The title of the book referred to a leviathan, a mythological, whale-like sea monster that devoured whole ships. Hobbes likened the leviathan to government, a powerful state created to impose order.
Every person was free to do what he or she needed to do to survive. In the state of nature, there were no laws or anyone to enforce them. The only way out of this situation, Hobbes said, was for individuals to create some supreme power to impose peace on everyone. Hobbes borrowed a concept from English contract law: an implied agreement. The sovereign, created by the people, might be a person or a group. The sovereign would make and enforce the laws to secure a peaceful society, making life, liberty, and property possible.
Hobbes believed that a government headed by a king was the best form that the sovereign could take. Placing all power in the hands of a king would mean more resolute and consistent exercise of political authority, Hobbes argued. Hobbes also maintained that the social contract was an agreement only among the people and not between them and their king.
Once the people had given absolute power to the king, they had no right to revolt against him. He feared religion could become a source of civil war. In any conflict between divine and royal law, Hobbes wrote, the individual should obey the king or choose death. But the days of absolute kings were numbered. A new age with fresh ideas was emerging—the European Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers wanted to improve human conditions on earth rather than concern themselves with religion and the afterlife.
Enlightenment philosophers John Locke, Charles Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau all developed theories of government in which some or even all the people would govern. These thinkers had a profound effect on the American and French revolutions and the democratic governments that they produced.
John Locke — was born shortly before the English Civil War. Locke studied science and medicine at Oxford University and became a professor there. This event reduced the power of the king and made Parliament the major authority in English government. In , Locke published his Two Treatises of Government. He generally agreed with Hobbes about the brutality of the state of nature, which required a social contract to assure peace. But he disagreed with Hobbes on two major points. First, Locke argued that natural rights such as life, liberty, and property existed in the state of nature and could never be taken away or even voluntarily given up by individuals.
Locke also disagreed with Hobbes about the social contract. For him, it was not just an agreement among the people, but between them and the sovereign preferably a king. According to Locke, the natural rights of individuals limited the power of the king. The king did not hold absolute power, as Hobbes had said, but acted only to enforce and protect the natural rights of the people. If a sovereign violated these rights, the social contract was broken, and the people had the right to revolt and establish a new government.
Although Locke spoke out for freedom of thought, speech, and religion, he believed property to be the most important natural right. A talented musical composer and botanist, Rousseau's ideas on the nature of society made him an influential figure in Western thought.
His belief that civilization had corrupted humankind was a central part of his philosophy. His work elevated the importance of the individual and personal liberty, providing support for U. Rousseau was born on June 28, , in Geneva, Switzerland. By the age of sixteen, he had left home. In Savoy he met Baronne Louise De Warens, a wealthy woman who took Rousseau into her home and transformed him into a philosopher through a rigorous course of study.
Rousseau also studied music during his time with De Warens. Diderot commissioned Rousseau to write articles about music for the work. In Rousseau won a prize for his essay Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts.
The essay announced one of Rousseau's life-long tenets: human beings are inherently good but have been corrupted by society and civilization. Log in. Log in through your institution. Go to Table of Contents. History of Philosophy Quarterly HPQ specializes in papers that cultivate philosophical history with a strong interaction between contemporary and historical concerns. Contributors regard work in the history of philosophy and in philosophy itself as parts of a seamless whole, treating the work of past philosophers not only in terms of historical inquiry, but also as a means of dealing with issues of ongoing philosophical concern.
The journal favors the approach to philosophical history, increasingly prominent in recent years, that refuses to see the boundary between philosophy and its history as an impassable barrier. It was the idea that government exists with consent of the governed that led the revolutionaries to break free of Britain.
One of the benefits, in this example of the social contract theory, is that no one is free to get revenge on people they think have wronged them. Another example of social contract theory might occur if two men wake up in the woods. Nether knows where he is, or how he got there. Three Enlightenment thinkers are usually credited with establishing a standard view of social contract theory: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
They each had different interpretations of social contracts, but the underlying idea was similar. The idea of the state of nature was also central to the political philosophy of Rousseau. Such a man lived a solitary, happy and carefree life. Human beings, in the state of nature, are self-contended and love their selves. However, this does not mean that they do not feel for the others. Rousseau concluded that the social contract was not a willing agreement, as Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu had believed, but a fraud against the people committed by the rich.
In , Rousseau published his most important work on political theory, The Social Contract. The Social Contract helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France.
The Social Contract argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel.
Social studies. Ben Davis April 28,
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