In this book, he retells the story of social contract theory as developed by some of its major proponents&—Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Rawls&—highlighting this constructive feature of the theory in order to show that not only do citizens make the social contract, but the social contract also makes citizens.
Button&’s interest in recovering this theme from past political theory is not merely historical, however. He means to resurrect our concern for it so that we can better understand the political-institutional and cultural-ethical conditions necessary for balancing individual freedom and common citizenship in our modern world of moral pluralism. Drawing on the history of public reason, Button shows how political justification continues to depend upon an ethics of character formation and why this matters for citizens today.
Mark Button is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah.