1. Discuss the concept of social contract: focus on the main differences between Hobbes’ and Locke’s theories.

Question 1

What did hobbes, locke and Rousseau analyze?

Answer 1

Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau analysed why political systems should exist at all.

Question 2

What is the social contract?

Answer 2

The social contract is a theory that holds that individuals join and stay in civil society as it they had signed a contract which arises from the pre-existing condition of stateless anarchy or state of nature. Because this nature is undesirable and unsatisfactory and because complex social relations require it, each person agrees to surrender (some or all) of their rights and freedoms to a central authority, given that every other person does so, to receive benefits that only such a central authority can provide, notably domestic peace.

Question 3

Describe Hobbes’ theory!

Answer 3

• Hobbes discusses the question of sovereignty in The Leviathan (1651).
• He gives the example of civil war, American tribes and the facts of IR to illustrate how men would live in anarchy. The lack of common power has three principal features:
  1) There can be no agriculture, industry, trade or refinement of living (energy is wasted on providing security against each other)
  2) There are no legal or moral rules therefore no property
  3) The state of nature is a state of war: even if there is no actual war, there’s a possibility of it and it’s a “war of each against all”
• (Romsics: Hobbes argues that no accumulation can take place under anarchy – development & growth needs order – in modern rational choice language: the cost of security/survival are so as high as to make investments into quality of life and long-term projects dangerous/unappealing)
• Humans live in savage squalor, constant fear and danger of violent death (‘life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’)  to get out of this they would rationally form civil society or submit to a king. Society thus arises naturally out of fear.
• Individuals relinquish their rights to everything (except self-preservation) and submit it to a central authority with absolute power, the Leviathan, which in turn guarantees safety and security of all. They must obey the sovereign in all matters (law=will of the sovereign)
• Absolutism understood as unconditional and unified sovereignty is the only way people would survive without destroying each other and there is no collective right to resistance.
• Social contract the contract btw subjects establishing absolute government (pref. monarchy)

Question 4

Describe the theory of John Locke!

Answer 4

• Second Treatise of Government (1688) Locke’s model consists of a civil state, built upon the natural rights common to a people who need and welcome an executive power to protect their property and liberties; the government exists for the people’s benefit and can be replaced or overthrown if it ceases to function toward that primary end.
• The State of nature: people lived in equality and tolerance but couldn’t secure property (no money, courts of law)  they formed a civil society to secure ‘life, liberty, property’. So, society is formed on the basis of property rights. People form a ‘civil society’ because reason tells them it is better than anarchy
• In Locke’s version, persons have natural pre-social rights to life, liberty and property (natural rights), but a central authority can better protect those. Its power is limited to guaranteeing equal fundamental rights of all, including property rights.
• An institution detrimental to the individual is illegitimate
• Right of revolution: if the govt acts outside the constitutional constraints imposed on it, people have the right to revolt against it
• Social contract establishes political society (state of nature already social) and the second stage established the govt. If it fails, political or civil society remains and by its consent a new one can be instituted.
• Locke’s theory influenced the American Declaration of Independence, mostly the right of people to overthrow the govt

Question 5

Describe Rousseau’s theory!

Answer 5

• The state of nature was downright good, people are noble savages  society corrupted humans ‘Man is born free but everywhere is in chains’ (social structures lead to corruption and jealousy)
• Society can be improved; a just society would be a voluntary community with will of its own
• General will (what a whole community wants): humans gain dignity and freedom and expel those who don’t cooperate
• For Rosseau, the state of nature is relatively peaceful, but a social contract becomes necessary to overcome conflict as a result of growing society and indv becoming dependent on each other. The authority of the state is not in conflict with the free will of indv as it represents the collective will.