Locke Vs Rousseau

Among social contract philosophers, John Lock contributed most to the shaping of the modern conception of a liberal democracy. In fact many of the values of liberalism can be traced back to John Locke, in particular, a governmental system that is popular, limited, responsible and representative. Locke argues that in a state of nature, individuals enjoy certain inalienable rights and these rights have to be protected by a governing body. As a result, a social contract stems from a group of people, who striving to protect these inalienable rights, unite and establish a body of government. In this, one can note another liberal ideal: popular government, where the people make the political judgments and select political leaders. Locke theorized that the government is limited by this social contract and is representative by the …show more content…
Therefore, this sets the foundations for certain ideals of liberalism, specifically rights respecting, constitutional and representative government. Due to all these reasons, John Locke has been dubbed the father of liberal democracy and has managed to achieve a sort of equilibrium between authority and liberty. His concept of the social contract differs from other social contract theorists whose influence on liberal democracy is evident, yet not exceeding Locke’s. One of these theorists is Locke’s critic: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Both of these men are social contract theorist and believe that all men are equal to one another. Therefore both Locke and Rousseau come to the conclusion that the only government that should arise is from the consent of the governed. However, Rousseau finds issue with Locke’s argument and one can argue that he finds fault with liberal democracy’s ideal of representative