"I don't promote the idea of the Social Contract. I merely recognize it as the way society is by default."

..............

"So too with the Social Contract--it's a theoretical model of how things are, not some idealized notion of how things should be, and we are forced to work within its bounds."

And framing its existence as a non-falsifiable statement turns it into a religion. And its not a religion I share.

Comparisons to Gravity don't count. Gravity is a fact. Comparisons to THEORIES of gravity do count. Say, Aristotle's notion that objects float or fall because of where they belong?

And not only is the notion that rocks fall to earth because they're made of earth not factually true; it also affirms prejudices about social stratifications where everyone has a place they belong.

There are many different theories about how we ended up with a Majoritarian society. You claim yours to be fact when facing others and only rarely acknowledge that it is a theory; and never entertain other theories.

I see no evidence of a compact historically. And, as qtns has pointed-out, its nature, if it ever had existed, is non-binding on us. At this point its like the Donation of Constantine.

Further, it seems even less like a theory to me, because there is no evidence whatsoever in the claim. Its more of an analogy, and a poor one at that, as it bolsters pie-in-the-sky idealists to believe that whatever we accidentally ended up with was planned at some point.

When the theory was first floated by Rousseau, his friend Hume saw right through it. Just as with Bentham, you adhere to one philosophical view, claim it as a fact, and then pretend that those who admit that the field isn't constrained by your preferences are delusional.

Sorry. The recognition that it is a fiction was present as soon as it was announced. And no Social Contract proponent has managed to settle the question adequately.

Since Social Contract violates the Will Theory of Contract, it can be seen not as a neutral fiction about the origins and legitimacy of authority but as being inextricably tied to the suppression of minorities.

Why a Pedo would care to support a fiction which claims that your "choice" to be born into an Anti-culture gives them the right to suppress you is beyond me. Like Utilitarianism, it ultimately supports a might-makes-right majority. And therefore it ironically ought to only be adopted by those who believe their neighbors are so wise in their use of power that they need legitimize no authorities.

"individual rights and the greater good are not mutually exclusive concepts."

Actually, they are. While the two systems might accidentally arrive at the same conclusion, they can just as equally depart. Historically the notion of Universal Human Rights ( when framed as thus ) has built towards consensus. There is no similar evidence that those who believe in sacrificing some to achieve a "greater good" can agree on what sacrifices and goals are acceptable. ( Outside of the move towards legitimizing civilians as appropriate targets in warfare. )

I'm not an idealist who believes in the stated goals, I'm a pragmatist who looks at what uses these ideas have been put to. More harm has been done by Governments Left and Right who promoted the "greater good" as an argument to suppress Individual Human Rights. Show me a tyrant who has defended the rights of citizens to dissent.

Even if they were both empty rhetoric, the rhetoric of Human Rights has liberated and the rhetoric of "Greater Good" has enslaved. I believe that they aren't empty. But the pragmatist in me would choose against the sociopathic by-the-numbers morality of Utilitarians.

Dante