Abstract:
Western political philosophy owes a great debt to social contractualism. In particular, the liberal
tradition that is often lauded as a guarantee of justice, liberty, and equality for all finds its roots
in the social contracts of John Locke and Jean Jaques Rousseau, and later, John Rawls. Yet the
implications that each of these social contracts have for race is troubling, even as the social
construct of race emerges and develops throughout time. I argue that each of these social
contracts perpetuates a given understanding of race that creates subordinating dynamics between
white and non-white individuals. Specifically, Locke’s proto-racialized contract excludes non-
Europeans from personhood on the basis of labor and rationality; Rousseau’s racialized contract
excludes non-Europeans from full personhood on the basis of climate and civilizational potential;
and Rawls’ neoliberal social contract allows for the neglect of entrenched inequalities. I argue
that understanding the racialized underpinnings of one aspect of western political philosophy is
one of many steps necessary to establishing a theoretical framework for government, social
institutions, and the legal field that is not based on subordination.
