As part of the transition from the medieval world to the modern world, political legitimacy was reconceived and inverted. Where tradition and the Church had once proclaimed a top-down “divine right” to rule emanating from God, secular political philosophers substituted a bottom-up “consent of the governed” emanating from the People. As the Preamble to the United States Constitution of 1787 expressed this novel notion:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This course will be devoted to taking a close look at three famous articulations of the “social contract” idea — Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (selections), John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract — in order to get a sense of what they have in common, how they differ, and how they paved the way to the Preamble.

TAUGHT: SPRING 2025