John Locke and Thomas Hobbes were early English philosophers who each had very different views on the roles of the government and the people being governed. Their interpretations of human nature each had a lasting and vast impact on modern political science. Locke believed that men had the right to revolt against oppressive government. “‘Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
During the 16th and 17th century, Europe went through political disputes regarding government which created uproar and conflict. English philosopher Thomas Hobbes published his document Leviathan during the War of Religion in 1651. The War of Religion was a time period in which Europe was trying to establish its religion between Catholic and Protestant (Huguenot). The Holy Roman Empire in particular had tension about religious beliefs due to the Peace of Augsburg which entailed each ruler to establish a religion for their state, also known as a confession. The Peace of Augsburg also entailed that when a new ruler came into power, they could keep or change the confession of that state and its practices.
Do you believe all humans have the best intentions for others? Many people believe that we come into this world with only good inside of us, while others believe we all arrive good but our mindset is turned evil and self-obsessed throughout time as we grow older. In the 17th century there were many arguments on whether citizens should govern themselves or have a ruler to keep the citizens in control. Everyone has a clean slate at the start but the choices one makes can mold you into who you become later on. In the 17th century there were two philosophers, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, who both thought differently about human nature and the way some people are when it comes to money and power.
Hobbes vs Locke When a unlawful crime happens we are shocked and paralyzed by fear and despair. Well ,with these crimes comes governmental responsibility this is why. Without a strictly ruled government violence, no productivity, and consequently no knowledge of the Earth would result. To begin, with “Without a common power to keep them in awe, it will result in a state of war” as Thomas Hobbes states. Strict power is important, absences of this allows us to forget that we are all equal and no one is higher than the other.
Throughout the history, humankind was consistently concerned with the basic nature of the human beings. Consequently, there has always been a debate on the attitudes of the philosophers and scientists towards competing ideas that whether humans are intrinsically good or evil, whether humans are natured or nurtured, whether humans are fundamentally selfish or altruistic, whether it is all about our inner states that make us to behave in a certain way or it is mostly associated with external factors such as our environment that shape our identity. In this paper, compelling arguments of the above-mentioned different schools will be analyzed, evaluated, discussed and concluded. The initial school of thought suggests that, humans are inherently bad, selfish and egoistic beings. Origin of this view roots back to ancient times.
Hobbes and Rousseau agree that humans are equal by nature and must consent to submit their rights to a central authority. However, their conclusions diverge on the role and the composition of that central authority. Hobbes’s sovereign is that of one individual or a small assembly of individuals whose sole purpose is to provide security to its citizens and in return maintain the power to represent its citizens (Hobbes 227). Conversely, Rousseau believes that the sovereign is based on the concept of the general will which requires active participation by citizens as a community and binds/favors each citizen equally (Rousseau 76). Therefore Hobbes’s Leviathan and Rousseau’s general will are similar in premise by agreeing humans are motivated by self-preservation and utilize contracts to secure self-preservation, though their conclusions differ on the role/rights of the citizens and the sovereign.
The Bill of Rights is a formal statement of the fundamental rights of the people of the United States, incorporated in the Constitution as Amendments 1-10, and in all state constitutions. [Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.]. The Bill of Rights had an idea that an individual natural rights should be protected from the government.
In the present assignment, an attempt has been made to evaluate the influence of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on the modern society. At the same time, the connection between the writings of these philosophers and the things that are actually present has also been explored. Both the philosophers were very enlightened thinkers of the 17th century. At the same time, both of them have very strong views regarding human nature and also the role that displayed by the government in the lives of the people. In this regard, Hobbes believed that by their nature, people were selfish but the perspective of Locke was different.
Humans have come a long way from the Stone Age. We’ve come from an age of using stick and stones as a means to survive to a new age where there’s nuclear power. We’ve created empires and state because humans are social animals who can’t truly be independent. We need each other to survive and we need the expertise and contribution of everyone to make our lives easier as time goes on. Great wise men such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and J.J. Roseau are a few individuals who helped change the way many of us think and helped us a developed a political system to govern us.
Adeline Lair 3/10/2023 Period 1 Elmore Human Nature In the wild, it is instinct for the lion to hunt the gazelle; equally, it is instinct for the gazelle to run from the lion. This is simply the nature of the animal; it’s how they were born. But what is the nature of the human race?
Western civilization had just shifted from the medieval to the modern period, from a strongly religious time with social stability provided by the Catholic Church to the contemporary crisis of authority. This eventually leads to the Enlightenment, an era of secular humanism in which scientific knowledge and reason becomes a source of authority, and a new emphasis was placed on human liberty and equality. This transition away from tradition in the 1650s was applied not just to the knowledge of the physical cosmos, but also to society. John Locke, a 17th-century intellectual, believes that the government's purpose was to safeguard its citizens’ natural rights. He develops the notion of the blank slate, in which people are born blank and learn via experience and education.
published from 1985-1995. From the perspective of literary and cultural studies, it is a valuable postmodern text in terms of both its form and content. It pokes fun at the postmodern condition and the seemingly high-brow nonsensical expression (or babble) associated with it. It is itself presented as postmodern nonsense/babble or pomobabble (a portmanteau word) with its roots in American suburbia and the value –systems associated with the ‘Land of Stars and Stripes’. This paper addresses the depiction of Calvin (and his alter-ego Hobbes) as the child who exhibits all the characteristics of the modern ‘angry young man’.
When comparing the two different accounts of English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke we must take into consideration a number of things such as the age in which they lived and the time in which they produced their philosophical writings. We will however find out that these two philosophers actually have a couple of things in which agree on even though most of their opinions clash. On one side we have Thomas Hobbes who lived in the time of the English Civil War (1642-1651) who provides a negative framework for his philosophical opinions in his masterpiece Leviathan and who advocates for philosophical absolutism . On the other side we have John Locke, living during the glorious revolution (1688-1689) he presents a positive attitude in his book The Second Treatise of Government and advocates for philosophical and biblical constitutionalism. It is important that we know that the state of nature describes a pre- political society prior to the social contract.
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.
The secondary literature on Hobbes's moral and political philosophy (not to speak of his entire body of work) is vast, appearing across many disciplines and in many languages. There are two major aspects to Hobbes's picture of human nature. As we have seen, and will explore below, what motivates human beings to act is extremely important to Hobbes. The other aspect concerns human powers of judgment and reasoning, about which Hobbes tends to be extremely skeptical. Like many philosophers before him, Hobbes wants to present a more solid and certain account of human morality than is contained in everyday beliefs.
