Similarities Between Locke And Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were two of the greatest political theorists of their time. They both wrote significant philosophical texts that help to portray the role of government in an individual’s life. The purpose of my essay is to explain and discuss how Hobbes’s and Locke’s respective account of human nature shape their understand of what constitutes legitimate political authority and when disobedience of that authority, up to and including revolution, is actually warranted. To achieve this goal this essay will look into Hobbes writings in the Leviathan and Locke’s Second Treaties of Government. Hobbes and Locke’s political views were persuaded by their different understandings of the state of nature, human nature, natural laws, social contract and their utmost form of government. Can you imagine living in a world where there is no authority, allowing people to live as they wish? For Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, this type of society would be known as the state of nature. By definition the ‘state of nature’, according to the …show more content…
In the Leviathan, Hobbes coined the phrase, “natural condition of mankind”. This is what would exist if there were not political authority, no civilization and no authority to confine human nature. This inevitably means that the ‘state of nature’ is “a condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man” (Hobbes, 185). Hobbes views on human nature established that most individuals are ruthless and selfish. Therefore humans in the ‘state of nature’ lose senses of their morals and will unsurprisingly kill each other. According to Hobbes life in the ‘state of nature is very similar to civil war in which humans fear “the danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes,