Social Contract: The Most Important Purpose Of The Government

Each type of government holds different views as to the role the leaders and citizens should perform in their country .Different types of government include, oligarchy where the government is run by the best leaders, Tyranny, where they believe those in power should have complete control over its people. In the United States of America, we believe in democracy, rule by the majority. The main problem with our type of government is maintaining it. Our government and its citizens have lost sight of their roles and responsibilities, in government.

Using the Social Contract Theory to argue against increased regulation of guns, Timmons of Disputed Moral Issues (p.29) defines the Social Contract Theory as, “An action is morally right if and only if (and because) it is permitted by a set of moral principles that hypothetical agents would agree to under conditions that are ideal for choosing moral principles (the precise characteristics of the hypothetical agents and ideal conditions to be spelled out)”. As I attempted to analyze the social contract theory, I translated this theory as meaning in some circumstances gun usage can be morally justified and is thereby permitted for the safety and lives of the innocent. For example, if an armed or unarmed subject was to enter a home posing a threat towards the homeowner, the homeowner has the right to bear arms to protect oneself as well as the family’s life.

The government is an important part of society. One society needs a government to create a stable economy and let everyone thrive. According to Thomas Hobbes Social contract theory, people sacrifice some of their rights in order to receive protection from the government. That is exactly what most dystopian novels do. The government needs to make sure that all people are treated equally and protected from themselves and the outside world. This is a main focus in the dystopian novel Anthem, by Ayn Rand, Equality

“What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possess” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau). A social contract is a deal made by an individual to give up specific rights to gain government protection. Just like a contract, a social contract can be an agreement over several different things. The social contract in the United States is and has been the same for every citizen; when going to a different country this contract may be different. Contracts in other countries may consist of giving up all individual rights, even natural rights, for government protection. A social contract is used in every government as it is an agreement from an individual to have a government to live by. In the quote above Jean-Jacques Rousseau talks specifically of an American social contract; a social contract from a different country may not have the agreements such as, proprietorship of all possessions a citizen might own. A social contract and natural rights go hand in hand when discussing government, but as I mentioned earlier, a social contract doesn’t always guarantee natural rights to its citizens. In the United States, natural rights are a major discussion that is often brought up, this is due to our constitution, which gives us these natural rights legally.

In this essay, I will examine social contract theory and explain the perspectives of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. From there, I will explore Dostoyevsky’s poem, Grand Inquisitor, and conduct an analysis of the relationships between the Grand Inquisitor and his subjects as well as Jesus and his followers. After, I will draw parallels associating The Grand Inquisitor’s relationship to his subjects with Thomas Hobbes’ perspective on social contract theory. Similarly, I will analogize Jesus’ relationship to his followers with a Lockean perspective on social contract theory. Finally, I will synthesize my findings and draw conclusions regarding the omnipresence of elite-herd models in political and religious institutions.

In today's world, there is often a struggle when it comes to doing what is right. Countless people are oblivious to the fact that our founding fathers worked hard to provide a place where our natural rights are protected. As a community it is only right to try our best to preserve the political society they have set up. Together, we need to make sure that our needs are met by the government to maintain our social contract. Social contracts, natural rights, political societies and what a government provides its people are factors that keep us free and keep our government whole.

Since the beginning of the modern age, governments and states have existed in order to maintain moral law. Essentially these institutions are for the greater good of humanity. However, little thought is ever given to how humans lived without governments. Each and every person in the modern age is born into a state, and becomes a part of that state regardless of their will. The concept that humans are born into a state is derived from the social contract. The social contract is a voluntary agreement that allows for the mutual benefit between individuals and governments with regards to the protection and regulation of affairs between members in society. Essentially the idea is that citizens will give

Nevertheless, the government needs to exercise some form of control over the country to keep everything running smooth. Taxes and law need to be upheld, and over time, the government has been gaining more power than in the past due to the growing population size and the increasing amount of problems. Rather than just maintaining a small, armed force, the government needs to support a large, fortified military to protect the nation from the

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”[ ] These words can be applied to the progression of history. Throughout history, there have been many radical thinkers whose ideas, though initially criticized, have become the catalyst of great change. Though, the radical thinkers were met with the criticism and disdain of the people, eventually, their ideas slowly impacted society. The Enlightenment was one of the greatest time periods in history where many ideas and philosophies greatly influenced history as we know it.

The philosophical issue that correlates most evidently with the stimulus is the social contract, in which we relinquish a proportion of our freedom and rights in order to assure our own safety and therefore the overall cohesive nature of society. This is clear from the way in which the monsters, likely representative of natural human nature, or at least a proportion of humanity, destroy the person’s property, who then enlists the help of a higher order, in this case the ‘president’ in order to protect him, correlating with the way in which we allow a similar governmental structure, with laws and justice system to enforce our social contract. This concept can be explored through the examination of the views of philosophers Hobbes, Locke and

Lets began this essay with a little review from what we learned from Philosophy. The Social Contract is an model agreement upon members in a certain society which they live by. For an example is laws. If we didn’t have any laws, the world would be all chaos. So we all “sign” a social contract that we will obey the law. Ones who do not obey the law will get punished by the government weather it’s a warning or jail time, you will get punished.

The major problem facing countries is non adherence by the governments to the Social Contract principles as propounded by John Locke. John Locke argues that if the government does not fulfil its obligations, citizens can challenge it and choose another Government. According to John Locke this can only happen at the end of the contract that is after the government’s term of office. This is what is prevailing on the ground today. However in some countries the people have gone contrary to Locke’s ideas and have taken confrontational approach that was advocated by

Social Contract is the formidable obelisk for peacebuilding and statebuilding. One of the oldest and widely cited Social Contract theories is the one of theorist’s John Rawls. His theory proposed an objective perspective of the Social Contract concept that was rooted from medieval Europe, this widely accepted principle that “all men are by nature free and equal” (Lessnoff, 1990, p. 3) made Rawls disparate to his brethren who too theorized this concept. Rawls rendition of the theory was not only non-traditional to the views of his predecessors (i.e. ‘Junius Brutus’, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Locke) it also presented principles of social justice, the origin of society, and placed the state’s action as a standard which was a stark difference to other political philosophical theories.

Contractualism, in general, is whether or not an action is deemed ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ can be understood in terms of contracts, and is furthered with the theory of social contract. Additionally, contractualism can be distinguished from Hobbesian contractualism (also known as contractarianism) and Kantian contractualism, whereby the former looks to contracts made by individuals of a society for the sake of personal gain and benefit, while the latter sees to contracts made by individuals of any given society that consider each other and themselves to be free and equal members of State. The theory of the social contract has existed for the longest time, it speaks of an agreement (or agreements) made by the members of any society and community to give up certain individual freedoms for the betterment of that society itself, i.e state protection and security.

Social bonds are a way for the government to contract social outcomes. The government in New Zealand has decided for a different approach that could connect private businesses and the government together. The government will allow the use of businesses handling government sectors like schools, prison and hospitals. Social bonds concentrates on the non-profit, and private organisations. These organisations help deliver services. These services range all sort of things like private business which can help run private schools, private hospitals, private prisons rather than the original fund of the government that’s runs hospitals, schools and prisons. There has have been an outcry by the public on the duty that is performed by social bonds and the government. Some duties are better handled by the government and some are better handled by the private businesses.