Hobbes and Rousseau: Social Contract

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the notion of the social contract - the concept that human society is fundamentally a human construct. It explains that the concept originated in seventeenth-century European thought and was developed throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, receiving perhaps its most dramatic and influential expressions in Thomas Hobbes's "Leviathan", published in 1651 and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract", published in 1762.

From the Paper:

"Jean-Jacques Rousseau also used the notion of the social contract as a human creation, 'not a natural right' but 'one founded on covenants' (Rousseau 50), but radically changed the concept put forward by Hobbes. Rousseau, like Hobbes, argued that people agreed to cede authority to a particular group in return for the benefits of social organization and mutual security: 'the only way in which they can preserve themselves is by uniting their separate powers in a combination strong enough to overcome any resistance, uniting them so that their powers are directed by a single motive and act in concert' (Rousseau, 59-60). However, while Hobbes argued that the social contract could not be changed once established, for to change it would invite social breakdown and anarchy, Rousseau asserted that if those in power failed or refused to fulfil the contract by providing safety, the people were free to break the contract with them and establish a new social contract."

More papers on Hobbes and Rousseau: Social Contract:

• Analytical Essay # 122225 : "Hobbes and Rousseau"
• Essay # 46504 : "Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract"
• Analytical Essay # 123363 : "Social Contract Theory"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: