Social contract theory says that
people live together in society in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political rules of behavior
. Some people believe that if we live according to a social contract, we can live morally by our own choice and not because a divine being requires it.
Specifically for law enforcement, social contract theory is
important to justify the power that law enforcement can exert over the population as a whole
(Evans and MacMillan, 2014). The power imbalance, held by law enforcement, is part of the contract that society has agreed upon in exchange for security.
social contract, in political philosophy, an
actual or hypothetical compact, or agreement, between the ruled or between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each
. … They then, by exercising natural reason, formed a society (and a government) by means of a social contract.
The social contract states that
“rational people” should believe in organized government
, and this ideology highly influenced the writers of the Declaration of Independence. that created it, or popular sovereignty. He believed that every citizen was equal in the view of the government.
influential work of political philosophy, The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau asserts
that democracy is incompatible with representative institutions, a position that renders it all but irrelevant to nation-states
(see state). The sovereignty of the people, he argues, can be neither alienated nor represented.
Social contract theory says that
people live together in society in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political rules of behavior
. Some people believe that if we live according to a social contract, we can live morally by our own choice and not because a divine being requires it.
In simple terms, Locke’s social contract theory says:
government was created through the consent of the people to be ruled by the majority
, “(unless they explicitly agree on some number greater than the majority),” and that every man once they are of age has the right to either continue under the government they were …
A social contract theory has played major role in enhancing political democracy in western political theory. …
Social contract enhanced the history of freedom
. Each individual was entrusted with own rights which no other person could deprive, unless by law which binds the citizens (Kelly & Boucher 1994, p. 209).
Social contact can refer to: In the sociological hierarchy leading up to social relations,
an incidental social interaction between individuals
. In social networks, a node (representing an individual or organization) to which another node is socially.
Why are contracts important in society?
The next important terms are enforceable and legally binding. These are perhaps the most important aspects of a contract since the very purpose of the contract or contracts is
to protect people and the parties involved from fraud and cheating by the other parties
.
How did the social contract theory justify the American Revolution?
Locke believed that people were born free and equal. They established a government, formed by a social contract, only to protect the rights that they already had in the state of nature
.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas of the social contract heavily influenced the American revolutionary generation. It was the
idea that government exists with consent of the governed that led the revolutionaries to break free of Britain
.
The State of Nature, Equality, and Liberty
.
Hobbes theory of Social Contract
supports absolute sovereign without giving any value to individuals
, while Locke and Rousseau supports individual than the state or the government. … He rules out a representative form of government. But, Locke does not make any such distinction.
Hobbes asserted that
the people agreed among themselves to “lay down” their natural rights of equality and freedom and give absolute power to a sovereign
. … Hobbes called this agreement the “social contract.” Hobbes believed that a government headed by a king was the best form that the sovereign could take.
The social contract was introduced by early modern thinkers—
Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, and John Locke
the most well-known among them—as an account of two things: the historical origins of sovereign power and the moral origins of the principles that make sovereign power just and/or legitimate.
