Narvaez, Robillos, and Hidalgo 3P2 Humanities II

Comparing and Contrasting the Ideas of Social Contract of Hobbes and Rousseau

Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau, though they differ in the idea of the establishment and meaning of social contract, they both agree that each individual stands on the same line and that they are initially created equal. The conclusion that men lived in a state of nature is another thing that they both agreed on. State of Nature explained how people in the society would be if they are free and ungoverned or if there is no political government existing. This state of nature also does not coincide with the divine right theory which states that government is built upon the guidance of the church, where the leader is merely appointed by God. They both explained that the Law of Nature revolved around the preservation of mankind. In order to extinguish the unstructured society, people come to an understanding through the social contract. The social contract theory states that people agree with one another to serve their interests and with the creation of these contracts, rules were established. It is these agreements that give legitimacy to government and people are ruled by their consent. Because of this, the society improved their way of life and order came into place. However, Hobbes and Rousseaus ideas are more different from each other than of similar. For Thomas Hobbes, men are naturally evil. Since men are equal, thus, each man thinks hes superior. Man thinks of his own satisfaction, hence when he sees a rivalry of the things that satisfy him, he destroys his rivalry. From this notion, man feels hes unsecured. To have security, he gets man power by force. He will continue getting man power until he feels that no

Narvaez, Robillos, and Hidalgo 3P2 Humanities II

other man has great power to endanger him. For Hobbes, mens quarrel has three causes: competition, diffidence, and glory. Competition is invading for gain and use violence to rule other men. Diffidence is the gain for safety by defending oneself. Glory is keeping ones reputation. Due to this situation of the people, Hobbes metaphorically stated that one society shall have a Leviathan, who is to be the sovereign. Without a Leviathan, war will always be present for one man doesnt like other men to rule over him. In the time of war, theres no right or wrong, justice or injustice, no law, because each one is concentrated with oneself. Thus, according to Hobbes, the lives of men were short, poor, nasty and brutish. The state of nature is Man is against every man. The Social Contract of Hobbes His ideal independent country should be lead by a supreme ruler responsible for the security of the people and has absolute power to defend the people to achieve peace. Consequently, the Leviathan preserves peace and prevents war. Because of the worsening situation of the state, men naturally seek peace through the Social Contract: giving up natural rights and transfer them to someone else, gives up their rights and be contented for everyone to retain over them. In contradiction to what Hobbes said, Rousseau stated that man is naturally good .He said that men are born free yet everywhere are chains. According to Rousseau, civil society doesnt play a role in enforcing equality and individual liberty. For him, the sovereign is the collective group of people, not a single supreme ruler. This sovereign has a so called general will. General will of the people is the collective need of all to provide for the common good which

Narvaez, Robillos, and Hidalgo 3P2 Humanities II

informs of the creation of laws. These laws must uphold the rights of equality among citizens and for individual freedom. However, Rousseau said that with the presence of property and laws, the citizens are not entirely free. The government sometimes goes against the will of the people; people vote not according to their personal interest but because of what the majority says which is not necessarily for the common good. The general will and majoritys want are two different things. The general aims for the common good of all the people, while what the majority says can be for the common good, just for the sake of being one to the people, or for the common want of the people that can result to something bad. For Rousseau, since men are naturally good, men will seek for the common good. Not like what Hobbes said, men are naturally bad and when all of them had suffered so much because of the chaos, they wanted to seek for peace and not war as long as they are contented with one another.
Articles from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789) founded on the Social Contract Theories of Hobbes and Rosseau

ARTICLE 1: Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

Jean Jaques Rousseau, in his theory mentioned that, ...No man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right... which means that we were all born thesame. However, in the presence of a government and a democratic state, this seems too idealistic.

Narvaez, Robillos, and Hidalgo 3P2 Humanities II Why do people let them be the slaves rather than the master? What do they get from renouncing their liberty? This is exactly Rousseaus same question. According to Thomas Hobbes, they allowed themselves to be in that status because it can help both the society and themselves. Because people have this innate selfish nature, there must be a leviathan or a ruler who can put order into everything and suppress this selfishness. Therefore, hierarchies are made for the common good. Rousseau wrote: "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole." This means that by giving up something, we lose nothing because we gain the equivalent of what we lost. This, therefore, tells us that though men allow themselves to live under someone elses rule, they do not necessarily lose their freedom. Rather, they merely become part of the whole. They merge with the government since the government is also created by them; any decision made by the sovereign is also their decision. In allowing different statuses to arise, individuals do not lose their freedom nor their right for equality because they become an indivisible part of the whole.

ARTICLE 2: The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and the resistance to oppression.

Thomas Hobbes points out that people must resist their 'state of nature', which forces them to act only according to what will benefit them: If we must kill, then we may do so. However, people come into a 'social contract' because they realize that it will be more beneficial to everybody: Person A will promise not to kill only if Person B will do thesame. However, there must be a 'sovereign' which can see to it that these agreements are carried out and preserved. This sovereign is what we call the

Narvaez, Robillos, and Hidalgo 3P2 Humanities II government. Liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression are just some of the eternal rights of men that were agreed upon to be respected. We enter into a social contract because we do not want our rights to be endangered, especially to disappear.

ARTICLE 4: Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.

Rosseau explains that man must be forced to be free. Therefore, we have the right to be unique inndividuals. However, order is needed for the society to function and egoism-- if not in the right place-- often causes this order to topple. The individuals that make up the society agree on rules that, though would limit their own individuality, would assure them of the preservation of their rights. Being able to make this decision is exercising one's freedom. Therefore, the law is not a limitation of a person's freedom, but it is its expression. Although absolute freedom is absent in a functional society, freedom is still not removed since entering into a 'social contract' is the person's choice and surrendering absolute freedom was their act of freedom.