Social contract theory (or contractarianism) is a concept used in philosophy, political science and sociology to denote an implicit agreement within a state regarding the rights and responsibilities of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between a group and its members, or between individuals. All members within a society are assumed to agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society without violating the contract; such violation would signify a problematic attempt to return to the state of nature. It has been often noted, indeed, that social contract theories relied on a specific anthropological conception of man as either “good” or “evil”. Thomas Hobbes (1651), John Locke (1689) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762) are the most famous philosophers of contractarianism, which is the theoretical groundwork of democracy. It is also one of a few competing theoretical groundworks of liberalism, but Rousseau's social contract is often seen as conflicting with classical liberalism which stresses individualism and rejects subordination of individual liberty to the “general will” of the community.