Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Social contract theory, whereby the state is the product of consent, has been an enduring explanation of political obligation for several hundred years. It is also the theoretical underpinning of the American Constitution. This paper argues that while not generally recognized as a social contract theorist like Locke, Hobbes, or Rousseau, Hegel has an important perspective on the social contract as the product of consciousness. This paper critical examines Hegel’s “social contract theory”, pointing out its greater adequacy compared to earlier social contract theories by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Hegel grounds the state in will, i.e. the state is a product of will. Social contract theory seeks to preserve the individual in the universal, in that the state (the general) is the product of my individual will and preserves and develops it to completion. Hegel political theory preserves the individual in the general. The essence of social contract theory is that the state is the result of free choice, free will, and is the manifestation of freedom. Social contract theory also posits that the state is based on a rational choice. Social contract theorists have had unresolved difficulty in uniting the particular will of individuals to the general will of the state. Hegel preserves the Greek view that the stare is a natural institution while grounding the nature of the state and political obligation in consent.