Social Contract essays

Social Contract essays It might not be possible to live an ethical and law abiding life and still be able to maintain control of our destiny without being crushed by outside powers. However, we should try if we want to live as part of a community, we should try because we'll be going back to a state of Nature if we don't. When Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote The Social Contract he stated that ...a point was reached in the history of mankind when the obstacles to continuing in a state of Nature were stronger than the forces which each individual could employ to the end of continuing in it. (Rousseau, p.179) and that ...the human race would have perished had it not changed its manner of existence. (Rousseau, p.179). Thanks to this Social Contract individuals have abandoned a state of Nature where ethic and laws did not exist and they became instead a community developing a ...some sort of central direction... (Rousseau, p.179) and learning how ...to act in concert... (Rousseau, p.179). Even when outside powers can control our destiny we should never stop trying to live an ethical and law abiding life. If we do stop well be affecting us and everybody else around us. It will be the first step towards downhill on the slippery slope. The slippery slope can be defined as: if A is permitted, then by a gradual series of small steps through B, C, ..., X, Y, eventually Z will be too. We should not permit Z so therefore, we should not permit A. Applying living an ethical and law abiding life to this concept we can state that if I stop doing it, my neighbor will stop doing it, and his neighbor will stop doing it, and so on and so forth until the entire society will stop doing it, leaving us in a completely state of Nature. Jean Jacques Rousseau affirmed that What a man loses as a result of the Social Contract is his natural liberty and his unqualified right to lay hands on all that tempts him.....