Hobbes And Locke Essays - Philosophy, Political Philosophy

Hobbes And Locke Essays - Philosophy, Political Philosophy Hobbes And Locke Hobbes and Locke Outcome 2 . Thomas Hobbes was born in Wiltshire, England in 1588 just prior to the Spanish Armada. Philosophy is defined by Hobbes as the reasoned knowledge of effects from causes, and causes from effects. Hobbes was educated in Oxford where he learnt about the great classics and also of Aristotle, however Hobbes disliked Aristotles approach that democracy was the best form of government. Hobbes spent many a year on the continent and his disliking for Aristotles works grew, when he returned to Britain there was a civil war underway so he left the country again and wrote several pieces of literature, these include the, De Cive and The Elements of law. Later on his book the Leviathan was published. Hobbes died in 1679 after becoming one well-known political writer, but he has not been forgotten and his political thought lives on. Hobbess most famous piece of work the, Leviathan presents life before government was formed this was what Hobbes referred to as the, State of nature. Hobbes believed that every man was naturally equal and due to this war was inevitable because every man was for himself. War would be inevitable as fought for material possession and for basic necessities like water and food. The first of these, causes of quarrel- maketh man invade for gain, the second for safety and the third for reputation. With this continuing state of war and would produce a lifestyle in which there would be no society, industry or trading. As Hobbes states that there would be; No knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, contains fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor nasty, brutish and short. For Hobbes the, State of nature was a way of rationalising how people would behave in their most basic state. Hobbes advanced from what Ren Decartes stated I think , therefore I am. Hobbes used the individual as a building block from which all his political theories arose. Hobbes formed his theories by way of empirical observation and he believed that the universe was just atoms in notion and therefore could be measured by geometry and mathematics and could be used to explain human behaviour. According to Thomas Hobbes people would willing give up all their rights to everything and anything as long as every individual was willing to do this. Nevertheless basic human nature would not allow this and with no way of controlling it people would soon break it in an attempt to control a greater share of power over one another. Hobbes recognised that in order to ensure the stability and peace in his opinion this could be achieved by means of a Social contract. Hobbes realising that the only way to maintain order among the people would by having an authoritarian government. He gave the government the name of Leviathan which when translated means monster. This meant that in exchange for individual rights the people would have in return peace, security and protection from one another. The people would not want to return to the basic state of nature and therefore would not protest against the government which would have power over their natural liberty. The social contract would at first be set-up by men to establish a commonwealth which in turn would be governed by a sovereign to whom in the interest of self preservation, simple right to govern oneself is abolished. The sovereign may be an individual or a group of individuals who are not part of the social contract. However the citizens themselves are part of the social contract and this means that they will obey the sovereign and obey the rules that the sovereign has enforced. Since the sovereign has all power there would never arise any contract between the subjects and the sovereign to break. To add this once the contract has been established the subjects need to seek the sovereigns permission to break it. As a result of forming this contract nothing that the sovereign does can be seen as unjust and as a result of establishing this contract an artificial man or leviathan is formed. Hobbes