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Compare And Contrast John Locke And Thomas Hobbes

760 Words4 Pages

During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, there was a change in the thought process of mankind. Two prominent and opposing viewpoints came in the form of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Thomas Hobbes was a man who influenced society’s thoughts on government. John Locke, on the other hand, had a heavy and lasting influence in the shaping of modern politics, the nature of individual rights, and the views on human nature. Hobbes and Locke both derived two states of nature that though they had some similarities were polar opposites. Formation of a government was a fuming topic for Thomas Hobbes and John Locke but more aptly the nature of man in being able to form a government. Hobbes explains humanity at a different level and thought process. …show more content…

He believes that there is a God but he does not strictly adhere to the religious wagon that many people are behind. According to John Locke, “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and…teaches all mankind…that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions” (Locke 6). He believes that our individualism is stemmed in a set of natural “rights” such as life, liberty, and the right to own property, which God has set. Also, Locke believes that humans are not only interested in surviving but in the survival of the community and the race as a whole. Due to this, Locke believed “Those who are united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them, and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another…” (Locke 87). Furthermore, Locke believed “…absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted the only government in the world, is… inconsistent with civil society” because those who gave the consent to be governed would never willingly choose to follow a leading body that is more crooked than the state of nature that were set by God. (Locke 90). When the government becomes forceful and tyrant, Locke believes people “…should then rise themselves, and endeavor to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected…” (Locke 225). Government is not stationary; it responds to human developments and human needs. It is the motion of transitioning from a state of nature with complete freedom and equality to a civil society where certain liberties are forsaken for safety and

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes, two titans of the Enlightenment, work within similar intellectual frameworks in their seminal writings. Hobbes, in Leviathan, postulates a “state of nature” before society developed, using it as a tool to analyze the emergence of governing institutions. Rousseau borrows this conceit in Discourse on Inequality, tracing the development of man from a primitive state to modern society. Hobbes contends that man is equal in conflict during the state of nature and then remains equal under government due to the ruler’s monopoly on authority. Rousseau, meanwhile, believes that man is equal in harmony in the state of nature and then unequal in developed society.

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