The big idea: We've seen the structures and institutions that hold society together. Now step back and ask the deeper question: why do humans live in them at all?
Are we built for society — needing others to become fully ourselves — or are we really separate individuals who just team up when it suits us?
This micro pulls the topic together with one question: are humans social by nature, or is society just a collection of separate individuals who agree to cooperate?
Hold onto this: This isn't a small question — your whole view of institutions turns on it. If we're social by nature, institutions are our natural home; if we're separate individuals, they're just useful tools we agreed to build.
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The most famous answer says community isn't optional for us — it's what we're for.
Aristotle: humans are political animals: Aristotle argued that a human is by nature a political animal — a 'social animal' who is made to live in a community, the polis.
Why Aristotle thinks so
- Only in a community can you develop language, reason, friendship and justice.
- These are the very things that make a human life go well.
- Someone who could live entirely outside all community, he said, would be 'either a beast or a god', not a normal human.
- So for Aristotle we don't just tolerate society — we flourish in it and wither without it.
Checkpoint — Aristotle: In one line: we're 'political animals' — built to live in community, and we only flourish among others. Hold that — the rival view says society is really just separate individuals teaming up.
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The opposite tradition starts not with the community but with the single person.
Individualism: the individual comes first: Individualism turns Aristotle around: you're a self-contained individual first, and 'society' is the deal you strike second.
The individualist picture
- Picture people as separate individuals first, each with their own goals.
- Society is then just what happens when they agree to cooperate.
- It is a useful arrangement, like a contract, not a natural home.
Hobbes: Thomas Hobbes imagined this by picturing life BEFORE society: separate individuals, no shared bonds, who build a society only to escape the dangers of going it alone.
Go further — higher-level insight: Spot what each side assumes at the start.
Aristotle
- Begins with the community
- Treats the lone individual as an odd case ('a beast or a god')
Individualism
- Begins with the lone individual
- Treats society as something added on
The top-band move: Neither can simply prove its starting point — so the strongest essays test which picture better fits the evidence (like a child raised with no one at all). Naming that hidden starting-assumption is a top-band move.
Checkpoint — individualism: In one line: individualism says you're a separate individual first, and society is a useful deal you strike second — the mirror image of Aristotle.
How Section B works: Social philosophy is an OPTIONAL theme, so it's assessed in Paper 1 SECTION B: an ESSAY on a set question, no stimulus [25].
How to answer it
- The command is usually 'Evaluate' or 'Discuss'.
- Use the same 5-step method as Section A — just built from the question itself instead of a stimulus.
Evaluate the claim that human beings are social by nature.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Common mistakes: 1. Describing views instead of arguing them. 2. Answering a different question — the word being tested is 'by nature', so attack that. 3. Only one view — top bands need tension. 4. No conclusion — decide, with a reason. 5. Name-dropping — a name earns nothing without its argument.