85-490: Declassification is the process of ceasing a protective classification , often under the principle of freedom of information . Procedures for declassification vary by country. Papers may be withheld without being classified as secret, and eventually made available. Classified information has been governed by various Official Secrets Acts, the latest being the Official Secrets Act 1989 . Until 1989 requested information
170-559: A threat model that is broadly similar to that faced by a large private company. The Official Sensitive classification replaced the Restricted classification in April 2014 in the UK; Official indicates the previously used Unclassified marking. Unclassified is technically not a classification level. Though this is a feature of some classification schemes, used for government documents that do not merit
255-550: A "neutral judge", acting to protect the lives, liberty, and property of those who lived within it. While Hobbes argued for near-absolute authority, Locke argued for inviolate freedom under law in his Second Treatise of Government . Locke argued that a government's legitimacy comes from the citizens' delegation to the government of their absolute right of violence (reserving the inalienable right of self-defense or "self-preservation"), along with elements of other rights (e.g. property will be liable to taxation) as necessary to achieve
340-401: A change from the previous rule, under which documents could have their classification time length renewed indefinitely, effectively shuttering state secrets from the public. The 2011 law applies retroactively to existing documents. The government of Canada employs two main types of sensitive information designation: Classified and Protected. The access and protection of both types of information
425-504: A classification in public sectors, such as commercial industries. Such a level is also known as " Private Information". Official (equivalent to US DOD classification Controlled Unclassified Information or CUI) material forms the generality of government business, public service delivery and commercial activity. This includes a diverse range of information, of varying sensitivities, and with differing consequences resulting from compromise or loss. Official information must be secured against
510-409: A different version of social-contract theory, as the foundations of society based on the sovereignty of the " general will ". Rousseau's political theory differs in important ways from that of Locke and Hobbes. Rousseau's collectivist conception is most evident in his development of the "luminous conception" (which he credited to Denis Diderot ) of the " general will ". Summarised, the " general will "
595-564: A fair and just social contract . The purpose of classification is to protect information. Higher classifications protect information that might endanger national security . Classification formalises what constitutes a "state secret" and accords different levels of protection based on the expected damage the information might cause in the wrong hands. However, classified information is frequently "leaked" to reporters by officials for political purposes. Several U.S. presidents have leaked sensitive information to influence public opinion. Although
680-496: A fair sentence. Judge John Geoffrey Jones called it "an aspect of the instinct for self-preservation." He saw the committer of bad deeds as the impervious person: that "rare person whose intuition is stunted and who misses out on instruction grows up uninhibited, so continues bad deeds." Jones argued that the legitimancy of the judiciary is not absolute. Rather than the court, it is the psychiatrist's job to diagnose mental health. My own present, unresolved thoughts are that 'evil'
765-402: A government agency or group shares information between an agency or group of other country's government they will generally employ a special classification scheme that both parties have previously agreed to honour. For example, the marking Atomal, is applied to U.S. Restricted Data or Formerly Restricted Data and United Kingdom Atomic information that has been released to NATO. Atomal information
850-426: A government because it has the capacity to exercise a single will and make decisions with a single voice in the absence of sovereign authority—a notion rejected by Hobbes and later contract theorists. The first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed contract theory was Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). According to Hobbes, the lives of individuals in the state of nature were "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short",
935-494: A particular classification or which have been declassified. This is because the information is low-impact, and therefore does not require any special protection, such as vetting of personnel. A plethora of pseudo-classifications exist under this category. Clearance is a general classification, that comprises a variety of rules controlling the level of permission required to view some classified information, and how it must be stored, transmitted, and destroyed. Additionally, access
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#17329090794341020-400: A routine level of protection and is treated as OFFICIAL. Information that does not form part of official duty is treated as UNOFFICIAL. OFFICIAL and UNOFFICIAL are not security classifications and are not mandatory markings. Caveats are a warning that the information has special protections in addition to those indicated by the security classification of PROTECTED or higher (or in the case of
1105-522: A satisfactory background investigation. Documents and other information must be properly marked "by the author" with one of several (hierarchical) levels of sensitivity—e.g. restricted, confidential, secret, and top secret. The choice of level is based on an impact assessment; governments have their own criteria, including how to determine the classification of an information asset and rules on how to protect information classified at each level. This process often includes security clearances for personnel handling
1190-467: A sense, three "constitutions" are involved: first, the constitution of nature that includes all of what the Founders called " natural law "; second, the constitution of society , an unwritten and commonly understood set of rules for the society formed by a social contract before it establishes a government, by which it does establish the third, a constitution of government . To consent, a necessary condition
1275-467: A social covenant or contract, and all of these arguments began with proto-"state of nature" arguments, to the effect that the basis of politics is that everyone is by nature free of subjection to any government. These arguments, however, relied on a corporatist theory found in Roman law, according to which "a populus" can exist as a distinct legal entity. Thus, these arguments held that a group of people can join
1360-484: A state in which self-interest and the absence of rights and contracts prevented the "social", or society. Life was "anarchic" (without leadership or the concept of sovereignty). Individuals in the state of nature were apolitical and asocial. This state of nature is followed by the social contract. The social contract was seen as an "occurrence" during which individuals came together and ceded some of their individual rights so that others would cede theirs. This resulted in
1445-492: Is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such
1530-471: Is also used as a game-theoretical formalization of the notion of fairness. David Gauthier 's "neo-Hobbesian" theory argues that cooperation between two independent and self-interested parties is indeed possible, especially when it comes to understanding morality and politics. Gauthier notably points out the advantages of cooperation between two parties when it comes to the challenge of the prisoner's dilemma . He proposes that, if two parties were to stick to
1615-533: Is an acronym for "Control of Secret Material in an International Command". Most countries employ some sort of classification system for certain government information. For example, in Canada , information that the U.S. would classify SBU (Sensitive but Unclassified) is called "protected" and further subcategorised into levels A, B, and C. On 19 July 2011, the National Security (NS) classification marking scheme and
1700-437: Is based on popular sovereignty and not on individual sovereignty, there are other theories espoused by individualists , libertarians , and anarchists that do not involve agreeing to anything more than negative rights and creates only a limited state, if any. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) advocated a conception of social contract that did not involve an individual surrendering sovereignty to others. According to him,
1785-725: Is desired that no document be released which refers to experiments with humans and might have adverse effect on public opinion or result in legal suits. Documents covering such work field should be classified "secret". Secret material would cause "serious damage" to national security if it were publicly available. In the United States, operational "Secret" information can be marked with an additional "LimDis", to limit distribution. Confidential material would cause "damage" or be prejudicial to national security if publicly available. Restricted material would cause "undesirable effects" if publicly available. Some countries do not have such
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#17329090794341870-479: Is governed by the Security of Information Act , effective 24 December 2001, replacing the Official Secrets Act 1981 . To access the information, a person must have the appropriate security clearance and the need to know. In addition, the caveat "Canadian Eyes Only" is used to restrict access to Classified or Protected information only to Canadian citizens with the appropriate security clearance and need to know. SOI
1955-476: Is marked COSMIC Top Secret Atomal (CTSA), NATO Secret Atomal (NSAT), or NATO Confidential Atomal (NCA). BALK and BOHEMIA are also used. For example, sensitive information shared amongst NATO allies has four levels of security classification; from most to least classified: A special case exists with regard to NATO Unclassified (NU) information. Documents with this marking are NATO property ( copyright ) and must not be made public without NATO permission. COSMIC
2040-404: Is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance with a need to know . Mishandling of the material can incur criminal penalties. A formal security clearance is required to view or handle classified material. The clearance process requires
2125-536: Is not a classification of data per se . It is defined under the Security of Information Act , and unauthorised release of such information constitutes a higher breach of trust, with a penalty of up to life imprisonment if the information is shared with a foreign entity or terrorist group. SOIs include: Classified information can be designated Top Secret , Secret or Confidential . These classifications are only used on matters of national interest. Protected information
2210-472: Is not classified. It pertains to any sensitive information that does not relate to national security and cannot be disclosed under the access and privacy legislation because of the potential injury to particular public or private interests. Federal Cabinet ( King's Privy Council for Canada ) papers are either protected (e.g., overhead slides prepared to make presentations to Cabinet) or classified (e.g., draft legislation, certain memos). The Criminal Law of
2295-421: Is restricted on a " need to know " basis. Simply possessing a clearance does not automatically authorize the individual to view all material classified at that level or below that level. The individual must present a legitimate "need to know" in addition to the proper level of clearance. In addition to the general risk-based classification levels, additional compartmented constraints on access exist, such as ( in
2380-453: Is the power of all the citizens' collective interest—not to be confused with their individual interests. Although Rousseau wrote that the British were perhaps at the time the freest people on earth, he did not approve of their representative government, nor any form of representative government. Rousseau believed that society was only legitimate when the sovereign (i.e. the " general will ") were
2465-518: Is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice. The social contract theory also appears in Crito , another dialogue from Plato. Over time, the social contract theory became more widespread after Epicurus (341–270 BC), the first philosopher who saw justice as a social contract, and not as existing in Nature due to divine intervention (see below and also Epicurean ethics ), decided to bring
2550-411: Is within the realm of theologians and moral philosophers. Doctors, judges and lawyers would do well to concern themselves with bad deeds and bad health, that is deeds, which society has determined as criminal. If the perpetrators of bad deeds are not sick, they should be punished according to law. If they are sick, they should be treated. An early critic of social contract theory was Rousseau 's friend,
2635-471: The Access to Information Act : ultrassecreto (top secret), secreto (secret) and reservado (restricted). A top secret ( ultrassecreto ) government-issued document may be classified for a period of 25 years, which may be extended up to another 25 years. Thus, no document remains classified for more than 50 years. This is mandated by the 2011 Information Access Law ( Lei de Acesso à Informação ),
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2720-605: The People's Republic of China (which is not operative in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau ) makes it a crime to release a state secret. Regulation and enforcement is carried out by the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets . Social contract In moral and political philosophy , the social contract is an idea, theory, or model that usually, although not always, concerns
2805-418: The consent of the governed , should be modified. Instead of arguing for explicit consent, which can always be manufactured, Pettit argues that the absence of an effective rebellion against it is a contract's only legitimacy. Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that societal laws are upheld up the collective will of the citizens whom they represent. Thus, in obeying laws, the citizen "remains free." Within elections,
2890-463: The legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual . Conceptualized in the Age of Enlightenment , it is a core concept of constitutionalism , while not necessarily convened and written down in a constituent assembly and constitution . Social contract arguments typically are that individuals have consented , either explicitly or tacitly , to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to
2975-874: The thirty year rule , and released usually on a New Year's Day ; freedom of information legislation has relaxed this rigid approach. Executive Order 13526 establishes the mechanisms for most declassifications, within the laws passed by Congress. The originating agency assigns a declassification date, by default 25 years. After 25 years, declassification review is automatic with nine narrow exceptions that allow information to remain as classified. At 50 years, there are two exceptions, and classifications beyond 75 years require special permission. Because of changes in policy and circumstances, agencies are expected to actively review documents that have been classified for fewer than 25 years. They must also respond to Mandatory Declassification Review and Freedom of Information Act requests. The National Archives and Records Administration houses
3060-473: The " state of nature " by Thomas Hobbes ). In this condition, individuals' actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience , assuming that 'nature' precludes mutually beneficial social relationships. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate why rational individuals would voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order. Prominent 17th- and 18th-century theorists of
3145-437: The "terrour of some Power" otherwise humans will not heed the law of reciprocity , "(in summe) doing to others, as wee would be done to". John Locke 's conception of the social contract differed from Hobbes' in several fundamental ways, retaining only the central notion that persons in a state of nature would willingly come together to form a state. Locke believed that individuals in a state of nature would be bound morally, by
3230-807: The Buddha tells his monks that they must stop and give way to social norms. Epicurus in the fourth century BC seemed to have had a strong sense of social contract, with justice and law being rooted in mutual agreement and advantage, as evidenced by these lines, among others, from his Principal Doctrines (see also Epicurean ethics ): 31. Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another. 32. Those animals which are incapable of making binding agreements with one another not to inflict nor suffer harm are without either justice or injustice; and likewise for those peoples who either could not or would not form binding agreements not to inflict nor suffer harm. 33. There never
3315-469: The Law of Nature, in which man has the "power... to preserve his property; that is, his life, liberty and estate against the injuries and attempts of other men". Without government to defend them against those seeking to injure or enslave them, Locke further believed people would have no security in their rights and would live in fear. Individuals, to Locke, would only agree to form a state that would provide, in part,
3400-496: The NATIONAL CABINET caveat, OFFICIAL: Sensitive or higher). Australia has four caveats: Codewords are primarily used within the national security community. Each codeword identifies a special need-to-know compartment . Foreign government markings are applied to information created by Australian agencies from foreign source information. Foreign government marking caveats require protection at least equivalent to that required by
3485-527: The National Declassification Center to coordinate reviews and Information Security Oversight Office to promulgate rules and enforce quality measures across all agencies. NARA reviews documents on behalf of defunct agencies and permanently stores declassified documents for public inspection. The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel has representatives from several agencies. Classified information Classified information
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3570-736: The Non-National Security (NNS) classification marking scheme in Australia was unified into one structure. As of 2018, the policy detailing how Australian government entities handle classified information is defined in the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF). The PSPF is published by the Attorney-General's Department and covers security governance, information security , personal security, and physical security . A security classification can be applied to
3655-546: The U.S. ) Special Intelligence (SI), which protects intelligence sources and methods, No Foreign dissemination (NoForn), which restricts dissemination to U.S. nationals, and Originator Controlled dissemination (OrCon), which ensures that the originator can track possessors of the information. Information in these compartments is usually marked with specific keywords in addition to the classification level. Government information about nuclear weapons often has an additional marking to show it contains such information ( CNWDI ). When
3740-522: The United Kingdom and other members of the British Empire used Most Secret , but this was later changed to match the United States' category name of Top Secret in order to simplify Allied interoperability. The Washington Post reported in an investigation entitled "Top Secret America" that, as of 2010, "An estimated 854,000 people ... hold top-secret security clearances" in the United States. It
3825-518: The absence of political order and law, everyone would have unlimited natural freedoms, including the "right to all things" and thus the freedom to plunder, rape and murder; there would be an endless "war of all against all" ( bellum omnium contra omnes ). To avoid this, free men contract with each other to establish political community ( civil society ) through a social contract in which they all gain security in return for subjecting themselves to an absolute sovereign, one man or an assembly of men. Though
3910-579: The absence of rights, so states now acted in their self-interest in competition with each other. Just like the state of nature, states were thus bound to be in conflict because there was no sovereign over and above the state (more powerful) capable of imposing some system such as social-contract laws on everyone by force. Indeed, Hobbes' work helped to serve as a basis for the realism theories of international relations, advanced by E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau . Hobbes wrote in Leviathan that humans ("we") need
3995-403: The agreement. Hobbes argued that government is not a party to the original contract and citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it is too weak to act effectively to suppress factionalism and civil unrest. There is a general form of social contract theories, which is: I chooses R in M and this gives I* reason to endorse and comply with R in the real world insofar as
4080-447: The antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law , the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy. The starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent any political order (termed
4165-442: The authority (of the ruler, or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order . The relation between natural and legal rights is often a topic of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract (French: Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique ), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept. Although
4250-484: The choice not depending on any human will, there is no particular application to alter the universality of the law. According to other social contract theorists, when the government fails to secure their natural rights ( Locke ) or satisfy the best interests of society, citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey or change the leadership through elections or other means including, when necessary, violence. Locke believed that natural rights were inalienable, and therefore
4335-506: The classification systems vary from country to country, most have levels corresponding to the following British definitions (from the highest level to lowest). Top Secret is the highest level of classified information. Information is further compartmented so that specific access using a code word after top secret is a legal way to hide collective and important information. Such material would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security if made publicly available. Prior to 1942,
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#17329090794344420-455: The definition of classified ought to be information that would cause injury to the cause of justice, human rights, etc., rather than information that would cause injury to the national interest; to distinguish when classifying information is in the collective best interest of a just society, or merely the best interest of a society acting unjustly to protect its people, government, or administrative officials from legitimate recourses consistent with
4505-430: The establishment of the state, a sovereign entity like the individuals now under its rule used to be, which would create laws to regulate social interactions. Human life was thus no longer "a war of all against all". The state system, which grew out of the social contract, was, however, also anarchic (without leadership). Just as the individuals in the state of nature had been sovereigns and thus guided by self-interest and
4590-421: The evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;—it
4675-480: The factions into which this nation is divided has reared up a fabric of the former kind, in order to protect and cover that scheme of actions which it pursues. ... The one party [defenders of the absolute and divine right of kings, or Tories], by tracing up government to the DEITY, endeavor to render it so sacred and inviolate that it must be little less than sacrilege, however tyrannical it may become, to touch or invade it in
4760-599: The foreign government providing the source information. Special handling instructions are used to indicate particular precautions for information handling. They include: A releasability caveat restricts information based on citizenship . The three in use are: Additionally, the PSPF outlines Information Management Markers (IMM) as a way for entities to identify information that is subject to non-security related restrictions on access and use. These are: There are three levels of document classification under Brazilian Law No. 12.527,
4845-411: The goal of security through granting the state a monopoly of violence, whereby the government, as an impartial judge, may use the collective force of the populace to administer and enforce the law, rather than each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner—the condition in the state of nature. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), in his influential 1762 treatise The Social Contract , outlined
4930-556: The governed was the ideal foundation on which a government should rest, but that it had not actually occurred this way in general. My intention here is not to exclude the consent of the people from being one just foundation of government where it has place. It is surely the best and most sacred of any. I only contend that it has very seldom had place in any degree and never almost in its full extent. And that therefore some other foundation of government must also be admitted. Legal scholar Randy Barnett has argued that, while presence in
5015-407: The information itself or an asset that holds information e.g., a USB or laptop . The Australian Government uses four security classifications: OFFICIAL: Sensitive, PROTECTED, SECRET and TOP SECRET. The relevant security classification is based on the likely damage resulting from compromise of the information’s confidentiality.. All other information from business operations and services requires
5100-476: The information. Some corporations and non-government organizations also assign levels of protection to their private information, either from a desire to protect trade secrets , or because of laws and regulations governing various matters such as personal privacy , sealed legal proceedings and the timing of financial information releases. With the passage of time much classified information can become less sensitive, and may be declassified and made public. Since
5185-422: The late twentieth century there has been freedom of information legislation in some countries, whereby the public is deemed to have the right to all information that is not considered to be damaging if released. Sometimes documents are released with information still considered confidential obscured ( redacted ), as in the adjacent example. The question exists among some political science and legal experts whether
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#17329090794345270-440: The law, he will be forced to listen to what was decided when the people acted as a collective (as citizens ). Thus the law, inasmuch as it is created by the people acting as a body, is not a limitation of individual freedom, but rather its expression. The individual, as a citizen, explicitly agreed to be constrained if, as a private individual, he did not respect his own will as formulated in the general will. Because laws represent
5355-426: The need of food and shelter. As men lost their primeval glory, distinctions of class arose, and they entered into agreements with one another, accepting the institution of private property and the family. With this theft, murder, adultery, and other crime began, and so the people met together and decided to appoint one man from among them to maintain order in return for a share of the produce of their fields and herds. He
5440-471: The notion of commutative justice, first brought forward by the primitive fact of exchange, ... is substituted for that of distributive justice ... Translating these words, contract, commutative justice, which are the language of the law, into the language of business, and you have commerce, that is to say, in its highest significance, the act by which man and man declare themselves essentially producers, and abdicate all pretension to govern each other. Building on
5525-422: The obligation to respect and defend the rights of others, giving up some freedoms to do so. The central assertion that social contract theory approaches is that law and political order are not natural, but human creations. The social contract and the political order it creates are simply the means towards an end—the benefit of the individuals involved—and legitimate only to the extent that they fulfill their part of
5610-498: The original agreed-upon arrangement and morals outlined by the contract, they would both experience an optimal result. In his model for the social contract, factors including trust, rationality, and self-interest keep each party honest and dissuade them from breaking the rules. Philip Pettit (b. 1945) has argued, in Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (1997), that the theory of social contract, classically based on
5695-480: The philosopher David Hume , who in 1742 published an essay "Of Civil Liberty". The second part of this essay, entitled "Of the Original Contract", stresses that the concept of a "social contract" is a convenient fiction: As no party, in the present age can well support itself without a philosophical or speculative system of principles annexed to its political or practical one; we accordingly find that each of
5780-453: The reasons I has for choosing R in M are (or can be) shared by I*. With M being the deliberative setting; R rules, principles or institutions; I the (hypothetical) people in original position or state of nature making the social contract; and I* being the individuals in the real world following the social contract. Social contract formulations are preserved in many of the world's oldest records. The Indian Buddhist text of
5865-446: The restraint of "natural liberty", they represent the leap made from humans in the state of nature into civil society. In this sense, the law is a civilizing force. Therefore Rousseau believed that the laws that govern a people help to mould their character. Rousseau also analyses the social contract in terms of risk management, thus suggesting the origins of the state as a form of mutual insurance . While Rousseau's social contract
5950-477: The rule of God superseded government authority, while Rousseau believed that democracy (majority-rule) was the best way to ensure welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law. The Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence . In court, the social contract is used to diagnose mental health, with the ultimate aim of delivering
6035-412: The second century BC Mahāvastu recounts the legend of Mahasammata. The story goes as follows: In the early days of the cosmic cycle mankind lived on an immaterial plane, dancing on air in a sort of fairyland, where there was no need of food or clothing, and no private property, family, government or laws. Then gradually the process of cosmic decay began its work, and mankind became earthbound, and felt
6120-544: The smallest article. The other party [the Whigs, or believers in constitutional monarchy], by founding government altogether on the consent of the PEOPLE suppose that there is a kind of original contract by which the subjects have tacitly reserved the power of resisting their sovereign, whenever they find themselves aggrieved by that authority with which they have for certain purposes voluntarily entrusted him. Hume argued that consent of
6205-459: The social contract and natural rights included Hugo de Groot (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel von Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762) and Immanuel Kant (1797), each approaching the concept of political authority differently. Grotius posited that individual humans had natural rights . Thomas Hobbes famously said that in a "state of nature", human life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". In
6290-534: The social contract was not between individuals and the state, but rather among individuals who refrain from coercing or governing each other, each one maintaining complete sovereignty upon him- or herself: What really is the Social Contract? An agreement of the citizen with the government? No, that would mean but the continuation of [Rousseau's] idea. The social contract is an agreement of man with man; an agreement from which must result what we call society. In this,
6375-455: The sole legislators . He also stated that the individual must accept "the total alienation to the whole community of each associate with all his rights". In short, Rousseau meant that in order for the social contract to work, individuals must forfeit their rights to the whole so that such conditions were "equal for all". [The social contract] can be reduced to the following terms: Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under
6460-406: The sovereign's edicts may well be arbitrary and tyrannical, Hobbes saw absolute government as the only alternative to the terrifying anarchy of a state of nature. Hobbes asserted that humans consent to abdicate their rights in favor of the absolute authority of government (whether monarchical or parliamentary). Alternatively, Locke and Rousseau argued that we gain civil rights in return for accepting
6545-419: The supreme direction of the general will; and in a body, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole. Rousseau's striking phrase that man must "be forced to be free" should be understood this way: since the indivisible and inalienable popular sovereignty decides what is good for the whole, if an individual rejects this "civil liberty" in place of "natural liberty" and self interest, disobeying
6630-458: The territory of a society may be necessary for consent, this does not constitute consent to all rules the society might make regardless of their content. A second condition of consent is that the rules be consistent with underlying principles of justice and the protection of natural and social rights, and have procedures for effective protection of those rights (or liberties). This has also been discussed by O. A. Brownson, who argued that, in
6715-486: The theory to the forefront of his society. As time went on, philosophers of traditional political and social thought, such as Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau put forward their opinions on social contract, which then caused the topic to become much more mainstream. Quentin Skinner has argued that several critical modern innovations in contract theory are found in the writings from French Calvinists and Huguenots, whose work in turn
6800-408: The will of the establishment is the will of the collective. Barring corruption, the legitimacy of the democractic government is absolute. In every real democracy, magistracy is not an advantage, but a burdensome charge which cannot justly be imposed on one individual rather than another. The law alone can lay the charge on him on whom the lot falls. For, the conditions being then the same for all, and
6885-405: The work of Immanuel Kant with its presumption of limits on the state, John Rawls (1921–2002), in A Theory of Justice (1971), proposed a contractarian approach whereby rational people in a hypothetical " original position " would set aside their individual preferences and capacities under a " veil of ignorance " and agree to certain general principles of justice and legal organization. This idea
6970-532: Was called "the Great Chosen One" (Mahasammata), and he received the title of raja because he pleased the people. In his rock edicts , the Indian Buddhist king Asoka was said to have argued for a broad and far-reaching social contract. The Buddhist vinaya also reflects social contracts expected of the monks; one such instance is when the people of a certain town complained about monks felling saka trees,
7055-589: Was invoked by writers in the Low Countries who objected to their subjection to Spain and, later still, by Catholics in England. Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), from the School of Salamanca , might be considered an early theorist of the social contract, theorizing natural law in an attempt to limit the divine right of absolute monarchy . All of these groups were led to articulate notions of popular sovereignty by means of
7140-404: Was routinely kept secret invoking the public interest defence; this was largely removed by the 1989 Act. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 largely requires information to be disclosed unless there are good reasons for secrecy. Confidential government papers such as the yearly cabinet papers used routinely to be withheld formally, although not necessarily classified as secret, for 30 years under
7225-457: Was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm. The concept of the social contract was originally posed by Glaucon , as described by Plato in The Republic , Book II. They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that
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