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Similarities Between Locke And Thomas Hobbes Disenfranchisement

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In the United States, the right to vote is one of the most important fundamental right that is available to any American citizen. Once an exclusive right that was available only to a certain group of individuals, has been extended to all citizens in the United States. However, the exception to this involves individuals who have been convicted of a felony. There are approximately five million citizens that are denied the right to vote because they have been convicted of a felony, many of which were nonviolent. The loss of their voting right entails a significant impact to these individuals as members of society and further hinders their attempt at reintegration into a democratic society. Those who are in favor of felony disenfranchisement argue that it is justified through the social contract theory, a theory both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke expand on. …show more content…

The social contract theory comes to effect when individuals are keen on leaving the state of nature, which entails a time of chaos and lawlessness. Hobbes views this state of nature as states of war where there are individuals constantly seeking to destroy each other in the constant quest for power. Whilst Hobbes believes that life in this state of nature is “nasty, brutish, and short,” Locke holds a more optimistic view of the state of nature. In Locke’s view of the state of nature, all men are free “to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of

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