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moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A ...
and
political philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
and usually, although not always, concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * '' Our ...
over the
individual An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own need ...
. Social contract arguments typically are that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority (of the ruler, or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining
rights Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory ...
or maintenance of the
social order The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order i ...
. The relation between
natural and legal rights Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights. * Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are ''universal'', ''fundamental'' and ...
is often a topic of social contract theory. The term takes its name from ''
The Social Contract ''The Social Contract'', originally published as ''On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right'' (french: Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique), is a 1762 French-language book by the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques ...
'' (French: ''Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique''), a 1762 book by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revol ...
that discussed this concept. Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Stoic Stoic may refer to: * An adherent of Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and ...
philosophy and
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
and
Canon Law Canon law (from grc, κανών, , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is th ...
, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy. The starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent of any political order (termed the "
state of nature The state of nature, in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law, is the hypothetical life of people before societies came into existence. Philosophers of the state of nature theory deduce that ther ...
" by
Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...
). In this condition, individuals' actions are bound only by their personal
power Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may ...
and
conscience Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sen ...
. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate why rational individuals would voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order. Prominent 17th- and 18th-century theorists of the social contract and natural rights included
Hugo de Groot Hugo Grotius (; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Huig de Groot () and Hugo de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, poet and playwright. A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was born in Delft ...
(1625),
Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...
(1651),
Samuel von Pufendorf Samuel Freiherr von Pufendorf (8 January 1632 – 26 October 1694) was a German jurist, political philosopher, economist and historian. He was born Samuel Pufendorf and ennobled in 1694; he was made a baron by Charles XI of Sweden a few months ...
(1673),
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of ...
(1689),
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revol ...
(1762) and
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aes ...
(1797), each approaching the concept of political authority differently. Grotius posited that individual humans had
natural rights Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights. * Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are ''universal'', ''fundamental'' and ...
.
Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...
famously said that in a "state of nature", human life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". In the absence of political order and law, everyone would have unlimited natural freedoms, including the "right to all things" and thus the freedom to plunder, rape and murder; there would be an endless "war of all against all" (''
bellum omnium contra omnes ', a Latin phrase meaning "the war of all against all", is the description that Thomas Hobbes gives to human existence in the state-of-nature thought experiment that he conducts in '' De Cive'' (1642) and ''Leviathan'' (1651). The common modern ...
''). To avoid this, free men contract with each other to establish political community (
civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.general will In political philosophy, the general will (french: volonté générale) is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Basic ideas The phrase "general will", as Rousseau ...
" by Rousseau), citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey or change the leadership through elections or other means including, when necessary, violence. Locke believed that
natural rights Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights. * Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are ''universal'', ''fundamental'' and ...
were inalienable, and therefore the rule of God superseded government authority, while Rousseau believed that democracy (majority-rule) was the best way to ensure welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law. The Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the
United States Declaration of Independence The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ( ...
. Social contract theories were eclipsed in the 19thcentury in favor of
utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charact ...
,
Hegelianism Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
and
Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectica ...
; they were revived in the 20thcentury, notably in the form of a
thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...
by
John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1 ...
.Patrick Riley, ''The Social Contract and Its Critics'', chapter12 in ''The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought'', Eds.
Mark Goldie Mark Goldie is an English historian and Professor of Intellectual History at Churchill College, Cambridge. He has written on the English political theorist John Locke and is a member of the Early Modern History and Political Thought and Intellec ...
and
Robert Wokler Robert Lucien Wokler (6 December 1942 – 30 July 2006) was a British historian who was a leading scholar of the political thought of the Enlightenment. References * https://www.jstor.org/stable/26222117 * https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rob ...
, Vol4 of ''The Cambridge History of Political Thought'' (Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp.347–75.


Overview


The model of the social contract

There is a general form of social contract theories, which is:
''I'' chooses ''R'' in ''M'' and this gives ''I*'' reason to endorse and comply with ''R'' in the real world insofar as the reasons ''I'' has for choosing ''R'' in ''M'' are (or can be) shared by ''I*.''
With ''M'' being the deliberative setting; ''R'' rules, principles or institutions; ''I'' the (hypothetical) people in
original position The original position (OP), often referred to as the veil of ignorance, is a thought experiment used for reasoning about the principles that should structure a society based on mutual dependence. The phrases ''original position'' and ''veil of i ...
or
state of nature The state of nature, in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law, is the hypothetical life of people before societies came into existence. Philosophers of the state of nature theory deduce that ther ...
making the social contract; and ''I*'' being the individuals in the real world following the social contract.


History

The concept of the social contract was originally posed by
Glaucon Glaucon (; el, Γλαύκων; c. 445 BC – 4th century BC), son of Ariston, was an ancient Athenian and Plato's older brother. He is primarily known as a major conversant with Socrates in the ''Republic''. He is also referenced briefly in t ...
, as described by
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, wikt:Πλάτων, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greeks, Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thou ...
in '' The Republic'', BookII. The social contract theory also appears in ''
Crito ''Crito'' ( or ; grc, Κρίτων ) is a dialogue that was written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It depicts a conversation between Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito of Alopece regarding justice (''δικαιοσύνη''), inj ...
'', another dialogue from Plato. Over time, the social contract theory became more widespread after
Epicurus Epicurus (; grc-gre, Ἐπίκουρος ; 341–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy. He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents. Influence ...
(341-270 BC), the first philosopher who saw justice as a social contract, and not as existing in Nature due to divine intervention (see below and also Epicurean ethics), decided to bring the theory to the forefront of his society. As time went on, philosophers of traditional political and social thought, such as Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau put forward their opinions on social contract, which then caused the topic to become much more mainstream.


Classical thought

Social contract formulations are preserved in many of the world's oldest records. The Indian Buddhist text of the second century BCE,
Mahāvastu The Mahāvastu (Sanskrit for "Great Event" or "Great Story") is a text of the Lokottaravāda school of Early Buddhism. It describes itself as being a historical preface to the Buddhist monastic codes (''vinaya''). Over half of the text is comp ...
, recounts the legend of Mahasammata. The story goes as follows: In his rock edicts, the Indian Buddhist king
Asoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...
was said to have argued for a broad and far-reaching social contract. The Buddhist ''vinaya'' also reflects social contracts expected of the monks; one such instance is when the people of a certain town complained about monks felling saka trees, the Buddha tells his monks that they must stop and give way to social norms.
Epicurus Epicurus (; grc-gre, Ἐπίκουρος ; 341–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy. He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents. Influence ...
in the fourth century BCE seemed to have had a strong sense of social contract, with justice and law being rooted in mutual agreement and advantage, as evidenced by these lines, among others, from his ''Principal Doctrines'' (see also Epicurean ethics):


Renaissance developments

Quentin Skinner Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work, including th ...
has argued that several critical modern innovations in contract theory are found in the writings from French Calvinists and Huguenots, whose work in turn was invoked by writers in the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
who objected to their subjection to Spain and, later still, by Catholics in England.
Francisco Suárez Francisco Suárez, (5 January 1548 – 25 September 1617) was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement, and generally regarded among the greatest scholastics after Thomas ...
(1548–1617), from the
School of Salamanca The School of Salamanca ( es, Escuela de Salamanca) is the Renaissance of thought in diverse intellectual areas by Spanish theologians, rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work of Francisco de Vitoria. From the beginning of the 16th cen ...
, might be considered an early theorist of the social contract, theorizing
natural law Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacted ...
in an attempt to limit the divine right of
absolute monarchy Absolute monarchy (or Absolutism as a doctrine) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch rules in their own right or power. In an absolute monarchy, the king or queen is by no means limited and has absolute power, though a limited constitut ...
. All of these groups were led to articulate notions of popular
sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person ...
by means of a social covenant or contract, and all of these arguments began with proto-"state of nature" arguments, to the effect that the basis of politics is that everyone is by nature free of subjection to any government. These arguments, however, relied on a corporatist theory found in Roman law, according to which "a populus" can exist as a distinct legal entity. Thus, these arguments held that a group of people can join a government because it has the capacity to exercise a single will and make decisions with a single voice in the absence of sovereign authority—a notion rejected by Hobbes and later contract theorists.


Philosophers


Thomas Hobbes' ''Leviathan'' (1651)

The first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed contract theory was
Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...
(1588–1679). According to Hobbes, the lives of individuals in the
state of nature The state of nature, in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law, is the hypothetical life of people before societies came into existence. Philosophers of the state of nature theory deduce that ther ...
were "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", a state in which self-interest and the absence of rights and contracts prevented the "social", or society. Life was "anarchic" (without leadership or the concept of sovereignty). Individuals in the state of nature were apolitical and asocial. This state of nature is followed by the social contract. The social contract was seen as an "occurrence" during which individuals came together and ceded some of their
individual rights Group rights, also known as collective rights, are rights held by a group '' qua'' a group rather than individually by its members; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people; even if they are group-differentiated, which ...
so that others would cede theirs. This resulted in the establishment of the state, a sovereign entity like the individuals now under its rule used to be, which would create laws to regulate social interactions. Human life was thus no longer "a war of all against all". The state system, which grew out of the social contract, was, however, also anarchic (without leadership). Just as the individuals in the state of nature had been sovereigns and thus guided by self-interest and the absence of rights, so states now acted in their self-interest in competition with each other. Just like the state of nature, states were thus bound to be in conflict because there was no sovereign over and above the state (more powerful) capable of imposing some system such as social-contract laws on everyone by force. Indeed, Hobbes' work helped to serve as a basis for the realism theories of international relations, advanced by
E. H. Carr Edward Hallett Carr (28 June 1892 – 3 November 1982) was a British historian, diplomat, journalist and international relations theorist, and an opponent of empiricism within historiography. Carr was best known for '' A History of Soviet Russ ...
and
Hans Morgenthau Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations. Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition o ...
. Hobbes wrote in ''
Leviathan Leviathan (; he, לִוְיָתָן, ) is a sea serpent noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Amos, and, according to so ...
'' that humans ("we") need the "terrour of some Power" otherwise humans will not heed the law of reciprocity, "(in summe) doing to others, as wee would be done to".


John Locke's ''Second Treatise of Government'' (1689)

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of ...
's conception of the social contract differed from Hobbes' in several fundamental ways, retaining only the central notion that persons in a state of nature would willingly come together to form a state. Locke believed that individuals in a state of nature would be bound morally, by the Law of Nature, in which man has the "power... to preserve his property; that is, his life, liberty and estate against the injuries and attempts of other men". Without government to defend them against those seeking to injure or enslave them, Locke further believed people would have no security in their rights and would live in fear. Individuals, to Locke, would only agree to form a state that would provide, in part, a "neutral judge", acting to protect the lives, liberty, and property of those who lived within it. While Hobbes argued for near-absolute authority, Locke argued for inviolate freedom under law in his ''Second Treatise of Government''. Locke argued that a government's legitimacy comes from the citizens' delegation to the government of their absolute right of violence (reserving the inalienable right of self-defense or "self-preservation"), along with elements of other rights (e.g. property will be liable to taxation) as necessary to achieve the goal of security through granting the state a monopoly of violence, whereby the government, as an impartial judge, may use the collective force of the populace to administer and enforce the law, rather than each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner—the condition in the state of nature.


Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ''Du Contrat social'' (1762)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revol ...
(1712–1778), in his influential 1762 treatise
The Social Contract ''The Social Contract'', originally published as ''On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right'' (french: Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique), is a 1762 French-language book by the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques ...
, outlined a different version of social-contract theory, as the foundations of society based on the sovereignty of the ‘
general will In political philosophy, the general will (french: volonté générale) is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Basic ideas The phrase "general will", as Rousseau ...
’. Rousseau's political theory differs in important ways from that of Locke and Hobbes. Rousseau's collectivist conception is most evident in his development of the "luminous conception" (which he credited to
Denis Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominen ...
) of the ‘
general will In political philosophy, the general will (french: volonté générale) is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Basic ideas The phrase "general will", as Rousseau ...
’. Summarised, the ‘
general will In political philosophy, the general will (french: volonté générale) is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Basic ideas The phrase "general will", as Rousseau ...
’ is the power of all the citizens' collective interest - not to be confused with their individual interests. Although Rousseau wrote that the British were perhaps at the time the freest people on earth, he did not approve of their representative government, nor any form of representative government. Rousseau believed that society was only legitimate when the sovereign (i.e. the ‘
general will In political philosophy, the general will (french: volonté générale) is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Basic ideas The phrase "general will", as Rousseau ...
’) were the sole
legislator A legislator (also known as a deputy or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are often elected by the people of the state. Legislatures may be supra-national (for ex ...
s. He also stated that the individual must accept “the total alienation to the whole community of each associate with all his rights”. In short, Rousseau meant that in order for the social contract to work, individuals ''must'' forfeit their rights to the whole so that such conditions were “equal for all". Rousseau's striking phrase that man must "be forced to be free" should be understood this way: since the indivisible and inalienable popular sovereignty decides what is good for the whole, if an individual rejects this "civil liberty" in place of "natural liberty" and self interest, disobeying the law, he will be forced to listen to what was decided when the people acted as a collective (as
citizen Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
s). Thus the law, inasmuch as it is created by the people acting as a body, is not a limitation of individual freedom, but rather its expression. The individual, as a citizen, explicitly agreed to be constrained if, as a private individual, he did not respect his own will as formulated in the general will. Because laws represent the restraint of "natural liberty", they represent the leap made from humans in the state of nature into civil society. In this sense, the law is a civilizing force. Therefore Rousseau believed that the laws that govern a people help to mould their character. Rousseau also analyses the social contract in terms of risk management, thus suggesting the origins of the state as a form of mutual
insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...
.


Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's individualist social contract (1851)

While Rousseau's social contract is based on
popular sovereignty Popular sovereignty is the principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political power. Popular sovereignty, being a principle, does not imply any p ...
and not on individual sovereignty, there are other theories espoused by
individualist Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-relianc ...
s,
libertarians Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
, and
anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessaril ...
that do not involve agreeing to anything more than
negative rights Negative and positive rights are rights that oblige either inaction (''negative rights'') or action (''positive rights''). These obligations may be of either a legal or moral character. The notion of positive and negative rights may also be ap ...
and creates only a limited state, if any.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
(1809–1865) advocated a conception of social contract that did not involve an individual surrendering sovereignty to others. According to him, the social contract was not between individuals and the state, but rather among individuals who refrain from coercing or governing each other, each one maintaining complete sovereignty upon him- or herself:


John Rawls' ''Theory of Justice'' (1971)

Building on the work of Immanuel Kant with its presumption of limits on the state,
John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1 ...
(1921–2002), in ''
A Theory of Justice ''A Theory of Justice'' is a 1971 work of political philosophy and ethics by the philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) in which the author attempts to provide a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism and that addresses the problem of distributiv ...
'' (1971), proposed a contractarian approach whereby rational people in a hypothetical "
original position The original position (OP), often referred to as the veil of ignorance, is a thought experiment used for reasoning about the principles that should structure a society based on mutual dependence. The phrases ''original position'' and ''veil of i ...
" would set aside their individual preferences and capacities under a "
veil of ignorance The original position (OP), often referred to as the veil of ignorance, is a thought experiment used for reasoning about the principles that should structure a society based on mutual dependence. The phrases ''original position'' and ''veil of i ...
" and agree to certain general principles of justice and legal organization. This idea is also used as a game-theoretical formalization of the notion of fairness.


David Gauthier's ''Morals By Agreement'' (1986)

David Gauthier David Gauthier (; born 10 September 1932) is a Canadian-American philosopher best known for his neo- Hobbesian social contract (contractarian) theory of morality, as developed in his 1986 book ''Morals by Agreement''. Life and career Gauthi ...
"neo-Hobbesian" theory argues that cooperation between two independent and self-interested parties is indeed possible, especially when it comes to understanding morality and politics. Gauthier notably points out the advantages of cooperation between two parties when it comes to the challenge of the
prisoner's dilemma The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("defe ...
. He proposes that, if two parties were to stick to the original agreed-upon arrangement and morals outlined by the contract, they would both experience an optimal result. In his model for the social contract, factors including trust, rationality, and self-interest keep each party honest and dissuade them from breaking the rules.


Philip Pettit's ''Republicanism'' (1997)

Philip Pettit Philip Noel Pettit (born 1945) is an Irish philosopher and political theorist. He is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University and also Distinguished University Professor of Philo ...
(b. 1945) has argued, in ''Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government'' (1997), that the theory of social contract, classically based on the
consent of the governed In political philosophy, the phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political po ...
, should be modified. Instead of arguing for explicit consent, which can always be manufactured, Pettit argues that the absence of an effective rebellion against it is a contract's only legitimacy.


Criticism


Consent of the governed

An early critic of social contract theory was
Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revol ...
's friend, the philosopher
David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...
, who in 1742 published an essay "Of Civil Liberty". The second part of this essay, entitled "Of the Original Contract", stresses that the concept of a "social contract" is a convenient fiction: Hume argued that
consent of the governed In political philosophy, the phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political po ...
was the ideal foundation on which a government should rest, but that it had not actually occurred this way in general.


Natural law and constitutionalism

Legal scholar
Randy Barnett Randy Evan Barnett (born February 5, 1952) is an American legal scholar. He serves as the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is the director of the Geor ...
has argued that, while presence in the territory of a society may be necessary for consent, this does not constitute consent to ''all'' rules the society might make regardless of their content. A second condition of consent is that the rules be consistent with underlying principles of justice and the protection of natural and social rights, and have procedures for effective protection of those rights (or liberties). This has also been discussed by O.A. Brownson, who argued that, in a sense, three "constitutions" are involved: first, the ''constitution of nature'' that includes all of what the Founders called "
natural law Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacted ...
"; second, the ''constitution of society'', an unwritten and commonly understood set of rules for the society formed by a social contract before it establishes a government, by which it does establish the third, a ''constitution of government''. To consent, a necessary condition is that the rules be ''
constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princi ...
al'' in that sense.


Tacit consent

The theory of an implicit social contract holds that by remaining in the territory controlled by some society, which usually has a government, people give consent to join that society and be governed by its government if any. This consent is what gives legitimacy to such a government. Other writers have argued that consent to join the society is not necessarily consent to its government. For that, the government must be set up according to a constitution of government that is consistent with the superior unwritten constitutions of nature and society.


Explicit consent

The theory of an implicit social contract also goes under the principles of explicit consent. The main difference between tacit consent and explicit consent is that explicit consent is meant to leave no room for misinterpretation. Moreover, you should directly state what it is that you want and the person has to respond in a concise manner that either confirms or denies the proposition.


Contracts must be consensual

According to the will theory of contract, a contract is not presumed valid unless all parties voluntarily agree to it, either tacitly or explicitly, without coercion.
Lysander Spooner Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808May 14, 1887) was an American individualist anarchist, abolitionist, entrepreneur, essayist, legal theorist, pamphletist, political philosopher, Unitarian and writer. Spooner was a strong advocate of the labor ...
, a 19th-century lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court and staunch supporter of a right of contract between individuals, argued in his essay '' No Treason'' that a supposed social contract cannot be used to justify governmental actions such as taxation because government will initiate force against anyone who does not wish to enter into such a contract. As a result, he maintains that such an agreement is not voluntary and therefore cannot be considered a legitimate contract at all. An
abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...
, he made similar arguments about the unconstitutionality of slavery in the US. Modern Anglo-American law, like European civil law, is based on a will theory of contract, according to which all terms of a contract are binding on the parties because they chose those terms for themselves. This was less true when Hobbes wrote ''Leviathan''; at that time more importance was attached to consideration, meaning a mutual exchange of benefits necessary to the formation of a valid contract, and most contracts had implicit terms that arose from the nature of the contractual relationship rather than from the choices made by the parties. Accordingly, it has been argued that social contract theory is more consistent with the contract law of the time of Hobbes and Locke than with the contract law of our time and that certain features in the social contract which seem anomalous to us, such as the belief that we are bound by a contract formulated by our distant ancestors, would not have seemed as strange to Hobbes' contemporaries as they do to us.Joseph Kary, "Contract Law and the Social Contract: What Legal History Can Teach Us About the Political Theory of Hobbes and Locke", 31 Ottawa Law Review 73 (Jan. 2000)


See also

* Mandate of Heaven *
Classical republicanism Classical republicanism, also known as civic republicanism or civic humanism, is a form of republicanism developed in the Renaissance inspired by the governmental forms and writings of classical antiquity, especially such classical writers as ...
*
Consent Consent occurs when one person voluntarily agrees to the proposal or desires of another. It is a term of common speech, with specific definitions as used in such fields as the law, medicine, research, and sexual relationships. Consent as und ...
*
Consent of the governed In political philosophy, the phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political po ...
*
Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princi ...
*
Constitutionalism Constitutionalism is "a compound of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from and is limited by a body of fundamental law". Political organizations are constitutional ...
*
Self determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...
* Contract * Epicurean ethics *
Federalism Federalism is a combined or compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single po ...
*
Mandate (politics) In representative democracies, a mandate (or seat) is the authority granted by a constituency to act as its representative. Elections, especially ones with a large margin of victory, are often said to give the newly elected government or electe ...
*
Mayflower Compact The Mayflower Compact, originally titled Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the men aboard the ''Mayflower,'' consisting of separatist Puritans, adventurers, ...
*
Monarchomachs The Monarchomachs (french: Monarchomaques) were originally French Huguenot theorists who opposed monarchy at the end of the 16th century, known in particular for having theoretically justified tyrannicide. The term was originally a pejorative wor ...
*
The Racial Contract ''The Racial Contract'' is a book by the Jamaican-American philosopher Charles W. Mills in which he shows that, although it is conventional to represent the social contract moral and political theories of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques ...
* ''
Rights of Man ''Rights of Man'' (1791), a book by Thomas Paine, including 31 articles, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people. Using these points as a base it defends the ...
'' *
Right of rebellion In political philosophy, the right of revolution (or right of rebellion) is the right or duty of a people to "alter or abolish" a government that acts against their common interests or threatens the safety of the people without cause. Stated throu ...
*
School of Salamanca The School of Salamanca ( es, Escuela de Salamanca) is the Renaissance of thought in diverse intellectual areas by Spanish theologians, rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work of Francisco de Vitoria. From the beginning of the 16th cen ...
*
Social capital Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
*
Social cohesion Group cohesiveness (also called group cohesion and social cohesion) arises when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main co ...
*
Social Contract (Britain) The Social Contract was a policy by the Labour government of Harold Wilson in 1970s Britain. In return for the repeal of 1971 Industrial Relations Act, food subsidies, and a freeze on rent increases, the Trade Union Congress ensured that its ...
- British Labour Party policy involving trade-offs between employment conditions and social welfare *
Social disintegration Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of socioeconomic complexity, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible caus ...
* '' Social Justice in the Liberal State'' * Social rights (social contract theory) *
Social solidarity ''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
*
Societal collapse Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of socioeconomic complexity, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible causes ...
* Consent theory * ''
Crito ''Crito'' ( or ; grc, Κρίτων ) is a dialogue that was written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It depicts a conversation between Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito of Alopece regarding justice (''δικαιοσύνη''), inj ...
'' – dialogue by
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, wikt:Πλάτων, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greeks, Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thou ...
*
Juan de Mariana Juan de Mariana, , also known as Father Mariana (25 September 1536 – 17 February 1624), was a Spanish Jesuit priest, Scholastic, historian, and member of the Monarchomachs. Life Juan de Mariana was born in Talavera, Kingdom of Toledo. He stu ...


References


Further reading

* Ankerl, Guy. ''Towards a Social Contract on a Worldwide Scale: Solidarity contracts. Research series''. Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies amphlet 1980, . * Carlyle, R. W. ''A History of mediæval political theory in the West''. Edinburgh London: W. Blackwood and sons, 1916. * Falaky, Faycal (2014). ''Social Contract, Masochist Contract: Aesthetics of Freedom and Submission in Rousseau''. Albany: State University of New York Press. * Gierke, Otto Friedrich Von and Ernst Troeltsch. ''Natural Law and the Theory of Society 1500 to 1800.'' Translated by Sir Ernest Barker, with a Lecture on "The Ideas of Natural Law and Humanity", by Ernst Troeltsch. Cambridge: The University Press, 1950. * Gough, J. W.. ''The Social Contract''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1936. * Harrison, Ross. ''Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion's Empire: an Examination of Seventeenth-Century Political Philosophy''. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Hobbes, Thomas. ''Leviathan''. 1651.
* Locke, John.

' 1689. * * Pettit, Philip. ''Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government''. NY: Oxford U.P., 1997, , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997 * Pufendorf, Samuel, James Tully and Michael Silverthorne. ''Pufendorf: On the Duty of Man and Citizen according to Natural Law. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought''. Cambridge University Press 1991. * Rawls, John. ''A Theory of Justice'' (1971) * Riley, Patrick. "How Coherent is the Social Contract Tradition?" ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 34: 4 (Oct. – Dec., 1973): 543–62. * Riley, Patrick. ''Will and Political Legitimacy: A Critical Exposition of Social Contract Theory in Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel''. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 1982. * Riley, Patrick. ''The Social Contract and Its Critics'', chapter 12 in ''The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought''. Eds.
Mark Goldie Mark Goldie is an English historian and Professor of Intellectual History at Churchill College, Cambridge. He has written on the English political theorist John Locke and is a member of the Early Modern History and Political Thought and Intellec ...
and
Robert Wokler Robert Lucien Wokler (6 December 1942 – 30 July 2006) was a British historian who was a leading scholar of the political thought of the Enlightenment. References * https://www.jstor.org/stable/26222117 * https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rob ...
. Vol 4 of ''The Cambridge History of Political Thought''. Cambridge University Press, 2006. pp. 347–75. * Rousseau, Jean-Jacques.
The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right
'' (1762) * Scanlon, T. M. 1998. ''What We Owe To Each Other''. Cambridge, Massachusetts


External links


"The Social Contract". ''In Our Time'' (7 Feb 2008). BBC Radio Program. Melvyn Bragg, moderator; with Melissa Lane, Cambridge University; Susan James, University of London; Karen O'Brien, University of Warwick.


Discussion of game theory that touches on relation of game theory to the Social Contract. * [https://web.archive.org/web/20120413015649/http://arcade.stanford.edu/journals/rofl/files/article_pdfs/roflv02i01_Foisneau_121510.pdf Foisneau, Luc. "Governing a Republic: Rousseau's General Will and the Problem of Government". ''Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts'' 2, no. 1 (December 15, 2010)]
Sigmund, Paul E. "Natural Law, Consent, and Equality: William of Ockham to Richard Hooker". Published on website ''Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism''. A We the People project of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
* * *
Jan Narveson. "The Contractarian Theory of Morals:FAQ". On website ''Against Politics: Anarchy Naturalized''.


Parody. * ttps://ssrn.com/abstract=1268335 Social Contract: A Basic Contradiction in Western Liberal Democracy Eric Engle. A critique of social contract theory as counter-factual myth. {{DEFAULTSORT:Social Contract Political concepts Social theories Thomas Hobbes John Locke John Rawls Sovereignty Social agreement Sociological terminology