The social contract
The nutshell
The social contract is the idea that people agree to live by shared rules and laws. In return, the government keeps order and protects everyone.
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The basics
What the social contract means
The social contract is a way of thinking about why people follow rules. The idea is that people agree to live by shared rules and laws. In return, the government keeps order and protects everyone.IEP It is not a real paper that anyone signs. The word contract here means an idea, not a form to fill in.
Where the idea comes from
The social contract is an old idea. It was set out by three thinkers — Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau — in the 1600s and 1700s.IEP Each thinker described the idea in a different way.
What each thinker said
Hobbes argued that life without rules would be dangerous, so people accept a strong ruler to stay safe. Locke argued that a government is there to protect people's rights, and that its power comes from the consent of the people. Rousseau argued that laws should follow the general will — what is best for everyone together.EB
The social contract and democracy
In a democracy the idea links to consent. Consent means agreement. Social contract thinkers said a government is only fair if the people it governs would agree to it.SEP This is often called the consent of the governed.
- The idea comes mainly from three thinkers — Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
- Each thinker described the social contract in a different way, so there is no single version.
- In a democracy the idea connects to consent — the view that a government's power rests on the agreement of the people.
- It is not a real document. Nobody signs a social contract.
- The word contract here means an idea about rules and government, not a legal form to fill in.
- It is not a modern rule. The idea was written down hundreds of years ago, in the 1600s and 1700s.
The deep end6 min
A model, not a real contract
The social contract is a model — a way to explain why people accept rules and government. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes it as the idea that a person's duties to follow rules come from an agreement to form the society everyone lives in.IEP No such agreement was ever signed. Thinkers use it to ask a simple question — why should people obey a government at all?
The state of nature
Social contract thinkers often start with an idea called the state of nature— what life might be like with no government and no laws. From that starting point, each thinker asks what kind of agreement people would accept to leave it behind.IEP
Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau
The three best-known thinkers reached different answers. Thomas Hobbes, in the book Leviathan (1651), argued that life without order would be dangerous, so people would accept a single strong ruler to keep the peace.EB John Locke argued that a government exists to protect natural rights — life, liberty and property — and that its power rests on the consent of the people, who may replace a government that fails to protect those rights.IEP Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the book The Social Contract (1762), argued that laws should follow the general will — what is best for the community as a whole.EB
Consent and modern democracy
One thread runs through all three thinkers — the idea of consent, meaning agreement. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau all stressed that the justification of the state depends on showing that everyone would, in some way, agree to it.SEP In a modern democracy this idea is often called the consent of the governed. It does not mean every person agrees with every law. It means the system as a whole rests on the support of the people, shown through elections.
Why it still matters
The social contract is not a law or a real document. It is a tool for thinking about a big question — what a government owes the people, and what the people owe a government in return.IEP Different thinkers, and different political sides, answer that question in different ways. The idea sits behind many later debates about rights, laws and the power of the state.