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social contract
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English philosopher Thomas Hobbes John Locke Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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English philosopher Thomas Hobbes
English philosopher Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes, detail of an oil painting by John Michael Wright; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

social contract

political philosophy
Also known as: contractual theory of society
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•History

social contract, in political philosophy, an actual or hypothetical compact, or agreement, between the ruled or between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each. In primeval times, according to the theory, individuals were born into an anarchic state of nature, which was happy or unhappy according to the particular version of the theory. They then, by exercising natural reason, formed a society (and a government) by means of a social...

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