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A Comparative Study Of Thomas Hobbes’s Social Contract With John Locke’s Social Contract In Their Political Philosophy
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
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1.0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
Across the century, the social contract theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, has been used and employed by many philosophers. Thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. John Rawls and Jeremy Bentham have employed it in different ways. This implies that the way the social contract theory is understood differs, at least insignificantly, from one philosopher to the other.
Theories of social contract differed according to their aims; some were fashioned to justify the power of the sovereign; some to safeguard the individual from oppression by an all-powerful sovereign.1
Despite all these differences, the theory has one central point it pursues. This central point runs through the various meanings of social contract theory as expressed and maintained by various scholars.
It is an agreement in which the people decide to journey from the state of nature into the political society, by relinquishing their executive power to an absolute Monarch. It is also an agreement under which people contract to surrender their liberties in return for the guarantee of responsible government.
As if every man should say to every man, I authorize and give up my right of governing myself, to this man or to this assembly of men, on the condition that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like manner.2
Be it as it may, the major purpose of this project revolves in stating and analyzing the theory of social contract as seen and conceived by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Also, it posits to tackle certain questions like:
a) Does the theory of social contract in Thomas Hobbes share any similarity with that of John Locke?
b) Do they contrast at any point at all?
c) Can it be said that the social contract theory according to the two philosophers under consideration is completely the same?
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
As earlier stated, social contract theory has been used by many philosophers in various ways. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke also saw it from different perspectives to a certain level. Hobbes, the first to give its full exposition and defence postulates that social contract is an agreement to which the people surrender their will, freedom, and power to an absolute sovereign called the Leviathan. In his words …Thomas Hobbes saw the contract as one in which the citizens relinquish their freedom inherent in the state of nature to an absolute sovereign.3
For John Locke, who came after Hobbes…he conceived social contract to exist wherever some citizens united into one body having a common established law and judicature to appeal to with authority to decide controversies between them and punish offenders. According to Locke:
Social contract exist wherever any number of men so unite into one society as to quit every clue of his executive power of the law of nature and to resign it to the public in all cases that excludes him from appealing for protection to the law established by it4
The problem consequently hinges in the confusion and discrepancy inherent in trying to understand the two philosophers’ theory of social contract.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
Page 1 of 4
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