Hobbes vs. Rousseau: Contrasting Social Contract Theories
This paper examines and contrasts the social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, two of the most influential political philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Drawing on Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) and Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762), the paper explores each thinker's conception of the state of nature — the pre-social condition of humanity — and shows how those contrasting views lead to fundamentally different arguments about political authority, individual liberty, and the legitimacy of government. Hobbes envisions the state of nature as a brutal war of all against all, necessitating absolute sovereign authority, while Rousseau sees civil society as enabling genuine moral freedom and allowing the governed to revoke and renew their social contract.
- Introduction: The Social Contract Tradition: Origins of social contract theory in European thought
- Hobbes and Rousseau: Overview of Their Theories: Paired overview of each philosopher's core argument
- Hobbes's State of Nature: War of All Against All: Hobbes's bleak vision of pre-social human existence
- Human Nature, Equality, and Morality in Hobbes: Competition, vulnerability, and the absence of morality
- Rousseau's State of Nature and Civil Society: Rousseau's contrasting view of nature and civilization
- Freedom, Consent, and the Right to Revoke the Contract: Rousseau on liberty, consent, and revocable authority
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper uses direct quotations from primary sources to anchor every major analytical claim, demonstrating close reading rather than paraphrase alone.
- It maintains a clear comparative framework throughout, presenting Hobbes's position fully before showing how Rousseau adapts, contests, and transforms each element.
- The argument moves logically from overview to detail — establishing each philosopher's broad theory before drilling into the specific concept of the state of nature that underpins it.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models effective comparative analysis in philosophy: rather than alternating randomly between thinkers, it establishes a conceptual through-line (the state of nature) and uses it as a consistent lens. Each philosopher's position is presented on its own terms before being placed in dialogue with the other, allowing genuine intellectual contrast rather than superficial point-by-point comparison.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with historical context and a definition of the social contract, then provides a paired overview of both theorists. It devotes two substantial sections to Hobbes — his state of nature, and then his treatment of equality, competition, and morality — before turning to Rousseau's state of nature and concluding with Rousseau's distinctive claims about freedom and the revocability of the social contract. This asymmetric structure reflects the paper's deeper engagement with Hobbesian detail as a foundation for understanding Rousseau's departures.
Introduction: The Social Contract Tradition
The notion of the social contract — the concept that human society is fundamentally a human construct — originated in seventeenth-century European thought and was developed throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It received perhaps its most dramatic and influential expressions in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, published in 1651, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract, published in 1762. The notion of the social contract itself arises from a conception of the condition of humanity before the contract was established — the so-called "state of nature" — and each of these works embodies a contrasting view of that state of nature from which human society has arisen.
Hobbes and Rousseau: Overview of Their Theories
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) believed that politics was a science akin to geometry, and that political institutions could be understood using scientific principles. He perceived humans as objects pushed back and forth by powerful forces similar to those that acted upon objects in the physical universe, and sought means of constraining those forces as the underpinnings of a stable society. He regarded the fundamental principles of human social and political organization as "Lawes of Nature" akin to those of the sciences (Hobbes 223). Thus, in Leviathan, Hobbes argues that all humans are driven by two impulses — fear of death and desire for power — which would condemn them to living violent, brutish, inhumane, and solitary lives if left unchecked. The social contract was the means of controlling these impulses and making society possible. The people, according to Hobbes, establish a social contract among themselves, ceding all authority and sovereignty to a single person in exchange for security from each other and from external attack: "reduc[ing] all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will" (Hobbes 227). This ruler would exercise absolute power, controlling the violent and selfish impulses of individuals through force. People would thus lose their liberty but would gain security.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau also used the notion of the social contract as a human creation, "not a natural right" but "one founded on covenants" (Rousseau 50), yet radically changed the concept put forward by Hobbes. Rousseau, like Hobbes, argued that people agreed to cede authority to a particular group in return for the benefits of social organization and mutual security: "the only way in which they can preserve themselves is by uniting their separate powers in a combination strong enough to overcome any resistance, uniting them so that their powers are directed by a single motive and act in concert" (Rousseau 59–60). However, while Hobbes argued that the social contract could not be changed once established — for to change it would invite social breakdown and anarchy — Rousseau asserted that if those in power failed or refused to fulfil the contract by providing safety, the people were free to break the contract and establish a new one: "Despite their common interest, subjects will not be bound by their commitment unless means are found to guarantee their fidelity" (Rousseau 63).
Hobbes's State of Nature: War of All Against All
Hobbes's vision of the state of nature is clearly fundamental to his concept of the social contract. By the state of nature he means that condition which will prevail for humanity without the establishment of any contract or agreement through which authority can be exercised and the natural laws of existence curbed. As a consequence, Hobbes's view of the state of nature is famously bleak, amounting in his view to a state of war: "during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man against every man" (Hobbes 185). This view arises from Hobbes's conviction that the fundamental motivations in human nature are selfish and competitive, and will always find expression through physical competition through which the strong will be able to impose their will upon the weak. This is incompatible with any form of civilization:
In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain ... no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short. (Hobbes 186)
Works Cited
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Edited by C.B. MacPherson. London: Penguin, 1968.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. Translated by Maurice Cranston. London: Penguin, 1968.
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