Social contract theory

Social contract theorists ask what could make political power legitimate, and answer that it must rest on the agreement, actual or hypothetical, of those who live under it. Hobbes argued that self-interested people would agree to an absolute sovereign to escape a war of each against all; Locke that they would consent only to a government that protects their natural rights; Rousseau that legitimate law must express the general will of the community. The idea was revived in the twentieth century by John Rawls and others.