Social contract

The social contract is a metaphor used by contractual philosophers to explain the relationship between human beings and the state.

This figure of speech was used especially by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Contractualists

The so-called "contractualists" are the philosophers who argued that man and the State made a kind of agreement - a contract - in order to guarantee survival.

Human beings, according to contractualists, lived in the so-called Natural State (or state of nature), where they did not know any political organization.

From the moment human beings feel threatened, they need to protect themselves. For this, he will need someone greater and impartial, who can guarantee his natural rights.

Thus, human beings accept to abdicate their freedom to submit to the laws of society and the State. For its part, the State is committed to defending man, the common good and providing conditions for it to develop. This relationship between the individual and the state is called the social contract .

Now let's see how the main contractualist authors thought about this question.

Social Contract according to Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was born in 1588 and died in 1679 in England. So he could witness the English political changes during the bourgeois revolutions.

For Hobbes, men needed a strong state, as the absence of a superior power resulted in war. The human being, who is selfish, submitted to a greater power, just so that he could live in peace and also be able to prosper.

It is not by chance that Hobbes calls the "State" Leviathan, one of the names given to the devil in the Bible, in order to reinforce that it is man's perverse nature that makes him seek union with other men.

The State, for its part, will have the duty to avoid conflicts between human beings, ensure security and preserve private property.

In this way, only the king, who concentrates the power of weapons and religion, could guarantee that men lived in harmony.

Social Contract according to John Locke

John Locke was born in 1632 and died in 1702 in England. His life spanned the same period as the English Revolution that redefined British monarchical power.

According to Locke, man lived in a natural state where there was neither political nor social organization. This restricted their freedom and made it impossible to develop any science or art.

The problem is that there wasn't a judge, a power above the others that could check whether everyone is enjoying natural rights.

So, to solve this power vacuum, men will freely agree to form an organized political society.

Man will be able to directly influence the political decisions of civil society, either through the exercise of direct democracy or by delegating his decision-making power to another person. This is the case of representative democracy, in which citizens elect their representatives.

For its part, the State has the objective of safeguarding the rights of men such as life, liberty and private property.

Social Contract according to J.J. Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Switzerland in 1712 and died in France in 1778, where he spent most of his life.

Unlike Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau will defend that man, in his natural state, lived in harmony and was interested in others. For Rousseau, life in an industrializing society did not favor men in their moral aspect.

As technical development gained ground, human beings became selfish and petty, without compassion for their fellow human beings.

In turn, society became corrupt and corrupted the human being with its demands to supply the vanity and appearance of that society.

In this way, Rousseau links the emergence of private property with the emergence of social inequalities.

Thus, it was necessary for the State to emerge in order to guarantee civil liberties and avoid the chaos brought about by private property.

Rousseau's ideas will be used by several participants of the French Revolution and also, later, throughout the 19th century by the theorists of socialism.

Abstract

Below is a small table summarizing the main topics that we saw in this text:

Read more :

• Contractualism
• Enlightenment
• Political Philosophy
• Modern State
• Formation of National Monarchies
• Puritan Revolution
• Glorious Revolution
• French Revolution