Comparing State Of Nature By Thomas Hobbes And Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Over the course of history there exists a strong desire to move to a more organized state; one to bring people together under a unified power to ensure protection from the State of Nature. Political theorists, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, introduce political contracts to help mankind escape from the State of Nature and bring them into a civil society. While both Hobbes and Locke claim to protect the individual from domination, when man no longer has control over their natural rights under a political authority, within their idealized societies, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, suggests moving out of the State of Nature provides the opposite effect and creates harm to mankind. Political contracts, do not secure and protect man from domination, but instead enhances dominance in civil society by granting men justification …show more content…
Locke states that the State of Nature, “ obliges everyone: and reason, which is that law teaches all mankind […] that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions” ( Locke 9). Within the state of nature everyone holds a perfect freedom in which they control their own lives, no one else has control over them. In Locke’s State of Nature, every man has the right to claim anything he put labor into as his own property. However, in the state of nature, if someone reaps what he did not sow, the rightful owner has the ability to punish the perpetrator. Yet, this idea becomes an inconvenience. While every man has the right to property, he must also contend with other men, as there exists no laws to protect his property. To save man from this inconvenience, Locke suggests his political contract in which man should agree to form a representative