The Social Contract - Thomas Hobbes & John Locke

[Music] hello and welcome to philosophy vibe the channel where we discuss and debate different philosophical ideas today we're going to be focusing on political philosophy and looking at the ideas around the social contract great so in short the social contract tries to explain the population's relationship with the state or the ruling government in this video we are first going to look at thomas hobbs theory on the social contract then we will focus on john locke's ideas and how this in fact helped shape the liberalism approach to political philosophy that would later dominate the western world fantastic let's begin very well now thomas hobbs was a 17th century philosopher who contributed greatly to the subject of political philosophy during the later years of his life he lived through the english civil war living among such brutality watching the changing of the country parliamentarians fighting royalists and the ensuing chaos that would follow it really made hobbs question the nature of the state what is government and how did it come to be right in his book leviathan hobbes looks at the earliest years of human development before society before civilization and of course before government hobbes refers to this as the state of nature hobbes was very critical and pessimistic about the state of nature this state was a time with no laws and no rulers in a way complete freedom for every human however living in such a state hobbes argued was complete chaos and something we would definitely want to avoid as it would offer no long-term benefits for humankind without rulers and laws humans were free to be as savage and as brutal as possible it would be a life of brute violence there would be no safety no security or trust and as such partnerships growth and civilizations would not develop there would be no industry no commerce no culture no arts no knowledge and no sociable or civilized life each day would just be a battle to survive and as hobbes claims continual fear and danger of violent death and the life of man solitary poor nasty brutish and short wow a very terrifying thought right so as you can see most rational humans would not want to live in this type of world hobbs believed humans were self-interested so they would want what was best for themselves and also humans were rational beings so they would strive to create an environment that took them out of this state of nature this is where rulers and governments would need to be created hobbes did not believe in the divine right of kings whereby god has created certain mental rule in fact hobbes believed that it was the human beings as a collective who decides the rulers this collective is the social contract humans get together with a mutual interest to create a better life than the state of nature i see first people will give up their complete freedom they will give up their complete freedom in order to live together in peace and stability they will create rules and common laws that all must follow secondly they will hand over complete power to a person or a group of people to enforce these laws this is the sovereign the authority that makes sure the social contract is followed the role of the sovereign is to ensure there is peace and stability in the society and they have unlimited power to make sure this remains the rulers then can do whatever they want whatever they need to do in order to maintain the peace and safety for the population this is the social contract we collectively agree to follow laws and rules and we give unlimited power to the sovereign to make sure we all follow them we can never limit the power of the sovereign and we can never try to fight against them so long as they are fulfilling their part of the social contract and maintaining a safe environment free from chaos and from the state of nature remember all that stands between humans and that chaotic brutal life is the sovereign and so they must always remain all-powerful all the time okay so automatically i feel uncomfortable with the idea of having a ruler with unlimited power we know the phrase absolute power corrupts absolutely and the idea of having let's say an evil or unhinged person with absolute power is frightening this can very well lead to an unhappy even depressed population having to put up with a crazy tyrant of course hobbs social contract is not perfect but no political system ever is there will be inconveniences or at least there will be times of inconvenience depending on who the sovereign is however hobbes would argue that this is a small price to pay for completely escaping the brutal state of nature this was necessary in order to avoid living in horrible awful conditions where every day is a violent struggle and life would never improve i am not convinced i would argue that the wrong sovereign with unlimited power can in fact create a state that resembles the state of nature hobbs has described this is definitely not outside the realm of possibility we can easily imagine a brutal violent dictator that has unlimited power and starts inflicting terror on the population or parts of the population this has happened so many times you have evil rulers who have destroyed their societies through thoughtless acts of war you have had stupid rulers who have destroyed economies and commerce i can't see how giving one person or a small group of people unlimited power can be sustainable because we are talking about a long-term system sure there may be times where there are inept or bad rulers but there will be times where there are great heroic and intelligent rulers so the system is there all the time it allows for the good the mediocre and at times the bad but the state of nature is constant the brutish environment is everlasting and we cannot ever get out of that state we cannot improve unless we create the social contract well i think hobbes may have been a bit hyperbolic when explaining the state of nature it can be argued that humans are not necessarily that brutish and violent in nature hobbes has basically said either we are all completely free in chaos and we will be fighting and killing each other forever or we give complete and unlimited power to one person to stop us killing each other but also that one person can control every aspect of our existence surely there is something else this can't be the only two states of existence for human beings very interesting you should say that so now i want to move on to john locke's ideas on the social contract okay now in two treaties on government locke explains that he too sees humans starting at the state of nature but he did not have the very dark morbid view that hobbes had lok agreed that the state of nature was complete freedom for human beings this liberty to act and live how one pleases however this did not mean we could do anything we wanted and every act was permissible we must remember although there was no rulers this did not mean there was no morality locke believed humans were still bound by natural law and using our rational faculties we can see that we have natural rights locke described these natural rights as life liberty and property so basically we cannot kill or harm each other we cannot enslave or force each other to act and we cannot steal from each other these were the three natural rights all humans had we were all born and created equally with these three rights i see of course in the state of nature there is no authority to protect these natural rights or to judge if any of the rights are being violated and so here is where the population makes a social contract we grant limited powers to a government to make sure that these three natural rights are being preserved the role of the government is to judge whether any of these rights have been violated for an individual and to punish anyone who violates another's natural rights now we may give up some freedoms in order to preserve our natural rights we do give power to a government in order to help protect our natural rights and act as an impartial judge equal and fair to everyone this would all be in the pursuit of liberty and justice for all this is done only with the consent of the people we make this contract with the government we the people give the consent for them to have the power to punish us providing our natural rights are being safeguarded yes understand so we can see the main difference between loch and hobbes is that locke did not advocate for unlimited power of the sovereign locke did not believe the government should have absolute control and rule over the people the government was only there to protect our natural rights and nothing more should the people ever feel like the government is not fulfilling their part of the contract locke believed it should be permissible and in fact necessary that the people overthrow the government and expel the existing rulers should the leaders become inept or thoughtless in their laws the people must repel the authority this was after all a contract an agreement that both entities needed to make good upon if the current rulers could not fulfill their promise the people should be able to get them out of office and bring in new rulers interesting this is where liberalism as a political philosophy started to develop the idea that human beings should be free to live however they like providing they do not violate anyone's natural rights human beings should be free to live how they want love who they want worship what they want without any interference from the government we see locke's theory prominent in liberal democracies too where the people can contribute and give their consent to a ruling party and president and we all have the power to expel these rulers if we believe they are not doing a good job a great political theory and one that seems very desirable but of course there are still some issues i would like to raise go ahead from a meta ethical perspective where exactly does locke's natural laws and natural rights come from is this from a rational intuition or from god there are interpretations but generally natural law is seen as being god's law that we discover by our rational mind right well i don't want to hold debate over natural law we have already done that but there are issues with this theory so to just start from the point that life liberty and property our natural rights is not self-evident fair enough secondly the idea of overthrowing the government when the people feel they are not doing a good job can actually be quite dangerous how so whilst i don't like the idea of an absolute ruler that we must obey no matter what equally being able to dispose of any government at the drop of a hat seems unreliable especially if the population is perhaps spoilt greedy unrealistic or ignorant at any moment if the people feel they are not happy with the government they can overthrow them this will create a very unstable environment nothing would get done as leadership would constantly change progress would be stagnant i don't think this is such a problem people are after all self-interested and rational they wouldn't create such a tough environment for their leaders at their own expense the right to expel rulers is only meant to safeguard against tyranny yes i do understand but still a constant change in leadership is possible and unstable i doubt this is a very big threat finally and this is a criticism of the social contract overall how much can any one individual say they have given consent or signed up to an agreement with their government or rulers i don't think i can say this i was born into this society with all the rules in place and forced upon me i do not feel i made a deal with any ruler and should i decide that i do not want to participate in the agreement should i reject my consent give up my protections in favor of complete freedom is this an option can i do this can i opt out sign a document saying i am not protected by the police or military but i do not have to follow the rules well no okay so how can this be a contract if i have not consented i suppose you can leave that particular society you can go into exile or you can choose another society to live in one where you do consent to live in and consent to the rules in place perhaps you can even go into the rainforest and live completely free as part of the state of nature easier said than done if you would like the script to this video either to help you study or to support the channel then please take a look at our political philosophy ebook available on amazon this script is featured in there along with a number of others the link will be in the description but that's all the time we have for now thank you for watching we hope you enjoyed the vibe i know some of you may be questioning why russo was not mentioned in this debate we've decided we will do a specific video on russo social contract but for now let us know your thoughts on hobbes and lox's social contract theory in the comments below if you enjoyed the video please like and share and for more debates please subscribe to our channel thanks again and we'll see you in the next video

Channel: Philosophy Vibe

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Keywords: Philosophy, Vibe, political philosophy, social contract, social contract theory, thomas hobbes, thomas hobbes social contract theory, thomas hobbes leviathan, thomas hobbes political thought, john locke, john locke philosophy, john locke social contract theory, john locke social contract theory explained, john locke political philosophy, john locke political theory, john locke political thought, john locke liberalism, social contract explained, social contract theory crash course

Id: vobl7n4K1E4

Length: 14min 27sec (867 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 23 2020