John Locke Social Contract Theory

“Black live matters!” During a two-year span, thousands of individuals from around the country marched together in protests, shouting and demanding justice for the death of Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and many more. While a majority of the demonstrations were conducted in a peaceful manner, the disturbing images that captured the acts of arson and violent interactions between the police and civilian, told a different story of the events that took place in Ferguson and Baltimore. In order to analysis whether or not such civil disobedience is justified, it is important to not only understand the reasoning behind these protestors’ aim, but also the primary motives that suggested citizens to obey the laws.

In his famous “Social Contract Theory”, the English philosopher John Locke examines the creation of a democracy by revealing the relationship between the government and its citizens: the citizens willingly surrender their natural rights to the government, and in return, the government would provide the public goods and securities that the citizens need. Locke claims that this concept helps incorporate citizens to “act as one body”, which will then produce policy base on the majority interests. However, several loopholes are created by this ideology and

His ideas emphasize that in a perfect scenario, the principles of justice will be widely admitted and fairly executed. By the same token, Rawls was convinced that when an individual is intended to participate in civil disobedience, he or she is subsequently entitled to receive punishment. Raz and King, on the other hand, pointed out the limitation of Rawl’s assumptions for not acknowledging the problematic features that are produced by dissatisfying policy in reality. Hence, when citizens died unexpectedly at the hands of law enforcement officers, they want