In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the Age of Enlightenment and usually concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority (of the ruler, or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order…
…The central assertion that social contract theory approaches is that law and political order are not natural, but human creations. The social contract and the political order it creates are simply the means towards an end—the benefit of the individuals involved—and legitimate only to the extent that they fulfill their part of the agreement. Hobbes argued that government is not a party to the original contract and citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it is too weak to act effectively to suppress factionalism and civil unrest. According to other social contract theorists, when the government fails to secure their natural rights (Locke) or satisfy the best interests of society (called the " general will " by Rousseau), citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey, or change the leadership through elections or other means including, when necessary, violence. Locke believed that natural rights were inalienable, and therefore the rule of God superseded government authority, while Rousseau believed that democracy (self-rule) was the best way to ensure welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law. The Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence . Social contract theories were eclipsed in the 19th century in favor of utilitarianism , Hegelianism and Marxism ; they were revived in the 20th century, notably in the form of a thought experiment (the veil of ignorance) by John Rawls…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
The State of Nature Hypothesis
The state of nature, in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law, is the hypothetical life of people before societies came into existence. ...there must have been a time before organized societies existed, and this presumption thus raises questions such as: "What was life like before civil society?"; "How did government first emerge from such a starting position?," and; "What are the hypothetical reasons for entering a state of society by establishing a nation-state?". In some versions of social contract theory, there are no rights in the state of nature, only freedoms, and it is the contract that creates rights and obligations. In other versions the opposite occurs: the contract imposes restrictions upon individuals that curtail their natural rights.
Hobbes
During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. In this state any person has a natural right to do anything to preserve his own liberty or safety, and life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." ...in the international arena, states behave as individuals do in a state of nature.
Within the state of nature there is no injustice, since there is no law, excepting certain natural precepts, the first of which is "that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it". ; and the second is "that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself". . From this, ...the way out of the state of nature [is] into civil government by mutual contract. (bellum omnium contra omnes)
Locke
The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, and that law is Reason. ...reason teaches that no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions; and that transgressions of this may be punished. This view of the state of nature is partly deduced from Christian belief (unlike Hobbes, whose philosophy is not dependent upon any prior theology): the reason we may not harm another is that we are all the possessions of God and do not own ourselves.
Rousseau
...Hobbes was taking socialized persons and simply imagining them living outside of the society in which they were raised. [Rousseau] affirmed instead that people were naturally good. Men knew neither vice nor virtue since they had almost no dealings with each other. Their bad habits are the products of civilization. Nevertheless the conditions of nature forced people to enter a state of society by establishing a civil society.
John Rawls
[We must use] ...an artificial state of nature. [One that] places everyone in the original position. The original position is a hypothetical state of nature used as a thought experiment: People in the original position have no society and are under a veil of ignorance that prevents them from knowing how they may benefit from society. They do not know if they will be smart or dumb, rich or poor, or anything else about their fortunes and abilities. ...people in the original position would want a society where they had their basic liberties protected and where they had some economic guarantees as well. If society were to be constructed from scratch through a social agreement between individuals, these principles would be the expected basis of such an agreement. Thus, these principles should form the basis of real, modern societies since everyone should consent to them if society were organized from scratch in fair agreements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature
Giving Up Power to the State
...It is difficult to perceive how Hobbes thinks men, as unsociable and selfish as they are, can come together to live in a society. Throughout his work it is quite clear that the English philosopher believes that men are not born to be sociable and that it is not in their nature to seek a life together. Yet, he firmly believes that they will eventually create an absolute sovereign entity to govern all men. How is it possible then, that men choose to give up their rights and live under a sovereign that implements laws and punishments, rather than stay in their state of nature where they are free to do and get whatever they want? It is one of the many arguments that one finds very contradictory in the Leviathan. Nonetheless, through a deeper analysis of this work, it is possible to understand how this shift happens. Indeed, even if human nature is bad and egocentric, according to Hobbes, it still drives men towards society for the sake of survival. If men’s first instinct, need, and right is self-preservation, no matter how it is attained, it would be natural that men would eventually recognise the best thing they can do for their life is to cooperate. It would be unfair to Hobbes’s theory to characterise his natural man as deprived of sensibility. In the Leviathan, men in the state of nature are quite rational beings and know exactly what they want, and they will seek the best way to stay alive and prolong their survival. This essay will focus first on how it would be impossible for men to leave Hobbes’s state of war because of their nature. Then we will see how this very same nature is exactly what enables them to leave this environment...
Hobbes's political philosophy rests upon his psychology, his view of human nature. His psychology, in turn, rests upon his physics. His physics is roughly that of the science of his time-that reality is ultimately nothing but minute material particles in motion. Human behavior, as a part of nature, is to be explained purely mechanically, as the result of the influence of external particles upon that collection of other particles that constitute the human being. "The small beginnings of motion, within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking and other visible actions, are commonly called Endeavor." Endeavors, or motives, are the causes of action and are themselves nothing but particles in motion.
Motives are of two basic sorts. Either we are attracted toward something, which we therefore call good, or we are repelled by something, in which case we call it bad. "But whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of hate or aversion evil . . ." Hobbes explains all human action in purely mechanistic terms. Persons, when they act voluntarily, are moved to satisfy their appetites either by securing the objects of their desires or by avoiding the objects of their aversions. All action is egoistic, directed ultimately at satisfying the agent. However, agents are normally (or at least have the potential to be ) efficient rational calculators-they can select the best means to their chosen aims and so are rational in choosing among alternatives.
Here then is Hobbes's individualist starting point. It is a conception of human nature as it would be independent of the existence of any political order. The proper function of the state is to be deduced from the characteristics of egoistic but rational individuals. What ends or goals could such individuals secure through the state that they could not (or could not so efficiently) secure without it?
Life without the state, Hobbes tells us, would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." This conclusion is to be justified by appeal to Hobbes's conception of human nature. If there were no state, if humans lived in a so-called state of nature, then given selfishness, scarcity of resources, and approximate equality in strength, cunning, and personal resources, the end result would be a war of all against all. For if there were not enough to go around, and everyone always acted to satisfy their desires, then (since anyone, given strength or sufficient cleverness, can hope to kill anyone else) the "haves" and "have-nots" would be at one another's throats. Consequently, if it is reasonable to accept Hobbes's postulates-that humans are rational egoists, that they are approximately equal in their capacity to harm one another, and that not everyone's desires can be satisfied-we can conclude that the state of nature would be one of anxiety, violence, and constant danger.
Hobbes's argument, as reconstructed here, does not presuppose that there ever was an actual state of nature. The actual existence of such a state of affairs is irrelevant to Hobbes's purpose. What Hobbes is trying to do is to justify the state by showing how bad life would be if the state did not exist. Since his point is hypothetical-if the state did not exist, look how bad things would be-the actual existence of the state of nature is not required for the success of his argument.
Hobbes described humans as sufficiently rational to realize that the state of nature, one of war of all against all, was contrary to their interests, especially their overriding concern with self-preservation. For whatever else people want, they need personal security as a prerequisite of their enjoyment of anything else:
The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace . . . which otherwise are called Laws of Nature.
According to Hobbes, "A LAW OF NATURE ... is a precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same. And consequently, that every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek . . . all help and advantages of war."
We have already seen that the Hobbesian state of nature, being a state of war of all against all, is a disaster for all concerned. Hence, we can see that it is in the rational self-interest of the inhabitants to form a state. Thus, the first law of nature, which enjoins peace, implies the second; namely, that when others are willing, all parties to the state of war contract together to set up a supreme authority over them. By doing so, the evils of the war of all against all can be avoided.
The function of the state, in Hobbes's view, is to provide the security sufficient to protect us from the egoism of our fellows. Everyone's pursuit of their immediate self-interest is not in the enlightened self-interest of anyone. The state is an instrument to keep egoism in check.*
*Some interpreters of Hobbes regard the Laws of Nature as moral rules rather than (as we suggest) prudential rules that it is in anyone's interest to support. We find such alternative interpretations unsatisfactory for ultimately some explanation must be given of why Hobbesian egoists would obey moral rules when it was not in their self-interest to do so. Usually, the reason given is fear of God's wrath. But that is just to introduce prudential considerations by the back door. For relevant essays and a helpful bibliography, see Bernard Baumrin, ed., Hobbes's Leviathan: Interpretation and Criticism (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1969).
Given his view of human nature, Hobbes concludes that only an absolutist state can provide security. Only a government in which the state has complete authority and the individual has virtually no rights or autonomy can hope to avoid the state of nature:
covenants without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all... if there be no power . . . every man will rely on his own strength and art ... against all other men.
Since they are rational, inhabitants of the state of nature will understand that if the individual is given too much leeway within the state, the state of nature will simply reappear in new guise. Since only an absolute, common power can prevent reversion to the war of all against all, that is exactly the kind of state they will create:
The only way to erect such a common power ... is to confer all power . . . upon one man or upon one assembly of men that they may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices unto one will . . . and he that carrieth this [power] is called SOVEREIGN . . . and every one besides his SUBJECT.*
*Ibid., p. 340. Although Hobbes speaks of conferring all power on the sovereign, he does suggest that the individual always retains a right (or perhaps more accurately a power or ability) to attempt to preserve his own life.
Hobbes believes that authority and individual autonomy are incompatible. Indeed, Hobbes allows concern for self-preservation and order to take precedence over any other values a state might be thought to secure. Little, if any, room is left, for example, for individual rights. In spite of its gloomy conclusions, however, Hobbes's approach has several significant merits. In particular, it is an attempt to explain the basis for political authority in scientific, naturalistic terms. No recourse is made to controversial moral assumptions or to such questionable doctrines as that of the divine right of kings. Rather, what Hobbes does is to isolate what he takes to be the basic unit of political analysis-the individual-and ground his political philosophy on a view of human nature.
The Individual and the Political Order: An Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy: Bowie, Norman E., Simon, Robert L. Simon
https://www.amazon.com/Individual-Political-Order-Introduction-Philosophy/dp/0742550052
...if people were somehow raised from birth in an environment devoid of most cultural influence, they would construct basic elements of human social life ab initio. In short time new elements of language would be invented and their culture enriched. ...I do not doubt that they could speak and that, theoretically, given time, they or their offspring would invent and develop a language despite their never having been taught one. Furthermore, this language, although totally different from any known to us, would be analyzable to linguists on the same basis as other languages and translatable into all known languages.
But I would push this further. If our new Adam and Eve could survive and breed - still in total isolation from any cultural influences - then eventually they would produce a society which would have laws about property, rules about incest and marriage, customs of taboo and avoidance, methods of settling disputes with a minimum of bloodshed, beliefs about the supernatural and practices relating to it, a system of social status and methods of indicating it, initiation ceremonies for young men, courtship practices including the adornment of females, systems of symbolic body adornment generally, certain activities and associations set aside for men from which women were excluded, gambling of some kind, a tool- and weapon-making industry, myths and legends, dancing, adultery, and various doses of homicide, suicide, homosexuality, schizophrenia, psychosis and neuroses, and various practitioners to take advantage of or cure these, depending on how they are viewed.
From On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067463442X/
Delegation of Powers
Delegation of powers is the act whereby a political authority invested with certain powers turns over the exercise of those powers, in full or in part, to another authority. Accordingly, the powers of the delegate are precisely those that belonged to the delegant, and the actions performed in virtue of the delegation have the same juridical nature as if they had been performed by the delegant himself. Delegation should not, therefore, be regarded as permission or authorization; rather, it is a transfer of power. The fundamental problem then is to find out whether, and to what extent, that transfer is legitimate in the realm of public law.
When delegation is legally provided for there is no difficulty. This is often the case on the administrative level; the organizational regulations of a bureau authorize its head to turn the exercise of his powers over to another official. It should be noted, however, that even when delegation is authorized by existing law, it is subject to very precise conditions. In the first place, the right to exercise delegation cannot be presumed. Furthermore, those actions for which the right of delegation is granted must be clearly indicated. Finally, delegation must necessarily be limited in time...
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/us-history/delegation-powers
Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the powers not delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the states or to the people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_constitutional_law)
While Hobbes argued for near-absolute authority, Locke argued for inviolate freedom under law in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke argued that a government's legitimacy comes from the citizens' delegation to the government of their absolute right of violence (reserving the inalienable right of self-defense or "self-preservation"), along with elements of other rights (e.g. property will be liable to taxation) as necessary to achieve the goal of security through granting the state a monopoly of violence, whereby the government, as an impartial judge, may use the collective force of the populace to administer and enforce the law, rather than each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner—the condition in the state of nature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract#John_Locke's_Second_Treatise_of_Government_(1689)
