The Social Contract Theorists

by Christopher W. Morris

• ISBN13: 9780847689064
• ISBN10: 0847689069
• Format: Bound Book
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

Summary

This rich collection will introduce students of philosophy and politics to the contemporary critical literature on the classical social contract political thinkers Thomas Hobbes (1599-1697), John Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). A dozen essays and book excerpts have been selected to guide students through the texts and to introduce them to current scholarly controversies surrounding the contractarian political theories of these three thinkers. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix	(4)
Acknowledgments	xiii
1 Hobbes's War of All against All	1	(22)
Gregory S. Kavka
2 Hobbes's "Mortall God": Is There a Fallacy in Hobbes's Theory of Sovereignty?	23	(18)
M.M. Goldsmith
3 The Failure of Hobbes's Social Contract Argument	41	(18)
Jean Hampton
4 Hobbes's Social Contract	59	(14)
David Gauthier
5 Why Ought One Obey God? Reflections on Hobbes and Locke	73	(24)
David Gauthier
6 Locke's State of Nature	97	(24)
A. John Simmons
7 Political Consent	121	(22)
A. John Simmons
8 Structure, Choice, and Legitimacy: Locke's Theory of the State	143	(24)
Joshua Cohen
9 A Possible Explanation of Rousseau's General Will	167	(24)
Patrick Riley
10 Reflections on Rousseau: Autonomy and Democracy	191	(14)
Joshua Cohen
11 Rousseau, the Problem of Sovereignty and the Limits of Political Obligation	205	(14)
John Charvet
12 The General Will	219	(20)
Arthur Ripstein
Bibliography	239	(4)
Authors	243