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The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, First Edition. Edited by Michael T. Gibbons.

DOI: 10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0949

Social Contract Elisabeth Ellis

“Social contract” means different things in dif-

ferent contexts; there is no single authoritative

social contract theory. In present-day popular

discourse, the phrase is often used to denote

a more or less tacit agreement in which the

people remain obedient in exchange for a

minimum package of social conditions. For

example, Richard Eskow recently blogged that

a number of government programs embody

our social contract [in the United States].

Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, food assistance –

each reflects the vision of a society which rec-

ognizes that its shared interests are reflected

in the safety and well-being of each of its

members. But perhaps no program in this

country reflects the social contract more

clearly than Social Security. (Eskow 2013 )

In the history of political thought, “social

contract” has most often referred, similarly, to

the idea that legitimate public order has its

basis in the people (in their consent, their will,

their interests, the possibility of their rational

agreement, or some other representation). The

threat of anarchy is a common thread among

social contract theorists: from John Locke’s

refrain that the “People shall be judge” to the

common protest chant of “No justice, no

peace,” the social contract is said to guarantee

public order, while its breach would bring

violent disorder. This entry will discuss the

general contractarian case for how a state can

legitimately coerce subjects conceived of as

naturally free. We shall refer to some prominent

modern contract theorists such as Hobbes,

Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, as well as to argu-

ments made in the present day. Rather than

give a chronological account of the development

over time of arguments in the social contract

tradition, we shall follow the logic of social

contract from its basis in natural right to its

conclusions about popular sovereignty.

There have of course been many other, non-

contractarian strategies for legitimating the

state. For example, James I and others argue

that God’s order prescribes ruling to kings and

obedience to people. In contrast to this theory

of the divine right of kings, social contract

theory begins with people’s natural rights

(these can be justified with or without refer-

ence to divinity). Each author constructs a

unique version of contract theory, but the main

lines of the social contractarian argument pro-

ceed as follows. We imagine a “state of nature” in

which there is no political (and sometimes also

no social) order; no one exercises legitimate

authority and everyone operates independently,

as a free agent. Everyone naturally pursues his

or her own interests under conditions of rad-

ical uncertainty (no one knows what course of

action will in fact lead to maximum security).

A human being’s very survival depends on

cooperation with others, however, and the

more cooperation is possible in a society, the

more human flourishing is possible. It is hard

to imagine how people in the state of nature

can safely cooperate with each other when they

have no external source of assurance that

promises will be kept. The basic logic of social

contract is as simple as the logic one might

employ when conducting an economic trans-

action with a stranger: using a credit card

rather than cash involves a third party who can

guarantee some of the commitments made on

each side. Cash transactions take place in a

relative state of nature compared to credit card

transactions, offering both risks and freedoms

compared to the relative security and submis-

sion to third-party surveillance of the credit

card-based alternative.

Political theorists often illustrate this

collective action problem with the famous

“prisoner’s dilemma.” Imagine that a pair of

confederate criminals have been caught by the

authorities and the two of them are locked up

in separate prison cells, unable to communi-

cate with one another. The authorities do not

have enough information to convict the two on

the most serious charge, though they could

convict both of them on lesser charges on the

basis of the evidence they have at the outset. If

at least one of the criminals would betray the

other by giving the authorities the information

they need, then the authorities would be able to

make the most serious charges stick. Therefore

the authorities offer each prisoner a deal: to

give evidence against his/her confederate in

exchange for a reduced sentence. If both

prisoners take the deal, then each serves a

medium-length sentence – which is based on

joint responsibility for the more serious crime

(say, two years each). Should only one prisoner

take the deal and provide information to the

state, then that prisoner would be set free,

while his/her confederate would pay a high

price for remaining loyal to the other prisoner:

the maximum sentence (of, say, three years). If

the prisoners could trust each other, they could

both stay mum and serve short sentences, on

the basis of the lesser charge only (say, a one-

year term). In the absence of such trust, how-

ever, each has an incentive to rat the other one

out, since staying mum and being ratted out

yields a longer term (three years) than the

reduced sentence a rat would receive in either

case (two or zero years). The best collective

outcome of one year of incarceration each

cannot be reached by noncommunicating,

individually rational actors. We can easily see

how, in the absence of trust and communica-

tion, each player follows his/her individual

rational interest and defects from the collective

interest, which results in the worst possible

collective outcome from the prisoners’ point

of view. This risky environment, in which

players are autonomous and unable to make

commitments to each other, represents a game-

theoretic version of the classic state of nature.

Social contract theorists diverge in their

assessments of just how terrible the state of

nature would be, but none of them suggests

remaining in it. Even Rousseau, who famously

contrasts the corrupt inauthenticity of modern

life with the rustic simplicity of an earlier

time, insists on individual submission to sover-

eign rule. The state of nature is a thought

experiment, not a historical account; it is meant

to explain why naturally free individuals ought

to submit to political authority. There do

exist more or less complete states of nature –

circumstances in which no legitimate source of

authority adjudicates interactions – in the

world, most prominently in international rela-

tions. Immanuel Kant, for example, argues that

the idea of the social contract should determine

sovereign states to leave the international state

of nature and move toward what he calls a “civil

condition” among states. But though we might

reasonably characterize international relations

as a state of nature, there are no historical states

of nature consisting of autarkic individuals: real

people (and also some nonhuman animals) are

born into social circumstances complete with

norms that promote cooperation more or less

imperfectly, and nearly everyone is subject to

some kind of political authority. Locke refers to

this sociable reality when he says that liberty is

not a state of license; but even people inhabiting

the relatively peaceable Lockean version of the

state of nature would want to exchange it for

the civil condition. Collective submission to

an authoritative sovereign would solve the

problem that people are not very reliable judges

of natural right in cases that involve their own

interests, and it would provide a regular way to

control free riders, bandits, and other offenders

against the collective interest. Lockean sover-

eignty can be revoked in cases where the ruler

has stopped protecting the people against rule-

breakers (or has become one him- or herself ).

However, even the state’s temporary protection

is still preferable to the state of nature. Here is

Hobbes’s description of it:

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time

of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every

man; the same is consequent to the time,

wherein men live without other security, than

what their own strength, and their own

invention shall furnish them withall. In such

condition, there is no place for Industry;

because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and

consequently no Culture of the Earth; no

Navigation, nor use of the commodities that

may be imported by Sea; no commodious

Building; no Instruments of moving, and

removing such things as require much force;

no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no

account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no

Society; and which is worst of all, continuall

feare, and danger of violent death; And the

life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and

short. (Hobbes 2010 : ch. 13)

Hobbes provides the most vivid description

of the price of anarchy, and his theory gives

us the most absolute version of sovereignty

among contractarians. But, even though Hobbes

disagrees with his successors about the revoca-

bility of sovereign authority, all contractarians

agree that social cooperation among limited

rational human beings requires some external

guarantor (while the sovereign performs this

function for Hobbes, the rule of law does so for

Kant, for example). Critics of contractarianism

such as Elinor Ostrom disagree, arguing that

under the right circumstances human beings

are able to cooperate without any external guar-

antor (Ostrom cites empirical examples, from

rural meadow management to fishing coopera-

tives, but she also employs the same game-

theoretical reasoning prized by present-day

contractarians). Other critics of social contract

theory have pointed out that contractarians tell

a voluntarist story in support of violent regimes

that are anything but voluntary (Nietzsche,

Foucault); that real people, when given the

choice to join the contractarian state, have fled

and resisted for good reasons (Scott); that

contract theory’s emphasis on agreement among

equal agents leaves us blind to essential elements

of justice toward others – like animals and the

disabled (Nussbaum); and that social contract

rhetoric has masked the subordination of

women (Pateman) and of people of color

(Mills). Only an unempirical commitment to

ideological contractarianism could lead one to

dismiss these criticisms out of hand.

However, there is an important difference

between dogmatic commitment to supposedly

contractarian principles and the many-faceted

basic insights of social contract theory. It is a

mistake to reify the institutions that seven-

teenth- and eighteenth-century contractarians

employed in their day to vindicate their

commitments to equality and freedom, as

present-day contractarians often do with the

institution of property rights, for example (see

Ellis 2006 ). Though there are as many social

contract theories as there are contractarian

authors, contract theories share a recognition of

people’s equal rights to freedom. According to

social contract theorists, the state will always be

necessary for limited rational beings like our-

selves. We ought to submit to a common

authority capable of overcoming the barriers to

collective action that anarchy entails. However,

social contract theorists agree, legitimate

coercive power can only be exercised in the

name of the people.

SEE ALSO: Collective Action ; Divine Right of Kings ; Freedom ; Game Theory ; Hobbes, Thomas

(1588–1679) ; Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804) ; Locke,

John (1632–1704) ; Natural Law ; Natural Rights ;

Political Obligation ; Popular Sovereignty ; Rawls,

John (1921–2002) ; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

(1712–78)

References

Ellis , E. ( 2006 ) “ Citizenship and Property Rights:

A New Look at Social Contract Theory ,” Journal

of Politics , 68 ( 3 ), 544 – 55 .

Eskow , R. ( 2013 ) “Was This the Social

Contract’s Comeback Year?” http://www.

huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/was-this-the-

social-contr_b_4516859.html (accessed

January 3, 2013).

Hobbes , T. ( 2010 ) Leviathan , ed. I. Shapiro .

New Haven , CT: Yale University Press .