A social contract is an idea, theory, or model that concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual in moral and political philosophy. It is an actual or hypothetical agreement between the ruled or between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each. Social contract theory says that people live together in society in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political rules of behavior. The social contract allows individuals to leave the state of nature and enter civil society, but the former remains a threat and returns as soon. Some people believe that if we live according to a social contract, we can live morally by our own choice and not because a divine being requires it.

Key points about social contract theory include:

• Origin: Social contract theories suggest that individuals were born into an anarchic state of nature, which was happy or unhappy according to the particular version of the theory. They then, by exercising natural reason, formed a society (and a government) by means of a social contract.

• Purpose: The purpose of the social contract is serving the common or greater good to ensure the sustainability of the system in question and protect the individuals within it. As such, the social contract generally guides moral behavior.

• Philosophers: Social contract theories had their greatest currency in the 17th and 18th centuries and are associated with the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

• Democracy: The social contract is an essential component of democracy. In a democratic nation, it is assumed that the government is organized to serve the will of its citizens and, as a corollary, citizens are obliged to follow the laws and mores of the nation, as long as the government is seen to fulfill its mandate and legislation is seen to be in accordance with the social contract.

Social contracts can be explicit, such as laws, or implicit, such as raising one’s hand in class to speak. The U.S. Constitution is often cited as an explicit example of part of America’s social contract. It sets out what the government can and cannot do. People who choose to live in America agree to be governed by the moral and political obligations outlined in the Constitution’s social contract.