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	Kids.Net.Au - Encyclopedia > Social contract theories
		A social contract theory of the state is any theory which says that the existence of the state is morally justified by some sort of agreement, often called a "social contract," that is said hold among the residents of a particular geographical area over which the state has authority.
		In order to explain what the social contract theory (or contractarianism) says, I'm going to have to explain what this "agreement" among residents of an area is supposed to amount to -- that is, I'm going to have to explain to you what a social contract is supposed to be.
		All that the social contract theory says is that, if we are party to a social contract, then we're morally bound to give up our liberty to initiate force, and the government that is given that same liberty is legitimate.
	www.kids.net.au /encyclopedia-wiki/so/Social_contract_theories (2536 words)

	Contractarianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		In contemporary normative contractarian theories, that is, theories that attempt to ground the legitimacy of government or theories that claim to derive a moral ought, the initial position represents the starting point for a fair, impartial agreement.
		Social contract theories take individuals to be the best judges of their interests and the means to satisfy their desires.
		The social contract then can be seen as a justification by the parties to the contract of their interaction, and of their exploitation of those who are not parties to the contract, but only if the fundamental division of in-group and out-group is accepted.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/contractarianism (3792 words)

	Social Contract Theory [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
		Social Contract Theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society.
		In particular, feminists and race-conscious philosophers have argued that social contract theory is at least an incomplete picture of our moral and political lives, and may in fact camouflage some of the ways in which the contract is itself parasitical upon the subjugations of classes of persons.
		This racial contract is to some extent a meta-contract, which determines the bounds of personhood and parameters of inclusion and exclusion in all the other contracts that come after it.
	www.iep.utm.edu /s/soc-cont.htm (9316 words)

	info: Social_contract_theories
		Social contract theory provides the rationale behind the historically important notion that legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed.
		Although the theory of natural rights influenced the development of classical liberalism, its emphasis on individualism and its rejection of the necessity to subordinate individual liberty to the sovereign will stands in opposition to the general tenets of social contract theory.
		The key notion of social contract or compact is that the individual consents by entering or remaining on the dominion of an existing society, which is usually a geographic territory, in much the same way one does when entering or remaining in someone's household or private property.
	www.napoli-pizza.net /Social_contract_theories.html (3582 words)

	Principles of Normative Ethics
		Descriptive theory explains how things are (e.g., this paper is white; most Americans eat meat; etc.), whereas normative or prescriptive theory tells us how things ought to be (people ought to be honest, etc.).
		The principles must be used within the context of the theory and be grounded in the readings from the course.
		Contract principles form the basis for many social contract theories.
	www.stedwards.edu /ursery/norm.htm (1636 words)

	2005 Benjamin Lippincott Award
		Contract theorists generally assume that women lack the capacities required for consent to the social contract, she observes, and assume in particular that each woman has consented to be ruled by an individual man, her husband.
		The effect of these theories is to posit a "sexual contract" that precedes the formation of political society by the social contract.
		Social contract theorists do not leave women behind in the "state of nature", according to Pateman; instead, they incorporate women into civil society in an explicitly subordinate position.
	www.apsanet.org /content_20647.cfm (540 words)

	SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORIES
		Social Contract, agreement by which human beings are said to have abandoned the "state of nature" in order to form the society in which they now live.
		His Leviathan (1651) presents a bleak picture of human beings in the state of nature, where life is "nasty, brutish, and short." Fear of violent death is the principal motive that causes people to create a state, contracting to surrender their natural rights and to submit to the absolute authority of a sovereign.
		Rousseau's most celebrated theory was that of the "natural man." In his Discourse on the Inequalities of Men (1754) and Social Contract (1762) he maintained that human beings were essentially good and equal in the state of nature but were corrupted by the introduction of property, agriculture, science, and commerce.
	www.rinfret.com /contract.html (526 words)

	Abortion - The Aborted Contract and the Right to Life
		The contract between a mother and her fetus is derived from the larger Social Contract.
		The typical contract assumes that there is a social contract which applies to the parties to the contract and which is universally known and, therefore, implicitly incorporated in every contract.
		Yes, a contract can be annulled and voided if signed under duress, involuntarily, by incompetent persons (e.g., the insane), or if one of the parties made a reasonable and full scale attempt to prevent its signature, thus expressing its clear will not to sign the contract.
	samvak.tripod.com /abort.html (4313 words)

	ipedia.com: Social contract theories Article (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Social contract theories, in moral and political philosophy, provide an approach to justifying moral norms and political authority.
		Such justification, for social contract theories, appeals to the idea of (typically hypothetical) common agreement -- if a system of rules is mutually agreeable to all parties, then the system is justified.
		N.B. Some use the term "social contract" to refer to the idea that political societies are united by the consensual agreement of each individual within the society to the legitimacy of the society.
	www.ipedia.com /social_contract_theories.html (245 words)

	Social contract theories
		A social contract theory of the state is any theory which says that the existence of the state is morally justified by some sort of agreement, often called a social contract, that is said hold among the residents of a particular geographical area over which the state has authority.
		Against that is the thinking is at the heart of the social contract theory, that those conditions would lead to the formation of some leagues for self-defence, based on agreements.
		All that the social contract theory says is that, if we are party to a social contract, then we're morally bound to give up our liberty to initiate force, and the government that is given that same liberty is legitimate.
	www.guajara.com /wiki/en/wikipedia/s/so/social_contract_theories.html (825 words)

	SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORIES : Encyclopedia Entry
		Social contract theory (or contractarianism) is a concept used in philosophy, political science, and sociology to denote an implicit agreement within a state regarding the rights and responsibilities of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between a group and its members, or between individuals.
		All members within a society are assumed to agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society without violating the contract; such violation would signify a problematic attempt to return to the state of nature.
		The first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed contract theory was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who contended that people in a state of nature ceded their individual rights to create sovereignty, retained by the state, in return for their protection and a more functional society, so social contract evolves out of pragmatic self-interest.
	www.bibleocean.com /OmniDefinition/Social_contract_theories (2836 words)

	Social Contract Theory (Site not responding. Last check: )
		The social-contract theory concerns the origin of organized society, holding that the state originally was created through a voluntary agreement entered into among individuals living in an anarchical state of nature.
		This contract defines and regulates the relations among the members of society and between the individual and the governing authority.
		The social-contract theory challenged the divine right of kings as the basis for a state's legitimacy and laid the foundation for theories of constitutional government.
	www.nmu.edu /www-sam/Poli_Sci/profpages/Syed/PS101/Social_Contract_Theory.htm (255 words)

	Social Contract Theory [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
		Social Contract Theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society.
		Locke’s arguments for the social contract, and for the right of citizens to revolt against their king were enormously influential on the democratic revolutions that followed, especially on Thomas Jefferson, and the founders of the United States.
		The normative social contract, argued for by Rousseau in The Social Contract (1762), is meant to respond to this sorry state of affairs and to remedy the social and moral ills that have been produced by the development of society.
	www.utm.edu /research/iep/s/soc-cont.htm (9316 words)

	FRONTIERS OF JUSTICE: DISABILITY, NATIONALITY, SPECIES MEMBERSHIP
		However, constraints on social contract theory prevent it from dealing with questions of justice for the disabled, inhabitants of poor nations, and non-human animals.
		All social contract theories, including Rawls’, regard the contractors as independent actors of relatively equal stature, who recognize that forming an organized government will be to everyone’s mutual advantage.
		Social contract theory assumes that independent, rational people enter into [428] social* contracts for mutual advantage, but the severely disabled are not in such a bargaining position.
	www.bsos.umd.edu /gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/nussbaum0606.htm (1633 words)

	Spartanburg SC \| GoUpstate.com \| Spartanburg Herald-Journal
		All members within a society are assumed to agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society without violating the contract; such a violation would signify a problematic attempt to return to the state of nature.
		The emergence of the social contract from the state of nature is often explained in terms of just-so stories whose goal is to show the logical basis of rights rather than attempting historical accuracy.
		The first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed contract theory was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who contended that people in a state of nature ceded their individual rights to create sovereignty, retained by the state, in return for their protection and a more functional society, so social contract evolves out of pragmatic self-interest.
	www.goupstate.com /apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=NEWS&template=wiki&text=social_contract_theories (2128 words)

	SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY
		To realise the normative aims of the social contract the democratic institutions have to be - and were in the city - and the nation-state - adapted to the structure of the respective public sphere.
		To realise the normative aims of the social contract the democratic institutions have to be—and were in the city—and the nation state—adapted to the structure of the respective public sphere.
		By social contract I mean the view that human authorities are established by agreement with their subjects for specific tasks, that their legitimacy depends upon fulfilment of these tasks, and that such agreements may be enforced by clear, defined procedures, as one would enforce a contract in private law.
	sociologyindex.com /social_contract_theoy.htm (1865 words)

	An Essay On Philosophy by blupete. (Site not responding. Last check: )
		The theory of materialism was renewed and developed beginning in the 17th century, especially by Hobbes, and, in the 18th century, John Locke.
		Utilitarianism is a theory in that branch of philosophy known as ethics, the theory that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by the goodness or badness of its consequences.
		For example, classical Newtonian theory was completely relied upon and accepted as true for generations; now, it is questioned; now, we have a theory of matter and energy based on that branch of physics developed from the ideas of Einstein in relation to atomic structure, which, in the 20th century, has evolved into quantum mechanics.
	www.blupete.com /Literature/Essays/BluePete/Phil.htm (7289 words)

	DR. TIBOR R. MACHAN: On the Social Contract
		Social contract theories, I argue, implicitly assume that prudence is a moral virtue (or a natural drive) one that we ought to (or will be motivated to) cultivate and in line with the dictates of which we ought to (or will) agree to the provisions of a social compact.
		Social compact theories that do not take this into account are failures but not because they have violated some agreement but because they have failed in their agreement to abide by certain unavoidable principles of human social existence.
		Indeed, given that social compact theory is often invoked to justify laws or systems of rules that reach far into the future, past the life plans for those who might have taken part in the agreement itself, one can easily raise the question of whether the contractual provisions of those in the past deserve respect.
	www.radicalacademy.com /machanessay1.htm (5036 words)

	Appendix C. All moral arguments for the state are wrong.>
		The idea of an explicit social contract is a myth propagated by apologists for those in power and believed in only by the most gullible part of the public, Supreme Court justices, and those who are uncomfortable with critical thought.
		Nozick's theory was an attempt to provide a moral argument for the establishment of an organization that monopolizes the retribution business within a geographic area by using the political means of coercion to prevent competitors from assessing criminal guilt in ways it doesn't approve.
		When the would-be social planner is figuring out what everyone should be required to do in order to achieve the most good for the most people, he would be wise to consider whether his idea of social welfare is really more important than allowing individuals to experience moral responsibility.
	royhalliday.home.mindspring.com /a3.htm (22100 words)

	Social contract theories
		A social contract theory of the state is any theory which says that the existence of the state is morally justified by some sort of agreement, often called a "social contract," that is said hold among the residents of a particular geographical area over which the state has authority.
		In order to explain what the social contract theory (or contractarianism) says, I'm going to have to explain what this "agreement" among residents of an area is supposed to amount to -- that is, I'm going to have to explain to you what a social contract is supposed to be.
		All that the social contract theory says is that, if we are party to a social contract, then we're morally bound to give up our liberty to initiate force, and the government that is given that same liberty is legitimate.
	www.fastload.org /so/Social_contract_theories.html (2548 words)

	Handshakes Demo::Profile - Personal
		Thus in spite of giving up some individual rights for the Social Contract, they have not lost any more freedom, because all within the society have surrendered their rights freely and equally, and suffer the same inequality.
		However, it is to a person benefit to agree to the social contract, because by giving up the freedom of Natural Liberty an individual gains Civil Liberty.
		Rousseau argues in chapter eight of the Social Contract, What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses.
	www.handshakesdemo.com /profiles/foster (1683 words)

	SSRN-The Methodological Commitments of Contemporary Contract Theory by Jody Kraus
		In this Chapter, I argue that what appear to be first-order disagreements over particular contract doctrines are really implicit second-order disagreements reflecting the divergent methodological commitments of autonomy and economic theories.
		I demonstrate how the apparent disagreements between autonomy contract theories, such as Charles Fried's and Peter Benson's theories, and economic theories, such as Charles Goetz and Robert Scott's contract theory, reflect these opposing methodological commitments, rather than direct disagreements over particular contract doctrines.
		I also demonstrate that these theories' opposing perspectives in adjudication do not, as Richard Craswell has famously argued, necessarily disable all autonomy theories from addressing the problem of contractual gaps.
	www.ssrn.com /abstract=269975 (397 words)

	Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics
		Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1651) — Laid basis for social contract theory, providing branching point for the theories of constitutionalism and fascism.
		Second Treatise on Government, John Locke (1690) — Principal proponent of the social contract theory which forms the basis for modern constitutional republican government.
		Thomas Nugent 1752) — Laid the foundations for the theory of republican government, particularly the concepts of the separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial, a federal republic, representatives elected from political subdivisions, a bicameral legislature, and a system of checks and balances.
	www.constitution.org /liberlib.htm (3707 words)

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