School of thought
Social Contract Tradition
Intellectual current
Classification
- Period
- c. 1651-1800 CE
- Regions
- Europe (origin)
- Domains
- Ethics, Political Philosophy
Overview
The Social Contract tradition unites early modern thinkers who grounded political authority in the voluntary agreement of free individuals. Hobbes argued that without a sovereign, life would be 'nasty, brutish, and short.' Locke derived natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Rousseau sought a form of association that preserves individual freedom through the 'general will.' Together they laid the foundations of modern democratic theory.
Key ideas
- State of Nature: A thought experiment: what would life be like without government? Hobbes saw war; Locke saw freedom constrained by inconveniences; Rousseau saw noble simplicity corrupted by civilization.
- Consent of the Governed: Legitimate political authority derives not from divine right or force but from the rational consent of the people who are governed.
- Natural Rights: Locke argued that individuals possess inherent rights to life, liberty, and property that no government may violate — ideas that shaped the American Revolution and its declarations of rights.
Key figures
Thomas Hobbes · John Locke · Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Hugo Grotius (precursor, d. 1645)
Methods used
Positions held
Influenced by
- Machiavelli's Political Thought
Took the realist account of power and self-interested human nature — sharpened by Machiavelli — as the pre-political condition the contract is designed to master, most directly in Hobbes.
- Stoicism
Later connections
- Feminist Philosophy Influenced by this tradition
- Anarchism Reacted to this tradition
Contested the contract theorists' case that the state rescues people from an anarchic state of nature, answering that the state produces its own oppression and violence. Godwin, the tradition's forerunner, built on Locke's allowance for revolution against a despotic state to argue that government is not necessarily better than anarchy.
References
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Social Contract Theory
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Thomas Hobbes, §1 — Formation: Hobbes wrote Leviathan in exile in Paris before its 1651 publication.
- Richard Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572–1651 (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
- Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development (Cambridge University Press, 1979)
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Social Contract Theory, discussion of the state of nature
- Leviathan — Thomas Hobbes
- Two Treatises of Government — John Locke
- The Social Contract — Jean-Jacques Rousseau