Thomas Hobbes was known as an English philosopher. He published his book, Leviathan, in 1651, which was important to the Social Contract Theory. Hobbes served time in the English Civil War, which led him to believe that people were born greedy and selfish. He also believed, that and absolute ruler and a very strong government was the best at ruling a country. With that, he thought that it was best if the people, as individuals, should have to give up some of their freedoms in order to obtain that strong government to protect them.
John Locke on the other hand believed that people were born happy, tolerant, and reasonable and that everyone was awarded with three natural rights of life, liberty, and property. Locke said that the purpose of the government was to protect these rights and prosecute people who try to take them away. He also believed that no monarch was chosen by god, divine right does not exist. As you can tell, Hobbes and Locke have their similarities, but they do have more differences.
They both believed that the purpose of the government is to protect the people just in different ways. Locke thought tat the government should protect the natural rights of the people. Meanwhile, Hobbes thought that the purpose of the government was to protect the people by force. Locke thought that people were born reasonable and Hobbes thought people were born greedy. In my eyes, I believe that Locke’s philosophy is more favorable in my eyes because I believe that giving up your god given freedoms for your government is ridiculous.
Why should I have to give up my freedoms so you can be stronger? Additionally, in an absolute monarchy the king/queen is just going to make you do what he says anyway and why are you having to give up your life when they’re just going to do the same thing they would do if you weren’t giving up your freedoms. The idea of people being born with right of their life, their liberty, and their property and the government having to protect those rights just sounds more reasonable to me. Obviously, someone else thought so to because that’s what we have today.
