Introduction

This essay is directed toward clarification of the relationship between contractarianism and majoritarian democracy. Contractarianism does, indeed, presuppose political equality among all members of the politically organized community, both in the operation of the law and in changes in the law, as well as in the determination of collective action within the law. Political equality does not, however, imply majoritarian decision making either in the enforcement of law or in the changing of law; and majoritarian decision making remains only one among several optional means of making collective choices under the range and scope allowed for such action within the law of the constitution.

If politics is to be interpreted in any justificatory or legitimizing sense without the introduction of supraindividual value norms, it must be modeled as a process within which individuals, with separate and potentially different interests and values, interact for the purpose of securing individually valued benefits of cooperative effort. If this presupposition about the nature of politics is accepted, the ultimate model of politics is contractarian. There is simply no feasible alternative. This presupposition does not, however, directly yield descriptive implications about the precise structure of political arrangements and hence about “democracy” in the everyday usage of this term.