The Racial Contract

Carole Pateman (b. 1940) is a feminist political theorist known for her critiques of liberal democracy and social contract theory. Her seminal text, The Sexual Contract (1988), is the inspiration for Mills’s The Racial Contract. In The Sexual Contract, Pateman offers a conjectural history of the original contract, arguing that it is a social-sexual contract between men as a sex that consolidates the subordination of women as the bedrock on which modern civil society is founded. The sexual dimension is repressed, however, because dominant contract discourse seeks to present contract theory as anti-patriarchal. Pateman, on the other hand, argues that while the original contract may have challenged the conflation of literal father-right with political right, it transformed patriarchy into a fraternal pact and solidified the role of patriarchy in modern civil society. Through the examination of actual contracts where women are the object of the contract and comparison to other contracts insofar as they illuminate the components of the marriage, sex work, and surrogacy contracts, Pateman concludes that all contracts establish relations of domination and subordination. Thus, contract theory and reliance on contracts as a whole must be abandoned for society to move towards its ideals of equality, freedom, and justice for all. 

At several points throughout the text, Mills notes the theory that Pateman and other feminists put forth in their critique of classic and dominant contract theory. He also exhibits the inspiration that he draws from Pateman’s work, as Mills’s Racial Contract shares several important convergence points with Pateman’s Sexual Contract. For example, they both argue that the subordinated party is the object of the contract rather than a party to it. They also both identify and foreground the moral, political, epistemological, and economic dimensions of the subordination, where the epistemological and economic dimensions of classic theory and mainstream discourse are only implied. Where Pateman and Mills diverge is on the continued usefulness of contract theory in pushing society towards its ideals. Pateman and Mills collaborated on the 2007 publication of Contract and Domination.

John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher and political theorist who is most widely known for his influence regarding democratic liberalism. He is also one of the most well-known classic contract theorists, and Mills engages with Locke’s theory throughout the text to make points about the racial subtext of Locke’s contract theory. In mainstream discourse, Locke is seen as anti-patriarchal and a proponent of democracy for his refutation of the Divine Right of Kings and paternal right as political right. Furthermore, while he uses the state of nature as a conceptual device, his state of nature is different from the Hobbesian state of nature characterized by a perpetual state of war (Friend, Celeste. “Social Contract Theory,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). A distinguishing feature of Locke’s theory is his concern with property rights, which provides the primary impetus for entering the original agreement since property disputes in the state of nature could devolve into a perpetual state of war because there is no governing body to adjudicate them or protect property rights. In addition, it is the concern with property rights that underlies his belief that it is men’s civic duty to overthrow tyrannical governments, since the purpose and legitimacy of the state lies in its protection of civilians’ private property (Friend). 

In Thesis 1, Mills points out the moral egalitarianism of Lockean contract theory in order to set up the argument for the differential application of moral norms to white and nonwhite people. In Thesis 2, he brings up Locke’s concern with private property to demonstrate that the economic dimension in the background of classic contract lies in the foreground of the Racial Contract because the Contract provides the justification for Europeans’ economic exploitation of nonwhite people. Mills also illuminates Locke’s racist belief in the rational deficiency of nonwhite populations in Thesis 5. Mills deals with Locke’s theory most extensively in Thesis 6 where he illustrates how the Racial Contract underwrites the social contract, and in Thesis 8, he identifies Locke’s theory as a version of Herrenvolk ethics.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher who is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. He is best known for his theory of the social contract, and it is his line of thought that undergirds contractarianism. In dominant discourse, Hobbesian contract argues that political authority and civic duty are derived exclusively from individuals’ self-interest, and these individuals are all equal in the state of nature. Hobbes’s state of nature is characterized by perpetual war, so it is out of self-preservation and an inherent rationality that self-interested individuals agree to the original contract. Sources of controversy in terms of Hobbesian thought include his departure from other contract theorists in his assertion that morality is purely conventional and his defense of absolutism.

Mills’s mentions both of these controversial elements in his theses on the Racial Contract. In Thesis 1, he notes Hobbes views on conventional morality, although Mills’s theory relies on the view that morality is pre-political. In Thesis 6 where Mills explains how the Racial Contract underwrites the social contract, he points out that Hobbes’s theory on absolutism is undergirded by differential racial considerations. Where Hobbes advocates absolutism for nonwhite communities because they represent a literal state of nature, his advocacy for absolutism in terms of the European/white community is a last resort should European/white people devolve to the state of nature, which is only hypothetical for them in the first place. Mills also mentions Hobbes in Thesis 3 as an example of the economic dimension lying in the background of classic contract theory.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a Genevan philosopher who was influential in the French salons of the Enlightenment era. He has two distinct social contract theories. One is a naturalized account that explains the history of the moral and political evolution of human beings that prompted the original agreement. Rousseau’s state of nature is initially peaceful and competition-free because the population is small, and resources are abundant. The individuals are also guided by natural morality. Inequality and competition, however, become more pronounced as the population grows and resources become scarcer. Thus, the protection of private property becomes the impetus for entering the original agreement (Friend). Although Rousseau and Locke share the focus on private property, Rousseau differs from Locke in that he sees the state’s true purpose as protecting the interests of the few elites, as opposed to protecting everyone equally (Friend). 

The second account is normative and idealized and discusses the problems of modern society, namely inequality, and the means by which to alleviate. It is the latter that Mills focuses on in Thesis 6 to illuminate the racial subtext and The Epistemology of Ignorance in Rousseau’s theory. According to dominant discourse, Rousseau answers the question of how individuals can live together without “succumbing to the force and coercion of others” (Friend). The answer is submitting the individual will to the collective will, which happens through the mutual agreement of free and equal persons. The legitimacy of state authority is derived from this agreement, and direct democracy is the best political system. Mills’s analysis demonstrates that Rousseau does not consider all persons to be free and equal, and thus, there are some who must live in civil society under the threat of force and coercion.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is considered one of the most important figures in modern moral and political philosophy. As Mills points out in Thesis 6, mainstream discourse typically focuses on Kant’s theory of personhood and obscures his white supremacist views. Kantian ethics revolve around the idea of the categorical imperative, which is the notion that “one should always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone” (Jankowiak, Tim. “Immanuel Kant,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Included in this categorical imperative is a demand that humans respect the intrinsic value of all other persons, meaning that using others towards instrumental ends is immoral (Jankowiak). Kant’s moral theory carries over into his political theory, where the equality of all persons is implicit in his theory of justice. 

While Kant is best known for his moral and political theory, his lesser-discussed aesthetic and anthropological theory plays a key role in Mills’s analysis. Citing the work of Emmanuel Eze in Thesis 6, Mills illuminates that Kant, known for his theory of personhood, is also a theorist of subpersonhood and develops a “color-coded racial hierarchy of Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Native Americans, differentiated by their degree of innate talent” (71). Thus, Mills demonstrates that the intrinsic value of all people is not equally applicable for different racial groups. He points out in Thesis 8 that the white cognitive dysfunction prescribed by the Racial Contract necessitates the rewriting of Kantian ideal of the intrinsic value of all human life. He also mentions Kant in Thesis 1 in reference to moral egalitarianism, building up to the argument of the differential application of moral norms.

John Rawls (1921-2002) was an American moral and political philosopher who is best known for his revival of social contract theory. He draws much of his inspiration from Kant in his highly abstracted version of the state of nature and the original agreement, particularly in terms of understanding persons and their capacities (Friend). Mills acknowledges in Thesis 1 that much of dominant discourse follows the Rawlsian line of thought in providing justification for the social structure rather than being descriptive of what is believed to be the actual history. Contract becomes, therefore, a normative, conceptual device. While he does discuss Rawls in the text, Mills’s theory is more aligned with that of the classic philosophers in being descriptive and prescriptive.

In Thesis 2, Mills mentions Rawls again to differentiate between Rawlsian-inspired thought experiments and the descriptive/prescriptive character of classic contract theory. In Thesis 6, he mentions Rawls in reference to his role in making Kant a dominant figure in modern political philosophy. In the same thesis, he also implicates Rawls in his silence on race/racism as an example of the main problem of dominant contract discourse that the Racial Contract seeks to address.