A justified contract must meet the condition of full publicity: its full justification must indeed be acceptable to the members of a well-ordered society. The hypothetical agreement itself provides only what Rawls (1996, 386) calls a “pro tanto” or “as far as possible” justification of the principles of justice. “Full justification” is obtained only when “people advocate and want liberal justice for the specific (and often contradictory) reasons implicit in the reasonable global doctrines they advocate” (Freeman 2007b, 19). Understood in this way, Rawls` concern for the stability of justice as equity that motivated the transition to political liberalism is in itself a matter of justification (Weithman, 2010). Only when the principles of justice are so stable are they fully justified. Rawls` concern for stability and publicity, however, is not idiosyncratic and is shared by all contemporary contract theorists. It is significant that even theorists such as Buchanan (2000 [1975], 26-27), Gauthier (1986, 348) and Binmore (2005, 5-7) – who are so different from Rawls in other respects – share his concern for stability. The social contract provides an attractive justification for political power because it reconciles the power of the state with the freedom and equality of each ally. For this reason, some questioned whether the social contract could be generalized beyond the relations between the citizens of a single State to the relations between States. Rousseau argues that states, like individuals, are incentivized to enter into a contractual relationship if there is “no common and consistent rule for assessing” claims made by one against the other. [4] Rousseau calls this treaty a confederation in which each party abandons any desire for conquest in exchange for a guarantee that it will not be attacked by any of the parties: “It is good for [the powers of Europe] to give up what they want to get what they have.” [5] In Rawls` version of the social contract, employees adopt an “original position” in which one imagines themselves arguing behind a “veil of ignorance”, that is, they do not know what their relative social status will be in the society they hypothetically constitute. The concept of the veil of ignorance gives Rawls an instrument to theorize the principles of justice in the context of equality. Rawls, who came to the principles of justice in the domestic political context, envisions an original second-stage position whose parties are “representatives of different nations who must collectively choose the basic principles for deciding on conflicting claims between states.” They know that they represent nations “all of which live in the normal circumstances of human life,” but they know nothing about the special circumstances of their own nation, their “power and strength in relation to other nations.” In this second phase, as in the first, the parties have no knowledge of their relative status to cling to what Rawls calls “the contingencies and prejudices of historical fate.” [12] The articles reflect a consensus that is sometimes based on express consent, sometimes implied consent, and sometimes it acts as a hypothetical representation of what employees should accept when arguing well.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau captured the hypothetical representation of consensus with his idea of the “general will” (in which employees reach a consensus by placing their collective interest above their particular interest) and the “will of all” (in which particular interests are aggregated without taking into account the collective interest). More recently, John Rawls has built on Rousseau`s argument by advancing a similar argument through what he calls the “veil of ignorance” (behind which employees derive principles of justice without knowing the social, political, or economic status they may have in the society they imagine). For Rousseau and Rawls, these concepts are not conceived as empirical accounts of how people argue, but as normative reports on how they should argue. In his adaptation of the theory of social contracts to international competition, Rousseau writes: “No doubt this does not mean that the sovereigns will accept this plan; (Who can answer for someone else`s sake?) but only that they would accept it if they consulted their true interests”[1] Similarly, Rousseau, in his account of the domestic social contract, admits that citizens can undermine the general will in favor of their particular will: “The general will is always right. But it does not follow that the reflections of the people always have the same justice. [2] It is almost common today for contemporary theory of the social contract to be based on a hypothetical, not real, agreement. As we have seen, in a sense, this is certainly the case. In many ways, however, the “hypothetical/real” separation is artificial: the hypothetical agreement is intended to model the actual agreement and form its basis. The best way to understand contemporary social contract theory can be achieved not by insisting on the distinction between real and hypothetical contracts, but by grasping the interaction of the hypothetical and the real. Carole Pateman`s 1988 book, The Sexual Contract, argues that beneath the myth of the idealized contract, as described by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, lies a more fundamental contract on male-female relationships.

Contract theory presents itself as opposed to patriarchy and patriarchal law. (Locke`s social contract, for example, is established by him in stark contrast to the work of Robert Filmer, who advocated for patriarchal power.) But the “original pact” (2), which precedes the social contract between equals, is the agreement of men to dominate and control women. This “original pact” is made by brothers, literally or metaphorically, who, after overthrowing the father`s reign, then agree to share their dominion over women who were previously under the exclusive control of a man, the Father. The shift from “classical patriarchy” (24) to modern patriarchy is therefore a change in the question of who has power over women. However, this is not a fundamental change in whether women are dominated by men. The balance of power between men is changing, but not the relationship of women to the power of men. Modern patriarchy is characterized by a contractual relationship between men, and part of this contract involves power over women. This fact that one form of patriarchy has not been completely overthrown, but replaced by another form in which male power has been distributed to more men rather than being held by one man, is illustrated by Freud`s story about the emergence of civilization. According to this story, a group of brothers ruled by a father who has exclusive sexual access to the women of the tribe kills the father and then contracts with each other to be equal and share the women. It is history, whether or not we understand Freud`s history as historically correct, of modern patriarchy and its deep dependence on contract as the means by which men control and dominate women.

Just as Rousseau rejected traditional theories of the social contract and later proposed his own, contemporary philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Pogge, and Charles Beitz introduced a qualitatively different version of the international social contract that they believe overcomes some of the problems of this treatise as articulated by Rousseau. Kant and Rawls. [19] It is called a contract because it is an exchange of services. Citizens give up some of their personal power and freedom. In return, the state offers security and a guarantee that civil liberties will be protected. If we think in terms of decision theory, the doxastic specification indexes the initial state of affairs and the results of the contractual model, while the specification of the evaluation elements gives each representative party a ranking of the results to be obtained from the choice of a particular set of rules. Once these elements are specified, we have a model of the contracting parties. We still need to model how they actually come to an agreement to understand the ultimate reasons why we need to find the contract model normatively compelling. While social contract theory, particularly in the works of Hobbes and Locke, begins as a representation of the origins and legitimacy of the state, later thinkers such as Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and John Rawls also applied social contract theory to the international scene (citing in part Grotius` project of international justice in On the Laws of War and Peace). In these applications, states replace citizens as parties to the social contract. The justice component of social contract theory can be useful for reflecting on the terms of international treaties, such as the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War (in which states mutually agree on the humane treatment of prisoners) or the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (in which states commit to work towards the realization of a variety of human rights).

The legitimacy component of the social contract theory can be used to justify the alienation of power from the International Criminal Court or even the UN itself. Hobbes` political theory is best understood when it is understood in two parts: his theory of human motivation, psychological egoism, and his theory of the social contract, which is based on the hypothetical state of nature. .