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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.
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).
Some social contract theorists reasoned, however, that in the natural state only the strongest could benefit from their rights. Thus, people form an implicit social contract, ceding their natural rights to the authority to protect the people from abuse, and living henceforth under the legal rights of that authority [citation needed].
The Social Contract helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. The Social Contract argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Rousseau asserts that only the general will of the people has the right to legislate, for only under the general will can the people be said to obey ...
The modern social imaginary he considers comprises a system of interlocking spheres, including reflexivity and the social contract [11] public opinion and Habermas' public sphere, the political-market economy as an independent force, and the self-government of citizens within a society as a normative ideal.
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Social contract is a broad class of theories that try to explain the ways in which people form states and/or maintain social order. Social Contract may also refer to: Policies
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 extreme way. [ 2 ] Cécile Fabre argues that "it is legitimate to constrain democratic majorities, by way of the constitution, to respect and promote those fundamental rights of ours that protect the ...