Rethinking the Social Contract: A Ricœurian Perspective

Laure Gillot-Assayag

This presentation examines the contribution of Paul Ricœur’s political philosophy to the social contract tradition. It shall explain how Ricœur’s notion of the “political paradox” highlights the fundamental ambiguity of political power: the state exists to establish justice and protect citizens yet simultaneously contains the potential for domination and violence. Drawing on Ricœur’s understanding of justice as requiring both interpersonal ethics and institutional structures, the presentation further highlights how Ricœur conceives institutions as essential mediations, extending solicitude beyond face-to-face relationships. His framework for understanding ethics and institutions as necessary for actualizing the good life provides resources for reimagining the social contract, by grounding political legitimacy in a distinctive type of relationality and the dynamic pursuit of just institutional arrangements, rather than mere hypothetical, rational, and abstract consent.

Dr. Laure Gillot-Assayag is a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany (Democratic Vistas). Former visiting scholar at Monash University (Prato campus), she published her research in political philosophy in the Ricœur Studies, the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, the Journal of Philosophy of Education, and soon Democratic Theory. Her book on Paul Ricœur is forthcoming with SUNY Press. In 2025, she received the Paul Ricœur Excellence Prize for the best paper on Paul Ricœur.