Jon Locke Essay, Research Paper

4. John Locke was opposed to an absolute monarchy; Hobbes thought they were a good system. John Locke believed that the individual should be responsible for his own justice; Hobbes thought that a society needed an absolute ruler. The differences that appear lye in regard to their thoughts on mankind in general. John Locke saw mankind as naturally harmonious amongst each other and Hobbes thought that man was more inclined to be everyman for himself . Locke wanted people to have a social contract, to agree that you will not harm me and I will not harm you, and live without a monarch. Locke said that A king is not answerable for his decisions by mankind, as in the state of nature , if a man so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it . Locke and Hobbes agreed that civil government is necessary, both believed that because humans are social beings and live together with a great mutual benefit we need to have some way of justice, a way to prevent a life that is solitary, nasty, brutish, and short . (Hobbes) Both also based their arguments on a natural law that prevented one member of a species from killing another, because scientifically it would be harmful to preserving the species. They both considered themselves to be scientists of sorts.

10. John Locke wrote the Two Treatises Concerning Civil Government, in reaction to the Glorious Revolution. Locke wanted to refute the idea of a Monarch having divine right, and argue that all men are equal. The way the government worked post revolution was being decided and a man named Robert Filmer had written; Patriarcha, a work implying that kings were the descendants of Adam, and as a result inherited absolute sovereignty. To prevent Charles II from having absolute power was one reason Locke wrote the Two Treatises. Locke wanted it known that people were born with equal rights, also he wrote of property. If a man put his labor into something, Locke thought it was his to use. When man gets to numerous, and land gets scarce however, a civil society delegates individuals to enforce law, and gives them the authority to enforce the laws it creates.