INTRODUCTION

“Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also”, a famous quote of Charles Horton Cooley tells us that our lives can only be a great work of art if the society is also a work of art. Deduction of the same means our lives and way of life depends upon the society, which makes Rousseau’s words accurate that “man is born free but everywhere he is in chains”. If one agrees to man being in chains then we connect the dot back to the Social Contract where all the story started. Social contract, in political philosophy is an actual or hypothetical compact, or agreement, between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each. A social contract is an unofficial agreement shared by everyone in a society in which they give up some freedom for security. So, it becomes very certain that giving your freedom, wholly or in part, a bite of it or a pinch, will be a restriction on you in some way or the other.

WHAT IS SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY?

The social Contract Theory is considered as one of the most important and significant theory of origin of state. According to the political scientists, social contract means ‘agreement’ which is the most important element that gave rise to the state. This theory explains that the origin of the state is to be an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits and to form a civil society. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean- Jacques Rousseau are the chief exponents of the Contract Theory. But their ideas and opinions were quite distinct.

HOBBES’S VIEWS

Thomas Hobbes theory of Social Contract appeared for the first time in ‘Leviathan’ in the year 1651 during the Civil War in Britain. According to Hobbes in the State of Nature, man’s condition was deplorable. It was the state of wild savagery in which the guiding principle was “might is right”. At this stage man led lonesome and animal life. Hobbes believed that life of people in state of nature was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

In order to secure and protect themselves from this brutality and poverty, man entered into a contract. This idea of self-protection made them capitulate all their rights and freedoms to some authority. As a result of this contract, the mightiest authority is to protect and preserve their lives and property who shall be called as the ‘ruler’ and shall be the absolute head. According to Hobbes, people surrendered all their powers to the king in this way, Subjects had no rights against the absolute authority or the sovereign and he is to be obeyed in all situations. Since the

ruler did not take part in the contract, he is not bound to observe the conditions of the contract. However, Hobbes placed moral obligations on the sovereign who shall be bound by natural law. According to Hobbes, man entered into a social contract and put the natural state to end. It was this contract which led to the creation of society. Law is dependent upon the sanction of the sovereign and the Government without sword are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all. He therefore, reiterated that civil law is the real law because it is commanded and enforced by the sovereign. Thus, he upheld the principle of ‘Might is always Right’.

LASKI’S VIEWS

The purposes to which political philosophy has been devoted, Professor H.J. Laski declares in introducing his study of the theory and practice of the state, has been the fairly consistent attempt to outline the conditions under which men and women can fulfil themselves most completely. For, Laski asserts, men do not obey an authority for the sake of obedience but because they believe that certain satisfactions are secured for them through that authority. Their obedience is never conditional, but is dependent on results which men consider the order enforced by the state makes possible. It follows that an enquiry into the nature of the state must be an enquiry, not only into the announced purposes of the state, but also into its habitual action. Laski defines a society as, “a group of human beings living together and working together for the satisfaction of their mutual wants .The basic wants are economic in character but beyond these basic wants there are a wide variety of others, religious, cultural and the like. While there is no theoretical reason why the term “society” should not refer to the whole of humanity, he confines his interest here to the form which society has taken in the notion state. Referring to the notion, state, Laski defines It as, “a society of this kind which is integrated by possessing a coercive authority legally supreme over any individual or group which is part of the society. The supreme coercive authority of a state is known as “sovereignty” and it is this characteristic which distinguishes the state from all other forms of association. The fact to be observed is not that the state ought to possess sovereign power – nothing is said here as to the window or justice of this property of the state- but that the state actually does possess that power as a way of organizing the society’s collective right.

Laski also said that ‘the modern citizen is constantly coming into contact with the network of the state’s operations and we must recognize the nature of that contact. The states which like all other institutions sets through individuals, has as its agent the government’.

PRESENT DAY RELEVANCE

Social contract theory is not relevant in today’s time as people today, specially in democratic nation like ours does not need any monarch or any ruler to which we would want to subject

ourselves and give our freedom a bit for security at all. Hobbes concept of absolutism is totally a vague concept in present scenario. Democracy is the need and examples may be taken from Burma, India and other nations. Nevertheless this whole theory of social contract somewhat seems vague as history does not make any such example available to prove that society came into existence this way. Moreover, the theory did not aim to trace the origin and development of the state. Only to serve their own ends they conceived this theory which makes it far from reality and a great reason for it to be irrelevant today. Although its not to be denied that some sayings of Laski are indeed pertinent like his definition of society or the way he argued that ‘modern citizen is constantly coming into contact with the network of the state’s operations and we must recognize the nature of that contact’.

CONCLUSION

To conclude I would say the work of any social philosopher is better understood when it is considered in light of the times in which he lived and wrote. So the above mentioned philosophers might be right in some perspective or most of it but as time changes, so does views and certain philosophies.

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SOURCES :

1. Thesis on ‘An analysis and criticism of social contract theory of political obligation’ by Reginald A. Wilson

2. Summary of Social Contract theory by Manzoor Elahi Laskar.

3. Book : Political Theory by S. Chand.

4. ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu

5. dictionary.cambridge.org

6. britannica.com

Author: Aayushi Tiwari, Legal Intern at Legal Desire (June 2020)

I am a 3rd Year law student studying at Jyotirmoy School of Law, Kolkata. I am a creative person who writes articles, legal drafts, essays, stories and poems. I am book worm and a music lover at the same time. My interests are in legal research, creative content writing, human rights, intellectual property rights.