personal reasons, e.g., a disposition to leave such matters to others or a desire to stay on Earth regardless of what the New Society would be like). Only a very small, but unspecified, number likely would oppose the consensual principles determined at this stage.

Finally, there is the decision stage--the final vote. Throughout the previous stages straw votes would help to define divisions and aid negotiating a consensus. At this final state, however, the Conveners will announce a last binding vote to precisely delimit the consensus. All those voting for the consensual principles may be (some may prefer to stay on Earth) transported to the New World. Those against will remain on Earth.

I probably need not remind the reader that this is fictional. But narrating this vote has a function in the social contract model. It makes explicit the commitment to the final just principles. It underlines the consensus that the principles enjoy. And it provides a significant event--the vote--around which can be discussed a number of questions concerning this consensus and opposition to it.

One final point about these stages and the final vote. Rawls' "initial position" lacked a compelling motive for people to enter into a social contract.⁴⁴ For Hobbes and Locke, we were driven into a social contract by insecurity and fear of death in the State of Nature. The social contract gave us security, for which he was willing to grant certain powers to a Leviathan or Civil Society. We should remain, in theory, committed to this contract for fear of returning to the State of Nature.

In the social contract model developed here, the fear of death (from the warp storm)⁴⁵ is a basic motive that underlies the bargaining and is a force toward consensus.⁴⁶ This fear, however, would vanish once all are transported to the New World. Why, then, should those in the New World remain party to their New Society? The answer, so we will find, is that among the alternatives the new global society best allows each individual to maximally seek and secure his own just society. Self-interests, but not necessarily selfish interests, should undergird and sustain the New Society in the beginning. However, rather than relying on this motive in the long run, as we will also see, the Convention will consider how to strengthen the New Society against deterioration into a state of social injustice.

What we perceive is thus fundamentally subjective. We each have a point of view. We each share certain perceptions due to a common language, culture, physiology, and physical location; and to common paradigms and ideologies. But we each also have unique inheritance, experiences, and will. We have our own ideas and beliefs. In short, we add ourselves to perception. It is hazardous for others to believe or assume they can know what we perceive, especially regarding society and politics.

This subjectivity underlies our beliefs and ideas. It infuses our empirical paradigms and ideologies. It colors our empirical statements. Therefore, the debate and proposals in the Convention of ' Minds will be unavoidably personal. There will be communication, but, due to the differing perspectives of the participants there will also be a subjective barrier to complete communication and fully rational argument. We will have, in other words, a committee-like process involving many different people trying to achieve a difficult consensus. And we know how irrationally large committees can operate.

Our interests, then, which are central to any bargaining situation, comprise future goals, means of achieving them, and their attendant situations. They engage stimulated needs. They may themselves involve norms, mores, values. They may or may not be selfish. They may be linked to our self-assertive need, to security (which was basic to Hobbes' and Locke's social contracts), or to protectiveness. They may therefore be altruistic or righteous. On this score, then, interests in the Global Convention will be partially selfish, egoistic, altruistic, or paternalistic. Some participants will be dedicated to improving humanity and society and will bargain selflessly for their theocracy or ideology which promises to bring this about.

Moreover, no single need will always dominate all people in all situations. Even self-preservation (security need) for some may be secondary to achieving an altruistic interest (such as advancing equalitarianism). This means that the bargaining situation may well involve those who will sacrifice themselves or others for a cause.

This ideal may be of a virtuous person: good wife or husband, selfless missionary, devoted Christian, brave soldier. It may be to achieve a position, such as a mayor, governor, or senator; or to be in a profession such as teaching, law, or medicine. It may be to achieve a reputation for honesty, coolness, ruthlessness. It may be to see one's cause triumph, such as of a theocratic, democratic, or Marxist society. In any case, self-esteem is not necessarily tied to what is philosophically or culturally considered the good or virtuous person. It is not necessarily being cultured, educated, honest, rational, just. Self-esteem may well be linked to always obeying orders, coolly murdering an old woman, robbing a bank, blowing up a bus full of children (as in terrorist attacks).

Therefore, to assert that self-esteem is an active, psychological motivation in the Global Convention does not imply that this necessarily weights a general good, virtuous, or Just outcome. It only means here that each participating mind focuses on a future toward which it is disposed, above all. This goal gives unity and force to the participant's interests.

Free will introduces into the bargaining situation indeterminacy about positions and outcomes. Past patterns may not always be helpful. Moreover, reasonable inferences drawn from a knowledge about common needs and interests may be wrong. People may do what is expected, of course. But this is not determined. It is not necessitated.

If the Global Convention is to involve several billion minds, therefore, it will involve several billion individuals.

We can now meld this into the bargaining situation.