The Contractualists
Explaining the creation of political systems: social contracts
- Hobbes
- Leviathan (1651) - Civil society is formed out of fear.
- Life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
- People submit to a strong monarch for protection from chaos.
- Locke
- Two Treatises of Government (1689) - Civil society is formed for the protection of property.
- Life in the state of nature is peaceful, but property rights were uncertain.
- Government requires consent of the governed.
- Rousseau
- Social Contract (1762) - Civil society formed to ensure freedom.
- People lived as "noble savages" but were corrupted by society.
- The "general will" guides a just society.