James Dunbar commented that humans are sociable long before they are rational. In this chapter we shall explore the implications, both negative and positive, of that remark. The negative implications of Dunbar's remark concern the fact that certain prominent accounts of the role of reason in society must be rejected if Dunbar is correct. In particular, a major theme of writings on society and politics from the middle of the seventeenth century up to and beyond the end of the Enlightenment concerned the question whether, or to what extent, society and civic life were a product of people reasoning about what would be best for them. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean- Jacques Rousseau all wrote on this question and it was impossible for anyone else dealing with the topic to proceed as if these three had not spoken. The Scottish response to the three was in the main strongly hostile, and in the first section of this chapter their reaction will be considered. The positive implications of Dunbar's remark concern the way in which our being social affects us as individuals, and concern also the principles that produce and sustain social coherence. These implications are importantly linked in the writings of the Scots and constitute one of the most salient and characteristic features of their thought. It is to these positive implications that the remainder of the chapter will be devoted.

WAS THERE A SOCIAL CONTRACT?

The claim that humans are social before they are rational means that it is wrong to explain human social living as the product of reason, that is, of a process of calculation.