Book One of The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau focuses on the reasons that people give up their natural liberty in order to achieve protection from threats to themselves and their property. This results in the formation of a legitimate sovereign where all members are equal. Rousseau believes that no human has authority over another individual because force cannot be established. He argues that no individual will give up his or her freedom without receiving something in return. I will focus my analysis on how the social contract states that we must give up our individual rights in order to obtain equality and security.
This, according to Hobbes, is a contract or a moral obligation. For the sake of peace, people should give up their rights only if others do the same. However, Hobbes states that, the right of self-preservation is the one right that can never be given up because it is the right on which the contract is formed, “By all means we can, to defend our selves." (Hobbes, 1996). Ryan states that, “it appears we must renounce all our rights, save only the right to defend ourselves” (Ryan, 1996).
In addition, he believes that “we just have to check that the act we have in mind will not use anyone as a mere means, and, if possible, that it will treat other persons as ends in themselves” (O’Neil, 2008, p. 113). This principle acts as a moral code implying that one should never treat a person merely as a means to an end. Overall, Kantian ethics focuses and recognizes the importance of the value of humanity. His categorical imperative ultimately leads to a “kingdom of ends,” in which norms that deny the value of humanity are not permitted. In my opinion, it would be difficult to disagree because most individuals value their own life.
If as Hobbes suggests, fear legitimizes the establishment of contracts, then it appears that the contract between the sovereign and the people establishes the legitimacy of the sovereign’s authority in a natural Commonwealth through the people’s fear that if the destruction of the natural Commonwealth takes place they will be forced back into a “state of nature”. Ultimately, fear of the sovereign himself does not legitimize the
The Founding Fathers and the public felt that the constitution didn’t set up enough boundaries for the government, they felt that the government would assume too much power and take away the “Natural Rights” of the human. The Bill of Rights was set up to make sure the public felt safe and to make sure the government couldn’t abuse their power and turn it into a communist state or a dictatorship. America and our Founding Fathers based our Bill of Rights off the English Bill of Rights, so naturally there will be a lot of similarities between the two. Much like the Amendments in the English Bill of Rights, which states: “The crown shall not have no interference with the law” and “The Freedom of speech in Parliament, in that proceedings in Parliament were not to be questioned in the courts or in any body outside Parliament itself” Our First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
The Primary objective of all leaders should be to control citizens. A society that allows authority to be challenged will never succeed. This source depicts an authoritarian or totalitarian view of what a governing body should look like. The author suggests that the primary objective of government should be the “control of the citizens”, and therefore that the individuals should entirely obey said government. This ideology is counter to that of liberalism as it infringes on the natural rights of its citizens, and it is undemocratic as this society would not have the consent of the governed as a whole.
Rousseau’s theory unlike Locke’s theory states that men would be independent and not need to rely on each other. He states “man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains". With this statement Rousseau believes this freedom and natural goodness is corrupted by the influence of civilization. Rousseau believed that egoism would be absent but compassion would be consistently present. Similarly to Locke, Rousseau believes that we should use our reason with reference to people and states that pity should be the forefront of
The main difference between a collectivists society and Equality’s philosophy of Objectivism is priority. Collectivists believe everyone should live for their brother, and we should give our love away, whereas Equality believes love, honor and respect should be earned. Equality believes you should have the right to choose your friends and ones you will love, but you should neither command or obey
Rawl describe the veil of ignorance as a tool that aims to allow people only to know how a general society works, and helps people choose rational principles of justice based on universal morals. Rawls theorized that the veil of ignorance allows people to erase their bias and come to unanimous agreements because no one is in a position to make any principles of justice tailored to the natural lottery of life, in other words the only way one can determine if a choice, or action is moral is if they don’t know how it affect them. Rawls theory of justice introduces two principles which his theory is dependent on. The first principle states: “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others” (Rawls 60). The main concept Rawls conveys is that behind the veil of ignorance the individual does not know there advantage so, that person will try to strive towards
It often differs from country to country like in United States the independency is understood to begin after the appointment of the Judges to the court. One thing that is beyond dispute is that the Independence cannot be extended to an extent where it results in absolute independence i.e., detachment between the three wings of the government as this will certainly lead to corruption. Therefore a reasonable way to maintain independency is to strike a balance between independency and to ensure that the purpose of the independency is not used in a manner so as to downplay the possible presence of prejudice which can