The Social Contract

Thomas Jefferson stated, “No government can continue good, but under the control of the people.” Popular sovereignty is crucial to emplacing and maintaining a government for the people.When emerging from a state of nature, social contract theory is…

In order to judge a situation using Social Contract theory, we have to understand a few principles behind the theory first. These include the Social Contract, John Rawl 's Principle of Justice, and the Difference Principle. Using these three ideas, we can determine what constitutes a community of people, what makes a moral rule correct, and which correct moral rules would be accepted by a community of people. The Social Contract is this idea that when people come together to form a community,…

Critically review the arguments of Florini and Nussbaum: Nussbaum (2001) explains that the social contract theory dominates the western political philosophy and this theory considers the principles of justice as the result of contract, the people make. People make this contract for mutual benefit and live according to the rule of law..Her main focus is on John Rawls ' work on contractual theory. Nussbaum admits that such theories have some strength in terms of global justice but these theories…

This paper will examine the conflict between freedom and protection in the Social Contract Theory of Locke and Rousseau. It will defend Locke’s position that we leave the state of nature and give up our personal freedom in order to be protected in a society against Rousseau’s position that we give up our freedom only to receive the same freedom back from others amongst the society and therefore we are free and protected at the same time. Locke’s theory is more valid for the reason that when man…

A social contract refers to an “implicit and unsigned agreement between all members of a national community and the state”. (p. 114, Course Notes) What this entails is that the national community agrees to accept the legitimacy of the state with the understanding that private market outcomes are not consistent and that they may yield negatives as well as positives. However, the government then, in turn, agrees to provide a social welfare net to mitigate the losses sustained by market demands.…

The Social Contract The purpose of the social contract is to bring people together in a society, and then to decide the positions of people in their society. They do this by transferring their rights to another person through a social contract. Once a person leaves the state of nature and is brought into a society, a social contract is the only way for the individual to benefit from what a commonwealth and partnership can bring but also have some sort of obligation to contribute to that society…

The Social Contract Theory is an agreement between the people and the government that the people will obey the government as long as the government serves in a capacity that protects the rights of the people and furthers the good for the general will. Before we consent, we exist in the state of nature. In the state of nature, we follow natural law. Natural law comes from God. Natural law gives us our natural rights, which we are promised because of our personhood. Natural rights are rights that…

Although developed most extensively throughout the Age of Enlightenment, social contract theory truly traces back to civilization's roots, when the innate desire to unite into progressively larger groups of individuals followed the longing for order, peace, and progress. Within modern political philosophy, social contracts have been molded into models addressing the origin of the state and the legitimacy of its authority over individuals; their fundaments lie in the analysis of the human…

Hume Versus Social Contract Theory Hume states that “some other foundation of government” than the consent of the governed “must also be admitted.” In this essay, I will first outline Hume’s arguments against the social contract theory, then I will evaluate it by stating the reasons why people agree with Hume, and finally how I still believe Hume’s argument is not persuasive. The social contract theory states that the legitimacy of the government depends on our consent (Friend, 2015). Hume…

believed to help citizens create a balanced social and personal lifestyle. These norms were constructed in what we call: social contracts. The fathers of these social contracts were philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Their founding ethics gave birth to future philosophers’ views and opinions on these social standards. While some differences between Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau’s social contracts are evident, the premises of their contracts are quite similar. Thomas…