A social contract is when a group, or groups of people exit the State of Nature, and voluntarily give up some of their rights in order to protect their natural ones. Thomas Hobbes believed that social contracts were necessary, because otherwise, the world would be in a constant State of War. There would be no government, and no rules, therefore a social contract would be the only way to definitively solve the problem. John Locke believed in social contracts because, although people will not resort to murder, a social contract is needed to keep people’s natural rights protected.

What is easy about creating a social contract that people are willing to follow is that you are going to have many followers, and they are willing to have their rights protected, such as life, liberty, and property. However it can be difficult because not everyone who agrees to have their rights protected may agree to your contract rules, so getting people to abide by your rules could prove difficult.

There were some changes I made based on my classmates’ feedback. One thing I changed was my third rule. It was originally “our main priority is to survive, not to be friends.” After receiving some feedback, I realized the rule was not very clear. So, making it more clear, I changed it to “Our main priority is survival because friendship can sometimes be a distraction.” I think it makes our reasoning a little more clear. It is not completely ruling out friendship, but it is merely suggesting it can be distracting when surviving. I also changed the fourth rule to “Weapons are only used by those who have shown worth. Worth is shown by trials; weapons are not allowed inside the walls of the community.” I changed it to this because it shows who is read to have a weapon, and who is not.

Enlightened Absolutism

          There were many monarchs that may have claimed to be "enlightened" absolutists, however many of them committed acts that could have shown them to be either more absolutists or enlightened. We decided to discuss this as a unit. Using the three rulers Joseph II, Frederick The Great, and Catherine the Great. We read a few documents on them each, and wrote a few notes on their decisions and how it either related to Absolutism or Enlightened behavior. The Venn Diagram is below. The pink font is Frederick the Great, blue is Catherine, and Green is Joseph II.

          An enlightened monarch is a ruler that exemplifies examples of enlightened behavior over absolutism. An enlightened ruler is generally a benevolent person. The choices they make are, for the most part (at least they say) for the greater good of the people. Even though they try to make choices that are of a certain belief, each one commits at least one act whether it is absolutist or enlightened. 

          I chose the ruler Joseph II. The propaganda poster I created portrays his enlightened actions because one of the major things he did was fight for the end of censorship. It was an very enlightenment driven move because it is driving for freedom of speech for everybody. However, there were some things Joseph did that could be considered absolutist. Although he did do many things for the good of the people, his motives were, ultimately, for absolute royal control. Although he sold the properties of the monasteries and convents out from under them, which is illegal, he did use it to build hospitals, which is also a very enlightened thing.