Hobbes' Social Contract Theory begins with a psychological assumption

1. Men strive ceaselessly to obtain certain objects and to avoid others; but different men, and even one man at different times, will strive for different things. (Leviathan, Chapters VI, XI)
   
   
2. The objects men strive to obtain they call good; those they strive to avoid they call evil. (Leviathan, VI)
   
   
   1. Each man of necessity desires his own good. (L: XIV)
      
      
   2. What one man counts as good another may count as evil.
      
      
3. Power is but a man's means of obtaining goods and avoiding evils. (L: VI, X, XI)
   
   
   1. Men ceaselessly desire power.
      
      
   2. The power men actually seek is relative both to the aims of a particular man and to each man's private assessment of the means he must accumulate in order to assure future success.
      
      
4. Men as individuals are substantially equal with respect to natural or original, as distinct from acquired, power. (L: XIII)
   
   
   1. Success in obtaining what one wants does not depend upon the superiority of any one natural power, like physical prowess.
      
      
   2. Men are substantially equal in their inability as individuals to defend themselves and their acquisitions against ravage.
      
      
5. The absence of civil government is properly called a state of nature.
   
   
   1. The state of nature implies the absence of institutional restraints upon the acquisition of power and, except for self-help, no protection of persons and goods.
      
      
   2. The state of nature is a state of war, of each man against every other, wherein no man can reasonably expect to obtain goods and be secure in the enjoyment of them.
      
      
6. Laws of nature are rules stating the conditions necessary for any man to obtain goods and that specify acts required equally of all men, if these conditions are to be fulfilled.
   
   
   1. Civil peace is such a condition; and the rules specifying the acts and endeavors required equally of all men, if peace is to be secured, are laws of nature.
      
      
   2. "He that foresees the whole way to his preservation must also call it good, and the contrary evil. And this is that good and evil, which not every man in passion calls so, but all men by reason. And therefore the fulfilling of these laws is good in reason; and the breaking of them evil." (L: XIV)
      
      
7. The primary condition of peace is that each man stand out of the way of every other man, leaving all men generally secure in their pursuit and enjoyment of goods. (L: XIV)
   
   
   1. In order for men to be willing to stand out of each other's way, and in order for it to be reasonable for them to do so, there must be an effective form of protection other than self-help.
      
      
   2. Other than self-help, the only protection against ravage is institutional, i.e., some form of civil law.
      
      
   3. Therefore, it is good in reason and a law of nature that each man submit unconditionally to law.
      
      
8. The moral practice by which men most commonly obtain goods for themselves while simultaneously securing the good of another is covenanting.
   
   
   1. Even in a state of nature it would be good in reason for a man, taken captive by an enemy, to obtain his life and liberty by covenanting to pay a ransom; and any such covenant is binding. (L: XIV, XV)
      
      
   2. The stakes at issue in the alternatives between civil peace and war are comparable in magnitude to those at issue in the alternatives between life at the cost of ransom and death.
      
      
   3. The obligation to submit unconditionally to law may be regarded, by those who have never acknowledged it or by those who seriously question it, as brought about by a kind of covenant, or social contract, that is, one in which life and liberty are purchased at the cost of submission.
      
      
   4. If men desire to preserve life and liberty, then they ought to form and abide by a social contract.