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Why Have to Submit to Political Power? - Modern Foundations of Legitimation in the Theory of Social Contract

  • 인문논총
  • 2019, 50(), pp.27-49
  • DOI : 10.33638/JHS.50.2
  • Publisher : Institute for Human studies, Kyungnam University
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : August 31, 2019
  • Accepted : October 1, 2019
  • Published : October 31, 2019

Lee Gira 1

1경희대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

“Why do we have to submit to political power?” is an old and long-asked question. Instead of questioning political hierarchy and the submission to it, the advocates of the social contract theory in the 17th and 18th century answered this question by designing ‘legitimate’ political order which could explain the submission based on ‘human rationality’. Accordingly, their theories inevitably includes modern principles that legitimize political power implicitly and explicitly. This study reframes the legitimation logics, put forth by modern thinkers of the social contract theory, such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, into 3 categories: security logic; logic of common benefits and voluntary consent;, logic of democratic engagement. Here, security logic and logic of common benefits and voluntary consent are shared by all three political thinkers, while logic of democratic engagement is proper to Rousseau. These legitimation logics suggested by these three thinkers still works as powerful legitimizing logics for political power today. Comprehensive understanding of modern legitimation logics in the theory of social contract would be the basis of perception when analyzing the mechanism of modern power and voluntary submission.

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