You’re confusing at least three things: law, social contract and morality. They’re related but they’re not the same.
Not all crimes violate the social contract but, where they do, punishing them fulfils the social contract. At the same time, either the crime or the punishment may be immoral, but also may not be. They interact, but they’re not identical.
I don’t believe I have those confused but it seems to me you did. Morality is the concept of right and wrong along with a kind of focus about a person’s " goodness" or “badness” of character that underlies their behavior. Law is at some level meant to enforce the spirit of this by codifying it into a structure of deterrent and reciprocation that a society (or the powerful within society) agree is fair. Laws however are made by controlling interests which themselves may not be paragons and may weild the law in ways that quite frankly are immoral to benefit certain segments of society. Laws are just tools and “what exactly is the law” is it’s own rabbit hole.
The social contract is the nebulous bit in between. Because law at some level requires some level of enforcement it’s kind of patchy in its application. The social contract is the sort of web of what is considered moral and what is acceptable to deter or reciprocate immoral behaviour on an interpersonal level.
But the question of “why is it okay to be nasty to bigots” is a social contract question. “Why don’t we steal from theives or murder murderers” is more of a culture and law question. If you go back 200 years law officials killed people for stealing things because deterrent was over favored over something more like our modern concept of proportional punishment. People generally don’t have to concern themselves with social contract questions when they have an authority to call on to do the punishment for them provided they ageee authority’s punishment is considered fair.
You’re confusing at least three things: law, social contract and morality. They’re related but they’re not the same.
Not all crimes violate the social contract but, where they do, punishing them fulfils the social contract. At the same time, either the crime or the punishment may be immoral, but also may not be. They interact, but they’re not identical.
I don’t believe I have those confused but it seems to me you did. Morality is the concept of right and wrong along with a kind of focus about a person’s " goodness" or “badness” of character that underlies their behavior. Law is at some level meant to enforce the spirit of this by codifying it into a structure of deterrent and reciprocation that a society (or the powerful within society) agree is fair. Laws however are made by controlling interests which themselves may not be paragons and may weild the law in ways that quite frankly are immoral to benefit certain segments of society. Laws are just tools and “what exactly is the law” is it’s own rabbit hole.
The social contract is the nebulous bit in between. Because law at some level requires some level of enforcement it’s kind of patchy in its application. The social contract is the sort of web of what is considered moral and what is acceptable to deter or reciprocate immoral behaviour on an interpersonal level.
But the question of “why is it okay to be nasty to bigots” is a social contract question. “Why don’t we steal from theives or murder murderers” is more of a culture and law question. If you go back 200 years law officials killed people for stealing things because deterrent was over favored over something more like our modern concept of proportional punishment. People generally don’t have to concern themselves with social contract questions when they have an authority to call on to do the punishment for them provided they ageee authority’s punishment is considered fair.