Social contract theory

Social contract theory holds that political authority and moral rules are justified by what free and equal people would agree to.

Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan (1651), argued that people would accept an absolute sovereign to escape a war of all against all; John Locke grounded limited government in consent and natural rights; and Jean-Jacques Rousseau sought the general will. In the twentieth century John Rawls revived the idea with the original position, David Gauthier derived morality from rational bargaining, and T. M. Scanlon developed contractualism. On this site it answers questions on contract-based ethics (3.2.4), sovereignty and the state (6.4.3) and political philosophy.