A Study On Western Modern Social Contract Theory

In certain sense, a study on social contract theory is a minimized study on thehistory of Western political thoughts. Social contract theory has such a long history inWestern society and the spirit of social contract theory is so important in the historyof human civilization that the famous British jurist Des Moines comments: everyprogressive social movement is a movement from status to social contract. Socialcontract theory is used to explain the origin, range and condition of political authority,rights and obligation. This theory reasonably explains the emergence as well as thelegitimacy of society, state, and governance on the basis of people’s consensus. Aresearch on the origin and formation of social contrast theory could clarify howhuman species’ political thinking extended from natural state to the society andfacilitated the self-realization of the subject. The study of the formation of socialcontract theory explains the development and evolution of power and rights, andprovides theoretical guidance for modern democratic politics.From the perspective of natural politics in ancient Greece, there is a dual natureof the contract subject. In the old law tradition of ancient Roman, The roman publiclaw and private law input rationality into the ancient Greek natural politics so thatequality and consensus acquired theoretical status. The Roman public law consists ofa series of institutes and ordinance derived from the struggle for rights between thearistocracy and the populous. At the same time, the private law elucidates the equalitybetween the two contractors (or many contractors) in the civil matters, as well as therights and responsibility relation on a consensual basis. The Hebrew and Christiantheological culture and feudal, semi-contract social structure ground the ideology,culture and society of the middle ages for over one thousand years. Against thisbackground, the contract thoughts following the ancient Greece and Roman lawtraditions encountered the covenant thought from The Holy Bible, the classicalChristian literature. In the competition between religious authority and state authority,religious authority thinkers, represented by Manegold and Aquinas, justified thecontract between the king and the populous, with which they argued against tyranny.The semi-contract relation between the lord and vassal was the core concept in the development of contract theory during the middle ages. Despite that thissemi-contract theory was still different from modern contract theory to certain degree,the belief that government power derives from contract, and that contract regulatespower and protects rights had significant and long-lasting influence.Renaissance and religion reformation provided solid ground for the prosperityof contract theory. During this period, natural law theory evolved from pre-modernfrom stoical, Roman and theological natural law to rational, moral and secular naturallaw. The revival of humanism urged people to understand themselves and the worldwith a rational attitude, which reveals possibility for breaking limit set by theology.Thinkers such like Salamonio and Albert Hughes began to analyze the emergence ofstate and government power with contract theory and to distinguish governmentcontract and social contract, which marked the prototype of modern social contracttheory. In the seventeenth century, Thomas Hobbes created modern social contracttheory, sublating his predecessors’ thoughts. Following this, Locke, Pufendorf,Rousseau and others made great contribution to enrich and further develop socialcontract theory. In the eighteenth century, Rousseau’s "The Social Contract"symbolized the ultimate formation of modern social contract theory.The modern social contract theory in the West derives from the core of variouspolitical thoughts through all the historical periods. To thematize the logic of thedevelopment of contract theory and to analyze the relation between natural law andsocial contract theory provides in-depth interpretation of the essence of Westernpolitical-cultural tradition. The ideas of justice, freedom, democracy, human rightsand law inherent in the modern social contract theory are great contributions made byWestern political though to the world civilization. The social contract theory hasproduced a profound influence during the changing of political culture: thedevelopment of modem western political theory, the construction of political andlegal system, and the public political opinions.