Social Contract Theory

Introduction

The world in which we live today is full of chaos and a lot of issues can be found around us. In this chaotic, confused and disordered world every other individual is in the race to go ahead of each other. In this race and competition, everyone is forgetting morality, justice and a balanced life. When we talk about morality there are different schools of thought that present different ideas about the implementation of idea related to morality. Social contract theory also presents a particular dogma about the morality with regard to self interested individual. The aim and objective of this paper is also to talk about the concept of morality in the light of social contract theory.

Discussion

Social contract theory posits that morality is a set of rules that are adopted by members of the society. The members of the society agree to obey to the morality and the rules when other members in the society also abide by the morality (James, Pp. 11). When the topic of morality and being moral is under discussion then the first thing that comes to mind is that why there is a need to be moral. Related to this question of why to be a moral person the social contract theory provides strong and influential answers. When it comes to morality then the social contact theory posits that the concept of right and wrong are judgments or agreements that are employed by the rationally self interested individuals. These rationally self interested individuals employ the agreements of being right and wrong so that they give up the unhindered pursuit of their personal desires and their personal interests in order to secure their lives in peace with one another. To obtain this state of life where there is a security of peace so, an individual may be willing to let go the liberty of total self determination and rather prefers to take on the restrictions of the conventional concept of morality (James, pp. 100).

According to the theorist of social contract an individual believes that to live in a society that endorses and believes in morality would be in his or her best interest. By utilizing the factors of both the threats and manifestation of force society provides protection to the rights and interest of the members. However, if we talk about this by moving away from the context of society and talk about it in general in the state of nature then it is obvious that there would be no source in place to force people to pay respect to the other people's interest. This means that in this state of nature, the life would be full of chaos, the uncertainty of life expectancy would be so high, and the chances to pursue self interest would be low. So, when an individual sees that there is nothing in this state of the nature so they think that the best option is that they should leave this sate of nature, give up their ...