State of Nature
The hypothetical pre-political condition from which social-contract theorists derive the legitimacy and limits of political authority.
The state of nature is a thought experiment in early modern political philosophy: the condition human beings would be in if there were no political authority. Early-modern social-contract theorists used the device to derive the rational basis and proper limits of government from features of human nature itself.
Thomas Hobbes's state of nature (Leviathan, 1651) is a war of all against all — a condition in which life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short — and the rational solution is the surrender of nearly all rights to an absolute sovereign. John Locke's state of nature (Second Treatise, 1689) is more peaceful: human beings are equal and free under the natural law, and they form government chiefly to remedy the inconveniences of unenforced rights. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's state of nature (Discourse on Inequality, 1755) is more peaceful still — a condition of self-sufficient natural goodness corrupted only by the introduction of property and social comparison. Each theorist's state of nature does the same argumentative work: it secures whichever political conclusion the theorist wants the contract to produce.