Social Contract Theory

Social contract refers to some type of covenant or collective understanding amongst the people in general. It is differentiated from any written legal contract. The Social Contract theory attributes the idea of authority to contract between the people. Though earlier, Cicero, Althusius and Grotius had hinted at social contract as the basis of authority, it came to dominate the political thought of the eighteenth century and found its expression in the writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Commonly referred to as social contractualists, the social contract theory is attributed to these three thinkers. They explained that the origin of State was due to contract or agreement or covenant amongst the people living in the state of nature, though they attributed different reasons for the contract. To explain this, they probed: (i) the nature and psychology of human beings, (ii) the condition in the state of nature, (iii) the nature and terms of the social contract, and (iv) the nature or type of state/authority/sovereign power after the contract. Though the three thinkers adopt different explanations for all the above, we may proceed by giving a general statement of the social contract theory:

• The State emerged as a result of covenant or contract amongst the people living in the state of nature.
• The state of nature is considered pre-social as it is characterized by injustice, power play, absence of order, regulation and peace (Hobbes)/pre-political as it is characterized by absence of established authority (Locke) and pre-civil as it is characterized by the absence of true liberty (Rousseau).
• This condition of state of nature is attributable either to the egoistic and selfish nature of man (Hobbes), or to ambiguity in authority to legislate, execute and judge (Locke) or to absence of General Will (Rousseau).
• To secure and lead a peaceful life (Hobbes) or to enjoy certain rights where legislator, executor and judge are different authorities (Locke) or to gain civil liberty by losing merely natural liberty of doing whatever one’s desires (Rousseau) lead people to make agreement or covenant or contract and institute authority.
• This contract brings into existence a sovereign authority to which all natural rights are surrendered (Hobbes) or a limited government with people retaining certain natural rights like right to life, liberty and estate (Locke) or General Will as the sovereign authority to which the particular will of individual is surrendered. In short, contract results in institution of authority/sovereignty/state.
• This theory assumes two forms—as theory of the origin of the State and as theory of relation between the governed and those who govern.²³
• This theory is within the liberal framework and treats the State as an artificial product, a result of contract.
• Various political principles and concepts such as ‘sovereignty’, ‘unified authority’, ‘stability in the political order’ (Hobbes); ‘representation’, ‘majority rule’, ‘consent as basis of legitimacy’, ‘constitutional or limited government’, ‘individual rights’, ‘right to resist’, (Locke); ‘direct democracy’, ‘consensus/public opinion/general will’, etc., can be attributed to the formulations of the social contractualists.

We may discuss the formulations of the three social contractualists under the four aspects: (i) the nature and psychology of human beings, (ii) the condition in the state of nature, (iii) the social contract, and (iv) the nature or type of state/authority/sovereign power after the contract, differently.