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Thomas Hobbes And John Locke's Influence On Modern Society

980 Words4 Pages

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. He believed that the human beings are good by nature and reasonable and therefore they can self-regulate themselves. However, as a result of these differences, these two philosophers have different outlooks regarding what should be an ideal government. But despite these differences, both of …show more content…

Thomas Hobbes also had a significant impact on political thought (Sorell, 1996). For example these ideas that the people were selfish and brutal and also his ideas regarding the role of government and resulted in more investigations by other philosophers like John Locke. After the Revolution, the ideas of Thomas Hobbes also had considerable impact on Federalists in their arguments to adopt the Constitution (Hobbes, 1986). Hobbes believed that all the people should have equal rights and therefore no person should have more power as compared to others (apart from the King, who should have absolute power). As a result of the ideas of Hobbes, it was believed that the people cannot survive if a strong central government is not present to protect them. The influence of these ideas can be measured from the fact that even today these ideas are studied and discussed by modern scholars (Tarlton,

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