Social Contract Traditions in Philosophical Thought

The social contract tradition involves philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, who argued that society’s rules emerge from a mutual agreement among individuals. They believed that by consenting to certain rules and limitations, people form a society that protects individual rights and maintains order. Their ideas set the stage for later theorists, like Rawls, who used similar thinking—removing personal biases through a veil of ignorance—to develop principles ensuring fairness and justice.