John Locke, Lost’s spiritual-questing outdoorsman, finally lived up to his name last night, offering his people a new social contract. But as with most contracts, you really gotta read the fine print.

This liberal theory of violence is grounded in the social contract theory of Hobbes and Locke. Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau (whom I’ll discuss later) were very different politically, but they all agreed ...

Social contract theory is an ancient philosophical idea that states that an individual's ethical and political obligations relate to an agreement he has with every other individual within a society.