POLITICAL SCIENCE 1ST INTERNAL ASSESSMENT

ON

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY OF HOBBES

NAME: ISTUVI SONKAR

PRN: 17010125046

CLASS: DIVISION A

COURSE: BA.LLB (H)

The term social contract describes a broad class of philosophical theories whose
subject indicates the agreements by which people form nations and maintain a social
order. In laymen’s term this means that the people give up some of their rights to a
government in order to receive protection and social order. Social contract theory
provides the reason behind the historically important notion that legitimate state
authority must be derived from the consent of the governed. The starting point for
most of these theories is an experimental examination of the human condition absent
any social order, termed the “state of nature’ or “nature of state. In this state of being,
an individual’s action is bound only by his or her conscience. From this common
starting point, the various features of social contract theory attempt to explain, in
different way, why it is in an individual’s rational self-interest to voluntarily give up
the freedom of action one has under the natural state in order to obtain the benefits
provided by the formation of social structures.
Common to all of these theories is the notion of sovereign will which all members of
a society are bound by the social contract to respect. The various types of social
contract theory that have developed are largely differentiated by their definition of the
sovereign will, be it a King, a council or the Majority. Under a theory first articulated
by Plato, members within a society implicitly agree to terms of the social contract by
their choice to stay within a society implicitly agree to the terms of the social contract
by their choice to stay within the society and receive protection.
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are the most famous philosophers of the social
contract theory, which formed the theoretical groundwork of democracy. Although
the theory of natural rights influenced the development of classical liberalism its
emphasis on individualism and its rejection of the necessity to subordinate individual
liberty to the sovereign will stands in opposition to the general tenets of social
contract theory. The social contract theory has some basic features where it says-
firstly. State is an artificial institution signifying that us is a means to an end, secondly
it is created by human beings with the help of a contract, thirdly the contract must be
based on the consent of one and all, and lastly that prior information of state me lived
in a hypothetical situation known ‘state of nature’.
According to Hobbes’ theory, without society, we would live in a state of nature,
where we each have unlimited natural freedoms. The downside of this general
autonomy is that it includes the “right to all things” and thus the freedom to harm all
who threaten one’s own self-preservation; there are no positive rights, only laws of
nature and an endless” war of all against all”.

CONTENTS
Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy:
The concept of a state of nature was first posited in the 17 century by English
philosopher Hobbes in his famous work Leviathan, Hobbes described the concept in
the Latin phrase ‘bellum omnium contra omnes’, meaning “the war of all against all”.
In this state any people have a natural right to do anything to preserve their own
liberty or safety.
Hobbes believed that human beings in a state of nature would behave with cruelty
towards one another. Yet Hobbes argued that people had every right to defend
themselves by whatever means necessary in the absences of order. He believed that
such a condition would lead to a “ war of every man against every man” and make
life” solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ He believed that in the international
arena, states behave as individuals do in a state of nature.
According to him man's life in the state of nature (without any society) was like an
animal, and each man fought with other men for gain, fear, or glory. He said that each
man was a self-interested individual and would see his own benefit. If there was no
single point of authority to keep this self-interestedness in check, there would be a lot
of insecurity and fear that other men would plunder anything that they think is
necessary. In this scenario, there would be no incentive for innovation and progress.
For example, if a man worked hard at building a new table, there would be no
guarantee that someone would not forcefully snatch it away. Hence there is no
incentive to building the table under the state of nature. Hobbes proposed a solution
that all men would mutually agree to give up all their rights to one single individual,
and that individual be given powers to create and protect law and order for the people.
In other words, the sovereignty of the self, which every man had in the state of nature,
would be surrendered to one individual. That sovereign individual would protect the
law and order. In this way, stability would be ensured and enforced.
Since that one individual would be sovereign, he would be infallible, i.e,, anything he
does is never wrong. Hence the sovereign is capable of doing anything, while the
subjects must do only what is told by the sovereign. Hence, he can enforce law and
order. Hobbes also says that since even a bad ruler is better than the instability caused
by state of nature, the sovereign can never be overthrown. Hobbes argues that the
private good of the sovereign would then not conflict with the general good, as a
sovereign is only as prosperous as his people.
Hence, for all these reasons, monarchy should be preferred. Perhaps because he was
witness to the Puritan revolution, Hobbes feared man's anarchical and violent nature.
In Leviathan he wrote “It may peradventure be thought, that there never was such a
time, or condition of war such as this; … what manner of life there would be were
there no common power to fear, by the manner of life, which men have formally lived
under a peaceful government, use to degenerate into, in a civil war.” Hobbes took the
view that man was fundamentally vicious so could expect to live in a state of
continual war of “every man against every man” . Living in constant conflict and fear
the development of a civil society with industry or culture would impossible. The life
of man would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” This was not necessarily
the view Hobbes held of history but it was the logical starting point that he assumed
and from which he developed his structure for a safe civil social

For Hobbes self-preservation was a natural law and man's most urgent instinct.
Having the ability to kill one another meant that man in nature would be in a state of
continual insecurity To escape this intolerable situation, rational, self interested,
natural men would agree together to surrender their wild independence. Desiring
peace and security they would, by mutual consent, appoint a ruler over them all. The
ruler would guarantee their collective defense and their personal security and in return
they would obey his laws and give him their complete obedience.

Hobbes conceived the state as an artificial creature. “For by art is created the great
Leviathan called a Commonwealth or State… which is but artificial man; though of
greater stature and strength than the natural for whose protection and defense it was
intended. In the Leviathan State the sovereign would have the right to make any laws
he saw fit. The only responsibility of the sovereign was to defend the state and keep
the peace. There was no contract between the sovereign and those who appointed him.
The only contract was the agreement between the people to appoint somebody they
would obey. Hobbes created a ruler with absolute authority, who was irrevocably
handed the power to enforce unity and obedience. To preserve his own life each
citizen must give absolute and unconditional obedience to the sovereign and his laws
and so in the Leviathan State the social contract justifies authoritarian government
Hobbes model of social contract argued rebellion was not justifiable

The purpose of the Leviathan commonwealth is to uphold the natural law of self-
preservation is the beginning of the concept of natural rights. This is the concept that
man may make certain legitimate demands on his fellow men The role of the
Leviathan State is limited to protecting its citizens. Apart from the duty of the state to
prevent conflict most other forms of intervention into the affairs of men are
unjustifiable. This is Hobbes liberalism.

Hobbes great accomplishment was to make government a subject for rational

JOHN LOCKE’S THEORY:

John Locke had a different viewpoint on the state of nature of man as well as the
resulting conclusion that he drew about the form of government needed by the people.
He was less pessimistic than Hobbes and his writings show the beginning of liberal
thought. In his "two treatises on civil government" Locke explained his social contract
theory. In Locke's state of nature, man was independent and free but was not the
moral-less 'animal' of Hobbes. The law of nature or the inherent morality given by
god limited him. The natural right would equally be enjoyed by all men. Rights and
liberties came before civil society and were not created by the civil society. Property
was the fruit of man's labor and nature's gifts. But there was a lack of an authority to
interpret, define and enforce law-leading differences giving rise to the need for a civil
society. Also, the right to private property had to be enforced by the civil society. As
people wanted security and liberties they made two contracts: social contract and
political contract. The social contract was made between the people where they
surrender their rights partially i.e. the rights of interpreting and enforcing the laws of
nature. This surrender was to the community as a whole, thus establishing a civil
society. The political contract was made between the people and ruler to enforce the
previous contract, thus from a civil society a government also came into existence.
There the king's power is based on the consent of the people.
There the king's function is only state related and the government can be overthrown.
There the sovereignty is of people and not of the king. The king enters into contract
with the people and the protection of the right to ownership of private property was
the reason for abandoning the state of nature to form a society under an authority.
However, unlike Hobbes, Locke believed that when the institution of monarchy
dissolved into tyranny, the social contract was void and the people could revolt
against the monarch's authority. This, and Locke's conception of a less selfish state of
nature of man were the main differences between his philosophy and that of Thomas
Hobbes. Lock did not have the such a dim view of the world as Hobbes This is
probably due to the fact that he lived in a time of comparative peace. Lock unlike
Hobbes was a believer in the separation of powers the division of legislative
executive and judicial branches. Lock did not accept that absolute monarchy was the
best structure for a state or the best way to govern a society. Rather Locke believed in
the supremacy of of the legislature over the monarchy. Locke was however in
agreement with Hobbes on the social contract. Locke said that the proper role of a
government was to act as a commonwealth of men guided by the ‘eternal' law of
nature to preserve the life, liberty and estate of the members of society
Nature did not necessarily protect property so it was for man to make such laws.
Property rights could only be claimed once a man had mixed his labour with nature –
this was part of the law of nature for Locke.
Locke thought that men were in a social contract with their sovereign for the
protection of three inalienable natural rights of ‘life, liberty and estate’, which were
given by God. He identified a fourth right – the right to rebel against unjust laws and
their makers. (the right to with draw obedience is a group and individual right).
 ANALYSIS
Given the longstanding and widespread influence that social contract theory has had,
it comes as no surprise that it is also the objects of many critiques from a variety of
philosophical perspectives. Feminists and race-conscious philosophers, in particular,
have made important arguments concerning the substance and viability of social
contract theory. For the most part, feminism resists any simple or universal
definition. In general though, feminists take women's experiences seriously, as well as
the impact that theories and practices have for women’s lives. Given the pervasive
influence of contract theory on social, political, and moral philosophy, then, it is not
surprising that feminists should have a great deal to say about whether contract theory
is adequate or appropriate from the point of view of taking women seriously. To
survey all of the feminist responses to social contract theory would carry us well
beyond the boundaries of the present article. I will concentrate therefore on just three
of those arguments: Carole Pateman’s argument about the relation between the
contract and women’s subordination to men, feminist arguments concerning the
nature of the liberal individual, and the care argument.

Carole Pateman's 1988 book, The Sexual Contract, argues that lying beneath the
myth of the idealized contract, as described by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, is a
more fundamental contract concerning men’s relationship to women. Contract theory
represents itself as being opposed to patriarchy and patriarchal right. (Locke’s social
contract, for example, is set by him in stark contrast to the work of Robert Filmer who
argued in favor of patriarchal power.) Yet the "original pact" that precedes the social
contract entered into by equals is the agreement by men to dominate and control
women. Brothers make this ‘original pact’, literally or metaphorically, who, after
overthrowing the rule of the father, then agree to share their domination of the women
who were previously under the exclusive control of one man, the father. The change
from “classical patriarchalism” to modern patriarchy is a shift, then, in who has
power over women. It is not, however, a fundamental change in whether women are
dominated by men. Men’s relationships of power to one another change, but women’s
relationship to men’s power does not. Modern patriarchy is characterized by a
contractual relationship between men, and part of that contract involves power over
women. This fact, that one form of patriarchy was not overthrown completely, but
rather was replaced with a different form, in which male power was distributed
amongst more men, rather than held by one man, is illustrated by Freud’s story of the
genesis of civilization. According to that story, a band of brothers, lorded over by a
father who maintained exclusive sexual access to the women of the tribe, kill the
father, and then establish a contract among themselves to be equal and to share the
women. This is the story, whether we understand Freud’s tale to be historically
accurate or not, of modern patriarchy and its deep dependence on contract as the
means by which men control and dominate women.
Patriarchal control of women is found in at least three paradigmatic contemporary
contracts: the marriage contract, the prostitution contract, and the contract for
surrogate motherhood. Each of these contracts is concerned with men's control of
women, or a particular man’s control of a particular woman generalized. According to
the terms of the marriage contract, in most states in the U.S., a husband is accorded
the right to sexual access, prohibiting the legal category of marital rape. Prostitution is
a case in point of Pateman’s claim that modern patriarchy requires equal access by
men to women, in particular sexual access, access to their bodies. And surrogate
motherhood can be understood as more of the same, although in terms of access to
women’s reproductive capacities. All these examples demonstrate that contract is the
means by which women are dominated and controlled. Contract is not the path to
freedom and equality. Rather, it is one means, perhaps the most fundamental means,
by which patriarchy is upheld. In Hobbes' view, this unthinking nature of human brain
research suggests the subjective idea of standardizing claims. 'Love' and 'loathe', for
example, are simply words we use to portray the things we are attracted to and
repulsed by, individually. In this, too, the terms 'great' and 'terrible' have no
importance other than to depict our hungers and hatred. Moral terms don't, along
these lines, depict some target situation; however are fairly impressions of individual
tastes and likings.

Given his rather severe view of human nature, Hobbes nonetheless manages to create
an argument that makes civil society, along with all its advantages, possible. Within
the context of the political events of his England, he also managed to argue for a
continuation of the traditional form of authority that his society had long since
enjoyed, while nonetheless placing it on what he saw as a far more acceptable
foundation.

Property assumes a fundamental part in Locke's contention for common government

Given that the finish of "men's joining into regions". is the safeguarding of their
riches, and protecting their lives, freedom, and prosperity by and large, Locke can
undoubtedly envision the conditions under which the minimized with government is
decimated, and men are defended in opposing the specialist of a common
government, for example, a King. At the point when the official energy of an
administration declines into oppression, for example, by dissolving the lawmaking
body and in this manner denying the general population the capacity to make laws for
their own particular protection, at that point the subsequent dictator places himself
into a State of Nature, and particularly into a condition of war with the general
population, and they at that point have an indistinguishable ideal to self-preservation
from they had before making a minimized to set up society in any case. As it were,
the legitimization of the expert of the official part of government is the security of the
general population's property and prosperity, so when such assurance is never again
present, or when the lord turns into a despot and acts against the interests of the
general population, they have a right, if not an out and out commitment, to oppose his
power. The social reduced can be disintegrated and the procedure to make political
society started once more.

Since Locke did not imagine the State of Nature as inauspiciously as did Hobbes, he
can envision conditions under which one would be in an ideal situation dismissing a
specific common government and coming back to the State of Nature, with the point
of building a superior common government in its place. It is in this way both the
perspective of human instinct, and the idea of ethical quality itself, which represent
the contrasts amongst Hobbes' and Locke's perspectives of the social contract.

CONCLUSION

We reject, therefore, the doctrine that the state originated in a contract. At the same
time, we cannot discount the practical value of the theory. It has the advantage of
giving us perhaps the only sound assumption on which to build and maintain any
system of political relationships. It insists upon the fundamental truth that no stable
state can exist without the consent of its members, that it is they, and they alone, who
make the state. It further emphasizes that there is no state either before or without
people and that the state has no authority except that given to it by the people. The
relationship of government to the governed is essentially one of the contract or
bargain as obedience is conditional on the government fulfilling its own part and
doing that it is entitled to do by its charter or constitution and no more, The principle
of consent, thus, became an important factor in the development of political thought
and consequently it eclipsed the much talked of and, till then, widely accepted
doctrine of the divine origin of state. As Gilchrist points out, “ the chief enemy to the
divine theory was the Contract theory.” Both Locke and Rousseau declared in most
unequivocal terms that the monarch derived his authority not from God but’ from the
people and he could continue to remain in office only on the condition of good
government. The contract theory,” Both Locke and Rousseau declared in most
unequivocal terms that the monarch derived his authority not from God but from the
people and he could continue to remain in office only on the condition of good
government .The Contract Theory, therefore, served a useful purpose in its time by
combating the claims of irresponsible rulers and class privilege.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

WEBLIOGRAPHY: 1.https://owlcation.com
2. www.Encylopedia.com
3. www.lawoctopus.com
Book references: 1. Principles of Political Science by S.Chand.