The Social Contract Theory

Defining the Social Contract Theory

• “Social contract theory…is the view that persons’ moral
and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or
agreement among them to form the society in which they
live.” (IEP)
• “The method of justifying political principles or
arrangements by appeal to the agreement that would be
made among suitably situated rational, free, and equal
persons” (Stanford)
Social Contract Theory in Ancient Philosophy
• Earliest account was found in Plato’s Crito
• The dialogue showed how Socrates justified his choice to die based
on an obligation to obey the Laws that made his entire life possible
• For Socrates, choosing to stay in Athens meant abiding by its laws
• Charges against Socrates:
• Impiety against the Pantheon and failure to acknowledge the Gods
• Corruption of the youth through the introduction of new deities
Modern Social Contract Theories
Thomas Hobbes
• Context: post-English Civil War
• State of Nature = State of War
• Premise of human person: self-interested and
reasonable
• Oppressive governments are better than the miseries
of war / “all but absolute governments are
systematically prone to dissolution into civil war” /
stability in exchange for compliance
Thomas Hobbes cont.
• The right to all things invites conflict
• In the state of nature, there is an absence of the basic security that
serves as the foundation of civilized life
• Sovereign authority requires fear as its instrument; whether that is
fear of their ruler or of his/her fellow man
• There is no limit to the authority of the government = absolutism
• We need to submit to the authority of an absolute sovereign power
John Locke
• Social contract must exist between people and their ruler
• State of Nature = State of Liberty
• State of Nature = man has freedom to do what he wants without the
interference of others, but since men have access to The Law of
Nature, man is rational enough to respect others’ “life, health, liberty,
or possessions”
• The idea of property is at the crux of John Locke’s theory; it is what
motivates man to move from the State of Nature to civil society
John Locke cont.
• In exchange for the protection of their welfare and properties, men
agree to relinquish their power to the public power of a government
so that transgressors of the Law of Nature
• If governments devolve into tyranny, they are putting themselves in a
state of war with the people
• If the protection of rights no longer happens, it is justified for people
to revolt against their governments
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• “Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.”
• Context: French Enlightenment
• Supported the democratic ideas of the French revolution
• The social contract must exist among the people
themselves
• Unlike Hobbes, Rousseau believed that the State of Nature
was a peaceful one without conflict because people lived
simple, solitary lives
Jean-Jacques Rousseau cont.
• “The invention of private property constituted humanity’s ‘fall from
grace’ out of the State of Nature”
• This invention highlighted existing inequalities
• Governments and laws were originally created by those who had
property as a mechanism to protect their wealth under the guise of
equality for all
• We cannot go back to the State of Nature, hence the goal of politics
should be to reconcile how who we truly are with how we live
together
Jean Jacques Rousseau cont.
• To do this, Rousseau suggests the renunciation of the individual will
to form a general will
• Sovereign = “free and equal persons come together and agree to
create themselves anew as a single body, directed to the good of all
considered together”
• There is a reciprocal relationship between the individual will and the
general will
• Rousseau presents a direct form of democracy where each person
participates in the common good