Hobbes And Locke Comparision

4 Pages 980 Words

Similar to Hobbes, Locke starts his treatise by defining the concept of a state of nature. Their basic aim is to show the nature of man's existence before the establishment of the society and sovereign state and make a rational and reliable point for their philosophical enquiries. Starting from this point, both of them proceed to the abstraction of the human nature and constructed a theory of society. However unlike the very pessimistic state of nature understanding of Hobbes, the state of nature as described by Locke is quite optimistic where, all men are born equal and are free, subject to the laws of nature which dictate them, that man shouldn’t destroy himself or any other person due to his commitment to God to protect the life given by God. The only exception to this is against the men who break the law, since the law ones broke it is not any more state of nature but state of war, a more similar situation to the Hobbesian understanding.
However, despite the common starting points of their theories, their approaches to the question of property are quite differentiated. Whereas Hobbes did not dealt with the question of property in detail except entrusting it to the Leviathan, Locke shows a great enthusiasm for explaining the origins of property. He refuses the arguments of theorists, who see the property as the natural right of the men. According to him, all men are born free and equal regardless of what generation they have been born into and, private property does not arise from consent to divide up original common property. For explaining the origins of property, he employs the concept of labor. Basically he argues that God gave the world to all men commonly to be used to preserve life and liberty, and therefore the objects of nature, which are labored by men, belong to him. Man has property of his own person and therefore owns his labor and thus the objects created by his labor belong to him as well.
In the Locke’s underst...