Lost: Locke, Rousseau and Social Contracts

After hearing a short blip on NPR by TV critic David Bianculli, I decided to give the television series, Lost, a try. Yep, it is in the second season and we are just watching the first season on DVD (and avoiding the internet spoilers). I’m not exactly on the cutting edge. I have never seen a episode of The Sopranos or Sex and the City; however, I have recently discovered a quirky sitcom called Seinfeld but it appears to be off the air. I found the series, Lost, be to very intriguing and my favorite show since David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.  Although my knowledge of philosophy is even less than my knowledge of television, this won’t stop me from babbling on about Lost & philosophy. I don’t think Whitehead (not this Whitehead) considered competency as factor when he asked me to be a guest contributor to this blog.

The plot of Lost involves 48 survivors of a plane crash on a remote island. The passengers go from the relatively civil world of air travel to an environment that is somewhat less friendly than Gilligan's Island (ahhh, the Mary Ann vs. Ginger debate). In the first episode, we are introduced to a major character named John Locke and later there is a character named Rousseau. Why are Locke et al. interesting choices of character names? Their work on social contracts. Social contracts are tacit agreements between individuals or individuals and rulers for the establishment of order.  The choice of characters named John Locke (the character's biological father is Anthony Cooper) and Rousseau make me want to do the Lost equivalent of a Trekkie taking a sabbatical and spending a semester at the Klingon Language Institute (Those Trekkies loved their show.) For an example of modern work on social contracts, think about John Rawls’ work (Rawlsian justice and the Veil of Ignorance) or Ken Binmore’s work.

Although David Hume (economists are probably more familiar with Hume than Locke & Rousseau) was critical of social contracts, Ken Binmore notes that David Hume's writing represents an early description of repeated games. Specifically, In the Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume writes:

I learn to do service to another, without bearing him any real kindness: because I foresee that he will return my, in expectation of another of the same kind, and in order to maintain the same correspondence of good offices with me or others.

Hume(the Folk theorem would be an odd name) should be a character on Lost since they show some degree of cooperative behavior arising in a noncooperative setting.

My above insights are probably not very insightful given that they may already appear on the web but give Lost a try.

Comments

[John Whitehead]

From SI on campus:

We wish the creators of Lost creators would friggin' knock it off. How about a real hint? How about an episode where something ACTUALLY happens?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/sioncampus/12/23/wish.list/1.html

[paulchambers]

IMO, too much happens in each episode. Who wants resolution??? Think about negative time preferences & savoring effect (George Lowenstein?; I refuse to look up cites on boxing day).

wow, good call on Hume.

[mkvf]

Yep, well done mate, just found this page after spotting the David Hume reference in the latest episode - or maybe the scriptwriters saw this and were inspired?

I'd originally put the link between the first two characters down to a simple reference to there use of examples from a theoretical 'state of nature'.

With the latest couple of episodes' discussion of the limits of knowledge, and your highlighting of the significance of Anthony Cooper, I'm beginning to suspect the show is hinting at something more fundamental about the nature of reality on the Island.

[Paul Chambers]

Cool. Thanks for the update. I didn't catch it on the season finale but I googled +lost +abc +hume and found that Desmond is aka Lance Cpl. Desmond David Hume (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12959718/ ).

Now they need characters named Ken Binmore, John Nash or John Harsanyi (a more modern econ spin).

[Olivia]

Perhaps the actual importance of the characters being named Locke and Rousseau aren't merely that both political philosophers discussed a social contract, but instead that they both believed that natural man was good, unlike Locke's adversary Hobbes, who believe man was born evil until he entered a governed society. So perhaps there should be a new character in the 3rd season named Hobbes... a sort of Machiavellian/Hobbesian ruler...

[Mike]

I agree we need a Hobbes, whose premise for social order relies on a sovereign ruler. I thought Ben may have had that surname, but he is Benjamin Linus. (Possible some biblical and papal links?)

Note, we've also had (Thomas) Carlyle (Boone) who was a social writer and (Samuel) Rutherford (Shannon)who was a political philosopher paving the way for Hobbes and Locke.

[GENE]

"Those Trekkies loved their show" actually it is Trekkers