Although social contract theory does not tell people how to behave, it does provide a basis for understanding why society introduced rules, regulations, and laws. Without the theory of the social contract, our understanding of the necessity of these rules would be limited. In Plato`s best-known dialogue, the Republic, the theory of social contracts is again defended, albeit less favorably this time. In Book II, Glaucon proposes a candidate for an answer to the question “What is justice?” by presenting a declaration of social contract for the essence of justice. What men want most is to be able to commit injustices against others without fear of reprisals, and what they most want to avoid is to be treated unfairly by others without being able to do injustice in return. Justice is, therefore, he says, the conventional result of the laws and alliances that people make to avoid these extremes. Unable to commit wrongs with impunity (like those who wear the Gyges ring) and fearful of becoming victims themselves, the men decide that it is in their interest to submit to the Convention of Justice. Socrates rejects this view, and most of the rest of the dialogue focuses on showing that justice is worth doing for itself, and that the righteous man is the happy man. Thus, from Socrates` point of view, justice has a value that far exceeds the regulatory value that Glaucon attaches to it.
Given the long-standing and widespread influence that social contract theory has had, it is not surprising that it is also the subject of much criticism from different philosophical perspectives. Feminists and race-conscious philosophers in particular have advanced important arguments for the substance and viability of social contract theory. Since Locke did not imagine the state of nature as dark as Hobbes, he can imagine conditions under which it would be better to reject a particular civil government and return to the state of nature, with the aim of building a better civil government in its place. It is therefore both the view of human nature and the nature of morality itself that explain the differences between Hobbes` and Locke`s views on the social contract. While Rousseau`s social contract is based on popular sovereignty rather than individual sovereignty, there are other theories defended by individualists, libertarians, and anarchists that do not aim to accept more than negative rights and create only a limited state, if any. For Hobbes, the solution is a social contract in which society reaches a collective understanding – a social contract – that it is in everyone`s interest to apply rules that ensure the safety of all, including the most vulnerable. Thus, the social contract can bring society from a state of nature to a prosperous society in which even the weak can survive. The extent to which society protects the weak may vary; In our company, however, we accept the contract and need the contract to ensure the safety of all. Social contract theory, almost as old as philosophy itself, is the idea that the moral and/or political obligations of individuals depend on a contract or agreement between them to form the society in which they live. Socrates uses something like a social contract argument to explain to Crito why he must stay in prison and accept the death penalty.
However, the theory of social contracts is rightly associated with modern moral and political theory and is fully exposed and defended by Thomas Hobbes for the first time. According to Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the best-known proponents of this extremely influential theory, which in the history of the modern West has been one of the most dominant theories of moral and political theory. In the twentieth century, moral and political theory regained a philosophical momentum thanks to John Rawls` Kantian version of social contract theory and was reanalyzed by David Gauthier and others. More recently, philosophers have made new criticisms of the theory of social contracts from different angles. Feminists and race-conscious philosophers, in particular, have argued that social contract theory is at least an incomplete picture of our moral and political life, and can actually camouflage some of the ways in which the contract itself is parasitic on the subjugation of classes of individuals. Social contract theory is another descriptive theory of society and the relationship between rules and laws and why society needs them. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1689) suggested that a society without rules and laws governing our actions would be a terrible place to live. Hobbes described a society without rules as living in a “state of nature.” In such a state, people would act on their own, without any responsibility to their community. To live in a state of nature would be Darwinian, where the strong survive and the weak perish. A society in Hobbes` state of nature would be without the conveniences and necessities we take for granted in modern Western society.
Society would have done so: modern Anglo-American law, like European civil law, is based on a theory of the will of the contract, according to which all the terms of a contract are binding on the parties because they have chosen these conditions for themselves. This was less true than Hobbes Leviathan wrote; At that time, greater emphasis was placed on consideration, i.e. a mutual exchange of the benefits necessary for the conclusion of a valid contract, and most contracts contained implied clauses resulting from the nature of the contractual relationship and not from decisions made by the parties. As a result, it has been argued that the theory of social contracts is more consistent with the contract law of the Hobbes and Locke period than with the contract law of our time, and that certain features of the social contract that seem abnormal to us, such as the belief that we are bound by a contract formulated by our distant ancestors, would not have seemed as alien to Hobbes` contemporaries as they did to us. [26] In the first Platonic dialogue Krito, Socrates provides a convincing argument for why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty instead of fleeing and going into exile in another Greek city. .