Table of ContentsIntroductionThomas HobbesJohn LockeReferencesIntroductionThomas Hobbes and John Locke were two philosophical political theorists whose ideas concerning human nature and the social contract between man and government were shaped by their lives. experiences and positions in 17th century England and Europe. These experiences gave each man different views on the role government should play in an individual's life and shaped the way both men conceptualized and understood the essence of human nature and relationship. between human nature and its need to be controlled and governed. no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original EssayThey both agreed that power should be given by the people to their government, i.e. it is granted by some means to a political authority in a country constitutionally or contractually through a social contract between the people and the government. However, this is the only point on which the two theorists agreed, and they both had conflicting ideas about how much power a government should have, primarily on how the rights of the people are affected by those who are in power. dark, asserting that man was not a social creature and that left to his own devices would wage continual war against one another. His best known writing, Leviathan, published in 1651, noted that strong and supreme leadership was necessary to form a society and that none could exist without the power of the state. His theory was that of philosophical absolutism, with power residing in the sovereignty of a monarchy – Hobbes was a royalist. Hobbes spent several years mentoring members of the Cavendish family, while remaining in close company with other staunch supporters of the royal family during this time. the civil war. He fled to France in 1640 to escape prosecution during the uprising and potential civil war in England, where he wrote several theories on the concept of political authority and natural law. For Hobbes, human nature was an existence of continual fear, and that in a state. By nature, men could not know what is right or wrong, needing the guidance and commandments of a common law or a authority to show them morality. Hobbes believed that as humans follow natural law, there is a natural desire to live in good manners, although never satisfied with accumulated power and authority and a continued drive to acquire more power (Harrison, 2002). His belief that all men are created equal. This also means that each individual also kills and harms another in their quest for more power, and that without a common authority to unite the individual, there would always be a reason to go to war. Absolute freedom is all that individuals have in Hobbes's state of nature, everyone can take what they want from others, and there is a constant threat of danger and death. In Leviathan, Hobbes writes that man's life would be “lonely, poor, nasty, brutal and short” (Hobbes, 2009). This state of nature motivates individuals to band together to give up their rights to liberty in exchange for protection and freedom. security offered by a supreme power authority. Hobbes claims that the fact that life in this state is better than in the natural state leads to this absolute sovereignty. In addition to giving up freedom, people will collectively give up their right to revolt, the only opportunity for aindividual to resist the sovereign force is to preserve his own life. This would mean that even if an individual disagreed with the ruler, they had no right to rebel against the state except by directly threatening their life. Hobbes' view of human nature led him to develop his vision of an ideal government, believing that a common power was necessary to hold men together, creating a social contract allowing people to come together to give power to a leader or political authority, agreeing through this social contract to submit entirely to a chosen authority, in turn ensuring their self-preservation. In Hobbes' social contract theory, he wrote in his works Leviathan of a ruler with complete authority, to whom everyone had given this absolute power. citizen voluntarily in order to enforce state law. To preserve an individual's life, he would have to submit unconditionally to the ruler of Hobbes's Leviathan State. This would ensure that, through complete self-subjection, citizens would in turn be protected by the authority of the state, which therefore had the power to impose on its subjects whatever demands it deemed appropriate. In modern terms this could be explained by an authoritarian government, but it ensures the preservation of man as Hobbesian natural law dictates. John Locke Although John Locke lived during the same period of English history as Hobbes, his experiences that shaped his view of humanity, nature and political authority were very different depending on the people with whom he associated with and to which side of political authority he related. Locke spent much of his time with those in Parliament who rejected the monarchy, and some of these associates were speculatively involved in plots against the reigning monarch (Thomas, 1995). Meanwhile, a faction of merchants, landowners and former parliamentary bureaucrats formed. a group called Whigs, who opposed the absolute power of the monarchy over the freedom of its citizens (Berkay, 2019). One of them, the first Earl of Shaftesbury, was a patron of Locke and a great influence on his political directions. Locke later exiled himself from England to Holland, where he wrote the bulk of his first and second treatises on government. The main objective of the Second Treatise was to show that absolute monarchy is an illegitimate form of government and that its citizens have no right to obey it. Locke had a slightly less negative view of human nature than Hobbes. This difference is best explained by each view of the state of nature, with Hobbes arguing that without absolute government, humanity would descend into lawless chaos and that life would be so unbearable that it would be forced to find a strong leader who would give him absolute power to ensure their survival. John Locke, for his part, affirmed that the state of nature promotes freedom and equality, where the individual has only the power to give his consent in a free and voluntary manner to a form of government decided by the collective of individuals. For example, Locke believed that people had God-given natural rights to freedoms and that these freedoms should be interpreted and punished against violators of these natural rights. This is where the need for authority arises, and the power of the sovereign is only justified when that power is used to protect the rights of the people and for the benefit of the individual. An absolute monarchy as described in Hobbes' Leviathan was not an appropriate structure for society or the preservation of man according to Locke. He believed in the separation of powers and the supremacy of law over the power of a single sovereign authority. He compared the..