Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman are a culmination of the Enlightenment thought on the natural rights of mankind, man’s place in society, and the Social Contract. Rousseau evaluated the works of Enlightenment philosophers before him like Thomas Hobbes […]
Tag Archives: Social Contract
Thomas Hobbes wrote part of his flagship, Leviathan, in 1651, at the height of the English Civil War. The political upheaval of the time, coupled with the utmost faith in the inherent rationality of the Age of Reason, inspired Hobbes’s first philosophical political-contracts, based on politics, and advocated a strong Monarchy with central power. The […]
A social contract, an agreement between a government (political system) and the people residing under its sovereignty in order to form an organized society or community, is as old as philosophy which has roots elder to classical Greece. Even in India the concept of a monarchy with a social contract is a matter of ancient […]
Jean Jacques Rousseau suggests a Social Contract; from this Social Contract the general will can be devolved. The general will is the result of people forming an association for a common goal. Their goal is “the protection of the person and the property of each constituent member” (Social Contract, I:VI: 180). By joining together, the […]
Many philosophers have formulated theories trying to reconcile the principles of civil society. They tend to emphasize the improvement of society and the maintenance of order as the main motivations for such a construction. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one such philosopher, as evidenced by his monumental effort The Social-contract and Discourse. Thomas Hobbes was another, as […]
In 1651, Thomas Hobbes published the book Leviathan or the Matter, Form, and Power of the Common Wealth of the Ecclesiastical and Civil. Leviathan, a Leviathan, a sea or dragon. in the Old Testament. In 1648, a few years before Hobbes published Leviathan, many of the major powers in Europe signed the Peace of Westphalia. […]
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Like history itself, American democracy is a process. There is no definite beginning and certainly no definite end. Since its inception, the details of its implementation have changed by leaps and bounds from those originally envisioned by the “founding fathers,” and will continue to do so well into the foreseeable future. While time and circumstance […]