Is the social contract a real historical event?

Most social contract theorists treat the contract as a hypothetical or heuristic device rather than a historical event; its point is to identify principles that free and equal persons could justifiably agree to, not to record an actual agreement.

What is Rawls's original position?

It is a hypothetical choice situation in which parties select principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance that conceals their particular talents, social position, and conception of the good, so that the chosen principles are fair to all.

The Social Contract Tradition

The social contract tradition explains the legitimacy of moral and political authority by appeal to a real or hypothetical agreement among the individuals who are to be bound by it.

Definition

Social contract theory is the view that the authority of political and moral norms rests on an agreement, actual or hypothetical, among free and equal persons, such that those norms are justified by the consent the parties would give from a suitably characterized starting point.

Scope

This topic covers the historical development of social-contract theory from the early modern period to the twentieth-century revival: the contrasting accounts of the state of nature, the contract, and the resulting obligations in Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and the reformulation of the device by Rawls. It provides the historical and conceptual backdrop for the contemporary contractualist and contractarian theories treated in sibling topics.

Core questions

What does the device of a hypothetical agreement contribute to justifying norms?
How do different conceptions of the state of nature shape the resulting contract?
Is consent to be understood as actual, tacit, or hypothetical?
How does Rawls's original position transform the classical contract idea?

Key theories

Classical social contract theory: The early modern accounts of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, which derive legitimate authority from agreement among individuals leaving a state of nature, differing over its character and the terms of the contract.
The original position: Rawls's reformulation in which principles of justice are chosen by parties behind a veil of ignorance that screens out knowledge of their particular circumstances, ensuring fairness in the agreement.

History

Social contract theory flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through Hobbes (1651), Locke (1689), and Rousseau (1762), each offering a distinct account of the state of nature and the terms of legitimate authority. After a period of eclipse under utilitarian and idealist criticism, Rawls (1971) revived the tradition with the original position, restoring the contract device to the centre of political and moral philosophy.

Debates

The problem of consent: Critics from Hume onward have questioned whether tacit or hypothetical consent can genuinely bind, since few have actually agreed to any contract and a hypothetical agreement is not an actual one.
Hypothetical agreement and justification: Whether the original position justifies principles, or merely models prior moral convictions, is debated, raising the question of what normative work the contract device really does.

Key figures

Thomas Hobbes
John Locke
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
John Rawls

Seminal works

hobbes1651
locke1689
rousseau1762
rawls1971

Frequently asked questions

Is the social contract a real historical event?: Most social contract theorists treat the contract as a hypothetical or heuristic device rather than a historical event; its point is to identify principles that free and equal persons could justifiably agree to, not to record an actual agreement.
What is Rawls's original position?: It is a hypothetical choice situation in which parties select principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance that conceals their particular talents, social position, and conception of the good, so that the chosen principles are fair to all.