what is the social contract? (hobbes and rousseau)?

Answer 1

It is where people give up some of their rights to the government in turn for social order.
CyberNara

Answer 2

A social contract is when people give up some of their individual rights for the good of the majority and for the protection of a government. Both philosophers argued that in being a member of any society, each individual has entered into a social contract with that society and must abide by its rules thereby giving up some of their individual rights.

Chow!!

Answer 3

Social Contract Theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society. Socrates uses something quite like a social contract argument to explain to Crito why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty. However, Social Contract Theory is rightly associated with modern moral and political theory and is given its first full exposition and defense by Thomas Hobbes. After Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the best known proponents of this enormously influential theory, which has been one of the most dominant theories within moral and political theory throughout the history of the modern West. In the twentieth century, moral and political theory regained philosophical momentum as a result of John Rawls’ Kantian version of social contract theory, and was followed by other revisitings of the subject by David Gauthier and others. More recently, philosophers from different perspectives have criticized Social Contract Theory. In particular, feminists and race-conscious philosophers have argued that social contract theory is at least an incomplete picture of our moral and political lives, and may in fact camouflage some of the ways in which the contract is itself parasitical upon the subjugations of classes of persons.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/soc-cont.htm
Hobbes believed that all phenomena in the universe, including political institutions, could be understood using principles of geometry. In 1651, Hobbes printed his most famous book, Leviathan , in which he argued that all humans are driven by two and only two impulses: fear of death and desire for power. If left unchecked, human beings would act on these impulses and live violent, brutish, inhumane, and solitary lives. In order to keep these impulses in check, human beings, according to Hobbes, drew up a social contract among themselves; the people ceded all authority and sovereignty to a single person in exchange for security from each other and from foreign invaders. The single ruler would control the violent and selfish impulses of individual members in a society through brute force; individuals would lose their liberty, but they would gain security and community. Hobbes did not care what form this single rule might take, whether a monarch or a dicatator, only that absolute power was required to keep society together.


Enlightenment Glossary
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Absolutism

European Enlightenment
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Rousseau
The Discourse on Inequality
For Hobbes, however, this social contract could not be revised; it was established at some distant time in the past and if people revise this contract, that is, if people attempt to regain some measure of sovereignty or power, society will fall into violent chaos since the purpose of the monarchy is to hold the people in check. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, however, radically revised Hobbes' social contract; in Rousseau's view, the people agreed to cede authority to some group in order to gain the benefits of community and safety. If those in power refused to guarantee community and safety, the governed were free to disobey and establish a new political contract. While Hobbes believed in absolute rule, Rousseau believed that absolute rule was a perversion of the original intent of the primordial social contract. Rousseau's fundamental argument in his two famous works, The Social Contract and the Discourse on Inequality, is that modern human society is built on an imperfect social contract, since it fosters inequality and servitude. All government is fundamentally flawed—Rousseau was calling for a rebuilding of the social contract from the ground up in order to ensure equality and freedom.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/SOCCON.HTM