Social policy, as the discipline of managing collective life, requires a precise refinement of its anthropological and epistemological foundations before practical application. Employing a descriptive-analytical method and a comparative-critical approach, this study examines the theoretical foundations of social policy within two paradigms: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract theory and Allameh Tabatabai's theory of practical I’tibariyat (normative constructs). The findings indicate that Rousseau's point of departure in the formation of society is the voluntary agreement of natural man to overcome environmental obstacles, whereas Tabatabai locates the origin of society in the Idtirar (necessity) arising from the need to restrain the innate drive for Istikhdam (instrumentalization) and to repel conflicts of interest. Regarding the origin of law and sovereignty, Rousseau's theory relies on the "general will" and popular sovereignty, in which the state serves merely as the agent of the law. Tabatabai's framework, by contrast, owing to the inherent inadequacy of the instrumentalizing intellect, conditions ultimate legislation on divine revelation and Sharia, presenting government as the executor of justice. In the teleological dimension, although both thinkers criticize the proliferation of false needs and consumerism, Rousseau's ideal telos is summarized in securing civil liberty and legal equality. Tabatabai, transcending material reductionism, conceives the telos of social policy as the instrumental management of practical I’tibariyat toward securing both material and spiritual felicity, centered on a monotheistic worldview and the primacy of the Hereafter.