Please explain the idea of the social contract.

Although
Rousseau discussed the Social Contract, the two most famous proponents of the theory are Thomas
Hobbes and John Locke. Each agrees that the purpose was to create a government, they disagree on
the motives behind the creation of that entity.

Hobbes in
Leviathan proposed that people entered into a contract--that is created a
government--in which they surrendered certain rights to preserve
them from the dangers of the "war of all against all" in which "life is nasty,
brutish and short." The important element in Hobbe's theory is that people SURRENDER
certain rights for their own protection and the greater good. The bestmight be traffic signals;
they prevent everyone from entering the intersection at one time and the resulting chaos. Can't
say that I disagree with him.

Locke's famous work was his Two
Treatises on Civil Government. In the first, he argued against divine right and
absolute monarchy. In the...