PHIL 1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Thought Experiment, General Idea

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 1010
• Professor: Kyle Bromhall

Document Summary

Underlying this was a key theme of liberalism; each and every person is born free, and only loses that freedom by entering into artificial social constructs. These social arrangements are also motivated by each person"s essential equality with others, which is another tenet of liberalism. General idea: free individuals are giving up some of their natural freedom in exchange for collective benefits. By affirming this contract, individuals indicate that they will choose to cooperate rather than to exert their natural right to act self-interestedly and expects that others will act in a similar manner. Early attempts to justify the social contract relied on the idea of tacit consent. The idea that by receiving benefits of the contact, one is agreeing to be bound by its limitations and corresponding duties. Using a road: you use the road, you are tacitly consenting to be partially responsible for its maintenance and upkeep.