Social Contract Theories

- Social Contract Theories

Thomas Hobbes (1588- 1679)

• Born prematurely because her mother panicked when informed that a Spanish
armada was approaching
• “ Fear and I were born twins”
• Grew up in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I
• Educated at Oxford
• Become tutor to the son of the Earl of Devonshire
• Favorable effects:
- Access to first class libraries
- Foreign travels
- Opportunity to meet prominnet people , e.g., Francis Bacon, Galileo
Hobbes Ethical / Political / Social philosophy

• Societies are formed because human beings fear death.

“Homo Homini Lupus”

(life is a war of every man against every man)
 
• Individuals should try to avoid this by entering into agreement or alliances
with one another.
• The way to do this is for everyone to agree to hand over power to a central
authority whose job is to impose law and to punish any law-breakers.
• This authority is a Monarch.
John Locke (1632 – 1704)

• Son of a lawyer
• When to Westminster School , England and
Oxford University
• Went to France 1675 then Holland in 1683
• Remained a bachelor
Locke’s Social / Political Philosophy

• Believes that man is a creature made by God and God gave man reason
and conscience contrary to Hobbes’s “ Homo Homini Lupus”
• The absence of government or civil order is detrimental to man / human
beings, so individuals should come together and create a society.
• This social contact should based among / between free men.
Hobbes : the Social Contract should be between the government and
the governed.
• The purpose of the government is to give people their rights, in return
government must protect life, liberty and property of people
• If their government will abuse those rights and becomes ineffectual the
governed have a moral right, after seeking redress through normal
procedures—to overthrow the government and replace it with one that
does the job properly.
JEAN- JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778)

• Born in Geneva, Switzerland

• Received little formal education
• Mother died few days after he was born
• Raised up by erratic father, aunt, a Country Minister,
uncle, engineer who treated him brutally.
• The life was characterized by harsh realities:
-Violent emotions
-Always rootless
- Always wandering from one job to another,
one women to another, one country to another
• 5 Illegitimate children from a servant girl
Rousseau’s 3 Revolutionary Ideas
1. Civilization is not a good thing, but a positively bad thing.

• human beings were born good but corrupted by the experience of growing
up in society
• civilized society teaches a child to curb his emotions, thinking, etc..
• thus, civilization in the corrupter and destroyer of values.

2. feelings and natural instincts should replace reason as a guide

and a judge.
Rousseau’s 3 Revolutionary Ideas

3. The concept of General Will

• Based on the principle that the whole is greater than its parts.
• General Will is characterized by
- People coming together, deliberating, them voting.
- Proposing what is best for the society as a whole, e.g., making laws,
electing leaders.
Laws, because it has been made by the people acting together becomes
absolutely binding.
- This is democracy - imposition of general will and the individual has no
right to deviate from it.