A good way to understand the idea of a social contract is to think about different sorts of obligation. What can make it the case that I am morally obliged to perform an activity?

Take the case of a dutiful son, who looks after his aged and infirm parents. Why is it that the son is obliged to do so? One answer is that the obligation simply flows from the nature of the parent/child relationship – so that the obligation is just a natural one. The obligation is – it could be said – just ‘hardwired’ into the parent child relationship. On one account, it’s hardwired in by the person who determines all the hardwiring that goes to make us how we are – God. But whatever its source, this explanation amounts to an account of natural obligations.

There is another way of placing oneself under an obligation. Suppose I ask to borrow some money from a colleague. She agrees, if I pay her back, and so I say ‘I’ll pay you back that tenner next week.’ Then – clever philosophical tricks aside – I am under an obligation to pay back the money next week. Here, I am under an obligation because I have voluntarily put myself in that position, by making a promise to the person who lends me the money. This is a contractual obligation.

So there are two bases for obligation. Now, let’s shift the terrain slightly, by asking what makes it the case that I should obey the government? (This is a version of the question – what makes government legitimate?) Obviously, there can be three answers to that question – our obligation to obey the government might be a natural obligation, a contractual obligation, or might not exist at all. Historically, the fight has been between the first two of these – nowadays the main debate is between the last two.

Amongst those to argue for the first option was Sir Robert Filmer. He argued that the obligation to obey the sovereign was, like the obligation to obey one’s parents, simply a natural fact. To disobey was to go against nature, and against God, who created nature in this particular way. Natural obligations towards a divinely appointed King provided the basis for government and authority.

But, especially from the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, these sorts of explanation became viewed with increasing scepticism. First Hobbes, then Locke, reflected on the troubled years in the middle of the century, and concluded that a different basis for governmental authority had to be argued out.

In place of a notion of natural and God-given hierarchy, they started from an assumption of freedom and equality amongst (usually male, white, property-owning) human beings. They asked how these individuals could put themselves under an authority. The answer – by agreeing amongst each other to do so. This answer meant that the limits of governmental power were set by the original agreement. In Hobbes’ case, these limits were virtually non-existent: he thought that we would contract together to hand over nearly all our rights to a virtually absolute monarch. In Locke’s case, the power handed over was much more limited. But whatever the end result, the method of getting there was similar. The philosophers asked themselves, what sort of agreement would be reached by people thinking very carefully and rationally about the arrangements under which they would live. This agreement is the social contract.

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Content last updated: 01/04/2002