Social Contract Theory; Sources, Ideas as an Inspiration for American Leadership

The two most fundamental enlightenment-era ideas that inspired leadership during the formation of the government of the United States are the Social Contract and Natural Law. Together, these two concepts would inspire men to revolt against British rule over American colonies, to establish a new and experimental form of government, and, eventually, to endow citizens and the government with a respect for equal rights under the law. Additionally, these groundbreaking ideas would provide inspiration for freedom seekers wherever they were studied and in many ways influence relations between all nations. Indeed, these concepts would in many ways continue to inspire or vex leaders of nations around the globe and serve as a contrast between nations in the “free world” or “new world” and those of the “old world.”

Since in many ways the Social Contract theory is derived from Natural Law, it is best to first define what Natural Law is. First and foremost, Natural Law is derived from, in essence, the “golden rule” that one should “do unto others as he would have done unto himself.” Most scholars would acknowledge Leviathan, written by Thomas Hobbes and published in 1651 as one of the earliest works that proposes Natural Law as the pretext for a Social Contract. In describing what a Law of Nature is, Hobbes says that it is foremost a precept, found through reason, by which people are forbidden from destroying life or from destroying the means to self preservation. His first natural law states, “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, and use, all helps, and advantages of War.” The two branches of this law are: 1) that people should seek peace whenever possible and that, 2) people reserve the right to self defense. In summary, he was stating that people have a right to self preservation and that they have an inherent duty to preserve peace. His second law is very much a paraphrased version of the “golden rule” stating that “... a man be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth, as for Peace, and defense 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.” He admits his law is a paraphrase of the Gospel text by saying: “This is that Law of the Gospel; ‘Whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them.’ And that Law of all men, ‘Quod tibi feiri non vis, alteri ne feceris.’” Many have expounded on or attempted to explain what can be derived from this pretext, but ultimately they all follow back to this one basic law. The law itself may cause one to ask a simple question, “What should one necessarily wish to have done to himself and therefore be willing to do likewise unto others?” It is at this simple question that the many derivations arise.

Enlightenment thinkers, when asked this question, may have had several different answers. However, they would have all agreed that one should derive at the answer through reason. In fact, the numerous examples of natural law being described by enlightenment thinkers can be summed up, most appropriately, by John Locke and, subsequently in abbreviated form, by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, as inalienable rights to life, health, liberty, or possessions.

John Locke in his Two Treatises of Government (published in 1689) and later Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Social Contract or Principles of Political Right (published in 1762) both provided interpretations of natural law and both used their interpretations as a basis for their theories on Social Contract. They both, in describing Natural Law, draw upon the concepts introduced by Hugo Grotius in his On the Law of War and Peace (published in 1625). The three of them seem to agree on the primordial concept that each person is allowed a right to self preservation. From this preeminent right, others can further be derived. Grotius summed up his Natural Rights thusly:

Since the COMMON RIGHT TO THINGS has been established, the COMMON RIGHT TO ACTIONS follows next in order, and this right is either absolute, or established by the supposition of a general agreement amongst mankind. Now all men have absolutely a right to do such or such acts as are necessary to provide whatever is essential to the existence or convenience of life. (Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace)

Ultimately, those things which allow man to provide for himself are, so aptly noted by John Locke, his health, his limbs, his personal ownership of things, and his liberty or freedom (intellectual or otherwise). Rousseau similarly acknowledges the primordial right to preservation in his treatise saying: "His first law is to provide for his own preservation, his first cares are those which he owes to himself; and, as soon as he reaches years of discretion, he is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving himself, and consequently becomes his own master." (Jean Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract or Principles of Political Right) Thus, they all agree that the concept of Natural Law derives from the fundamental right to self preservation. Thereby, they form the basis of the Social Contract, which follows that peace can only be preserved by acknowledging and protecting the right of all mankind to this fundamental precept and, consequently, they each, like Hobbes, hold that peace is a fundamental goal for civil society.

The Social Contract, therefore, is best described as the act of the individual foregoing natural rights to the sovereign in return for the sovereign acknowledging and protecting the rights of the individual to self preservation. Enlightenment philosophers primarily differed only in what or who justly constitutes the sovereign.

According to Hobbes, the sovereign is a person or group of peoples who serves as the authority over the civil society and that, in return for protection and the preservation of peace, the society gives up certain rights to the sovereign. Hobbes further believed that the society should be only expected to rebel against the sovereign in severe circumstances in which the sovereign is abusing their authority. He disliked the idea of separation of powers and thought that, once the sovereign is established – either the individual or the institution – the sovereign power cannot be disestablished or forfeited. According to Hobbes, the enumerated rights that the subjects lose and, by nature of the authority, grant to the sovereign when so established are: the right to protest, the right to punish the sovereign entity, the right to accuse the sovereign of injustice, the right to judge or determine what is necessary for peace, the right to determine educational or doctrinal teachings to be taught, the right to make rules or laws, the right to make war or the terms of peace, the right to choose ministers, the right to determine punishment or rewards, the right to coin money, and the right to enforce law and order. In short, Hobbes viewed the authority of the sovereign to be absolute and indivisible.

The near-absolute authority vested in the sovereign described by Hobbes is very much different from the authority Locke described as a sovereign’s legitimate role. Locke viewed the rights divested by society as being granted to the sovereign inasmuch as the sovereign limited its role to providing for peace, security, and the common public good. The people gave up certain natural rights only to the extent that the rights of each individual to life, liberty, and property were equally protected. All other powers executed by the sovereign are not granted to it by the people and are therefore abuses of this authority. While Locke agrees with Hobbes in that the legislative power of government, the power to create laws, was exclusive, but he felt that it must be limited to creating laws that equally applied to all and that the purpose of those laws be limited to the common good and thereby serve to equally protect each person’s right to self preservation. While Hobbes would have preferred the sovereign to be a monarch, Locke seems to have preferred a republican form of government.

Rousseau agreed with Locke on a number of issues and went one step further in describing the sovereign. Rousseau believed in popular sovereignty, which views all people who are mutually endowed with rights and invest in a popular contract for the common good share sovereignty or authority with one another. This power, in Rousseau’s view, is an inalienable and an indivisible power expressed and executed by the general will of the public. In this way, Rousseau believed in plebiscite rule and popular self-determination. The legislative body could only propose laws while the people should determine their passage. Locke, and, in many respects, the leadership of the United States at its inception differed from Rousseau on this point and believed that representative leadership voted by people ought to promote the will of their voting constituency.

Not unsurprisingly, philosophers after Rousseau thought of democratic plebiscite rule as tantamount to Ochlocracy or “mob rule.” Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America, the first volume of which was published in 1835, coined the term “tyranny of the majority” and warned of how unfettered democratic rule would necessarily lead to the downfall of the state. He eloquently describes this possibility by saying, “If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.” Moreover, John Stuart Mill, in the mid-1800s warned in his essay “On Liberty” that this direct democratic rule would lead to a tyranny of the majority and envisioned a society becoming a tyrant itself.

In the end, the concepts described by enlightenment philosophers vis-à-vis natural law and the Social Contract inspired the sculptors of the American government. They saw fit to establish the first government of its kind in order to support and protect the rights of the individual to self determination and self preservation. In so doing, the experimental form of government has gone on to inspire other governments to establish similar principles in republican or democratic rule. Like enlightenment-era philosophers, the end goal, so described in published executive strategies of current and former presidents, is the security of freedom and protection of the rights of American citizens with the hope that an enduring peace and stability can be established for all mankind. Is this goal too idealistic and too ambitious?