The Social Contract Research Podcast

In this seminar Dr Laure Gillot-Assayag explores how Paul Ricœur’s political philosophy can help us rethink the social contract tradition. Drawing on Ricœur’s ideas of the political paradox, institutional mediation, recognition, vigilance, pluralism, and relational justice, Dr Gillot-Assayag considers how political legitimacy might be grounded not simply in abstract consent, but in the fragile and...

In this seminar Professor Robert Sparrow explores the political and ethical dangers of algocracy: the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in government decision-making. Drawing on republican political theory, especially the idea of liberty as non-domination, Professor Sparrow asks whether even highly effective AI systems might threaten democratic freedom by making government decisions ha...

This talk investigates how artificial intelligence technologies could shape a new inclusive economy. Beginning with the development of the transformer architecture in 2017 and tracing the rapid integration of AI systems into economic life by 2026, Professor Simon Angus argues that AI should be understood not only through the standard economic lens of a general-purpose technology, but also as a new...

This talk investigates whether artificial intelligence (AI) systems could ever be welfare subjects, understood as entities for which things can go better or worse. Some people argue that AIs could plausibly have or soon have features like consciousness, agency, and the capacity for social relationships, which could in principle provide a basis for AI welfare. These arguments have massive significa...

In this seminar Dr. Mary Townsend finds in the work of Simone de Beauvoir, especially The Ethics of Ambiguity, an underappreciated account of the adventurer. Using this figure to chart a course between the "serious man" and the nihilist, Dr. Townsend critically assesses the potential of Beauvoir's adventurer to reorient reflection around the idea of the common good. The seminar is fo...

In this seminar Prof. Sophia Rosenfeld shows how the question of coice is central to concerns of the common good and the social contract, drawing particular attention to a significant and underappreciated shift in how the common good is framed in modern democracies. The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video version of the seminar is available at https://www.youtube.com...

In this seminar Dr. Timothy Jackson explores key questions about the social contract and the common good: who or what pre-exists “a social contract” and is capable of entering into it? To what extent is a stable notion of the “common good” achievable amongst subjects who are always at odds with themselves? The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video version of the semina...

In this seminar Dr. Kristine Moruzi explores the world of eighteenth-century magazines soliciting charitable donations from children. She explores the methods and social importance of these magazines, reflecting on how they informed and reflected the common good. The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video version of the seminar is available at https://www.youtube.com/wa...

In this seminar Prof. Douglas Guilfoyle analyzes the oceans as a global commons, detailing the legal frameworks like the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that define maritime zones such as the high seas and exclusive economic zones. He explores the historical development of these laws, the inherent conflicts between national interests, resource exploitation, environmental protection, a...

In this seminar Prof. David McCourt analyzes the recent shift towards tougher China policies in the US, Australia, and the UK, arguing it results from an alignment between interconnected "fields" of knowledge production and specific groups of influential "China Watchers" in Washington, Canberra, and London. He traces how these experts promoting strategic competition or security...

In this seminar Prof. Thomas SImpson addresses questions of trust in contemporary society, including questions such as: under what circumstances is trust warranted within a community? What is the relationship between compliance with the law and a culture of trust? The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion, including reflections on whether or not trust is a virtue, and whether t...

In this seminar Dr Amy Chandran addresses questions of power and religion on Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video version of the seminar is available at https://youtu.be/ONemBZ7mmWY The seminar took place over Zoom on 25 March 2025, and was hosted by Christopher Watkin (Monash University), as part of the project "Rewriting the S...

In this seminar Dr Bolek Kabala addresses the relationship between notions of contract and covenant in the work of Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza, with reflections on Augustine's two cities. The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video version of the seminar is available at https://youtu.be/0anw_nIfsXY The seminar took place over Zoom on 6 August 2024, and was hosted by...

In this roundtable, Daniel M Knight, Andreas Bandak and Chris Watkin discuss Michel Serres in the light of Bandak and Knight's recent co-edited book "Porous Becomings: Anthropological Engagements with Michel Serres" (https://www.dukeupress.edu/porous-becomings). The conversation ranges over the metaphor of porosity, the idea of a natural contract, and curiosity in the contemporary hu...

In this seminar Dr Simon Kennedy addresses the prehistory of ideas of the social contract. After sketching a genealogy running through Plato, Aritsotle, Cicero and the Hebrew Bible, he reflects on the extent to which Hobbes's and Locke's social contract accounts are continuing, or breaking with, the natural law tradition. The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A vid...

In this seminar Dr Macarena Marey addresses Kant's understanding of normativity in relation to the ideas of the state of nature and the social contract. The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video version of the seminar is available at https://youtu.be/F5XMts5m3R8 The seminar took place over Zoom on 4 June 2024, and was hosted by Christopher Watkin (Monash University...

Civilization and its Others: American Imaginaries, State of Nature, and Civility in Hobbes, with Stéphanie Martens In this seminar Dr Stéphanie Martens addresses how early modern imaginaries of the Americas, and in particular imaginaries of aboriginality, shaped early modern political thought, with a focus on Thomas Hobbes. The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video ver...

In this seminar Rev'd Dr Timothy Howles addresses the question of Carl Schmitt's social thought, with a particular focus on Schmitt's early essay "The Significance of the Individual". The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video version of the seminar is available at https://youtu.be/YaEqGKosW9A The seminar took place over Zoom on 31 October 2023, an...

In this seminar Emeritus Professor John Holmwood addresses the question of CB Macpherson's account of possessive individualism, as it relates to neoliberalism and colonialism. The seminar is followed by a time of questions and discussion. A video version of the seminar is available at https://youtu.be/qKLzA_GttYc The seminar took place over Zoom on 16 October 2023, and was hosted by Christophe...

In this seminar Sandra Leonie Field (Lecturer in Philosophy, Monash University) addresses the question of Spinoza's relationship to the social contract, arguing that a case can be made for Spinoza both as a radical social contract thinker, adn as an anti-social contract thinker. The seminar is followed by a time of question and answer. A video version of the seminar is available at https://you...

In this seminar John Protevi (Phyllis M. Taylor Professor of French Studies, Louisiana State University) addresses the question of the relationship between the social contract idea, slavery, and manumission. The seminar is followed by a time of question and answer. A video version of the seminar is available at https://youtu.be/ALJ8TvpwaHs The seminar took place over Zoom on 16 May 2023, and was h...

In this seminar Ioannis Evrigenis (Professor of Political Science and Professor of Classical Studies, Tufts University) addresses the question of the status of Hobbes's state of nature. Hobbes claims his account of the state of nature and the social contract are scientific insofar as they are geometrical; Professor Evrigenis argues that they are indeed scientific, but for quite another reason....

In this seminar Barbara Arneil (Professor of Political Science, The University of British Columbia) addresses the fascinating question of how the notions of "waste", "empty" and "uncultivated" land were used by John Locke and Jeremy Bentham in relation to British colonialism. The seminar is followed by a time of question and answer. A video version of the seminar is a...

In this seminar Philip Pettit (Laurence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University; Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University) addresses some of the details and complexities of Thomas Hobbes's distinctive account of the social contract. The seminar is followed by a time of question and answer. A video version of...

In this seminar Christopher Kelly (Professor in the Political Science Faculty at Boston College) addresses Rousseau's complex account of the state of nature in his Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (1755). He discusses the relationship between the different states of nature in Rousseau's Second Discourse and his notions of perfectibility and natural goodness, arguing that t...