War or Safety

A Social Contract is a agreement that citizens make in order to have their life and rights protected, but they have to be willing to give up their freedom. Thomas Hobbes believed that social contracts were necessary because he though that without them there would be a constant State of War. Hobbes was against a State of Nature because he believed that no one would be able to get along and would always be fighting. This is shown through is writings when he says the state of war is "solitary, poor, nasty,brutish and short" John Locke also believed that social contracts were necessary but for different reasons. Locke believed that they should have a social contract so that people's life, liberty and property were protected. Hobbes and Locke also have a different view on government. Hobbes thinks that government exists to protect people's lives and that it is absolute so that the government have unlimited power. However, Locke thinks that government exists to protect people's rights and that it should have a limited amount of power so that people don't rebel. Hobbes and Locke have unique outlooks on human nature that lead them to their views. 

In class we created a social contract with five rules that people had to follow. The easiest part about making the social contract was coming up with five different categories that had to be covered. However, the hard part was getting the rules to be specific enough so that people understand how to follow them and that they cover all the different situations that could happen. In contracts it is hard because there could be many different and unique circumstances that have to be covered so that the people know what they have to do when it happens. Also you have to be concerned with whether the rules are to specific that the people won't be willing to sign them and that no one will be able to find loopholes in the contract so that they can do whatever they want. It is hard to make the rules make sense while trying to please every bodies opinions. 

We had feedback by eleven of our classmates and we were able to make our rules better based on their ideas. We adjusted rule number one so that it now states "People must elect and follow the laws of a council that is made up of two boys and two girls every year. However, if the council can not perform its job new people can be added and council members can be voted out." We changed this rule because Chris suggested that there be an odd number of council member, but if there was an odd number then there would probably be an argument whether there should be more girls or more boys. Also we used Gina's question and changed it so that you can kick people off the council if you do not like them. Rule number two was also changed so now it is "Arguments that affect the well being of others should be brought outside. Any arguments between the community are always decided by the council and they should have the final say in it." We used Olivia's question of what would happen with arguments between the community and added that situation into the rules. Rule number three was just changed a little based on Kristine's advise, so that it is "Everybody needs to have a job that the community benefits from and the resources, such as food, water, clothing and tools are shared evenly." We did not change number four based on Liam's question because it is just a rule based on kindness and if you don't agree then you shouldn't be let into the community. Our rule number five was changed so that it is now "People that become sick are allowed to skip work, however if they are sick for more than a year they will be kicked out of the community." We changed five completely because when singing the contract you know that you will be kicked out of the community if you don'y follow it. Our rules now would probably satisfy most of our class and we would be able to make a community.