Natural Law, Social Contract, and the Rise of Liberalism

Natural Law and the Social Contract

Thinkers spoke of a positive law, universal and prior to any other. Its defenders, the Stoics Zeno and Chrysippus (c. 3rd century BCE), maintained the theory of a state of nature, the same for everyone. In his De Legibus, Cicero (1st century BCE) speaks of the naturalis societas inter homines and ius in natura positum. Seneca conceived of society as a product of nature. This idea was taken up by later Roman legislators. In the Middle Ages, it lived on in the minds of Christian philosophers. In De Regimine Principum, Aquinas argues that the exercitium of authority is vested in the people and that it is this which confers it. The government, instituted by the community, may be toppled if it becomes tyrannical. In the Renaissance, the Frenchman Languet defended this thesis in his work Vindiciae contra tyrannos, a book printed in 1581. It was also defended by Althusius in Politica methodice digesta in 1605, and by Grotius and Pufendorf. Suarez defended it in his Tractatus de legibus in 1611, as did the Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mariana (16th-17th centuries) in De rege et regis institutione. The most radical of all its defenders, Mariana stated that when the individual rights granted by natural law are threatened, tyrannicide is lawful.

Once the existence of natural law and a state of nature is recognized, government is formed by a voluntary surrender of individual freedoms to a higher power so that it will protect them. This raises the idea of a social contract established between all community members wishing to establish civil society, leaving the state of nature: they give up the natural order and deposit it in the hands of the community, setting the laws and agreements by which it has to be governed. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau all deal with the pact. The idea of a social contract consists of two closely linked ideas: the idea of a partnership agreement and a government contract. Locke, Rousseau, and Hobbes discuss both. For Rousseau, once the agreement is made, the community shall be governed with no distinction between rulers and ruled. For Locke, when it is organized, the community decides to entrust its liberty and rights to a government to protect and defend them, but it can reject this government when it is convenient. Hobbes believed that when the formation of the community is agreed upon, all its components deposit their trust, law, and power in a sovereign, who is elected to govern, but that is not part of the social contract. The sovereign is subject to their own will, without the limitations that would be imposed by a government contract. Hobbes's thirst for absolute authority is seamless, eliminating any risk of anarchy, even at the cost of sacrificing freedom. Locke favors a constitutional monarchy, the anti-absolutism abolished by the natural and legitimate participation of the people in parliament, although it may drive a wedge into anarchy. Rousseau wants a sentimental sort of anarchism. Hume does not believe that society arises through a pact, as there are no historical examples of this. What generates and maintains society is only the utility of its members.

Locke: The Father of Liberalism

Locke is known as the father of liberalism. He was the first political writer who attacked the foundations of absolutist states. To achieve this, he wrote his book, and to make tyranny impossible, he made the well-known division of powers into legislative, executive, and federative. In his treatise, Locke accepts at first, but then modifies, the system of common possession of medieval thought. He defends private property because it arises as a result of individual effort. He was among the first thinkers who noted that what provides value to things is work. He argued that the sovereign is not the king, but the people, and that a people who are determined to be free need a constitution to prevent tyranny.

Hobbes and Absolute Power

Hobbes is famous for his work Leviathan. In it, he starts from a completely negative assessment of the natural condition of man. Hobbes argues that there must be absolute political authority. In the state of nature, men are by nature equal. From this equality, in terms of capacity, arises equality of hope. However, when two or more men seek to do the same thing, then there is enmity. The state of nature is a state of war of all against all.