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

Thomas Hobbes’ Social Contract Related Ideas

To start with Hobbes, he lived in the 17^th century and witnessed the English Civil War (Gauthier, 1977). After observing that humans can be evil to each other and they can start bloody wars to overthrow the government, Hobbes decided to question the origin of government in his book Leviathan (Bester & Warneryd, 2006). Tracking back through the history of human development, Hobbes described the period before the states were formed. Since there were only natural laws in the absence of states, Hobbes named this period the state of nature where each individual lived with complete freedom without obeying any laws and rules practiced by the state (Bester & Warneryd, 2006). The civil war took place in England made Hobbes believe that humans are inherently full of anger and they could pose threat to the security of each other if there was no government controlling their freedom. Therefore, he defended the absolute monarchy and presented the idea that humans should voluntarily submit their freedom and unlimited power to the king, who should decide on laws and rules to protect social safety and maintain the social order (Bester & Warneryd, 2006). Regarding the main questions addressed by the social contract theory, Hobbes’ answers were the following. People formed states because humans are inherently evil and they need the absolute monarchy to protect themselves from the anger of each other. Therefore, Hobbes believed that the king should have unlimited power to do whatever it takes to protect social order and provide each individual with social safety. This idea was revolutionary in a sense because theorists before Hobbes believed that kings had the divine power to control other people; however, Hobbes brought a new idea that people should voluntarily surrender to the king because it is better to have the monopoly of violence instead of allowing every individual to exercise violence to destroy each other (Bester & Warneryd, 2006). Hereby, it can be said that the social contract theory of Hobbes was influenced by his personal experience during the English Civil War, which was a brutal and bloody experience ending the life of many for overthrowing the king. Therefore, Hobbes believed that the king should be stronger than anyone to control the anger of others and prevent chaos.