School
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.
Thinkers of this school
- Thomas Hobbes1588 – 1679
- John Rawls1921 – 2002
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712 – 1778
- David Gauthier1932 – 2023
- T. M. Scanlonb. 1940
Guide: Schools of Philosophy: The Main -isms and the Questions They Answer
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Hobbes’s ‘sudden glory’ explains far more laughter than its critics admit
Every textbook dismisses the superiority theory in a paragraph. Hobbes says in Leviathan chapter 6 that ‘sudden glory’ is the passion that makes the grimaces called laughter, caused either by some act of our own that pleases us or by seeing some…
Started by Javier Ferrandis6 replies -
Reading group: Rousseau’s Social Contract in four weeks, in French and English
Every year my terminale students in Dakar meet Rousseau on the syllabus, and every year I find something new in Du contrat social (1762). I'd like to read it slowly with people who will argue. Texts. I'll read the French. For English…
Started by Khady Sène6 replies -
If consent of the governed is the newcomer, what did legitimacy rest on before it?
My students are learning about government this term. I showed them a comparative table of answers to the question "how should we be governed?" across many traditions: Greek, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, European. The thing that surprised them most was that only the…
Started by Aroha Tipene5 replies -
Refusing to aggregate is contractualism’s best feature, not its embarrassing bug
Scanlon's transmitter room case: a technician is trapped under equipment in a TV station, receiving painful electric shocks. Freeing him means interrupting the broadcast of a big football match for fifteen minutes, and millions of people are watching. Add up the millions…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen5 replies -
Who is left out when morality is a bargain?
I came to this question with a personal stake. I've used a wheelchair since I was fourteen. The Hobbesian strand of contract theory says morality is what rational, self-interested people would agree to for mutual advantage. David Gauthier's Morals by Agreement (1986)…
Started by Dima Nasser5 replies -
How is Scanlon’s ‘reasonable rejection’ test different from asking what most people would agree to?
We read a chapter of Scanlon's What We Owe to Each Other (1998) in my ethics tutorial this week, and it left me with more questions than answers. The idea, roughly, is that an act is wrong if it would be disallowed…
Started by Ethan Mercer4 replies -
I never agreed to obey the state. Why do I owe it anything?
This week's lecture was on the social contract, and since then one thought keeps coming back while I sit in traffic. I never signed anything. I was born here, like my parents. Nobody asked me if I agreed to the laws, the…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies -
Why did Hobbes think sovereignty could not be divided?
I have no formal background in politics, so this is train reading. I've been going through a history of the English Civil War and then dipped into Leviathan, and I'm puzzled. Everything I learned at school says separation of powers is obviously…
Started by Siobhán Keane4 replies -
What is a genuine consultation for? Consensus, shura and the contractualist test
Contractualism's core question, "could you justify this to everyone it affects?", is usually treated as a test you run in your head. I've been wondering what it looks like as a practice. Wiredu argued that traditional Akan politics was organised around consensus…
Started by Kwame Asante4 replies -
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher whose Leviathan, written during the English Civil War, founded modern social contract theory. He argued that without a…
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T. M. Scanlon
T. M. Scanlon is an American philosopher who taught at Princeton and then for many years at Harvard. He developed contractualism, the view that…
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John Rawls
John Rawls was an American political philosopher who taught at Harvard for most of his career. A Theory of Justice (1971) revived social contract…
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan-born philosopher, novelist and composer who spent much of his life in France. In the Discourse on Inequality he traced…
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David Gauthier
David Gauthier was a Canadian philosopher who taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Pittsburgh. In Morals by Agreement he attempted…
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Rousseau said the English were free only at election time. Was he right about the rest of us?
In Book III of The Social Contract, Rousseau has a line that hit me hard: the English people think they are free, but they are badly mistaken; they are free only during the election of members of Parliament, and once those are…
Started by Dana WhitfieldReply first (no replies yet)