Chapter 6: Ethics and The Law

The state of nature is a state of war of every man against every man. – Thomas Hobbes

Government is instituted for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people. – John Locke

n truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something, and none has too much. ― Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We’re all in a social contract. Whether we like it or not, we live in each other’s good graces. — John Popper

The Social Contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept.

Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy. The starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent any political order that Thomas Hobbes termed the “state of nature”. In this condition, individuals’ actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate, in different ways, why a rational individual would voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order.