Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau: Social Contract for Each
Freedom, Human Nature, State of Nature
political institutions: constrain freedom, require consent
- freedom: freedom from state/organized society and morality
Hobbes:
- very anxious around British civil war, questions social structures and what makes them work via an early application of the modern scientific method
- passions overpower reason
- politics is artificially bringing the powers of passion to reason
- anarchy in state of nature, war of everyone against everyone [amoral account]
- natural liberty is empty, because of our equality and freedom to take and destroy others
- equality and freedom are the root of all our troubles (equal strength, freedom to pursue our wills)
- laws of nature: reason-defined laws that we can reach a priori, they show us the way out of our state of nature
- desires, wants, needs, appetites which are unrestrained
- politics is all about restricting our natural freedom to satisfy our desires via an absolute sovereign
- politics is human-made and artificial
- this equality and state of nature cannot be peaceful, for peace we need inequality
- justice is upkeeping of a covenant/agreement, injustice is its breaking
- to break an agreement is akin to SoN
- the Leviathan’s word is absolute law, there is no debate
- political authorithy happens through consent
- political stability happens through fear of punishment, leading to absolute subservience
- during crisis all rights can be taken back if someone harms stability
Overall Hobbes argument:
- Scientific inquiry into individuals
[done via early application of analytic method] - description of men
[understood as bundles of desire for power] - description of state of nature
[three forces: competition, diffidence, glory ⇒ invading for gain, safety, reputation] - description of laws of nature (and origins of politics)
[needed because without a power keeping us in awe we are selfish and self-interested] - understanding political legitimacy/obligation
- realisation of absolute sovereign authority
Locke:
- against absolute authorihy, for the responsibility of a government to its citizens, declaration of mens’ rights
- even in SoN we are governened by a natural law
- we are equal in our access to this law and must obey it
- we must preserve urselves, but also all of mankind, our duties are to everyone
- we don’t innately have access to it, but reason leads us to it
- natural rights/law, endowed to us by God, property, liberty, etc.
- normative, what we ought to do in accordance with God
- HOWEVER, in SoN we don’t have uniform access to God’s natural law
- common society emerges only in the fulfillment of natural law and its turning into uniform civil law
- all of our property rights emerge from natural law, our need for food, freedom, etc. So property is only an expression of God’s law
- civil rights/law need to be based on these
- arbitration and judicial corpus for overseeing this
- civil law is an effective, well-ordered expression of our fundamental natural law
- our moral and universal freedoms need to be maintained under civic freedom
- majority will must be what forms a government, it needs to be a communal agreement
- everybody must consent to the majority’s will
- original community that came together chooses governmental authorithy that perpetuates their agreement/contract
- Hobbes saw sovreignity as residing with the Leviathan, but for Locke its with individuals
- we cannot alienate our liberties
- when a government fails to uphold the natural, moral law we can take back the social contract
- government serves us and is highly accountable to us
- voluntarism and consent are fundament to society
2 steps:
- original community coming together
[product of natural, fudnemental law] - social contract for governmental rule to take over
[product of practical matters, separation of powers, etc.]
Overall argument:
- conception of SoN
- natural law
- why SoN is imperfect
- distinction between natural and political liberty
- origins of property rights
- origins of legitimate authorithy
- origins of political authorithy
- an account of pol. aut.’s limits
Rousseau:
- conception of man is needed first to understand how society can suit us
- evolutionary sciences were too underdeveloped to be useful
- moral relations are not part of nature (because we are solitary)
- morality is simply the property of pity and the capacity to live with others
- love of oneself + pity = humanity, virtue
- in leaving SoN we become moral, this our most unique property
- society is born out of increasing population and need for resources, scarcity, property rights, subordination, etc. This can erode morality, and is the bad civil society
- we are naturally free, but politically subordinated
- man is free but born in chains everywhere
- for him Hobbes had placed the corrupt political man in a state of nature, which was a mistake
- all about the transition from primitive to social freedom
- for him Modernity was mistaken in its understanding of morality, and this lead to social strife
- the fruits of the earth belong to all, property was the beginning of strife itself, of social divisions
- we leave state of nature out of necessity, so its in everyone’s person interest to not fight and to form a society
- best kind of society removes the issues of modernity, such as property, strife, subordinance, etc.
- replacing natural freedom with equal political freedom, thus humans can be free on a higher level
- highly hierarchical societies with social disparities are NOT LEGITIMATE! Equality and freedom are needed for legitimacy
- we cannot achieve natural freedom, and must thus strive for social equality
- we must relinquish our rights to the common will, which is the common, equal good
- justice is proper application of ourselves to the common good and general will, justice is actualizing the general will
- retrieving human nature from vice is difficult
- freedom requires the common will and popular sovregenity
- we can understand Rousseau as a new moral theory of empathy via a critique of modernity that only takes the form of social contract (but actually is not)
[Basically: respect people, take pride in your political community and enjoy the freedom said community grants you]
Overall Argument:
- picture of men, who were non-social and individual in SoN
- freedom, morality → dynamic and changing in SoN
- natural liberty
- corrupt vs true social liberty
- critique of modern pol. society
- only legitimate social contract
- society under general will
- how we can regain freedom