Given that political obligation may be defined as an obligation to obey the rules and laws set by the state, although aside from this obligation, one would not feel obliged to do so, we find many explanations as to the motives of political obligation as set forth by David Gauthier. In his essay "The Social Contract as Ideology" Gauthier offers a statement given by Thomas Hobbes that "our thoughts and relationships... are best understood by supposing that we treat all of these relationships as if they were contractual" (29). This suggested theory is that of the social contract.
             By nature, we find that men are competitive beings, due to the fact that they are appropriative creatures always seeking more goods, and more power. Gauthier suggests that "men find themselves in an increasingly competitive situation, in which the security of their property is continually decreasing" (35). If men are driven by a continual desire to acquire more goods, as is suggested in the essay, and the only way to acquire these goods is from other men, then it is reasonable to suggest that men are constantly in competition and negotiations in a contractual situation with one another. The purpose of men acquiring more goods and struggling for more power is "because they always lack the assurance that their means are sufficient" (35). Gauthier continues this thought by adding "either the threat of scarcity inherent in the state of nature must be the basis for a necessarily competitive endeavor to assure oneself against its actualization or further appetites, of a kind such that scarcity of the goods satisfying them is assured, must be attributed to men in the state of nature" (34).
             Given these circumstances, it only makes sense that one would want to subscribe to the laws of the state. Gauthier explains that were there no sense of political obligation, men would be much worse off "the state of nature...