Social Contract Theory

Catalog description

Course investigates the use of social contract as a device to legitimize specific forms of social and political organization. Explores the origins of the social contract tradition, its most influential iterations in early modern philosophy and its revival in contemporary philosophy. Will study the role of social contract theory in the rise of liberalism, the question of the legitimacy of the state and the right to resistance. Course will also ask about the limits and exclusions intrinsic to the social contract as it has developed historically.