Social Contract Theory

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The social contract is an idea in philosophy that at some real or hypothetical point in the past, humans left the state of nature to join together and form societies by mutually agreeing which rights they would enjoy and how they would be governed. The social contract aims to improve the human condition by establishing an authority based on consent which protects certain rights and punishes those who infringe on the rights of others. Although some philosophers deny such an event has ever occurred, the idea was attractive to some thinkers, particularly during the Enlightenment, as a way to justify citizen participation and promote the advantages of one type of government over another.

The idea of citizens joining together to form a social contract involves an examination of human nature and what sort of state people were in prior to making such an agreement. This pre-societal state is often termed the state of nature. The social contract is created when people decide to leave the state of nature and govern themselves while abiding by certain rules, which guarantee certain rights. The citizens may have to give up certain individual freedoms so that they might enjoy other freedoms and personal safety.

Although philosophers since antiquity have entertained the idea, it was three Enlightenment thinkers, in particular, who made the ideas of the state of nature and a social contract integral parts of their philosophy: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Such ideas may never have been realised in practice, but the state of nature and social contract remain useful constructs to facilitate the discussion of which rights citizens should maintain in contemporary political society and how governments should protect these rights. Ideas on the state of nature also allow for a discussion of human nature, which then affects what sort of government might be necessary.

For Hobbes, humans in the state of nature are concerned with one thing only, their self-preservation. As there is, Hobbes says, a perpetual fear that somebody else will do one harm, people pre-empt this by first doing harm to others. This tendency leads to a state of constant warfare or what Hobbes more specifically defined as the perpetual threat of violence.

The English philosopher John Locke published Two Treatises on Government in 1689. Locke here presented the idea that in the state of nature, humans were capable of working together by following the universal law that "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions" (quoted in Popkin, 77). Although humans are self-interested, Locke believed we have a natural self-restraint. We also use reason to ensure that everyone pursues a common good. Locke also disagreed with Hobbes' view that people did not have any rights to property in the state of nature, and this is why he is keen to protect this right in the social contract. To attack, reduce, or remove a person's property was the same as assaulting that person, which is why Locke also includes the right to life and liberty within the umbrella term 'property'.

In his Second Discourse of 1755, Jean-Jacques Rousseau investigated the origin of society's obvious inequalities. He saw the state of nature as entirely primitive, a place where there were no such things as property ownership, pride, and envy since these only arrived in humanity when they began to form societies. He suggests that humans in a state of nature are free, equal, and have two basic instincts: a sense of self-preservation and pity for others. As humans gathered together in more sophisticated societies, so their morality declined. The pursuit of self-interest and wealth takes over. Society is corrupt, unequal, and morally bankrupt. Civilized humans are unhappy, selfish, and unfree. This all makes for rather a bleak picture of humanity.

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