http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/keyword/social-contract Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Sun, 05 Jul 2026 12:14:30 -0400 Sun, 05 Jul 2026 12:14:30 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/404/john-dewey-and-the-ethics-of-democracy By Gabrielle Micheletti - John Dewey was an ingenious and significant figure whose criticisms spanned a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, education, politics, aesthetics, and ethics. The late American philosopher Richard Rorty, in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, was quoted as saying that the three most important figures in Contemporary Philosophy for the 21st Century were Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Dewey. Dewey, in many circles, is often known as America’s Philosopher, and his influence is recognizable across the reformative spectrum. In his 1888 essay The Ethics of Democracy, Dewey sharply... Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:20 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/404/john-dewey-and-the-ethics-of-democracy http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/349/hobbes-leviathan-and-views-on-the-origins-of-civil-government-conservatism-by-covenant By Katherine J. Wolfenden - Of course, even if a sovereign was chosen by the people, his successors would not come to power under the same circumstances, and the subjects’ descendants would not have been given a choice. Hobbes states that there is no difference between the rights of a sovereign who comes to power by force and a sovereign who is elected to power through political means; he even responds to potential critics who “hold all such covenants as proceed from fear of death or violence void,” saying that “if it were true, no man in any kind of commonwealth could be obliged to obedience&rdquo... Thu, 30 Dec 2010 01:59 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/349/hobbes-leviathan-and-views-on-the-origins-of-civil-government-conservatism-by-covenant http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/6/john-locke-and-the-second-treatise-on-government By Sawyer A. Theriault - The best way to figure this out, Locke reasoned, was to imagine a state in which no government existed. Then by seeing that state, determine where necessary laws and governing bodies are needed. Locke described the role of civil government like this: “Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good... Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:24 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/6/john-locke-and-the-second-treatise-on-government