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The central assertion that social contract theory approaches is that law and political order are not natural, but human creations. The social contract and the political order it creates are simply the means towards an end—the benefit of the individuals involved—and legitimate only to the extent that they fulfill their part of the agreement.
The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. [7] Written during the English Civil War (1642–1651), it argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign.
In 1972, A Theory of Justice was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review by Marshall Cohen, who described the work as "magisterial," and suggested that Rawls' use of the techniques of analytic philosophy made the book the "most formidable" defense of the social contract tradition to date. He credited Rawls with showing that the widespread ...
Arguing that his theory measures moral reasoning and not particular moral conclusions, Kohlberg insists that the form and structure of moral arguments is independent of the content of those arguments, a position he calls "formalism". [2] [9] Kohlberg's theory follows the notion that justice is the essential characteristic of moral reasoning.
Contractualism is a term in philosophy which refers either to a family of political theories in the social contract tradition (when used in this sense, the term is an umbrella term for all social contract theories that include contractarianism), [1] or to the ethical theory developed in recent years by T. M. Scanlon, especially in his book What We Owe to Each Other (published 1998).
For example, James Madison advocated that a right such as trial by jury arose neither from nature nor from a constitution of government, but from reified implications of the social contract. [1] Social rights are very similar to political rights, and it can be understood that they are effectively the same concepts being exercised in a less ...
Contract theory in economics began with 1991 Nobel Laureate Ronald H. Coase's 1937 article "The Nature of the Firm". Coase notes that "the longer the duration of a contract regarding the supply of goods or services due to the difficulty of forecasting, then the less likely and less appropriate it is for the buyer to specify what the other party should do."
Locke's political theory was founded upon that of social contract. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allows people to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency.