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Human beings are social beings.

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We need other people in order to become really human, to learn a language, to learn the rules

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that we need to coexist in society.

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That's the reason why some philosophers said that human beings are social by nature.

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This was Aristotle's idea.

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Aristotle thought that human beings are social by nature because, considering the importance

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of society in our lives, he thought that everyone was born social.

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But other philosophers thought that this is not true, that society is actually a human

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construction, something that we make, not something that is in our nature.

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And that's why they invented a different theory to explain why we are social beings.

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This new theory is called the theory of social contract.

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According to the theory of social contract, human beings live in society because we have

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decided to do so, because we have agreed upon some rules.

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We have made a deal, a contract with other people in order to respect each other's rights

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and to decide how to live together, how to coexist.

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The theory of social contract was very popular during the modern age, in 17th, 18th centuries.

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For example, the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes defended the theory of social contract.

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He invited us to imagine how life would be if people could live individually, separately,

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not in a society, but isolated, each one trying to survive by him or herself.

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How would people live in such conditions, in what he called a state of nature, before

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creating society?

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Can you imagine that?

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For Thomas Hobbes, human beings are deeply selfish and competitive.

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They want to survive at all costs.

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So if we really lived in a state of nature, we would live in a war of all against all.

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Each person would try to survive, no matter how, and nobody would respect other people.

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So that is a terrible situation that nobody really wants.

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So that's why society was invented.

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According to Thomas Hobbes, what we did was to give all the power to one specific person

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that we call the sovereign, in order to let this sovereign impose peace and stop the war

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of all against all.

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That's how Thomas Hobbes thought that society was invented.

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That's how he imagined the social contract worked.

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In order to overcome this state of nature of selfish, competitive people, we must give

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all the power to a sovereign that will use this power to impose peace and to end with

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this war of all against all.

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But not all philosophers agree with Thomas Hobbes.

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A clear example is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was a different philosopher and who supported

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also the theory of social contract, but had a very different idea of how human nature is.

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For Rousseau, human beings are not in state of nature, competitive and selfish.

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On the other hand, human beings in the state of nature, said Rousseau, are good and they

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are benevolent.

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They want to live in peace with other people.

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Their deep heart is generous and is free and happy.

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So in order to create society and to escape the state of nature, we cannot give all the

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power to a sovereign that will make the sovereign a tyrant.

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And Rousseau didn't want to live in a tyranny.

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So he imagined that the best way to create a social contract to make a society was not

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to give all the power to a specific person, but to give the power to the collective, to

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the people.

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Rousseau thought that the only way to keep the freedom and the liberty that we enjoyed

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in the state of nature while we are in society was to give all the people to the collective.

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So the sovereign actually must be the people, not a specific person.

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So that's the way to create a democracy, a real society in which everybody is respected

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and free, like in the state of nature, but enjoying all the benefits of living with other

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people.