Conceptual Analysis on the Competing View of Social Contract Theory
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Date
2016-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The debate on the origin of state or political authority is one of the controversial issues in the subject matter of philosophy. Different theories explain the source of political authority in different perspectives. In this case social contract theory is the most dominant theory. The advocates of this theory assert that consent is the source of political authority. In other words, government comes through the agreement of the people. And a government is legitimate if and only if it comes through the consent of individuals. This has the implication that no has a natural right to rule others and no one has a natural duty to obey the rule of others outside of his or her consent. Even though the main exponents of this theory agreed on the idea that consent is the source of state authority, they differed on the issue that how and why people are consented to political authority. So, one purpose of this thesis is to propose the possibility for reconciling these antagonistic views of this theory. On the other hand, social contract theory as a whole faces a strong challenge and criticism from many perspectives. In this way David Hume is one of the philosophers who question the legitimacy of social contract theory in explaining the origin of government. Hume argued that social contract theory is illegitimate mechanism to explain the reason why and a government is originated. Based on Hume’s criticism, in this thesis I defend the legitimacy of social contract theory to explain the origin of political authority. Therefore in this thesis my aim is two-fold. First, to propose the possibility of reconciling the competing views of social contract theory and to show whether social contract theory is legitimate mechanism to explain the emergence of state authority
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Philosophy