While Hobbes and Rousseau address many of the same issues and topics in both The Leviathan as well as The Discourses, the way that Hobbes and Rousseau look at these issues such as, human nature, the state, and inequality are extremely different from each other. In some cases Hobbes and Rousseau’s opinions on these certain ideas are completely contradicting and opposite of each other. While it is tough to say which viewpoint, Hobbes’ or Rousseau’s is correct, one or the other can be considered sounder by their logic and reasoning. The view that Hobbes takes on the matters of human nature, the state, and inequality is sounder and more logical than that of Rousseau. Rousseau believes that humans are not naturally wicked and that in nature humans could work together for one greater good. This idea of pity is mainly supported through human’s characteristic of pity. Rousseau says that through pity humans want to help their neighbors because they know that in the future, their neighbor will be able to help them when they are in need. Because of this Rousseau also believed that a strong central authority was not necessary for human society. Rousseau believed that humans could live in harmony together and work for one greater good. However Rousseau states that because of the division of labor that occurred over time, oppression and inequality started. Rousseau said that when one person decided that they owned a particular area of land, which hypothetically started the entire division of labor and inequality that we have in today’s society. Rousseau says in The Leviathan that, “This repeated interaction of the various with himself as well as with one another must naturally have engendered in man’s mind perceptions of certain relations.... ... middle of paper ... ... on many of the same issues that the other does. With that said, almost everything they argue is a complete opposite contradiction of the other’s argument. Many people would like to believe Rousseau’s take that humans don’t need a strong central authority because they are born with pity, and that humans naturally are good-hearted people that look out for one another in order to benefit the whole. This however is not true, if someone were to look back on history and see all of the times in which this is not true, it would be obvious. Humans have always been greedy and competitive and have always had the desire to get an advantage on the next person. Because of this, as Hobbes explains, a strong central authority is necessary for the betterment of the whole society. Hobbes without a doubt has not only the more realistic outlook, but the most logical outlook as well.
The foremost difference between Aristotle and Hobbes, and in turn classical and modern political philosophies’, with regard to a good life and happiness is that of normative judgments about the good life. While Hobbes rejects normative judgments about the good life and discusses human actions without attributions of moral quality, Aristotle offers the exact opposite. In Ethics, Aristotle differentiates between good and evil actions along with what the best good, or summum bonum, for all humans while Hobbes approach argues that good and bad varies from one individual to another with good being the object of an individuals appetite or desire, and evil being an object of his hate and aversion. In addition, Aristotle makes it clear that individuals have an ultimate purpose—that of political animals—that they should strive to become through trial and error throughout their life. Hobbes on the other hand rejects the idea of life having an ultimate purpose, “for there is no such finis ultimus (utmost aim) nor summum bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old moral philosophers…Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter”. Hobbes defines felicity as the satisfaction of one’s passions as stated in Leviathan “continual success in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering, is that men call felicity.
Hobbes and Locke both picture a different scene when they express human nature. Even though they both believed that men naturally have to some extent equality and freedom, what makes their concepts different is the presence or absence of the natural law. In Hobbes' theory, men in their natural state are at constant war, the war of all against all. Another Hobbes belief is that most people are selfish and tend to do everything for their own reason. To Hobbes humans are driven to maximize personal gains so in a world where there are no rules humans are in constant fear of each other as they each try to get as much as they can, enough is never enough.
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke grew up around the same time, so naturally they must have many similarities, but the environment they grew up in resulted in many differences as well. Hobbes grew up during the English Civil War, which shaped his ideas while Locke lived through the Revolution of 1688 which was when a king was overthrown for being unjust and that helped form his ideas. Hobbes and Locke both said that the state of nature is bad and some order is always needed. The difference between their beliefs is the type of government that should be in place to maintain order that is needed to manage stable lives.
Hobbes and Locke’s each have different ideologies of man’s state of nature that develops their ideal form of government. They do however have similar ideas, such as how man is born with a perfect state of equality that is before any form of government and social contract. Scarcity of goods ultimately leads to Hobbes and Locke’s different states of nature that shapes their two different ideal governments because Hobbes believes that scarcity of goods will bring about a constant state of war, competition, and greed of man that cannot be controlled without a absolute sovereign as government while Locke believes that with reasoning and a unified government, man will succeed in self preservation of himself and others.
In many ways Hobbes and Locke’s conclusions on man and society create a polarizing argument when held in comparison to each other. For instance the two make wildly conflicting assertions concerning mankind’s capacity to foster and achieve organized society. Hobbes asserts humans cannot be trusted to govern themselves lest they fall into war and chaos; Locke, on the other hand concludes almost the exact opposite. Despite the polarity in each man’s train of thought, both philosophies share a common ancestor: a state defined by total equality where no human is superior or holds dominance over another. Although this is the base of both theories, it is the only similarity between the two. This commonality can be illustrated when tracing each argument deductively from their conclusions, the comparison reveals that the heaviest and most base opposition in each mans philosophy is his assertions regarding the nature of human beings.
Rousseau, however, believed, “the general will by definition is always right and always works to the community’s advantage. True freedom consists of obedience to laws that coincide with the general will.”(72) So in this aspect Rousseau almost goes to the far extreme dictatorship as the way to make a happy society which he shows in saying he, “..rejects entirely the Lockean principle that citizens possess rights independently of and against the state.”(72)
At the core of their theories, both Locke and Rousseau seek to explain the origin of civil society, and from there to critique it, and similarly both theorists begin with conceptions of a state of nature: a human existence predating civil society in which the individual does not find institutions or laws to guide or control one’s behaviour. Although both theorists begin with a state of nature, they do not both begin with the same one. The Lockean state of nature is populated by individuals with fully developed capacities for reason. Further, these individuals possess perfect freedom and equality, which Locke intends as granted by God. They go about their business rationally, acquiring possessions and appropriating property, but they soon realize the vulnerability of their person and property without any codified means to ensure their security...
The former, a product of the human empathy and responsible for the preference of seeing no harm come to other living creatures so long at the latter is maintained. Together these maxims form the basis of the savage man’s natural state and, by extension, his tenancy of gentleness towards his fellow man (121). The civilised man, in contrast, comes to be as a result of “perfectibility”. Perfectibility, according to Rousseau is an innate human attribute to want to learn and better oneself, particularly to overcome obstacles in one’s environment. Rousseau’s description of perfectibility implies that the conditions of one’s environment have a direct influence over their character and that one can therefore deduce that regardless of man’s natural gentleness, he can develop the capacity to be cruel if so prompted by elements in his environment. Such a prompt comes as man looks to collaborate with others out of mutual self-interest. Rousseau notes that, “their connections become more intimate and extensive … there arose on one side vanity and contempt, on the other envy and shame … Men no sooner began to set a value upon each other, and know what esteem was, than each laid claim to it … It
Now to more easily understand his perspective, one has to keep in mind that Leviathan was written during the English Civil War and so, much of the book was influenced by it. Leviathan is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the natural human evil that caused wars like the one he witnessed. Hobbes believed that all people are intrinsically motivated to provide themselves with as many resources as possible. Because resources in the world are limited, people thus become greedy in their competition for these resources.
There are always two-sides everything including people and the government, kind of like science vs. faith view. With Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, they give the impression to be on opposite sides when it comes to people, society and the government even and yet both were Englishmen. Hobbes was born 5 April 1588 and died 4 December 1679; he is best known today for his work on political philosophy. While John Locke was 29 August 1632 and died 28 October 1704, and is widely known as the Father of Classical Liberalism, His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. Hobbes wrote Leviathan in 1651, which established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory. Although, Locke’s writings influenced Voltaire, Rousseau and many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. Locke contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Both have influences todays political philosophy.
Locke expressed the ideal that men are created equal and nevertheless men will flourish with independence and freedom, “no one having more than another” (Locke 101). In this way, Locke believes that an individual should have the capability to find happiness through equality and human freedoms. Even with these naturally positive and good qualities, Locke believes that there are potential for bad tendencies within man. With this possibility for negative attributes, a government is essential to protect them from themselves and to guarantee that equality will prosper. He introduces the main ideas that govern a community, “Life, Liberty and Property” (Locke 101). These are the freedoms that every individual within the community should have, and the government should follow these rights because mankind is naturally good. Hobbes opposes this view and believes that men are naturally immoral and base actions on personal desires rather than the greater good. Hobbes expresses, “So that in the nature of man we find three principal causes of quarrel: first, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory” (Hobbes 99). These three principles are the reasons for confrontation, and they are also inevitable. Men act on their desires for wealth and power and also create enemies. In his work Leviathan Hobbes explains that “from [man’s] equality of ability arises equality of hope in the attaining of
The political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx examined the role that the state played and its relationship to its citizen’s participation and access to the political economy during different struggles and tumultuous times. Rousseau was a believer of the concept of social contract with limits established by the good will and community participation of citizens while government receives its powers given to it. Karl Marx believed that power was to be taken by the people through the elimination of the upper class bourgeois’ personal property and capital. While both philosophers created a different approach to establishing the governing principles of their beliefs they do share a similar concept of eliminating ownership of capital and distributions from the government. Studying the different approaches will let us show the similarities of principles that eliminate abuse of power and concentration of wealth by few, and allow access for all. To further evaluate these similarities, we must first understand the primary principles of each of the philosophers’ concepts.
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were two English philosophers who were very similar thinkers. They both studies at Oxford, and they both witnessed the civil Revolution. The time when they lived in England influenced both of their thoughts as the people were split into two groups, those whom though the king should have absolute power, and the other half whom thought people could govern themselves. However Hobbes and Locke both rejected the idea of divine right, such as there was no one person who had the right from God to rule. They both believed in the dangers of state of nature, they thought without a government there is more chance of war between men. However their theories differ, Hobbes theories are based on his hypothetical ideas of the state
In his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau hypothesizes the natural state of man to understand where inequality commenced. To analyze the nature of man, Rousseau “strip[ped] that being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he could have received, and of all the artificial faculties he could have acquired only through a lengthy process,” so that all that was left was man without any knowledge or understanding of society or the precursors that led to it (Rousseau 47). In doing so, Rousseau saw that man was not cunning and devious as he is in society today, but rather an “animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all in all, the most advantageously organized of all” (47). Rousseau finds that man leads a simple life in the sense that “the only goods he knows in the un...
Thomas Hobbes was a political theorist and English philosopher during the 1600’s. His work, among many others, of his time played an important role in the shaping of society today. Hobbes is a man of many ideas and thoughts. His focus was political philosophy, which is the questioning of things such as politics, government, and justice in society. This questioning led to the idea of his greatest work The Leviathan. Hobbes explains his thoughts and understanding of the way society works, and how he believes it should work. His inspiration behind this was the chaos that coincided with England being at civil war.