Social Contract Theory

Introduction
• Social contract, in Political Philosophy, an actual or Hypothetical
compact, or agreement, between the ruled and their rulers, defining the
rights and duties of each. In primeval times, according to the theory,
individuals were born into an anarchic State of Nature, which was happy
or unhappy according to the particular version of the theory. They then, by
exercising natural Reason, formed a society (and a Government) by means
of a social Contract.
 Thomas Hobbes
• English Political Philosopher
• He wrote very influential work Leviathan in 1651.
• State of Nature: was one in which there were no enforceable criteria of right and wrong.
People took for themselves all that they could, and human life was “solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish and short.” (Chapter XIII, Leviathan, 1961)
• According to Hobbes: All men are by nature equal in power. Basically they were driven by
three passions:
• I. Desire of safety
• II. Desire of Gain
• III. Desire of glory
• State of war: Extreme insecurity and war with fellow human beings led to
violence.
• State of Nature was state of war- it can be ended only by social contract
giving liberty in the hands of sovereign- protection of their lives
 Hobbes
• Sovereign in absolute –His will be law.
• This contract is constituted by two distinguishable contracts. First,
they must agree to establish society by collectively and reciprocally
renouncing the rights they had against one another in the State of
Nature.
• Second, they must imbue some one person or assembly of persons
with the authority and power to enforce the initial contract. 
 John Locke
• English Philosopher- Father of Liberalism
• He wrote “two Treaties of Government” in 1690
• He entirely differed from Hobbes- he conceived of the state of nature not as a
condition of complete license but rather as a state in which humans, though
free, equal, and independent, are obliged under the law of nature to respect
each other’s rights to life, liberty, and property. 
• the obligation to obey civil government under the social contract was
conditional upon the protection of the natural rights of each person, including
the right to private property. 
 Locke
• Sovereign can be overthrown if he violated the rights.
• There can be no subjection to power without consent.
• Citizens are obliged to accept decision by majority it will be
legislature – elected by the people- not absolute- law of nature
remains as a permanent standard and as a principle of protection
against arbitrary authority
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau

•  a Genevan philosopher
• Wrote Discourse on the Origin of Inequality in 1755, commonly referred to as
the Second Discourse, and is an account of the moral and political evolution of
human beings over time, from a State of Nature to modern society
• the state of nature humans were solitary but also healthy, happy, good, and
free. What Rousseau called “nascent societies” were formed when human
began to live together as families and neighbours; that development, however,
gave rise to negative and destructive passions such as jealousy and pride,
which in turn fostered social inequality and human vice.
 Rousseau
• Concept of private property paved way for inequality and its protection by the state.
• Some have property and others are forced to work for them, and the development of
social classes begins. 
• Acc. To Rousseau civil society formed to serve two purposes: to provide peace for
everyone and to ensure the right to property for anyone lucky enough to have
possessions.
• He thought of genuine social contract- people would receive in exchange for their
independence a better kind of freedom, namely true political, or republican, liberty.
 Rousseau
• In his book the social Contract Published in 1762.
• “Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains”.
• Liberty is to be found in obedience to what Rousseau called General
Will- a collective will that aims at common good or common interest.
• All individual and property rights are under general will- state is
moral person0-acts in general will and its motive is to bring equality
and liberty.