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Essay / Compare and Contrast John Locke and Hobbes - 728
John Locke and Thomas Hobbes could have been one of the most important people of their time. Mr. Locke is a well-known philosopher in science and politics, while Hobbes was known for his own political work. Mr. Locke's scientific background made him famous when he coined the term "Tabula Rasa", which means blank slate, an empty surface, where everyday experiences help shape who we are. Mr. Locke wrote one of his most important ideas in the book titled “An Essay on Human Understanding”. When it comes to the political side of John Locke, his beliefs are almost similar. He and Mr. Hobbes have similar ideas regarding government, but Mr. Locke becomes a father and argues that government must respect the rights of individuals. For Locke, you need to understand what his idea of natural law and natural rights is. Mr. Locke talks about natural laws and rights and how they apply to everyone. He believes that we are all separate and have some kind of free will. He explains that people should have their personal rights protected in all societies. He felt that we offer some of our rights to the government to maintain order, but it must have legitimate reasoning. This means we should have a say in the government and limit its control over everything. Over time, almost political points have taken one form or another around gods and priests. Mr. Locke had the ability to express his theory without overusing God in his works. He believed that God created us to achieve our own happiness while avoiding fear and pain and that political leaders should not impose their beliefs on others. This is where one's nature and upbringing also comes into play because everyone has their own experiences and reasonings, so there would always be a conflict of ideas. Although Mr. Locke's idea was influenced by Mr. Hobbles', they both have very different ideas from Locke, where Mr. Hobbes' ideas about the state of nature are barely put into practice . In Mr. Hobbes' time, he didn't like the idea of the Church having power, so he found a way for them to lose power, while changing the reasoning to having kings. His idea of the state of nature was based more on an individual's morality, where he believed that everyone was greedy, selfish, and pursued their own self-interest, which would lead us to wars against each other. In his works, he considers societies as a kind of social contract. Which led him to argue that the government should have more control over the people, otherwise there would be a "war of all against all", which would lead him to say that if we have a weak government and less control, wars will break out, what we would be killed and overthrown. In other words, he believes that our selfishness completely dominates and controls our behavior and therefore makes us weak and vulnerable. So with his theory, the structure of government would make us anti-social, where we would not come together collectively like the society we have today. Additionally, this type of system would play an important role on our emotions, scaring us with anarchy and civil wars. The way they could get away with it would be to say it's for our security and our peace with other societies. This would cause the government to protect our lives, but to exchange we would have to give everything we can.