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Thomas Hobbes And John Locke: The Barbarity Of The English Civil War

1863 Words8 Pages

In the middle of the 17th century, as the absolute power of monarchs began to wane, political scientists debated the question as to who was legitimately entitled to govern a state. While the traditional justification for a monarch’s power was the “Divine Right of Kings”, this had lost much of its authority over the previous centuries, and by 1642 the debate had reached its peak in the form of the English Civil War. What ensued was one of the darkest periods in Britain’s history, pitting the Monarchists against the Parliamentarians in a deadly conflict that would lead to the deaths of over 200,000 Britons. Due to the fact they they supported opposing sides, in the aftermath of Parliament’s victory and the execution of King Charles I, the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke would forever be altered. Following the barbarity of the war, Hobbes and Locke developed opposing views on human nature. And while they both agreed on the existence of a social contract, they disagreed on what this contract entailed. As a consequence, they advocated for drastically different types of government, raising the question as to which theory of human nature and proper governance is better suited for the real world. While both theories each have merit, in this essay I will demonstrate that …show more content…

Rather, the purpose of this limited power was to ensure that the sovereign was strictly limited to the protection and enforcement of the natural rights of people. The key to this, according to Locke, was for a sovereign to govern lightly. Should a sovereign violate the powers attributed to him, the social contract would be broken, meaning that the people would be well within their rights to withdraw their consent towards the sovereign's rule. Consequently, they could then remove the sovereign from power and establish a new

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Thomas Hobbes proposed that the ideal government should be an absolute monarchy as a direct result of experiencing the English Civil War, in which there was internal conflict between the parliamentarians and the royalists. Hobbes made this claim under the assumption that an absolute monarchy would produce consistent policies, reduce conflicts and lower the risk of civil wars due to the singular nature of this ruling system. On another hand, John Locke counters this proposal with the view that absolute monarchies are not legitimate as they are inconsistent with the state of nature. These two diametrically opposed views stem from Hobbes’ and Locke’s different understandings of human nature, namely with regard to power relationships, punishment, and equality in the state of nature. Hobbes’ belief that human beings are selfish and appetitive is antithetical with Locke’s contention that human beings are intrinsically moral even in the state of nature, which results in Locke’s strong disagreement with Hobbes’ proposed absolute monarchy.

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