The question required the student to write a research paper determining the Philosophical Impact of Social Contract Theory. Specifically, the student needs to pay close attention to Rousseau's social

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Philosophical Impact of Rousseau’s Social Contract

Rousseau came up with the idea that individuals ought to protect their health, liberty, possession and life. He argued that all human beings are equal by having God-given rights that cannot be taken away. The social contract theory argued that humans are held responsible for maintaining reason and tolerance. He encouraged the preservation of human freedom in a society characterized by people who are independent of each other for needs satisfaction. Rousseau went to advocate for political institutions where the citizens are equal and free in a society in which they are sovereign (Qvortrup 14). On that note, equality and freedom are crucial for the coexistence of human beings in order to do away with oppression and lack of freedom around the world. Through a philosophical lens of the social contract, it is possible to identify Rousseau’s philosophical motivations and his influences on other philosophers.

Social contract theory is a specific hypothesis about society, the connection between rules and laws, and why the community needs them. In such a state, individuals would follow up on their understanding, with no duty to their local community. The social contract agreement is a critical yet potentially reasonable perspective on humankind without rules and individuals to uphold the principles. The deal is unwritten and is acquired upon entering the world. It directs that one cannot violate the law or specific ethical codes. In return, we receive our general public's rewards, particularly security, endurance, schooling, and different necessities expected to live. In this sense, Carole Pateman, a feminist and political philosopher argues that the social contract has various impacts on women (Pateman 2). Pateman’s detailed analysis of the Rousseau’s possessive model in the social contract theory hypothesis attests that it legitimates explicitly male-centric control.

Pateman contends that this model of the individual is a naturally male centric development since it is male. It adds up to the case that the explicitly male type of sexual craving is comprised by the longing to appropriate a lady’s body as a piece of property, to practice authority over it for one's sexual use. The agreement is just the cutting edge implied by what men keep on practicing the “law of male sex-right” (Elizabeth). As long as men’s acceptance to ladies’ sexual forces is considered and acknowledged as a fundamental authoritative matter - and as long as this legally binding access is imagined as vital for the acknowledgment of manliness, ladies will not have the option to get away from the male-centric mastery of their bodies by men. Towards that end, Pateman is correct to denounce the social contract model as one that legitimates crooked and male-centric types of control. What’s more, she calls attention to the continuation of male-centric society over a wide span of time-day authoritative types of marriage, prostitution, substitute parenthood, and business (Pateman 3). But there is a hole between these cases and the dismissal of authoritarian structures. The contractarian hypothesis is overall a helpful instrument for the freedom of ladies.

Equally important, Rousseau’s social contract theory had an impact on Jeremy Waldron’s interpretation of society and human nature. Waldron’s philosophical ideology was greatly advanced by Rousseau’s ‘view, especially his idea of human nature and social contract. However, Waldron disagrees with Rousseau’s position that the state of nature was a chaotic and lawless state. For instance, Rousseau’s interpretation of the state of nature asserts: “But though this be a statue of liberty, yet it is not a state of license; though man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it” (Rousseau 5). The society has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that, being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise maker (Rousseau 5). So, Waldron contends that people did not necessarily engage in war as Rosseau had opined, rather crisis emerges only when one man steals from others or makes others his slaves.

Based on Rosseau’s social contract theory, Waldron explores that it is this, which make human nature that was naturally good to become tyrannical as well as evil, especially when one man tries to use brute force on others. Thus, the state of nature becomes state of war because: And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him, it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life; for I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he got me there, and destroy me, too, when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have mein his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom, i.e., make me a slave (Rousseau 12). Waldron identifies that the state of nature becomes volatile and war ensues because, it lacks a political force (government). It is a state where dialogue does not usually resolve crisis.

To this end, Waldron through the lens of social contract believes that nature has provided no other means to resolve dispute other than for each man to be the judge in his own case, the state of nature is therefore apolitical and cannot fulfil the condition for existence. According to Waldron, this condition is what Rousseau called property. As he explains it: “Man being born, as has been proved with a title to perfect freedom and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property that is life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself; in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it” (Rousseau 44).

To sum up, Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important figure in the history of philosophy, both because of his political and educational contributions. Rousseau’s view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negative. Despite his literary works that characterize social contract as a vital aspect of society, the motivation behind his actions have had an impact on other philosophers. Rousseau’s philosophies on general will, society, nationalism, and freedom are evident in philosophical ideologies from philosophers such as Waldron and Pateman, yet many of these discussions assume connections between Rousseau’s beliefs and behavior. The review of Jean-Jacques Rousseau social contract thus reveals minimal or biased discussion of his philosophical motivations.

Works Cited

Pateman, Carole. “Sexual contract.” The wiley blackwell encyclopedia of gender and sexuality studies, 2016. 1-3.

Qvortrup, Mads. The political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The impossibility of reason. Manchester University Press, 2018.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Rousseau: The Social Contract and other later political writings.

Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Waldron, Jeremy. “Rousseau’s: Social Contract v Political Philosophy.” The Review of Politics (1989): 3-55.