Social Contract Theory PDF

Social Contract theory The advocates of the Social Contract theory argue that the state came into existence as a consequence of the deliberate and voluntary agreement among men in the past. They further assume that there was a pre-social state in which men had lived before they entered into a civil...

Social Contract theory The advocates of the Social Contract theory argue that the state came into existence as a consequence of the deliberate and voluntary agreement among men in the past. They further assume that there was a pre-social state in which men had lived before they entered into a civil society. They described this condition of man’s life as the state of nature. The law that prevailed in the state of nature was the law of nature. Thomas Hobbes Hobbes conceives man to be essentially egoistic, for man’s impulses are naturally directed to his own preservation and pleasure. He is swayed both by his reason and his appetites but with the aid of his reason can postpone the satisfaction of his appetites. He seeks after pleasure and the good things of life and in order to attain them, he strives after power. This desire for power is a perpetual desire in man and ceases only in his death. Egoist man aiming at the gratification of his appetites regards every other man as his potential enemy for he is a rival who similarly strives after power in order to satisfy his appetites. This state of nature, according to Hobbes, is a state of war with every man’s hand against every man. It is a state of war with every man’s hand against every man. It is an anarchical condition of affairs in which, as Hobbes remarks, “every man has a right to everything, even to one another’s body”. It is a state in which “there is continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. In such a condition no one feels safe, even though men are “so equal in the faculties of body and mind”. The state of nature, in which no one has irresistible superiority over another and fear of death is an ever-present possibility is ended by men entering into a covenant among themselves and agreeing to surrender their natural rights. The insecurity of life and the desire for good things ‘‘necessary to commodious living” impel men to abandon the state of nature and enter into a political union. According to the covenant of the contract a common power is established by common consent or agreement. This common power according to Hobbes, maybe either one man or an assembly of man. Thus the covenant establishes a sovereign power, which converts a multitude into a political society. In other words, the multitude becomes a political sovereign when it is directed as one single will which is the sovereign power. The sovereign power reduces all wills into one will and bears their person. The covenant establishes that the sovereign power unities the multitude into a unity into one judgement. As Hobbes says, the covenant generates “that great LEVIATHAN”. There are two notions involved in Hobbes account of the political covenant which creates the sovereign power, namely, that of renouncing and transferring the rights of nature and that of authorizing a representative to bear the person of the Commonwealth. John Locke John Locke’s conception of man’s nature determines his conception of the state of nature. Locke believes man to be essentially reasonable. Man’s reason enables him to comprehend the law of nature as the law of reason. Because he is a reasonable creature, man understands that his liberty is not license and it is not the power to destroy fellow beings. Reason inculcates in man the idea of the preservation of human life. Locke deduces the laws of nature from man’s respect for himself and the life of others. The conditions of life in the state of nature, according to Locke, are not harsh, unfavorable conditions as portrayed by Hobbes. Given that man is a reasonable creature, the state of nature consisting of reasonable man is a condition of “peace, goodwill, mutual assistance and preservation”. It is a condition regulated by the moral law, which Locke calls the “law of nature” and identifies with the law of reason. As there is no common authority in the state of nature, every man is the executor of the natural law and is the judge of his own action. In the state of nature, man has a natural right to property. Man acquires the right to property when he mixes his labor with natural resources to support himself. This right to property, according to Locke, symbolizes rights in general and it means “life, liberty and estate”. As men in the state of nature possess reason and generally respect one another’s life, liberty and estate, the state of nature is a social condition and it is a society without government. The state of nature, according to Locke, is simply the condition in which the executive power of the natural law remains exclusively in the hands of the individual and it has not been made communal. In other words, there is no permanently established, collective security. Though the state of nature is a social condition, there is no form of civil government. According to Locke, it is an ‘inconvenient” state because of certain obvious disadvantages it has suffered from. It leaves every man judge in his own case. No doubt man has the law of reason to guide him but this law is unwritten and is found only in the mind of man. The absence of an established, settled and known law causes many inconveniences but Locke points out that the state of inconvenience is not the state of war. The inconveniences of the state of nature, especially the absence of an impartial judge to settle dispute about property, compelled men living in the state of nature to go in for political union. Their chief end was to secure their individual rights of life and property. Locke observed, : the great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealth and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property”. Political society from the state of nature. But the transition from one state into another is smooth for man is already social and reasonable and even in the state of nature men trust one another. When men form the political society by making the contract, they surrender their natural right to be their own executive and judge. Thus, political power comes into being when a community is formed by a band of reasonable men with the power to punish the transgressor of the law which, according to Locke, is “a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it”. Locke describes the civil society “Those who are united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them and punish offender, are in civil society with one another”.  According to Locke the original contract, establishes political authority or civil society. Political authority is established by the consent of the people. The social contract which sets up the civil society establishes a government, limited in its powers. Since the chief end of the state is to protect the rights of the individual, especially his right to property, power is given to the state, or to the political authority in the civil society, for the express and specific purpose of securing the rights of the individual. Government is given power on trust with a view to attaining the end, i.e., the protection of individual rights and is limited to that end. If the government neglects the realization of the end for which power has been given to it. Locke argues that if the people cannot remove it by peaceful means, they can resort to force to remove such tyrannical authority. Locke is careful to point out that a dissolution of the government does not lead to the dissolution of the society. Jean Jacques Rousseau Rousseau gives an account of his conception of the state of nature in his work, ‘Discourse on the origin and Foundation of inequality among men’. In the state of nature, men are equal for there are no institution. Rousseau contention is that inequality arises from social institution. Rousseau understood the difficulty of depicting the life of man in the state of nature, since it was difficult to obtain a clear knowledge of the state that no longer existed. In order to describe the life of man in the state of nature, Rousseau goes in quest of the ideal, abstract natural man. Man, having come straight from the hands of nature, are ignorant of vice; they are strong, simple and courageous, they live an isolated life and are guided by instinct. Though men are mentally and physically unequal, such mental and physical, such mental and physical inequality does not operate against anyone. Rousseau says,” the man who meditates is a deprived animal”. According to Rousseau, man in the state of nature is a noble savage. Man is not subject to law and possesses real happiness. Rousseau does not affirm that the state of nature is a historical condition. He depicts the life of man in the state of nature, praising the innocence and simplicity of the primitive man, he contrasted a simple unsophisticated mode of existence with the artificiality and corruption of the 18th century Europe. Concerned about the freedom and about the ways to preserve it in civil society, Rousseau begins his inquiry by finding out the source of legitimate authority and reconciling it with the freedom of the individual. Rousseau argues. That no man has any natural authority over his fellows and force confers no right and so conventions remains the basis of all legitimate authority over his fellows and force confers no right so conventions remain as the basis of all legitimate authority. The first and unanimous convention is the act by which a multitude of individuals becomes a people when they found the society by a compact. The new political society is an association, which is duly organized and possesses public property. On the convention, which provides the basis for the civil society rests the obligation of the minority to submit to the majority.