Meanings and development of the idea of compromise: A political and philosophical discourse

Abstract

The word compromise means a reciprocal promise to solve a dispute by the decision of an impartial third party. The meaning of compromise has developed with its different forms across the ages—from the classical meaning of compromise to its modern understanding. Philosophers such as Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Morley, and AvishaiMargalit have often discussed and commented on the idea of compromise and the ethics of compromise in their political and philosophical discourse. Meaning of compromise has developed in the different periods primarily on the basis of its different usages: as a tool, a virtue, and a principle. This paper attempts to demonstrate the different meanings of compromise and its connection with contractarianism and representation. Keeping in mind the differences in the meanings of compromise across the ages and the differences in representation I have tried to explain compromise in a comprehensive way. It is so because the political and philosophical history of compromise shows differences as well as similarities regarding the meaning and understanding of the word, especially while looking into the ethical aspects of it. The paper also focuses on how the classical sense of ‘compromise’ had undergone a sudden change from the early decades of the sixteenth century, and how the change persisted till the late eighteenth century in European political and philosophical discourse.