The History and Contemporary Significance of Social Contract Theory: Locke, Rousseau, and Hobbes
Social contract theory’s shared assumption: imagine the “State of Nature” before political society, analyze its characteristics, then argue why and under what conditions individuals rationally consent to surrender (some) natural freedom to establish (submit to) political authority. The three thinkers’ divergent descriptions of the state of nature lead to fundamentally different political conclusions.
## Hobbes: The State of Nature is “War of All Against All”
Thomas Hobbes (*Leviathan*, 1651): without authority’s constraints, human life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” — the drive for self-preservation drives constant conflict. Rational individuals therefore transfer all rights to a powerful sovereign (Leviathan), exchanging natural freedom for security and order — supporting absolutist political theory.
## Locke: The State of Nature Has Natural Rights; the Contract Protects Them
John Locke’s state of nature is relatively peaceful: constrained by natural law (reason), individuals have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Political society is established to better protect these pre-political natural rights — therefore government’s power is a fiduciary trust from the governed; when government violates this trust (infringes natural rights), people have a right of revolution. This deeply influenced the American Declaration of Independence and modern constitutionalism.
## Rousseau: Natural Man is Good; Society Corrupted Him
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s state of nature is reversed: natural (primitive) humans are good and pure; society and civilization (private property, social comparison) corrupted human nature. The true social contract creates a **General Will** (volonté générale) — the common good transcending particular individual wills; submitting to the General Will is submitting to one’s own rational universal will, achieving genuine freedom. Rousseau’s concept has been invoked by both democratic theory and collectivist thought, with profound interpretive controversy.
