Abstract

The title of this book Perspectives in Social Contract Theory is appropriate because it is a collection of different approaches to the social contract tradition. This is a rich and long tradition that stretches as far back as Thomas Hobbes, which he developed in a number of his works in political philosophy. The chapters in this book fourteen of them engage with, develop and advance various ideas of this tradition. The fourteen chapters are divided into five parts: PART I: What is Contractualism and Contractarianism?; PART II: Contract, Consent and Equality; PART III: Contractualism of Rawls and Jean-Jacques Rousseau; PART IV: Contractarianism Moral and Dynamic; and PART V: Social Contract Theory and African Tradition. While some of the papers raise and discuss issues in connection with specific aspects of contractarianism and contractualism, namely, Hegel s and Rawls contractualism, the contractarianism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Gauthier, others discuss general issues concerning social contract theory, such as contractarianism as dynamic, the status of consent, equality, and obligations in the social contract tradition. In addition, some papers extend social contract theory to include an African perspective, for example, African social contract in the context of human rights, Ubuntu and social contract theory, social contract and traditional African consensual democracy.