Three Social Contract Theories

The 18th century Enlightenment, an era that celebrated free inquiry, political liberty, and progress, saw the development of the theory of the social contract. This theory postulated a new political and social principle, which held that relations among individuals in a society, and between individuals and government, are governed by a social contract. Its chief proponents--John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau--were widely published on the Continent and discussed in learned journals, and their ideas became the philosophical cornerstone of democratic government. Indeed, the ideas of Locke and his contemporaries strongly influenced the political and moral philosophies of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the other architects of the American government.

The antecedents of the theory of social contract can be traced back to Aristotle, who distinguished between monarch and tyrant and upheld the right of the people to elect officials and call them to account. St. Thomas Aquinas expanded this concept further, arguing that while the basis for authority is ordination by God, the form of authority, whether monarchical or constitutional, is to be determined by the people. He wrote that "government is instituted by the community, and may be revoked or limited by the community if it be tyrannical" (Essays ix). This idea passed through the feudal period of the M

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beings. But whereas Hobbes argued for the existence of a natural right to do as one likes regardless of others, Locke held that each individual recognizes limits to the exercise of his will, particularly with respect to property and punishment for transgressions. A state of liberty, argued Locke, is not a state of license, for "the state of nature has a law of nature to govern it," with reason restraining men from violating the rights of others. While it is the natural liberty of man "to be free from any superior power on earth, it is "the liberty of man in society to be under no legislative power but that established under consent in the commonwealth" (Essays 15). The right to property occupies a central position in Locke's theory. Locke asserted that "each man has a property in his person . . . the labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his (Essays 17). This right of property does not issue from the commonwealth but is a natural and inherent right existing before the creation of a state. A necessary corollary is the right of punishment, which belongs to everyone for the restraint and deterrence of crime, and of reparations, which belongs solely to the injured party. Thus Locke's state
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