Thomas Hobbes and John Locke…

..or why Locke and not Hobbes?

Veritas Omnia Vincit is with us today sharing some thoughts on how these two philosophers affected political thought during the 17th century (and do to this day). So sit up, get your Venn chart out, and pay attention to today’s political science discussion.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Another esoteric offering on the influencers of our founding revolution. For the TL:DR crowd I’ll summarize in a paragraph at the end.

For the rest of you, buckle up because here we go. These are only my impressions of the contributions (or lack of) by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on the thought process of men like Thomas Jefferson during the founding of this nation.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are both well known philosophers and are considered to have influenced modern political science. If you know anything about either man you’ll know that both believe in some form of popular contract between the people and the ruling bodies of a particular government. The type of government they both find useful does of course diverge rather quickly into polar opposites for my money. Hobbes vision of man in his natural state is not very flattering and as we’ve learned in the centuries since his formulation of theory somewhat inaccurate. Hobbes was the original theorist of the view that life for man in his natural state was often ugly, brutish and short. He also included the words solitary and poor in his definition. Archaeological records have shown small tribal-like affiliations dating almost as far back as we can find humans, there’s even evidence that our Neanderthal competition was tribal and caring of injured tribe mates. Also for me Hobbes vision always eliminated the human capacity of intellect the recognize almost immediately the benefit of associations with others. His solitary, ugly vision was predicated on the idea that might made right for humans in their natural state, which meant humans were more in a state of perpetual motion seeking to dominate everyone they encountered and take by force what others possessed. It discounts the concept that a group effort of hunter gatherers was far more effective than the lone wolf approach to life. The strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength of the pack is the wolf. The benefit of cooperative unity far outweighed the strength of any individual. But Hobbes was helpful in defining the concept of a social contract such as a tribe, or a pack as a means to avoid that solitary horror of a life in man’s “natural state”. However for Hobbes the social contract was defined by the selection of a single monarch style ruler who held absolute power over the people. He never envisioned a state of government beyond what he knew at the time. It’s why I never fully appreciated the contribution of Hobbes to modern political science, because it never included anything he didn’t already understand to have worked. He discounted the experiences of the Greeks and Romans and their concepts of citizenry. But all great concepts start somewhere and Hobbes for many is that starting point. Where Hobbes and Locke converge is the concept of social contracts, that all parties must agree to be ruled.

John Locke takes our natural state in different direction he writes, “To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.”

Locke considers us to be capable of being free to own ourselves and to determine our own fate. He considers that we are perhaps basically altruistically self interested in that we seek to always improve our own lot in life while also understanding the contributions we must all make to better our society. While Locke considers us to be more naturally communal it was Locke and not Hobbes who first postulated the concept that each us by virtue of being born possess certain rights in our natural state. Chief among those is life, liberty and property ownership (Jefferson would change property ownership to the pursuit of happiness but the influence is rather clear). So it’s clearly Locke, in spite of his view that humans are more communal by nature than Hobbes perceived, who promotes the individualism and personal rights concept that the United States was founded upon.

John Locke had his downsides and some of his theories often seem at odds with themselves for me at various times in his Treatise On Government. Perhaps because Locke wasn’t as good as some believe in expressing his ideas, or perhaps because I’m a cantankerous old fart at times. I’ve always found Locke more interesting than Hobbes because of the inalienable rights aspect to his writings, but also because Locke believed that as a result of us all have these natural rights that any government we form, whether a monarchy or other form has to be subject to the same laws and that no one including those rulers are above the law. It was Locke who promoted the idea that he who violates the inalienable, was an enemy of all mankind and especially an enemy of those who had agreed to be ruled by that individual or groups of individuals in their government.

While Hobbes and Locke both agreed that a government was formed by the consent of the governed John Locke was the one who promoted the concept of another inalienable right, one that Thomas Jefferson also believed existed, the right to rebel against any government that violates those first three inalienable rights. Thomas Jefferson took that additional right to heart and firmly believed since the Colonists had done everything under the law to be heard that they not only had the right but they had a duty to rebel against a ruler who would not abide by their social contract to honor their inalienable rights. Jefferson carried that belief even after the rebellion when he said that the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots alike. In a letter to Madison that included the dangerous freedom quote Jefferson mentions that a “little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical…”

That’s enough for now I suspect. There are plenty of scholarly articles on John Locke and Thomas Hobbes that you can find online that explain in far more detail the basics covered here. The concepts of freedom and honesty that the founders had regarding government and how they’ve been corrupted since those days are fascinating study areas for me. We the people today have drifted so far away from these concepts while still, somehow, managing to believe we are a free people and not peasants serving their lords and masters. It’s interesting because it exposes the truth of Jefferson’s fears that the power of government must be restrained at every turn otherwise that government will inevitably seek to rule and not simply govern with the consent of the governed. The statist bootlickers repeating government propaganda about freedom and democracy today don’t even know they are statist bootlickers, that is what is so absolutely amazing about how good the government is at driving the belief system of its peasants. They not only don’t know they’re peasants they completely accept the propaganda as truth and get defensive about hearing the actual truth of their existence in today’s United States.

TL:DR crowd: John Locke was an old guy in England who was a philosopher, Thomas Jefferson liked his ideas and used them in writing the documents that founded this nation. Thomas Hobbes was another old who had far less impact on the founders but was still part of social contract theory. You may or may not even be aware of how far away from our original concepts of freedom we’ve drifted since our founding. Maybe you don’t care. More to come. Good day.

Thanks for taking the time to consider my words.
VoV

Something topical next time out so we can all be righteously indignant.

Thanks, V. We can discuss Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ‘The Social Contract’ next time.
*grin*

Category: Historical, Politics