ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines David Hume's criticism of the 'fashionable theory' of the original contract within its proper contexts. Most social contract theorists tended to treat questions of history and justification together, not because they failed to think clearly about different kinds of judgments, but because they held to some important but never fully articulated beliefs about the nature of history. It should be noticed that Hume's criticism of contract theory is based on three kinds of arguments: rational, historical, experiential, which apply differently to the various versions of the 'fashionable theory' of the original contract. The fashionable theory of contract, and the Whig historical contentions, are, or so Hume maintained, of this kind. Hume considers the contract theory as an instance of a peculiarly modern phenomenon: the tendency of political parties to justify their respective causes by appealing to a general, 'speculative', theory.
