This is a paper presented at the 2020 SEP-FEP (Society for European Philosophy and Forum for European Philosophy) conference: https://sep-fep.com/

Abstract

One of Michel Serres’s best-known works in the anglophone world is The Natural Contract, in which he argues that our current social contract dangerously neglects the non-human and needs supplementing with a new settlement that incorporates ecological interests. Prescient when it was first published in 1990, this paper argues that The Natural Contract is an indispensable document for making sense of the increasing calls in the wake of COVID-19 for a new social contract. How can Serres’s natural contract specifically, and his thought more broadly, help us to come to terms with the historical moment in which we find ourselves? This paper will use Serres’s reflections both on the social and natural contracts across a number of works to help us understand what a social contract is (and isn’t!), how it can be a tool both for change and exclusion, and how we can best respond to contemporary demands for its renewal.

You can find my interview on “Michel Serres, Philosophy and the Contemporary World” for the conference here:

 

For more content on Michel Serres, see https://christopherwatkin.com/category/michel-serres/

For more reflections on the social contract, see https://christopherwatkin.com/category/social-contract/