Theories of the social contract - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The theories of the social contract are theories of political Philosophie which think the origin of the State in an originating convention between the human ones, by which those give up part of their freedoms, or right natural , in exchange of Loi S guaranteeing the perpetuation of the social body.

The idea of a social contract poses already that of a state of nature , preexistent at any organized company. This state of nature corresponds by no means to a historical reality preceding setting-up by the laws, but at the theoretical state of the humanity when withdrawn from any law. The contract (or pact ) social is then thought like a pact freely established by the community of human with an aim of establishing an organized and hierarchical company.

The concept even of a social pact appears precociously at Plato within the framework of a broader thought on the foundation of an ideal city. Hugo Grotius is however the first, in the history of political philosophy, to devote a big part of its reflection to the definition of the social contract. The large theorists of this concept remain to date however Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, before Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Origins of the concept

If they remain attached to the philosophical figures which defended them in their diversity, the various theories of the social contract find their origin in a political context and philosophical common, which called a major reflection on the genesis and the raison d'être of the social and political body.

Why this company? Why the company? Why live with men with whom one necessarily did not want to live, and subject themselves to rules to which one did not choose to subject oneself? By which ways the mankind it did arrive at a structure so gigantic that it does not seem any more to be but only one creature, a monster with several heads like the Léviathan? Vis-a-vis questions to which it is factuellement impossible to answer in detail, the philosophers built executives. And by these structures of thought, these even conveyed what they thought of having to place in the center of the company. The social contract is interesting at the same time because it is a “scientific” work, by the research of the assumptions of creation, as philosophical.

Three types of social contract

There to date exist two fundamental types of social contract , named according to their respective theorists: the contract hobbesien (the social contract according to Thomas Hobbes) and the contract lockéen (according to John Locke). One adds to it sometimes a third, although he is regarded as an extension of the contract of the hobbesien type: the contract rousseauist (according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau). It is necessary in indeed distinguishing various types of contract according to the purpose allotted to the State which it institutes, which differs from one author to another: whereas it is a question of preserving the life of each one at Hobbes, Locke considers that the goal of the State is to safeguard individual freedom and the private property, while the social contract at Rousseau has to make the people sovereign and thus to guarantee the general interest.

The social contract according to Hobbes

The design hobbesienne of the social contract, presented in the Léviathan , falls under a sedentary logic . The state of nature is defined like a “war of all against all” where “man is a wolf to man” and in which each one, guided by its instinct of self-preservation, seeks to preserve its life. The social contract thus intervenes to ensure the safety, i.e. at the bottom the life of each one, by alienating individual freedoms of the ones on the others. The State is thus there to break with the state of nature by restricting the rights of each one. Hobbes envisages however a right of resistance to the abuses the State, when this last met in danger the life of its subjects. The life can be called upon like principle higher than the value of the contract, because it is for its safeguard that the State was founded.

The social contract according to Locke

Locke formula its theory of the social contract in the Second Treaty of the civil government , according to a liberal logic . The state of nature is characterized according to him by the natural Right which are “individual freedom” and the “private property”, each one wanting to preserve its freedom and its goods. The social contract intervenes to guarantee these Right natural, to ensure their safeguard. The State is thus founded to guarantee the state of nature (characterized by the pleasure by all of their Right natural) by giving him a legal sanction. Locke envisages a right of resistance to the abuses the State, when it puts in danger freedom and the property which it must safeguard. Like the life at Hobbes, the freedom and the property can be called upon in the State lockéen because the social contract precisely aims at their safeguard. One finds at Locke the abandonment of the will of all to certain numbers of authorities charged to organize the life: the executive (which also include/understand the judicial power), the legislature and the federative one (which would correspond today to the external businesses). The contract lockéen is drawn up to decrease the conflicts and not to establish peace or happiness as in the social contract of Hobbes.

The social contract at Rousseau

The design which Rousseau has state of nature is complex: the man is naturally good but quickly the company corrupts it, until each one acts soon egoistically for its private interest. The purpose of the social contract, such as it is theorized in social Contract , is to return the man Souverain, and to commit it to give up its personal interest to follow the General interest. The State is thus created to break with the state of nature, by charging the community with human with its own wellbeing. The social contract rousseauist is more close to the contract hobbesien in what it also aims him at breaking with the state of nature (the aiming contract lockéen, him, to guarantee it by a legal framework). But with the difference of Hobbes like Locke, the social contract rousseauist does not charge a third with the safeguard of the life or freedom and a property of each one, but load the Citoyen S themselves of this safeguard by the principle of the general Will. The contract rousseauist is a gasoline pact Démocrate , in which the social contract does not institute any monarch, but invests the people of its clean Souveraineté.

Summary table of the three principal theories of the social contract

External bonds

Gilbert Boss, '' the range of the social contract at Hume and Spinoza '', Munich, 1998,27 pages. (in pdf)
Serge Paugam (organizing), '' Solidarité/Solidarity. The social contract in choice and acts '', with EHESS, Paris, from March 7th to 9th 2007: vidéos of the interventions

Simple: Social contract

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