Linked from

The 91 pages that link to Social contract, each with the reason it gives.

• Divine right of kingsCompared with: It makes political legitimacy depend on human consent rather than divine appointment.

• State formationCompared with: It contrasts with historical accounts that trace state power to coercion and extraction.

• Johann Gottlieb FichteCompared with: Fichte’s account of rights and reciprocal recognition differs from contract-based explanations of social order.

• Joseph de MaistreCompared with: He rejected contract theories that made political authority depend on human choice.

• Emmanuel Joseph SieyèsCompared with: Rousseau’s account of sovereignty raised a tension with Sieyès’s emphasis on political representation.

• On LibertyCompared with: Mill’s argument focuses on limits to coercion rather than deriving political authority from consent.

• Lysander SpoonerCompared with: Spooner rejected the idea that an unrecorded collective contract could bind individuals without consent.

• Adam FergusonCompared with: His account treats social institutions as historical developments, not simply products of an original agreement.

• Democracy in AmericaCompared with: Rousseau’s theory of popular sovereignty offers a contrasting account of collective political authority.

• Stateless societyCompared with: Social-contract theories often use the state to explain political order, a different starting point.

• Jean-Luc NancyCompared with: Nancy resists grounding community in a pact among individuals who exist fully before relation.

• Evolution of moralityCompared with: Contract theories explain norms through agreement rather than chiefly through evolutionary history.

• Right-libertarianismCompared with: Its accounts of consent and obligation expose a central dispute over whether state authority can bind nonconsenting people.