Portal:Philosophy/Selected article/2006-50

The theory of the social contract is based on the assumption that all men live in a state of nature which is not ideal. In order to move away from these conditions men enter into a contract with each other, allowing them to live in peace and unity. The theory of the social contract can be seen as a justification for the formation of the state. All members within a society are assumed to agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society without violating the contract; such a violation would signify a problematic attempt to return to the state of nature. It has been often noted, indeed, that social contract theories relied on a specific anthropological conception of man as either "good" or "evil". Thomas Hobbes (1651), John Locke (1689) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762) are the most famous philosophers of contractarianism, which is the theoretical groundwork of democracy. It is also one of a few competing theoretical groundworks of liberalism, but Rousseau's social contract is often seen as conflicting with classical liberalism which stresses individualism and rejects subordination of individual liberty to the "general will" of the community.

According to Hobbes' and canonical theory, the essence is as follows: Without society, we would live in a state of nature, where we each have unlimited natural freedoms. The downside of this general autonomy is that it includes the "right to all things" and thus the freedom to harm all who threaten one's own self-preservation; there are no positive rights, only laws of nature and an endless "war of all against all" (Bellum omnium contra omnes, Hobbes 1651). To avoid this, we jointly agree to an implicit social contract by which we each gain civil rights in return for accepting the obligation to honor the rights of others, giving up some freedoms to do so.