Source: Law & Liberty
by James R Rogers
“For Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, the state evolves out of a state of nature. That is, it springs from the hypothetical interaction of people in an original position without a state. Rawls begins with a hypothetical ‘veil of ignorance’ in which individuals who do not know their individual attributes choose the political principles that will govern society. [Philip] Pettit accounts for the rise of his state using a related, although distinctive, methodology that he labels a ‘counterfactual genealogy.’ This, too, is a hypothetical account, although Pettit argues that his ’emergentist’ story differs importantly from the stories told by social contract theories.” (08/28/24)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-emerging-republican-state/