FREE ESSAY ON HOBBES AND LOCKE

HOBBES AND LOCKE

Hobbes and Locke Outcome 2 .
Thomas Hobbes was born in Wiltshire, England in 1588 just prior to the Spanish Armada.
Philosophy is defined by Hobbes as the reasoned knowledge of effects from causes, and
causes from effects. 
Hobbes was educated in Oxford where he learnt about the great classics and also of
Aristotle, however Hobbes disliked Aristotle's approach that democracy was the best form
of government. 
Hobbes spent many a year on the continent and his disliking for Aristotle's works grew,
when he returned to Britain there was a civil war underway so he left the country again
and wrote several pieces of literature, these include the, "De Cive" and "The Elements of
law". Later on his book the "Leviathan was published".
Hobbes died in 1679 after becoming one well-known political writer, but he has not been
forgotten and his political thought lives on.
Hobbes's most famous piece of work the, "Leviathan" presents life before government was
formed this was what Hobbes referred to as the, "State of nature". Hobbes believed that
every man was naturally equal and due to this war was inevitable because every man was
for himself. War would be inevitable as fought for material possession and for basic
necessities like water and food. The first of these, "causes of quarrel- maketh man
invade for gain, the second for safety and the third for reputation". With this
continuing state of war and would produce a lifestyle in which there would be no society,
industry or trading. As Hobbes states that there would be; "No knowledge of the face of
the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of
all, contains fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor nasty,
brutish and short."
For Hobbes the, "State of nature" was a way of rationalising how people would behave in
their most basic state. Hobbes advanced from what Rene Decartes stated "I think ,
therefore I am." Hobbes used the individual as a building block from which all his
political theories arose. Hobbes formed his theories by way of empirical observation and
he believed that the universe was just atoms in notion and therefore could be measured by
geometry and mathematics and could be used to explain human behaviour.
According to Thomas Hobbes people would willing give up all their rights to everything
and anything as long as every individual was willing to do this. Nevertheless basic human
nature would not allow this and with no way of controlling it people would soon break it
in an attempt to control a greater share of power over one another.
Hobbes recognised that in order to ensure the stability and peace in his opinion this
could be achieved by means of a Social contract. Hobbes realising that the only way to
maintain order among the people would by having an authoritarian government. He gave the
government the name of Leviathan which when translated means monster. This meant that in
exchange for individual rights the people would have in return peace, security and
protection from one another. The people would not want to return to the basic state of
nature and therefore would not protest against the government which would have power over
their natural liberty.
The social contract would at first be set-up by men to establish a commonwealth which in
turn would be governed by a sovereign to whom in the interest of self preservation,
simple right to govern oneself is abolished. The sovereign may be an individual or a
group of individuals who are not part of the social contract. However the citizens
themselves are part of the social contract and this means that they will obey the
sovereign and obey the rules that the sovereign has enforced. Since the sovereign has all
power there would never arise any contract between the subjects and the sovereign to
break. To add this once the contract has been established the subjects need to seek the
sovereigns permission to break it. As a result of forming this contract nothing that the
sovereign does can be seen as unjust and as a result of establishing this contract an
artificial man or leviathan is formed. Hobbes gives the sovereign absolute power.
Hobbes allowed for three different kinds of commonwealth there was; democracy,
aristocracy, or Monarchy. Hobbes preferred the Monarchy because the monarch cannot
disagree with himself.
Finally Hobbes was a great believer that only in peace and security can people develop to
their full potential. In order for this to be so Hobbes places in an authoritarian
government, to govern the citizens. However Hobbes believes that a self-government is
absolutely impossible to achieve and declines any doctrine of natural light. 
Hobbes was considered to be the first liberal thinker, however it is only right to now
turn our discussion to John Locke, the father of liberal democratic thought.
John Locke lived from 1632-1704 and during this period England was more politically
traumatic than any other time in its history, he attended Christ Church in Oxford where
he was a student for many years and became greatly interested in the great philosophical
and scientific questions of the time. Although John Locke embraced many of Hobbes
theories on the state, nature of government and society he also had opinions and theories
of his own. Locke believed that God was the centre of all politics. He believed that
individuals when born were given certain rights by God and not by the government. Locke
had a high opinion of human nature and believed that before the government was formed
that the state of nature would have been a largely happy state.
Locke believed that every individual had the right to self-preservation and the right to
own property. This right had two conditions, firstly that people may have property as
long as their is property for others, secondly that they cannot spoil anything. For this
if all conditions are met an individual was granted exclusive rights to an object that
they used in their labour. Since the individual was using this object and placing part of
the self into the object then it was considered their property.
Locke's book the "Two treaties of government" Locke began a detailed account of how a
civil government should be structured. Beginning with the state of Nature, Locke
concludes that the problems needing to be corrected from this original state are; "There
wants an established, settled, known law..", in other words the constitution of rules
which establish for all the difference between right and wrong. Secondly "There wants a
known and indifferent judge , with authority to determine all differences according to
the established laws". There is no need for a neutral to judge cases , because men are
biased towards themselves and are unlikely to admit to any wrong doing. Thirdly "There
often wants power to back and support there sentence when right". It is important that
the state has the power to punish the wrong doers, if not, then the strongest, right or
wrong, will always have their way. Locke then establishes the boundaries of the state by
saying, "...though men when they enter into society give up the equality, liberty, and
executive power they had in the state of nature into the hands of society...yet it be
only with an intention in every one to preserve himself, his liberty and property...the
power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend
father than the common good."
Locke said that people who had the ability to accumulate as much property and money were
entitled to do so. Locke also stated that when people started using their hard earned
money they also had to agree to the "disproportionate and unequal possession of the
earth". Locke dreaded the state of nature, but he believed that God's law created moral
imperatives preventing humans from being greedy and having a free for all like Hobbes
suggested. According to Locke people would not sacrifice all their rights to an
authoritarian government. Instead they would form two distinctive groups or agreements,
these are the contracts of society and the contract of the majority of society and
government or "trustee relationship".
This contract of society is formed when people give up their total freedom and move from
the natural state into society. This society would roughly be split into two. There would
be the property owners and the non property owners. As Marxist calls them the bourgeoisie
and the proletariat. In this society property owners who were industrious and hard
working were given the right of suffrage and the non property owners seen a non-
industrious were not. In order to fulfil contracts within society and government the
society contracts an impartial third party to act as the government. This contract as
mentioned earlier is sometimes known as the trustee relationship because the government
has no rights but works for the good of the people. The government is given its power to
act by the property owning portion of the population, and not by the society as a whole.
Locke's theory also differs from Hobbes because the society has the power to overthrow
the government. Locke stated that since the society made the government they have the
power to abolish it, whereas in Hobbe's theory the government was all powerful and the
people would dread going back to the state of nature that the leviathan will not be
overthrown. This is also because the leviathan being solely powerful will only check
against itself. Locke however feels that the government could be abolished without
returning to the state of nature because the social contract would be upheld. If the
government was abolished then another would be elected through a majority vote. This has
the idea that the government is accountable to the people. The above themes show that
Locke favoured a limited government whereas Hobbes favoured an authoritarian one. 
Lockes society is designed to protect property, but Lockes definition of property is not
the same as everyone else's. overall then, we are left with a society that is designed to
prevent the abuse of power and to let people live peacefully and prosperously in an equal
society.
Hobbes however wanted the citizens to be restrained and have no say in the way the
country was ran. Hobbes wanted there to be a dictatorship where decisions were solely in
the hands of the sovereign and not the people whom lived in the democracy, so was this
theory was actually liberal democracy.
Bibliography
hobbes by jason gray
governing the state by samuel edwards