Social contract

Rare card · No. 59697

In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory of state that conceives of a legitimate state as arising from the agreement of citizens who consent to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority (of the ruler, or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order. Conceptualized in the Age of Enlightenment, social contractarianism is a core concept of modern theories of constitutionalism. The term takes its name from The Social Contract (French: Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept. The starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent any political order, a social position termed the "state of nature" by Thomas Hobbes. In this condition, individuals' actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience, assuming that 'nature' precludes mutually beneficial...

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