Eric S. answered • 10/07/16
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The concepts of natural rights and social contact theory are closely related because the protection of natural rights justifies the concept of the existence of a social contract. Jean Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, and John Locke's Treatises on Government differ greatly in their assessments of what the original (albeit, hypothetical) state of nature was like, but they all implicitly agree that there are certain natural rights that exist prior to and independent of any kind of society, and that the only reason a society forms is to respond to the precarious existence of these rights in the state of nature.
That's the best I can do in an easily-digestible paragraph. I would be happy to talk more in an individual session.
