PHIL 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Justice As Fairness
Document Summary
Social contract theory: a person is obligated to follow the laws of the state because he has in some way consented to those laws. Political authority comes from the people forming an agreement as to how to behave. Thomas hobbes argued that human beings formed civil society to escape the state of nature. The state of nature is human life with out any of the benefits of cooperation. It is a war of all against all. Hobbes theorized that to avoid such a horrible state individuals we should give all the power to the. The leviathan would be a government with complete and total power to enforce laws. This is the only way hobbes thought we could avoid the state of nature. Rawls revives social contract theory to give a better account of a just society. Rawls attempts to give an account of how primary goods are to be distributed in just society.
