Jean Jacques Rousseau Social Contract

Introduction Social Contract

Social contract, in political philosophy, an actual or hypothetical compact, or agreement, between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each. In primeval times, according to the theory, individuals were born into an anarchic state of nature, which was happy or unhappy according to the particular version. They then, by exercising natural reason, formed a society (and a government) by means of a contract among themselves. Social contract as a way of thinking about government. Human authorities are established by agreement with their subjects for specific tasks that their legitimacy depends upon fulfilment of these tasks and that such agreements, maybe enforced by clear, defined procedures, as one would enforced in private law.it may be noted , a specific type of oath or promise in that by their nature they are conditional.

Meaning of Social Contract



an agreement among the members of a society or between a society and its rulers about the rights and duties of each



Origin of Social Contract



First, political contract was implicit in feudal relationships between king as lord and barons as vassals. Socrates uses something quite like a social contract argument to explain to Crito why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty. However, social contract theory is rightly associated with modern moral and political theory and is given its first full exposition and defense by Thomas Hobbes. After Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the best known proponents of this enormously influential theory, which has been one of the most dominant theories within moral and political theory throughout the history of the modern West.



Social Contract theory Thomas Hobbes

· Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679):

· Lived during the most crucial period of early modern England’s history: the English Civil War, waged from 1642-1648.

· To describe this conflict in the most general of terms, it was a clash between the King and his supporters, the Monarchists, who preferred the traditional authority of a monarch, and the Parliamentarians, most notably led by Oliver Cromwell, who demanded more power for the quasi-democratic institution of Parliament.

· Hobbes represents a compromise between these two factions.

· Argues in favor of absolute monarchy.

· He published his book, the Leviathan, in 1651. In this book he gave a striking exposition of the theory of Social Contract.

· His object was to defend the absolute power of the monarch and he used the doctrine of the Social Contract to support it.

· Believed that humans are inherently bad because everyone is self-interested.

· Hobbs felt it was best to submit to the will of a Sovereign without question.

· Man entered into government for Safety.

· The main role of government is to protect its citizens.

· Rights and liberty always come after safety and protection.

· Never overthrow the government because doing so creates anarchy and then there is no safety.

· The State of Nature is a dangerous place, and “life of man “is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

· Characterized as the pre-social phase of human nature

· “The liberty that each man has to use his own power for the preservation of his own nature.”

· Man not at all social, indeed “nothing but grief in the company of his fellows”- all being almost equally selfish, self- seeking, egoistic, brutal and aggressive.

· Agreed to surrender their natural rights into the hands of common superior and to obey his commands. Establish

· A contract binding each and all too unquestioning obedience to a sovereign could really stable commonwealth.

Social Contract theory John Locke

· John Locke (1632-1704):

· Argues in favor of representational democracy. Anti- royalist.

· He is an English Political philosopher, advocates of limited Monarchy in England.

· The theory of John Locke is found in his Two Treaties on Civil Government published in 1690 defended the ultimate right of the people to depose the monarch from his authority if he ever deprived them of their “liberties and properties.”

· Wrote Two Treatises on Government.

· The first treatise is concerned almost exclusively with refuting the argument of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, that political authority was derived from religious authority, also known by the description of the Divine Right of Kings.

· The second treatise contains Locke’s own constructive view of the aims and justification for civil government.

· Believed that people entered into society to protect their “life, liberty, and property”.

· Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, admired

· The government’s main job is to protect the citizen’s property.

· If they government is not providing you with protection for your property you have the right to revolt.

· Justified the American Revolution

· It was pre-political and not pre- social

· Man was neither selfish, nor self- seeking, nor aggressive.

· Men were equal and free to act they thought fit, but within the bounds of the law of nature

· State of Nature exists any time humans haven’t entered into an agreement with each other to participate in a government. Even so, it is not chaotic because of human rationality, and the three natural rights to life, liberty, and property.

· More recent social contract theory

Social Contract theory John rawls social contract

Rawls’s main idea is that the principles of justice are the object of an original agreement: “Thus, we are to imagine that those who engage in social co-operation choose together, in one joint act, the principles which are to assign basic rights and duties and to determine the division of social benefits”. However, this original agreement is not an actual historical contract, but only a hypothetical one. The justification of the principles arising from the contract therefore depends on the notion that they would have been agreed to under the given theoretical and hypothetical conditions. In other words, the contract can be called “as-iffed”. Rawls is convinced that true principles of justice can only be developed under fair conditions. This is why his theory is called “justice as fairness’’. To reach this aim, i.e. to create fair conditions as a basis for the original agreement, Rawls constructs an “original position” of equality.

· Need for Civil Society

· According to locke, this “ill condition ‘’ was due to three important wants which remained unsatisfied in the state of nature:

· The want of an established, settled, known law

· The want of a known and indifferent judge, and

· The want of an executing power to enforce just decisions.

· The social contract was no more than a transfer of certain rights and powers so that man’s remaining rights would be protected and preserved.

· The contract was for limited and specific purposes and what was given up was transferred to the community as a whole and not to a man or to an assembly of men.

· Two Contracts

· Social Contract which brought into being the civil society or the State.

· Governmental contract when society in its corporate capacity established a government and selected a ruler to remove the inconveniences, which necessitates the formation of the civil society or the State.

· Locke recognized the existence of 3 powers in the civil society or the state, legislative, executive and federative.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

· Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778):

· Argues in favor of direct democracy.

· He is the great French writer of the 18th century, elaborated his theory in his famous work “The Social Contract” published in 1762.

· "Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. “

· His most famous works are Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men (AKA the Second Discourse) & The Social Contract.

· Believed that humans are born inherently good. He coined the term “Nobel Savage”.

· However, once the idea of private property was introduced mankind experienced a “fall from grace”.

· Individuals with many possessions saw that it would be in their best interest to create a government to protect their possessions.

· How can we be free and live together? Or, put another way, how can we live together without succumbing to the force and coercion of others?

· We can do so, Rousseau maintains, by submitting our individual wills to the collective or general will, created through agreement with other free and equal persons.

· All men are made by nature to be equals, therefore no one has a natural right to govern others, and therefore the only justified authority is the authority that is generated out of agreements or covenants.

· Rousseau advocates the strictest form of Direct Democracy.

· Rousseau: The State of Nature is a wonderful, rich environment for early humans living solitary peaceful lives.

· Man in this state of nature was a “noble savage” who led a life of primitive simplicity and idyllic happiness

· He was independent, contented, self- sufficient, healthy, and fearless and “without need of his fellows or desire to harm them.”

Views on Human Nature

· Hobbes: Humans are selfish by nature and must be controlled.

· Locke: Humans are rational by nature, and can by-and-large control themselves.

· Rousseau: Humans are good and compassionate by nature, but can be corrupted by civilization.

Emergence of Civil Society:

· Individuals became a collective unity – a society

· “Puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will and in our corporate capacity we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”

The Sovereign

· Hobbes: The absolute monarch (king or queen)

· Locke: The people (all adult males) electing a government in democratic elections

· Rousseau: The people vote on all matters; the people are the Sovereign

Effects of the Social Contract

· Hobbes: People will live in peace but without rights except for the right to self- defense

· Locke: The three natural rights which exist in the State of Nature will be easier to enforce by the government. Those who have given express consent will be bound by the contract; those who have given tacit consent can opt out and leave.

· Rousseau: Life will be fair for all if we employ the general will and set aside our personal interests.

Elements of the Social Contract

There are two principal elements to the social contract. The first is an initial pre-political situation called a “state of nature” by the modern philosophers and the “original position” by Rawls, the most significant contemporary exponent of social contract theory. In this initial situation, all individuals are equal, they are all situated symmetrically relative to one another, and they all have some incentive to leave the initial situation in favor of some relative advantage gained by entry into civil society. The second element is a normative characterization of the parties to the contract. The parties are described as

(1) Motivated by self-interest, in as much as they will only agree to the contract if they perceive that they will benefit from social interaction;

(2) concerned for the welfare of others, if only because they recognize that the advantages they expect to derive from the social contract will be conditional on their willingness to guarantee the same advantages to their counterparts; and (3) rational or reasonable with respect to the way they understand their own interests, the interests of others, and the just or moral principles that ought to govern their pursuit of those interests.



Influence

· Hobbes: Inspired Locke, and indirectly, Jefferson

· Locke: Inspired Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration of Independence

· Rousseau: Inspired Jefferson, to some extent, but also Kant, Marxism, the environmentalist movement, respect for indigenous peoples, and modern child pedagogy.
Introduction Social Contract

Social contract, in political philosophy, an actual or hypothetical compact, or agreement, between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each. In primeval times, according to the theory, individuals were born into an anarchic state of nature, which was happy or unhappy according to the particular version. They then, by exercising natural reason, formed a society (and a government) by means of a contract among themselves. Social contract as a way of thinking about government. Human authorities are established by agreement with their subjects for specific tasks that their legitimacy depends upon fulfilment of these tasks and that such agreements, maybe enforced by clear, defined procedures, as one would enforced in private law.it may be noted , a specific type of oath or promise in that by their nature they are conditional.

Meaning of Social Contract

an agreement among the members of a society or between a society and its rulers about the rights and duties of each



Origin of Social Contract



First, political contract was implicit in feudal relationships between king as lord and barons as vassals. Socrates uses something quite like a social contract argument to explain to Crito why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty. However, social contract theory is rightly associated with modern moral and political theory and is given its first full exposition and defense by Thomas Hobbes. After Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the best known proponents of this enormously influential theory, which has been one of the most dominant theories within moral and political theory throughout the history of the modern West.



Social Contract theory Thomas Hobbes

· Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679):

· Lived during the most crucial period of early modern England’s history: the English Civil War, waged from 1642-1648.

· To describe this conflict in the most general of terms, it was a clash between the King and his supporters, the Monarchists, who preferred the traditional authority of a monarch, and the Parliamentarians, most notably led by Oliver Cromwell, who demanded more power for the quasi-democratic institution of Parliament.

· Hobbes represents a compromise between these two factions.

· Argues in favor of absolute monarchy.

· He published his book, the Leviathan, in 1651. In this book he gave a striking exposition of the theory of Social Contract.

· His object was to defend the absolute power of the monarch and he used the doctrine of the Social Contract to support it.

· Believed that humans are inherently bad because everyone is self-interested.

· Hobbs felt it was best to submit to the will of a Sovereign without question.

· Man entered into government for Safety.

· The main role of government is to protect its citizens.

· Rights and liberty always come after safety and protection.

· Never overthrow the government because doing so creates anarchy and then there is no safety.

· The State of Nature is a dangerous place, and “life of man “is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

· Characterized as the pre-social phase of human nature

· “The liberty that each man has to use his own power for the preservation of his own nature.”

· Man not at all social, indeed “nothing but grief in the company of his fellows”- all being almost equally selfish, self- seeking, egoistic, brutal and aggressive.

· Agreed to surrender their natural rights into the hands of common superior and to obey his commands. Establish

· A contract binding each and all too unquestioning obedience to a sovereign could really stable commonwealth.

Social Contract theory John Locke

· John Locke (1632-1704):

· Argues in favor of representational democracy. Anti- royalist.

· He is an English Political philosopher, advocates of limited Monarchy in England.

· The theory of John Locke is found in his Two Treaties on Civil Government published in 1690 defended the ultimate right of the people to depose the monarch from his authority if he ever deprived them of their “liberties and properties.”

· Wrote Two Treatises on Government.

· The first treatise is concerned almost exclusively with refuting the argument of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, that political authority was derived from religious authority, also known by the description of the Divine Right of Kings.

· The second treatise contains Locke’s own constructive view of the aims and justification for civil government.

· Believed that people entered into society to protect their “life, liberty, and property”.

· Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, admired

· The government’s main job is to protect the citizen’s property.

· If they government is not providing you with protection for your property you have the right to revolt.

· Justified the American Revolution

· It was pre-political and not pre- social

· Man was neither selfish, nor self- seeking, nor aggressive.

· Men were equal and free to act they thought fit, but within the bounds of the law of nature

· State of Nature exists any time humans haven’t entered into an agreement with each other to participate in a government. Even so, it is not chaotic because of human rationality, and the three natural rights to life, liberty, and property.

· More recent social contract theory

Social Contract theory John rawls social contract

Rawls’s main idea is that the principles of justice are the object of an original agreement: “Thus, we are to imagine that those who engage in social co-operation choose together, in one joint act, the principles which are to assign basic rights and duties and to determine the division of social benefits”. However, this original agreement is not an actual historical contract, but only a hypothetical one. The justification of the principles arising from the contract therefore depends on the notion that they would have been agreed to under the given theoretical and hypothetical conditions. In other words, the contract can be called “as-iffed”. Rawls is convinced that true principles of justice can only be developed under fair conditions. This is why his theory is called “justice as fairness’’. To reach this aim, i.e. to create fair conditions as a basis for the original agreement, Rawls constructs an “original position” of equality.

· Need for Civil Society

· According to locke, this “ill condition ‘’ was due to three important wants which remained unsatisfied in the state of nature:

· The want of an established, settled, known law

· The want of a known and indifferent judge, and

· The want of an executing power to enforce just decisions.

· The social contract was no more than a transfer of certain rights and powers so that man’s remaining rights would be protected and preserved.

· The contract was for limited and specific purposes and what was given up was transferred to the community as a whole and not to a man or to an assembly of men.

· Two Contracts

· Social Contract which brought into being the civil society or the State.

· Governmental contract when society in its corporate capacity established a government and selected a ruler to remove the inconveniences, which necessitates the formation of the civil society or the State.

· Locke recognized the existence of 3 powers in the civil society or the state, legislative, executive and federative.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

· Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778):

· Argues in favor of direct democracy.

· He is the great French writer of the 18th century, elaborated his theory in his famous work “The Social Contract” published in 1762.

· "Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. “

· His most famous works are Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men (AKA the Second Discourse) & The Social Contract.

· Believed that humans are born inherently good. He coined the term “Nobel Savage”.

· However, once the idea of private property was introduced mankind experienced a “fall from grace”.

· Individuals with many possessions saw that it would be in their best interest to create a government to protect their possessions.

· How can we be free and live together? Or, put another way, how can we live together without succumbing to the force and coercion of others?

· We can do so, Rousseau maintains, by submitting our individual wills to the collective or general will, created through agreement with other free and equal persons.

· All men are made by nature to be equals, therefore no one has a natural right to govern others, and therefore the only justified authority is the authority that is generated out of agreements or covenants.

· Rousseau advocates the strictest form of Direct Democracy.

· Rousseau: The State of Nature is a wonderful, rich environment for early humans living solitary peaceful lives.

· Man in this state of nature was a “noble savage” who led a life of primitive simplicity and idyllic happiness

· He was independent, contented, self- sufficient, healthy, and fearless and “without need of his fellows or desire to harm them.”

Views on Human Nature

· Hobbes: Humans are selfish by nature and must be controlled.

· Locke: Humans are rational by nature, and can by-and-large control themselves.

· Rousseau: Humans are good and compassionate by nature, but can be corrupted by civilization.

Emergence of Civil Society:

· Individuals became a collective unity – a society

· “Puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will and in our corporate capacity we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”

The Sovereign

· Hobbes: The absolute monarch (king or queen)

· Locke: The people (all adult males) electing a government in democratic elections

· Rousseau: The people vote on all matters; the people are the Sovereign

Effects of the Social Contract

· Hobbes: People will live in peace but without rights except for the right to self- defense

· Locke: The three natural rights which exist in the State of Nature will be easier to enforce by the government. Those who have given express consent will be bound by the contract; those who have given tacit consent can opt out and leave.

· Rousseau: Life will be fair for all if we employ the general will and set aside our personal interests.

Elements of the Social Contract

There are two principal elements to the social contract. The first is an initial pre-political situation called a “state of nature” by the modern philosophers and the “original position” by Rawls, the most significant contemporary exponent of social contract theory. In this initial situation, all individuals are equal, they are all situated symmetrically relative to one another, and they all have some incentive to leave the initial situation in favor of some relative advantage gained by entry into civil society. The second element is a normative characterization of the parties to the contract. The parties are described as

(1) Motivated by self-interest, in as much as they will only agree to the contract if they perceive that they will benefit from social interaction;

(2) concerned for the welfare of others, if only because they recognize that the advantages they expect to derive from the social contract will be conditional on their willingness to guarantee the same advantages to their counterparts; and (3) rational or reasonable with respect to the way they understand their own interests, the interests of others, and the just or moral principles that ought to govern their pursuit of those interests.



Influence

· Hobbes: Inspired Locke, and indirectly, Jefferson

· Locke: Inspired Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration of Independence

· Rousseau: Inspired Jefferson, to some extent, but also Kant, Marxism, the environmentalist movement, respect for indigenous peoples, and modern child pedagogy.