Question

explain john locke's theory social contract and jean jacques rousseau's theory of social contract within 300 words.​

Answer 1

Answer:

Locke's Social Contract was devoted to sovereignty and law. Sovereignty derived from the people's will. This will remained with the people. He argued that sovereignty did not reside in the state but with the people, and that the state was supreme, but only if it was bound by civil and natural law.

Explanation:

There are many different versions of the notion of a social contract. A common description of the social contract is that people give up some of their rights in order to get the benefits of living in civil society. For example, the current version of the Wikipedia article "Social contract" says:

Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.

John Locke's version of social contract theory is striking in saying that the only right people give up in order to enter into civil society and its benefits is the right to punish other people for violating rights. No other rights are given up, only the right to be a vigilante.

Even the right to be a vigilante returns to the individual if the government breaks the social contract by not punishing those who violate rights.  (See John Locke: When the Police and Courts Can't or Won't Take Care of Things, People Have the Right to Take the Law Into Their Own Hands.) But the principle that "People Must Not Be Judges in Their Own Cases" means that no one person or group of people who all have the same grievance should make the decision that the government has failed in its job of punishing those who violate their rights. There should be some substantial set of individuals who do not have a direct grievance who also think that the government is failing in its job before anyone takes the law into their own hands again. And the principle that people must not be judges in their own cases means that setting up at least an ad hoc civil society to patch the regular government's failings is better than reverting to anarchy.