Social Contract Theory

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Social Contract Theory

• The ideas behind the Declaration of Independence
  and the American Revolution

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Journal Prompt

• What would your life be like without government?
• Consider services the government provides
• freedoms government limits
• your safety, health, happiness and property
• Would you like to live without government? Why or
  why not?

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Social Contract Theory is about

• 1. Why people theoretically choose to give up
  some of their power in order to form a government
• 2. The purpose of government

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Who are the main social contract theorists?

• Rousseau,Thomas Hobbes, John Locke wrote about
  social contract theory in 1600s 1700s.

what does this have to do with US history?
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• John Lockes ideas are the foundation of the
  Declaration of Independence

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The Second Treatise on Government by John Locke

• Written 1679-83

• 124-page PERSUASIVE ESSAY.
• Why did he write it?

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Purpose of Lockes Second Treatise on Government

• To explain the role or purposes of govt
• Justify resisting the power of the king
• To protect property rights and increase Britains
  wealth. (Locke was a big land owner)

farm
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Social Contract theorists like John Locke based
their ideas about government on a fictitious
state of nature
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What is this state of nature?
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What does the state of nature mean?

• What life is naturally like before people
  created governments
• Do we really know what this is? No. It is what
  different philosophers imagine life would be like
  without government.
• What do you think the state of nature, or life
  without government would be like?

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According to Locke, in the state of nature
everyone

• Is equal
• Has liberty
• Follows natural laws of reason -
• dont harm others LIFE/HEALTHor
• LIBERTY or
• PROPERTY POSSESSIONS
• Everyone has to preserve himself and others
• Has executive power- everybody has the right to
  punish others for breaking these natural laws

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Natural laws of the state of nature dont mess
with someones

• Life
• Liberty
• Property

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The state of nature is dangerous!

• If everybody has the right to punish people who
  break the natural laws then what is life like in
  the state of nature?

Violent! Chaotic!
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Heres how Thomas Hobbes described life in the
state of nature, or life w/o government

• Life in the state of nature is essential a state
  of constant violence, a state of war. It is...

short, nasty, and brutish
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If everyone has executive power to punish then
x

• People who are selfish or revengeful or unfair
  will be extra lenient on their friends and hard
  on people they dislike when punishing people who
  break the natural laws

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Trade State of Nature for Govt

• State of nature can easily turn into a state of
  war, in which nobodys life, liberty or property
  is safe. So
• Give up some liberties to leave the state of
  nature and form a civil society, to form a
  GOVERNMENT.
• You give the GOVERNMENT your executive power to
  punish people who mess with your life, liberty or
  property.

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The purpose of government according to John Locke
is to
Liberty
Life
Property
Protect peoples natural rights
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Definition of Political Power

• right of making laws and penalties for the
  regulating and preserving of property and of
  employing the force power of the community to
  enforce those laws and in the defense of the
  common-wealth from foreign injury and all this
  for the public good.
• (Locke, 8)

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Forming a government to protect yourself from the
violence of the state of nature is called...
A social contract
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Right to revolution
According to John Locke, people have a right to
rebel or change the government when it no longer
protects their LIFE, LIBERTY PROPERTY. This
what the Founding Fathers used as the reason for
declaring independence from England.
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Right to revolution
governments are dissolved from within when
they fail to protect, life, liberty and property
contrary to their trust by this breach of trust
they forfeit the power the people had put into
their hands for quite contrary ends, and it the
power devolves goes back tothe people, who
have a right to provide for their own safety and
security, which is the end for which they are in
society.
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The goal of government is the good of
mankind.
Which is best for mankind,A) that the people
should be exposed to the boundless whim of
tyranny? B) that the rulers should
sometimes be opposed, then they grow exorbitant
in their use of power and employ it for the
destruction, and not the preservation of the
properties of their people? people have a right
to erect a new form of government as they
think good.
or
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Should people revolt immediately or over little
things?
Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong
and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human
frailty, will be born by the people without
mutiny or murmur. But, if a long train of
abuses, prevarications lies and artifices make
the design visible to the people. It is not to
be wondered that they should then... endeavor to
put the rule into such hands which may secure
them the the ends for which government was at
first erected.
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Compare John Lockes ideas with the Declaration
of Independence
Signing the Declartion of Independence
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Natural Rights of men
Long train of abuses
Life
Property
Pursuit of Happiness
Liberty
Dissolve government