Thomas HOBBES SOCIAL CONTRACT Summary

In this lesson from a TEACHER we offer you a brief summary of Thomas Hobbes social contract, English philosopher who was born in Westport on April 5, 1588 and died in Derbyshire on December 4, 1679 and is considered one of the founders of modern political philosophy. In his most representative work, the Leviathan (1651), lays the foundations of the theory of the social contract, which greatly influences the development of Western political philosophy. In addition to political philosophy, Hobbes addresses other fields of knowledge: history, ethics, theology, geometry, physics... His political philosophy, court absolutist, it is interspersed with some basic concepts of liberalism, such as individual rights, equality, the popular legitimacy of the government ...

For social contract It is understood that agreement, real or hypothetical, that the members of a group make freely and voluntarily, by which, they give part of their natural rights, in exchange for security. The existence of the social contract implies the assumption of a series of rights and duties and also of some laws, to which citizens are subject. Hobbes' social contract

it justifies the existence of the social order and the government.

In addition to the origin and purpose of the State, as well as the rights of people, fundamentally, the Hobbes political theory, proposes that life in society is based on an implicit agreement between human beings, who, in exchange for certain rights, renounce part of their original freedom, that freedom proper to the state of nature, a primordial state where human beings were totally free.

Thus, citizens delegate their authority to el State, renouncing it, although the authority of the government emanates from the people, and therefore, they can modify the clauses of the contract when they consider it appropriate, because rights and duties are not natural and can be change.

Hobbes's social contract is based on the fact that human beings are bad by nature, which is reflected in his famous phrase “Man is a wolf to man”. In a state of nature, the human being has no limits, his freedom is absolute and they fear each other. Therefore, for security, they need to give up part of their natural freedom, and sign an agreement, which includes certain duties and rights, and they delegate their authority to the State, so that everyone must obey it.

Thomas Hobbes was the first modern philosopher describing a detailed social contract theory, in his fundamental work, the Leviathan, within a complicated political context, such as that of the civil war in England for the occupation of sovereignty between the King and Parliament. The solution proposed by the philosopher is to sign a social contract that establishes peace between human beings.

Hobbes's social contract is a fundamental concept in which the philosopher considers the government existence and what is the best way to govern, which for him would be absolutist, although, as we have pointed out, it is tinged with a certain liberalism. Note that the term "social contract" is not from the English philosopher, but was used for the first time by the Genevan J. J. Rousseau, in reference to that original covenant.

Unlike for Aristotle, the political order and the natural order are one and the same thing, for Hobbes, it is a break with the latter, based on a contract that human beings sign, being, therefore, conventional, based on free will and agreement between all human beings, the only ones with legitimacy to lay the foundations of the can.

All human beings are, by nature, free and equal, and their fundamental instinct is to survival, which will lead them, in the absence of a higher authority, inevitably to confrontation, that is, to the"war of all against all".

Says Hobbes in the Leviathan:

"Every man is the enemy of every man; men live with no other security than their own strength and their own ingenuity must provide them with what is necessary. In such a condition there is no place for industry, since its products are uncertain; and, therefore, the land is not cultivated, nor is it navigated, nor are the goods that can be imported by sea used, nor are there comfortable buildings, nor instruments to move those things that require great strength or knowledge of the face of the earth, nor measurement of time, nor arts, nor letters, nor society; and what is worse than nothing, there is a constant fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man is lonely, poor, rude, brutal and petty".

In a state of nature, the human being is afraid of himself and of others, aware of his natural evil, and in an act of collective selfishness, he decides assign part of your rights and assign them to an authority superior that he creates himself, the Leviathan, in exchange for protection, and in this way, ensures his survival. The self-preservation instinct demands a social contract, an agreement between human beings. There cannot, therefore, be a trace of that primordial freedom, which would return the human being to the state of nature.

The social pact is established by the citizens among themselves, while the sovereign is left out of it, as a preventive measure, since otherwise the struggle for power would arise, which is indivisible and absolute.

In sum, we must conclude that the origin of all large and stable societies has consisted not in a mutual goodwill of some men towards others, but in the mutual fear of all between Yes.