In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory of state that conceives of a legitimate state as arising from the agreement of citizens who consent 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 or maintenance of the social order."For the name social contract (or original contract) often covers two different kinds of contract, and, in tracing the evolution of the theory, it is well to distinguish The first] generally involved some theory of the origin of the state. The second form of social contract may be more accurately called the contract of government or the contract of submission... Generally, it has nothing to do with the origins of society, but, presupposing a society already formed, it purports to define the terms on which that society is to be governed: the people have made a contract with their ruler which determines their relations with him. They promise him obedience, while he promises his protection and good government. While he keeps his part of the bargain, they must keep theirs, but if he misgoverns the contract is broken and allegiance is at an end." J. W. Gough, The Social Contract (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), pp.2–3.
Conceptualized in the Age of Enlightenment, social contractarianism is a core concept of modern theories of constitutionalism. The term takes its name from The Social Contract (French: Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept. The starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent any political order, a social position termed the "state of nature" by Thomas Hobbes.Ross Harrison writes that "Hobbes seems to have invented this useful term." See Ross Harrison, Locke, Hobbs, and Confusion's Masterpiece (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.70. The phrase "state of nature" does occur, in Thomas Aquinas's Quaestiones disputatae de Veritate, Question 19, Article 1, Answer 13 . However, Aquinas uses it in the context of a discussion of the nature of the soul after death, not in reference to politics.
In this condition, individuals' actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience, assuming that 'nature' precludes mutually beneficial social relationships. From this shared premise, social contract theorists aim to demonstrate why rational individuals would voluntarily relinquish their natural freedom in exchange for the benefits of political order.
Philosophical traditions Broadly speaking, social contract theories share a number of common components, the purpose of which are generally to establish the political and legal basis of a legitimate state. First, a social contract theory usually begins with a counterfactual scenario where a population is not subject to any political authority. The purpose of this counterfactual is to identify the defects of anarchy, that is, where there is no state or law, and to establish the authority of the sovereign as based in the remedying of these defects. The counterfactual is termed the state of nature by Thomas Hobbes and the original position by John Rawls. Munro, André. “State of Nature.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 9 Sept. 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/state-of-nature-political-theory.
Second, it is posited that, within this counterfactual individuals will consider various arguments that would prompt them to submit to a sovereign. For example, according to Hobbes, without the existence of such sovereign, a population would devolve into war. In their deliberation, they will decide upon a social contract, encompassing rules, standards, or institutions, among themselves.
Third, following the enactment of this social contract, the hypothetical individuals intend that the real (non-hypothetical) individuals are to be guided by the contract in their interactions with each other. Social contract theorists hold that, to the extent that those same reasons apply to individuals in the real world, real individuals will only obey the terms of the social contract as arrived at in the counterfactual. That is to say, inasmuch as real individuals share the reasons that the hypothetical individuals had when they theorised the authority of the state, they will endorse and obey those rules.
Hobbesian Hobbes theorised that individuals in the state of nature would come together and cede some of their individual rights, in exchange for others ceding theirs. For example, one would agree not to use force against another, and the latter would in turn agree not to use force against the former. This agreement is the social contract, and it irrevocably results in the creation of a sovereign state, which is to create laws to regulate social interactions in order to prevent violent conflicts and guarantee peace. By comparing life under a political regime to the anarchic state of nature, Hobbes aims to provide a theoretical basis for understanding the authority of government.
For the state not to be anarchic, Hobbes argues that there must be a sovereign ruler, which Hobbes compares to the biblical Leviathan, an entity with absolute authority over life and death. Without the terror of such a powerful ruler, humans would not obey the law, and they would not obey the reciprocal golden rule, "doing to others, as wee would be done to".
Just like in the state of nature of individuals, without a system of law amongst sovereign states, states are bound to be in conflict because there was no sovereign, over and above the state, which was more powerful and capable of imposing some system such on every state by force. Hobbes' work later inspired realist theories of international relations, which consider the basic unit of analysis to be states with no overarching higher authority.As argued by E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau.
Humean criticism An early critic of social contract theory was the philosopher David Hume, who in 1742 published an essay in two parts: "Of Civil Liberty" and "Of the Original Contract". Hume launched two broad criticisms of Hobbes's theory: Firstly, although Hume agreed that consent of the governed was an important part of a legitimate state, he noted that the state of nature counterfactual was ultimately a historically fictitious one (II.XII.1). Hobbes did not disagree with this, regarding the historical basis of sovereign states typically as arising from a ‘commonwealth by acquisition’ and through force. However, Hume's objection was, more fundamentally, that the historical inaccuracy of the social contract theory renders it not useful in explaining the actual "foundation of government", when as Hume notes, there are actual historical grounds that can be investigated to explain this foundation (II.XII.20).
Lockean John 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". In The Second Treatise of Government (1689), he asserted that “the state of Nature (...)" teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or of his possessions. Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. 1823. Edited by Rod Hay, “The Works of John Locke,” vol. V, McMaster University Archive of the History of Economic Thought. York University, www.yorku.ca/comninel/courses/3025pdf/Locke.pdf.
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.
In Locke's theory of the state, the government, as an impartial judge, may use the collective force of the populace to administer and enforce the law, rather than have each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner—the condition in the state of nature. 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, though reserving the inalienable right of self-defense or "self-preservation". According to Locke, if a state were to attempt to violate the fundamental rights of the people, they enter "into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience and gain the right to resume their original liberty." Reception in the United States Locke’s idea that everyone has the right to 'life, liberty, and property' inspired the Declaration of Independence (1776) United States, Congress. “The Declaration of Independence.” 4 July 1776. America's Founding Documents, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript. of the United States of America, particularly in the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Swanzy, Brenée Goforth. “How John Locke Influenced the Declaration of Independence.” John Locke Foundation, 4 July 2019, www.johnlocke.org/john-locke-and-the-declaration-of-independence/. Religion and the Founding of the United States at the Southern Methodist University Indeed, Thomas Jefferson, one of the main authors of the Declaration, wrote in a 1825 letter that “Locke,” along with figures such as “Aristotle, Cicero, (...) [and] Sidney,” served as great intellectual foundations for the Declaration, as the text’s “authority rests then on the harmonising sentiments” of these writers. Jefferson, Thomas. “Letter to Henry Lee. 8 May 1825. Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-5212
Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau's contractarian theory differed from both Hobbes and Locke. Rousseau challenges Hobbes’s central thesis by observing that, if individuals are unrestrained in the state of nature and if interactions with others are as violent as Hobbes claims, then self-isolation would be the available and attractive choice. Thus, Hobbes's comparison between the state of nature and a civil state cannot, according to Rousseau, establish political authority, as this hypothetical pre-social state would not be a violent state of war; rather, Rousseau believed that the state of nature was, in fact, a peaceful, asocial state of solitary wanderers, a state of isolation that would not look at all like a state of war.
Rousseau's theory is rooted in his conception of the "general will", that is, is the power of all the citizens' collective interest: Rousseau did not believe in any form of representative governmen; rather, he thought that society was only legitimate when the sovereign (i.e. the "general will") were the sole legislators. He also stated that the individual must accept "the total alienation to the whole community of each associate with all his rights". Rousseau believed that for the social contract to work, individuals must forfeit their rights to the whole so that such conditions were "equal for all", with "each member as an indivisible part of the whole" as citizens of a common state directed by the general will.Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Œuvres complètes, ed. B. Gagnebin and M. Raymond (Paris, 1959–95), III, 361; The Collected Writings of Rousseau, ed. C. Kelley and R. Masters (Hanover, 1990–), IV, 139.