Question

Why did Hobbes argue that citizens should form a social contract with their government?

Answer 1

Answer: to escape their miserable natural state and gain security.

Explanation/details:

Thomas Hobbes believed people exchange their personal liberty in a chaotic, undisciplined existence for protection and security under a government.

Hobbes published a famous work called Leviathan in 1651. The title "Leviathan" comes from a biblical word for a great and mighty beast. Hobbes believed government is formed by people for the sake of their personal security and stability in society. In Hobbes view, once the people put a king (or other leader in power), then that leader needs to have supreme power (like a great and mighty beast). Hobbes' view of the natural state of human beings without a government held that people are too divided and too volatile as individuals -- everyone looking out for his own interests. So for security and stability, authority and the power of the law needs to be in the hands of a powerful ruler like a king or queen. And so people willingly enter a "social contract" in which they live under a government that provides stability and security for society.

Probably the most famous set of lines from Hobbes' Leviathan book describes what he saw as the miserable natural state of human affairs without government -- one in which every individual had freedom, but that meant it was a situation of "war of all against all," or we might say, every man for himself. Hobbes wrote:

• In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Answer 2

According to Thomas Hobbes Social Contract Theory, "Morality is the set of rules governing behaviour, that rational people would accept, on the condition that others accept them as well.'' He argues that those who live under a government are parties to a social contract where each and every person agrees to follow the laws of the state on the condition that everyone else does the same. He argued that this way, we all become relatively safe from each other and so we all benefit from one another from the social goods that will result.
Thomas Hobbes theory further says "the state exists to enforce the rules for social living, while morality consists in the whole set of rules that facilitate social living, therefore, the need for government to enforce basic rules of social living while morality encompasses rules important for social living but are outside the scope of the government i,e, do not abuse people or no reason.