HUME AND KANT ON THE SOCIAL CONTRACT* Hume and Kant were both political philosophers of remarkable originality, subtlety and profundity; and yet their contributions in this area are largely unrecognized. Both are generally relegated to footnotes in comprehensive texts on political theory -e.g. Hume gets only eight of the 948 pages in Sabine and Kant gets even less (only a few references in passing). This is perhaps particularly unfair to Hume who claimed that the ultimate goal of all of his philosophy was to introduce into morals and politics the kind of scientific inquiry that Newton had brought to external nature; but it is also unfair to Kant, who wrote at great length on these matters as well. Probably the chief explanation for the relative obscurity in political philosophy of both men is the same -namely, that the overwhelming genius exhibited in their writings on epistemology and metaphysics simply eclipsed the importance of their writings in other, less 'primary' areas of philosophical inquiry (thereby illustrating the maxim that no good deed ever goes unpunished)) Whatever the total reasons for the neglect, however, I hope that I can present a convincing case -by a discussion of some central arguments in the political thought of both men -that the neglect is extremely unfortunate and ought not to be allowed to persist among serious teachers and scholars in the area of legal, social and political philosophy. Now of course the time-honored device for discussing Hume and Kant in epistemology and metaphysics is to place them in fundamental conflict with each other. (I have in mind here the tradition, to which I have myself contributed, of essays in the 'Kant vs. Hume' or 'Kant answers Hume' genre.) At least for a start in this lecture, I shall use the same device for developing central themes in their social and political thought. And to do this I shall focus on the doctrine of the social contract or original contract. I think it is safe to say that this was the central or dominant intellectual model which provided the structure of social and political thought in the 18th Century, and both Hume and Kant felt obliged to assess it carefully -Hume coming out a qualified opponent and Kant a qualified supporter of the model. This opposition is particularly interesting for the following reason: Hume's