Which Social Contract Related Ideas of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are Applicable and Valid Today and Why?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract Related Ideas

Interestingly, Rousseau had an absolutely different perspective in comparison to the social contract theories of Hobbes and Locke. While Hobbes and Locke discussed about how much authority should be given to the state to exercise over the individuals, Rousseau believed that the social contract should be an agreement among the people without allocating any power to the government. In that regard, Rousseau defended the idea of direct democracy in which individuals should give up only their self-interests for achieving the collective good or the goodwill (Siroky & Sigwart, 2014). Rousseau believed that no human is born evil or corrupted and it was the state that made them corrupt. Therefore, a social contract should be formed to enable people to make direct decisions that would benefit the goodwill and support the development of the society. Thus, the social contract related ideas of Rousseau have influenced the formation and prevalence of direct democracies, promotion of human rights, and the importance of the goodwill.