Write 4–6 pages in which you assess a law in terms of the social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Political philosophy is concerned with the formation and maintenance of civil societies. Its central theme is the need to explain the relationship between individual human beings and their governments.
Competency 1. Explain the nature of ethical issues.By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
Why do we choose to join together, and what is the best way to organize ourselves for productive social life?Political philosophers have often approached the issues by asking why and how we join together in the first place. Thinking about what life would be like without any government is one way to see what benefits we expect from its formation. Hobbes, for example, supposed that individual human beings, without the limitations provided by a civil society, would be concerned only with the promotion of their own self-interest, without any respect for other people. Accepting the authority of government, then, is a kind of self-defense, a way of protecting ourselves against the unbridled selfishness of our neighbors.
In any form of government, we often find a distinction between the legislative power to establish laws by which people are to be governed and the executive power to enforce them. In modern social democracies, for example, constitutional government often devotes a great deal of attention to the separation and interaction of these powers. As individual citizens, we commonly place our confidence in selected leaders to govern with the interests of the entire society in mind.But that brings us back to our initial question of the proper relationship between the society as a whole and each individual living in it. Suppose that we acknowledge that the welfare of the population at large must sometimes take precedence over private concerns, and that it is the proper function of the government to make sure that selfish individuals do not interfere with the public good. Even so, each of us would like to be free to pursue our own plans and ambitions within the framework of society as a whole.Agreeing to participate in the civil society does not require that we give up all of our private interests. Mill (1859, pp. 91–92) and Rawls (1971, pp. 136–143) both argue that a well-organized society should preserve as much individual liberty as is compatible with the continued existence of the state. Justice requires that each of us be permitted to pursue our lives freely, unless doing so interferes with the freedom of our fellow citizens. This means that we can think and say whatever we want and do anything that will not harm someone else.
Mill, J. S. (1859). On liberty. London, GBR: Longman.
Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Questions to consider
To deepen your understanding, you are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of the business community.
Assessment instructions
Many states require that motorcyclists wear helmets while operating their vehicles. This is not like forbidding the use of cell phones or intoxicants, which might impair the rider and endanger other people on the roads. The helmet laws impose a governmental regulation that can, at most, be held to protect only the individual citizen whose behavior is being restricted. Why should the government be able to tell individuals what to do while riding their own motorcycles?
Write a paper assessing these helmet laws in terms of the social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Support your assessment with research on their social contract theories. You may begin your research with suggested Resources, but you are also expected to conduct your own independent research into the scholarly and professional resources of the field.
Consider the following in your paper: