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Visions of Society

The Social Contract: A License to Steal

Stephen Faison cross-examines the idea of a social contract.

According to classic social contract theory, originally elaborated by Thomas Hobbes in the Seventeenth Century, human beings begin politically unorganised, in what is called a state of nature, and society is created by people either explicitly or tacitly establishing a contract whereby they agree to live together in harmony for their mutual benefit. Social contract theorists seek to demonstrate why a rational individual would voluntarily consent to give up unlimited freedom in the state of nature and accept the limits to liberty required for civil society. These theorists agree that individuals make this exchange in order to ensure, or at least greatly enhance, their ability to survive. But these theorists define survival too narrowly, as ‘defense of life and property’. I want to argue here that the terms of any social contract must be expanded to include the provision of food, clothing, and shelter, because these are also necessary for survival.

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