The Social Contract - Term Paper Example

 In expressing man’s capacity to establish order of nature as paths to civilization are sought after the future, philosophy would more than often find man to be subject to his desire of seeking means of settlement or foundation with his good nature and how such means stabilize or conform with his interests while considering the effect of the corresponding quest and act on the living entities other than himself. This is where we may very well recognize the significance of studying the laws of nature for which the social contract was born out of the vast possibilities human nature may be dealt with to gratify its potential to follow an individual’s will and be deeply conscious about man’s morality at the same time. The ‘state of nature’ being the focal point where concurrent man-state theories flow out, yields as the basis on examining the essence and goals of social contract according to its proponents who each had attempted to come up with the best model of unifying natural rights and man-made laws in anticipation of order and security. In a form or another, Plato and Aristotle first utilized the idea of social contract the time when Greece was experiencing wars. Plato saw the need for the unity of the state and studied models (Spartan and Athenian) of society whose measure conceives the nature of justice and the ideal paths to achieving it, thus paving the way to the construction of the ‘The Republic’ in which he argued that justice is absolute and the rule of wisdom through a philosopher-king should prevail. Aristotle, on the other hand, assumed that ‘polity’ as a mean regime would be the best possible state for having a rule by the middle class who are neither too dominating nor too subjective. On a basic view of social contract, it has been magnified to simple understanding as mutual transferring of rights in which man agrees to surrender his natural rights to a sovereign that transforms them to civil rights with which to have security and protection. Clearly this is to see the sovereign as a higher body, political by nature, with power over man who in turn must abide by the rule of law if he necessitates peaceful living. Thomas Hobbes, being the first to theorize on the ‘state of nature’, wrote the Leviathan during the second civil war, a time of continuing conflict by which he most likely drew a scenario of life as a state of war. In it, Hobbes had seen a ‘state of nature’ governed through natural freedoms, boundless to the extent man becomes solely concerned about self-preservation for the reason that life, by experience at the time, is brutish and short (Browne). Men in this state are led to hopeless chaos coming from an egoistic pursuit of fulfilling one’s own interests alone, which first reflects as insecurity then shifts to an act of war whenever behavior toward self-preservation is threatened by fear of violence or death. Equivalently, it implies that man is initially a ‘brute’ who acts by instinct or is more instinctive than rational so that no notion of just or unjust exists. At this picture, the authoritarian aspect of social contract made its opportune entry to propose rule of the state or government. Knowing the content Hobbes had placed here to support his argument, we may understand his viewpoint of implementing authority as a result of his impulse of wanting to change the way he saw the conflict. He may have risen to a degree of pure necessity to desire something total that would put to eager subsidence the violent nature state he felt would require a common law that wasn’t there originally to regulate man to be morally obliged and so to make the worst possibly reversible in a brief period of time. However, under this model, there are exceptions which in reality are found inappropriate to hold. A group of individuals with learning disabilities cannot be expected to answer or be fully aware of their civil rights while they acquire self-interests with the means they know of (Browne). If we are then to limit ourselves in agreement to this contract in his proposition, we are likely to have a system that does not advocate sound judgment of moral issue we’d like to perceive as humanitarian as how we value it can favorably be. There may be absence of absolute freedom which has been stressed to have promoted ‘war of each against all’, yet in this rule, or which is ultimately the rule of one (the sovereignty), the sense of security and protection wavers on unstable ground as we become anxious of undeserved punishment or condition imposed beyond a natural right to avail compassionate reasoning. The flaw of absolute monarchy, which Thomas Hobbes considered the best guarantee to prevent destruction of civil society, sent alarm to social scientists and philosophers of the17th century that further studies were carried out to modify the theory and set forth new, more plausible arguments. John Locke, next in line, reduced the hardcore elements of the former proposition by chiefly justifying it through being an advocate of democracy. Though his belief of the social contract remained intact, he would rather prefer the ‘will of the majority’ to the ‘will of one’ under it in order for a person to enjoy his ‘inalienable rights’ that were abolished at the onset. With this strategy, the law would hence become the highest manifestation of the people’s will or in which the government relies on the consent of the ‘governed’ prior to its course of legal actions. More inclined to the lighter side, Locke had brought in an enlightening concept that rules and regulations need not compel us in observing and performing our moral duties. While John Locke made it certain that democracy upholds inalienable rights and people’s consent is expressed through the law, such framework is altered when Jean Jacques Rousseau substituted a parallel concept that is ‘general will’ in place of ‘will of the majority.’ In his version of the social contract theory, ‘popular sovereignty’ as reflected through ‘general will’ must be inalienable as well as indivisible. It argued that an individual citizen can be an egoist and determine to live according to his personal will, no matter how collective interest is superseded by it. But contradictory to this state of nature is another assumption that the same individual is capable of subordinating self-interest to a ‘general will’ which he may consider to possess as higher in value. This may sound rather inconsistent with the initial premise but Rousseau was likely raising the level of man as an increasingly rational thinker, who can deliberate on alternatives as well as conscientiously adjust his thought and behavior to treat values and welfare other than his. As a result, the community inevitably shares common interest just as the one present in the scenario by John Locke. Despite such congruous attempt though, Rousseau’s point defeats itself by exaggerating on the totalitarian aspect of democracy in the sense that the general will, as the supreme direction, not only separates man from egoism but extends to taking away from man his personal causation however good, as long as it is not formulated through the general will. Machiavellian principle, as another perspective of modeling the approach to social contract theory may at times be assessed to have striking counterpart with the proposition Hobbes identified the ‘rule of one’, except that this is in reference to the state, or a collective political body whereas ‘the prince’ characterizes the ‘rule of one’ literally to consist in a theory that rests on a strong leader. In his representation of ‘the prince’, Machiavelli prescribed that a prince should be a miser than a liberal if he cannot be both. Whenever he sees fit to inflict punishment, he ought to execute it at once but favor for his subjects, he must be slow to grant. If this leader, as implied in this case, does anything to enhance his power regardless of means, only what should stabilize the rule, the chance for order due to fear among people might instead shift to a larger tendency of anguish and hatred. From here we may draw a judgment that even if there are several optimistic traits to his character, such as not antagonizing any religion, the prince would not help being recognized of absolutism in power which may corrupt and turn against him at any moment, predictably followed by an anarchy. At the time men grew more driven with the consciousness of material environment or the economy and there came a society from which class struggles rose, social conflict worsened to the level of parting into two very distinct antagonizing classes – bourgeoisie and proletariat. More than man’s will in relation to the ruling state when the highest aim was limited to security and protection, men, on reaching civilization leap with feudal system and industrialization, were brought into understanding of enriching, wider ends and hence, the advantage of exploiting potentials and economic resources in direct proportion with their own demands of acquiring wealth. To this stage, Karl Marx built on a standard of balancing or leveling of economic pursuit between the middle (bourgeoisie) prominent class and the lower (proletariat) class to establish sense of uniformity, something that would trace back to the roots of common good, where no class division is permissible as in the original state of nature. His tenet agreed to restructure the social contract through the abolition of bourgeois property which in simpler terms of actual theory of the communists pertains or alludes abolition of private property. We may to an extent agree with the approach Marx was yielding from as maintained in his theory through scientific socialism, but a communist view in application is far from that ideal status imagined during the stage of perceiving its worth in pure concept compared with our actual encounters of rigid nations which invested on this ideology. With a good-tempered democracy, John Locke’s theory is by far the most sensible. There seems confidence in this perspective that Locke was neutralizing tension between man and state by modeling a kind of government that is accountable to people. Because it further entails popular sovereignty or one that resides in the people, it may as well be identified with a state of perfect equality wherein people are equally supreme with the state. In this situation, we can undoubtedly attain to the level of freedom or type of living which abounds with more confidence and minimal uncertainties, knowing that our consent is not neglected, such as whenever we belong to the decision-making of the political body and cast our votes in electing public officials. With the social contract reformed this way by John Locke, a person’s right to life, property, and liberty is not total and is set apart from self-seeking state of nature since one ought to live not only for the good of himself apparently, but also for the good of others. Work Cited Browne, Kevin J. “Introduction to the Social Contract Theory.” Helium. Helium, Inc. 2002-2010. Web. 3 May 2010. Read More