Contractarianism

Contractarianism is a way of thinking about how governments and societies should be organized. The key idea is that people in a society make an agreement, or a "contract," with each other and with the government about how things should work, with the obligation to certain duties being based off of the contract. The contract is also made with mutual agreement between everyone in the society - though it has been a discussion within the topic about what is considered an 'agreement' to the contract (i.e. explicit agreement, implied agreement by doing certain things, etc.?). In a contractarian view, the government is like a club president – it's there to make sure everyone in society follows the rules and keeps their end of the bargain. But the government only has power because the people in the society have agreed to give it that power through the social contract. The thinkers who developed contractarianism, like Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, all had a bit of a different take on what this social contract should look like. Some thought that the government should have a lot of power to keep everyone safe, while others thought that the people should have more say. But the core idea is that the government's power and authority come from the people, not the other way around. If the government doesn't uphold its end of the bargain, then the people have the right to change or even overthrow the government. So, in a nutshell, contractarianism is all about the idea that society and government should be based on an agreement between the people, not just the whims of those in power. It's a way of thinking about how to create a fair and legitimate system of government. Though the concept is discussed within the context of a contract between the people and the government, it is also useful when looking at individual cases of mutual agreement (i.e. between two individual people, not governments).