Social contract theory addresses political obligations and agreement among people to form the perfect society. Nowadays, the concept "social contract" is the main object of research for most experts in various areas of knowledge. These are philosophers and political scientists, lawyers and economists. However, it should be noted that the theory of social contract has the old history. It is possible to claim that it becomes a subject of discussion at the time of antiquity. There is a point of view that moral and political duties of people depend on the agreement between them for the purpose of development of the society in which they live.
The idea of "social contract" was widely discussed in the works of philosophers of the XVII-XVIII centuries. The most prominent among them are: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The last two critically analysed the concept of equality and inequality in society.
They considered the disposition of humans through the lens of individualism rather than examining the group as a whole. Rousseau and Locke both agree that the state of nature best preserves men’s equality; however, while Locke believes that the society reinforces our natural sense of fairness, Rousseau claims that the society is actually the origin of inequality.
According to Rousseau, the first reason towards inequality in the society is the comparison among people. As men become more settled, learn to benefit actively from nature and build a proper society, they get used to gathering together and living in the gaze of others. Therefore, everyone starts to consider others and want to be considered as well. In his Discourse on Inequality was written: "The one who sang or danced the best, the handsomest, the strongest, the most adroit or the most eloquent became the most highly regarded" (Jean-Jacques Rousseau 49). Accordingly, this desire for the high regard of others gave the rose to negative emotions, such as vanity, envy, shame and jealousy. If society does not exist and every person is isolated, people won’t make comparisons and distinctions anymore, nobody would care about public esteem. As a result, everyone will be equal.
Locke starts his Second Treatise of Government establishing truths of nature mainly that God is the creator and he did not grant superiority to any individuals in modern day society, as was often argued in the past. Locke states, "In races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another, the least pretence to be the eldest house" (John Locke 7). He considers the State of Nature to be the natural right of humankind. Because men are equal and free in the state of nature, they must be assured that they will still be under society and government. Without the existence of a proper societal framework, there is only the state of nature. According to Locke, there are two important elements of the State of the Nature: "state of perfect freedom" and "a state of equality" (John Locke 8). From the perspective of Locke, all men are "equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions" (John Locke 9). The reason why men give up their natural liberty, unite into a civil society and establish government is for "their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it" (John Locke 52). It is evident from Locke’s words that the end of society is to preserve the natural rights of people, as well as equality.
Discourse on inequality is a mirror into which Rousseau insist we could see how civilization has distorted our present society. According to him, the failure of modern society is indicated through the fact that the government promotes inequality and injustice. The government has nothing to do with the preservation of people’s rights, but corruption. "Such was, or should have been, the origin of society and laws, which gave new fetters to the weak, and new forces to the rich, irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, established forever the law of property and of inequality" (Jean-Jacques Rousseau 57). Accordingly, the differences between men became more obvious and domination eventually made its appearance. Eventually, the ploys of the rich and the powerful led to the growth of society. Therefore, our sense of natural fairness is weakened by the framework of society since modern society itself will be unable to exist without the presence of inequality within it.
Locke states that property is one of the natural laws. A person can only acquire as many things as he or she can consume, and "labour gave a right of property" (John Locke 27). Consequently, a person is the owner of lands or plants, as long as he or she improves and cultivate them. Nevertheless, people might turn out to possess different properties, but it is fair because "ddifferent degrees of industry were apt to give men possessions in different proportions" (John Locke 29). However, Rousseau has a vastly different point of view.
Rousseau claims that the concept of property has a direct relation to the spread of inequality as it evokes self-interest and greed. Rousseau thought that private ownership of property tends to corrupt men and destroy their character. He begins part two of Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by stating the origin of civil society is when "the first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him" (Jean-Jacques Rousseau 44). And this becomes the idea of property, but Rousseau disagrees with this idea because it is impossible to name something a man’s property if he does not originally create. If the use of resources and talents in society had remained the same there would have been no inequality. He believed that private property should be minimal and should be distributed equally among people. Rousseau’s strong feelings about property and its impact inequality is reflected in his words: "but as soon as one man needed the help of another, as soon as one man realized that it was useful for a single individual to have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property came into existence, labour became necessary" (Jean-Jacques Rousseau 51).
Locke usually stressed on the importance of self-preservation and actively promotes the right of this, "and thus it is, that every man, in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer" (John Locke 11). (We should remember that self-preservation had been defended as a fundamental right, as a duty-by natural-law philosophers.) Even in Nature, Locke believes, there is law along with the ideals of justice and morality. He stresses how some men are often forced to leave the state of nature owing to the conflicts that crop up, but they usually do it only when they have a social contract that permits them to be a part of society, featuring a highly developed system of politics. In contrast, Rousseau suggests that the present society must be modified into an egalitarian and socialist society that possesses extremely close ties with the state of nature. Rousseau's account of the operation of society focuses on its various stages. Starting with the trick payed by the reach, he sees society as becoming more and more unequal until appearance of despotism. As we can see, wealth becomes the standard by which men are compared. Accordingly, despotism and conflict become possible. Unlike other philosophers, he holds the opinion that man has progressed to such a condition that he is unable to regress to his natural state and therefore he is bound to become a victim of inequality and corruption. He tends to overlook how some legitimate societies live according to the tenets of mankind in his natural state, and therefore, tend to have incredible respect for the ideals of liberty and life. For Rousseau, the worst type of modern society is that in which money is not only measure of value. In some societies, there are still traces of equality and justice but modern societies are increasingly becoming more unequal.
Some critics argue that Locke’s theory of the ends of society and government does not include the preservation of equality, simply because in Second Treatise of Government, Locke mentions men build society for the preservation of "lives", "liberties", "estates" and "property" (John Locke 66), but does not mention equality; it might be true that there is no direct quote to clarify that society preserves equality; however, we can still trace some indirect textual evidence from the book. Despite the fact that being equal is one of the natural rights of men in the state of nature, a lot of them still feel unsecure because invasions could happen at any time. Because of this, men are willing to build a society to protect their property. Government of the society makes up three important things that state of nature lacks, which are: "an established, settled, known law"; "a known and indifferent judge"; and the "power to back and support the sentence" (John Locke 66). These components help the government to preserve the state of nature, including equality. "Men, give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society" (John Locke 68) to better preserve themselves.
In conclusion, Locke believes that the society reinforces our natural sense of fairness; Rousseau claims the society weakens the equality. Judging from the Locke’s ideas we can clearly state that the presence of unfairness in society helped to develop an understanding of justice and morality among people. In Locke’s State of Nature, everyone happened to be equal, and man had the capacity and presence of mind to leave each other alone unless it was for the purpose of self-preservation. Therefore, Rousseau believes that the state of equality would have continued if the talents of every person been equal. This comes in direct opposition to the words of Locke, who stressed on the fact that humans are all created equal; no one have authority over others.
Works Cited
Jean Jacques Rousseau. "Discourse on Inequality". 1754.Web. Accessed 14 Jan. at < http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq.htm >
John Locke. "Second Treatise of Government". 1689.Web. Accessed 14 Jan. 2015 at <https://books.google.com.ua/books/about/Second_Treatise_of_Government.html?id=oOjoGkmMWUMC&redir_esc=y
