Hobbes And Locke Similarities

Hobbes and Locke’s methods of discerning the cause of man’s desire to join a commonwealth are very similar, yet they both have dissimilar views on what the state of nature should be like and what the legitimate power would look like, but Locke’s creation of executive prerogative complicates his negative views of Hobbes’s sovereign. Though Locke disagrees often with the works of Hobbes, he does share similar qualities of both his view of legitimate political power and what the state of nature is like.In both Hobbes and Locke’s view, the legitimate authority of government comes from receiving the consent of those that want to join the commonwealth while still in the state of nature. In the state of nature, Hobbes and Locke both agree on the idea that man is an individualist, looking out only for himself. These seem to be the two largest similarities that both Hobbes …show more content…
Interestingly enough, both Hobbes and Locke have a state of nature where mankind is an individualistic being that must protect him or herself, even though each one is very dissimilar to the other’s and to compare we must start by understanding what Hobbes’s state of nature was. Hobbes believed in the state of nature man had complete and total control of his own will in order to continue self-preservation. For example, if somebody felt that they needed to steal someone else’s cattle they could and there was no punishment. This lack of punishment in Hobbes’s state of nature is the first difference in Hobbes and Locke’s views of the state of nature. Because in Hobbes’s state of nature there was no enforcement of the laws of