TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of Study
1.2 Statement of Problems
1.3 Research Objectives
1.4 Research Question
1.5 Research Hypothesis
1.6 Scope of Study
1.7 Significance of study
1.8 Limitation of study
1.9 Definition of terms
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Literature Review
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 Research methodology
3.1 Research Design
3.2 Population of study
3.3 Sampling Design and Procedure
3.4 Data Collection Instrument
3.5 Administration of Data Collection Instrument
3.6 Methods of data analysis
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 Data Presentation and Analysis
4.1 Data Presentation
4.2 Test of Hypothesis
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation
5.1 Summary
5.2 Conclusion
5.3 Recommendation
References
Questionnaire
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL IDEA OF A SOCIAL CONTRACT
The social contract theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that person’s moral or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form a society.1 On the mention of the term contract, then, what comes to mind immediately is agreement. The New Webster Dictionary of the English Language defined the term ‘contract’ as “an agreement or a covenant”.2 On the other hand, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines social contract as a basis for legitimate legal and political power in the idea of a contract. Contracts are things that create obligation.”3 Hence, if we can view society as organized, i.e., a situation where a contract had been formed between the citizen and the sovereign power, this would necessarily ground the obligation of each to the other. The idea is one of a contract between citizens as a result of which power is vested in government. Traditionally, the term has been used in arguments that attempt to explain the nature of political obligation and or the kind of responsibility that rulers have to their subjects.4 Philosophers such as Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, had a varied but similar positions that life in a prepolitical “state of nature” would be very difficult such that it would lead them to agree either with one another or with a prospective ruler, which eventually leads to the creation of political institutions. Such individuals believe that such a creation would necessarily improve their lot.
Despite the fact that many of the social contract theorists admit that there is almost never an explicit act of agreement in a community; however, they maintain that such an agreement is implicitly made when members of the society engage in certain acts through which they give their explicit consent to the ruling regime. Now, how do we definitely understand the terms of a social contract, which establishes a state? Are we to judge it as when the people agree to obey the ruler? Do they surrender their power to him as Hobbes would have us believe? Or do they lend him that power, reserving the right to take it from him, if and when they see fit, as Locke maintained? What really are the terms of a social contract posited by its theorists? It is worthy of note to state that amidst controversies surrounding their interpretation:
Social contract arguments have been important to the development of modern democratic states: the idea of the government as the creation of the people, which they have right to overthrow, if they find it wanting, contributed to the development of democratic forms of polity in the 18th and 19th Centuries.5
In this chapter, we shall critically, but in a lighter form, expose the idea of some major theorists on social contract, excluding Hobbes who we shall, later in this work, critically examine his detailed approach on the idea.
1.1 MAJOR PROPONENTS OF THE IDEA
The idea of a social contract could be traced back to the time of Socrates. Plato and Aristotle, on the other hand, represented their individual views on a social contract. However, these views came to be modified and moreso, the Hobbessian contract marked a turning point in some respect, a genuine innovation in history of political philosophy. Let us now briefly run through the ideas of some major proponents of a social contract.