An Essay on Social Contract Theory

Another essential philosopher during the Enlightenment Era was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau was the only contemporary philosopher of the time to have a philosophy of governance, thus his influence was great in the drafting of the Constitution. In The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau posits that civil society is an interweaving of its citizens and that government should operate as "a moral and collective body"

The actions that Jean undertook were done in an attempt to increase overall happiness for himself and Pierre. Im the process he attempted to reduce pain and suffering by impersonating a medical professional, a doctor, in order to get the prescription filled. The actions that Jean undertook, while saving a life, were unauthorized because he is not certified as a medical professional.

Human beings are said to have separateness amongst them, resulting in humans being in a “war of all against all” (Locke). Locke had an idea that society is actually odd to man, and is a side affect of mankind trying to fight its savage urges. To counteract its true nature, humans within society agree to follow various “social contracts”. The social contract theory is the idea that a human's political obligations and/or morals are based upon one's surroundings and the agreements they form and construct where they live. This further proves the idea of man's nature being savage and our continued refusal to acknowledge it.

Therefore it is the people who hold the power within the state, and also the legal subjects within the republic. Rousseau refers to the individuals as citizens when they are acting passively, and sovereign when acting as an active group for example, devising laws. He writes 'this public group, so formed by the union of all other persons...power when compared with others like itself' (lines 41-43 Rousseau extract). Rousseau's evaluates his solution, perhaps tersely earlier in his work by suggesting that 'the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole of the community' (lines 17-18 Rousseau extract). The main aspects that incorporates Rousseau's version of social contract theory is that he wants to make a distinct separation of the 'will of all' from 'general will'. Will of all or individual will, is private wills and specific to each of the state's members, while general will is a common will for all and reflect the common good for state members. By separating the two wills, can help to reduce conflict that may arise between the two, and by evaluating all the opinions of each member. It is possible to see what issues are more pressing, and cancel out individualistic wills, if the majority of individuals share the opinions, thus making this majority, the general will. Rousseau sums this up when he writes, 'There is often a great deal of

The current United States social contract is the way a majority of the people live. The majority being, the entire population outside of the rich and famous. While this can be debated person to person, as well as the idea of what the social contract is, I would describe the current United States social contract as a combination of fear and survival. These concepts often can intertwine; however, they can also be distinguished separately. The social contract will continue to evolve as the country changes, as one can see throughout the media and life in general.

In Two Treatises of Government, John Locke (1823) argued that natural rights such as life, liberty and property could not be taken or given away by individuals. These “inalienable” rights limited the power of the king, who acted only to enforce the natural rights of the people. If these rights were violated, the people had the right to revolt and create a new government. Although Locke supported the idea of a representative government, he wanted representatives to be men of property (Locke 1823). Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1988) also wrote about representation in The Social Contract. Rousseau felt that individuals should enter into a social contract in which they gave up their rights to the entire community, rather than to a king. Rousseau viewed a

The Social Contract states that all people exist under a contract of society in which we agree to do no wrong and in return we will be kept safe by the people in power; “Every wrongdoer, in attacking the rights of society by his crimes, becomes a rebel and traitor to his country. By violating its laws he ceases to belong to it ... the preservation of the state becomes incompatible with his own” (Rousseau, 1994). This is supported by Freud’s work in Civilization and Its Discontents. A large body of people, often tens of thousands, all dancing to the same beat and taking the same drugs causes a sense of unity and “oceanic oneness” (Freud, 1930) which causes “self/peer identification and de-identification from parents” (MacDonald et al) and from

In order to understand this, I will clarify what is meant by the “social contract.” The “social contract” is a type of unwritten agreement in which everyone in a particular society participates and agrees to live together under common “rules”. The “rules” are “those principles

Throughout history, many civilizations have had ideas on how to properly manage a society. These ideas go as far back as ancient Greece and the philosopher Socrates, but the most notable and widely accepted ideas on this come from the philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Their ideas about how a society should be run were known as social contract theories, and although their ideas were different, they all had a common theme that would shape today's definition of the social contract. A Social Contract is basically an agreement between the members of a society to work together for mutual benefit. All the philosophers deemed a social contrast necessary for a properly functioning society.

In my opinion, the Affordable Care Act does not signal a shift in health policy and law from the free market approach and back to the social contract era. As the text states, the motive behind the social contract perspective was because “the belief that complete physician autonomy over the delivery and financing of health care is potentially dangerous in terms of patient care and health care,” and that “public policy and law can and sometimes should enforce a “social contract” at the expense of physician control. (Teitelbaum and Wilensky, 2017, p. 6.) In addition, the social contract era introduced Medicare and Medicaid by the federal and state governments.

One historically important tradition in social and political philosophy is called "Social Contract Theory." It gives a way of thinking about what it means to be human, raising fundamental questions such as: what is human nature, in itself, apart from society? Are people fundamentally

The Social Contract was written in 1762 and addresses the legitimacy of political authority. One specific topic that Rousseau writes about to discuss political authority is the power of the sovereign in book II of The Social Contract. Rousseau describes the sovereign as the law or authority. In The Social Contract, Rousseau describes the sovereign as the voice of all the citizens and the sovereign cannot be disobeyed or divided. Rousseau goes on to talk more about the sovereign and how it runs, but the most interesting topic that he discussed is in Chapter 5 entitled “The Right Of Life And Death.”

Contractual agreements are supposed to be consensual, and freely entered into by the parties involved. Therefore, ‘before a court enforces a relationship as a contract, the courts must have a reasonably certain basis in fact to justify binding the parties to each other.’ (St. John’s Law Scholarship Repository, no date). Resolution of whether a contract was intended to be legally binding is not determined by what the parties themselves thought or intended. Rather, a more objective stance is taken by the courts. This is known as the objective theory of contract, and essentially enables ‘the courts to look at external evidence (what the parties said and did at the time)’ (Poole, 2006, p. 34), as to objectively indicate the parties’ intentions

The main expression of the Social Contract Theory is to explore whether there is a legitimate political authority, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains no." He said political authority in our natural state does not exist, so we need a social contract in a social contract, everyone abandon natural freedom, and obtain freedom of contract; in the process of political participation, only everyone equally renounce all natural freedom, assigned to the collectivity, human beings can get equal

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes lays out the hypothetical principal of the state of nature, where human it-self is artificial. It is human nature that people will not be able to love permanently, everyone against everyone power between the strongest. In this nation-state you must be the strongest in order to survive (survival of the fittest). In order to survive there are laws we must follow, to insure of our security because of fear. We were able to suppress our fear, by creating order, to have more order; we must have security, so the social contract appeared.