The Social Contract Theory Of Society

There are many political philosophies used in countries all over the world, including America to help the world function. There is no right form of government or a political philosophy, but some more than others helped create the structures of nations. Three men, with three different ideas for a social contract, wanted to help make their nations a safer, better, and more efficient place for all of its inhabitants. The social contracts that Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Karl Marx made, are agreements that people make giving away certain rights to a government in order to avoid the chaos of all lawless society. All three men have made large influences on the government of the United States and other countries. These

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.

Human beings overcame their unpleasant condition, says the social contract theory, by agreeing with one another to create a state. By contract, people within a given agreed agreed to give up to the state as much power as was needed to promote the safety and well-being of all. In the contract, the members of the state created a government to

If there is an unjust law set in place, the social contract theory might support the morality of the existing law. This depends entirely on the unjust law; if the law benefits all the equal and rational contractors in this society then the contract would be supported. But if this law discriminates or so on then, no, the contract wouldn’t support

Social Contract means the voluntary agreement among individuals by which, according to any of various theories, as of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau, organized society is brought into being and invested with the right to secure mutual protection and welfare or to regulate the relations among its members. A word that relates to Social Contract is Natural Rights. I think this because Natural Rights are rights that we are born with and a Social Contract are rights that we choose to have that will help us be equal in power. The Social Contract is just like Natural Rights because they both help protect me from bad rulers and powerful people. A word that relates to Social Contract is freedom. I think this because the Social Contract was a way to describe the process of people having a say in things and freedom lets you say what you want without anyone telling you that you can't. Also the social contract you can have the rights you want and just like freedom you can do what you want but still it being

A Social contract is an agreement between the people and their government limiting an individual's rights but in exchange offering them protection. The declaration acknowledges ¨That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” (Declaration of Independence) A social contract is implemented to protect the rights of the people and form a civil society. The government is created by the people and, for this reason, is to serve the interests of its citizens fully. The belief that a government derives its authority from the people, in the form of a social contract, correlates to popular sovereignty established by John Locke. Popular sovereignty explains that if a person through a social contract is creating a government then the government, therefore, derives its power from the people. This ensures that if a person is entering society by consent through a social contract they can withdraw their consent because the sovereignty of government is with the people. (We the People, 17) In addition, to the consent to leave the government people also have the ability to overthrow the government is it ever fails to secure and protect their rights.

In classic contracts or even Carol Pateman’s Sexual Contract, the focus is on the ideal the Racial Contract, on the other hand, is an historical actuality. It is a global reality created over five hundred years of European domination and active consolidation of white supremacy. The racial contract sets up a moral hierarchy: “the general purpose of the Contract is always the differential privileging of the whites group with respect to the nonwhites as a group, the exploitation of their bodies, land, and resources, and the denial of equal socioeconomic opportunities to them. All whites are beneficiaries of the Contract, though some whites are not signatories to it” (11). The classic social contract is primarily social/political, but also economic Locke is all about private property and its protection. But it is the economic aspect that is most noticeable or striking in the Racial Contract as it is “calculatedly aimed at economic exploitation…. There are other benefits accruing from the Racial Contract– far greater political influence, cultural hegemony, the psychic payoff that comes from knowing one is a member of the Herrenvolk (what W.E.B. Du Bois once called “the wages of whiteness”)–but the bottom line is material advantage” Marie le Jars de Gournay talks about the equality of men and women, arguing that most of those who take up the cause of women, opposing the arrogant preference for themselves that is asserted by men, give them full value for money, for they redirect

Social contract denotes that a government or sovereign body exists only to serve the will of the people because the people are the source of political power that is enjoyed by the entity. The people can choose to give or withdraw the power. Not all philosophers agree that the social contract creates rights and obligations; on the contrary, some believe that the social contract imposes restrictions that restrict a person’s natural rights. Individuals who live within the society gain protection by the government from others who may pursue to cause them injury, in exchange, the citizens, must relinquish individual liberties like the capability to commit wrongdoings without being reprimanded, and they should contribute to making society

In the society illustrated by John Locke, the human nature is characterized as free and independent; however, the problem with society is that it has too many small inconveniences, which could be as trivial as a tree blocking the sidewalk. To solve these problems, a legitimate government, characterized by explicit consent, checks on institutions and the right to revolt by the people, is needed. The utmost legitimate government, in comparison to Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is based on John Locke’s social contract in Second Treatise of Government because each aspect of a legitimate government protects the citizen’s life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Through each aspect, the people can actively participate in government to prevent the sovereign from taking advantage of their powers to further their own goals.

John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau developed the social justice theory under the presumption that “each person entered into a social contract with all others in society to obey moral rules that are necessary for people to live in peace and harmony” (Chessman).

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 up some of their freedoms to the government in return for protection of their remaining rights. Throughout history, there have been a number of philosophers that have discussed the social contract and each philosopher has had there own social contract theories. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes was the foundation for social contract theory in Western political philosophy. While The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau was written a century later and inspired political reforms in Europe. Both Hobbes and Rousseau in their theories appeal to the social contract as being needed as a means to control man in society. However, their theories differ significantly on the basis of the state of nature, the phase after man has left his natural state and

Social Contract theory is the idea that in the beginning people lived in the state of nature with no government and laws to regulate them. In order to overcome the issues involved in the state of nature, people entered into agreements to protect themselves and their properties. They did this by uniting, rescinding certain rights under the state of nature, and pledging themselves to an authority that will guarantee certain protections. They all agree to live together under those laws and create a mechanism that enforces the contract and the laws that come with it. Some political theorists, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, have differing views as to what the state of nature is and what should constitute as a social contract. One

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

The contract made between rulers and citizens, it is called “social contract”. ‘The authority to govern, social contract theorists contend, is ceded by free and equal individuals who accept the arrangements as being conducive to the pursuit of the public good.’ ‘Government is based on the principle of consent.’ Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, argues that ‘the only way to secure peace, security and order is for everyone by covenant to relinquish their natural rights and submit to the authority of a coercive power, which through the threat of punishment, will ensure that promises are kept and rules obeyed.’ ‘This [social] contract is constituted by two distinguishable contracts.’ ‘First, [the people] must agree to establish society by collectively and reciprocally renouncing the rights they had against one another in the State of Nature.’ ‘Second, they must imbue some one person or assembly of persons with the authority and power to enforce the initial

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.