Duvan Duque Vargas

PHIL – 479. Modern Political Philosophy

Professor Samuel Freeman

The Social Contract: Hobbes and Locke

Even though both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke based their political thought on a

social contract theory, their conceptions of such contract differ in several points. Living in

different times, they faced different situations and responded to different problems.

Concerned with the constant political chaos of the English Civil War, Hobbes intended to

explain why it would be in everyone’s rational interest to support an effective sovereign.

Locke, on the other hand, involved in the Exclusion Crisis of 1679, wanted to justify the

right of resistance to the Crown in a mixed constitution, based on an account of natural

rights. I will argue that, once abstracted from their particular contexts, none of them give a

satisfactory argument for political authority, because even though we may reject some of

Hobbes’s conclusions and accept Locke’s for seeming to be closer to political authority as

we know it and as it has developed, Hobbes’s intention to explain it through rational

interests and without appealing to theological or moral arguments seems to be a more

adequate and convincing method.

To begin with, we can start by taking a look at the different ways they conceived

human nature through their different descriptions of the state of nature (the hypothetical

state previous to the social contract and to any kind of social government). Hobbes, in his

intent to decompose society to its basic components to understand its functioning, described

the individuals as concerned with pursuing their own fundamental interests: self-

preservation, conjugal affections, and the means for commodious life. Hobbes does not

deny other types of interests, but his intention is to base his system on those interests that
every rational individual has. He also sees these individuals as naturally equal in their

abilities (he does not imply that everyone is equally strong and intelligent, but that, as he

puts it, even the weakest has the ability to kill the strongest) and therefore with equal hopes

to obtain what they want. Such pursuit is constant and is never completely satisfied, given

the constant necessity to provide for future needs. When we add the fact that those

resources that individuals need are limited, we immediately picture the state of nature as a

state of constant competition and conflict. Even though peace is rationally the best

environment for each individual to obtain what he needs, in a state of nature, where

everyone has equal abilities, the fact that there is no authority that enforces the fulfillment

of covenants leaves no room for cooperation, producing instead a world of distrust, where

anticipatory aggression is a rational measure to secure self-preservation, “and the life of

man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”1. The state of nature, for Hobbes, is a state

of war, a war where there is no concept of justice or property, and where the only law is the

law of self-preservation.

Locke, on the contrary, thinks that individuals are not moved by self-interest, but

that they see God’s laws as necessary and eternal laws through their reason. This

fundamental law of nature, that commands that every individual must not only preserve the

life, liberty, health and properties of himself but also the ones of the rest of mankind as

much as possible, and that is based on the fact that everyone is God’s creation and therefore

property, is the law that rules Locke’s state of nature. Locke interprets human natural

equality (based on everyone’s ability to reason) and the silence of God as to who should

rule over the rest as a sign of man’s natural freedom and equality in the state of nature.

Whoever witnesses the violation of the laws of nature has the right to punish the violator.
                                                                                                               
1
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1996, ed. Richard Tuck, Cambridge University Press, p.89.
As we can see, as opposed to Hobbes, in Locke’s state of nature there is no need for an

authority to have a concept of right or just because his system contemplates God’s authority

and commands. It is important to note that even though theological doctrines clearly shape

his theory, Locke thinks that such divine laws are visible even to non-believers, given their

transmission to man through reason. However, elements of his system such as his distrust

in atheists seem to point that the theological is essential to his system.

As perfect as Locke’s state of nature may appear, he does recognize some

inconveniences. As we have seen, there is right to punish violators of the natural laws.

However, Locke does accept that people’s judgments are usually biased, and the inevitable

difference in their judgments would eventually lead to a cycle of ongoing disputes. The

impartial judge that would be necessary to solve this is unthinkable in Locke’s state of

equal individuals (all sovereign over themselves). The difference in judgments is also

produced by the fact that the fundamental law of nature has no specific content for

particular situations, and as such it is hardly possible to agree on its application. To make

things more inconvenient, even if a particular application could be agreed on, there is no

power to enforce it.

Both states of nature have different problems that can be solved through the

existence of an authorized power. Such transition from the state of nature to society is

made, in both authors, through a social contract (Locke calls it social compact). However,

the difference between these two states of nature produces different kinds of contracts.

In Hobbes state of war, there is a rational interest in cooperating with other

individuals, in order to have a better chance of survival and obtaining better means for

commodious living through industry, by respecting the laws of nature (the laws necessary

for social cooperation), only when there is assurance that everyone will comply with their
responsibilities, honor their covenants and follow the other laws. A sovereign power

provides such assurance by enforcing the laws of nature. These set of moral rules that the

sovereign enforces are agreeable by everyone because it is in everyone’s self-interest to

follow them (this is one of the main achievements of Hobbes: explaining moral rules

through rational self-interest).

Hobbes’s social contract is an agreement by everyone with everyone else to

authorize an artificial person to do whatever is necessary to enforce the Laws of Nature.

The parties of the contract own the actions of the sovereign. He is their agent, his actions

are their actions. He has received his power by transference from the people, who can only

resist him when he cannot ensure or does not respect their right to self-preservation

(because that is precisely the reason why they authorized him as sovereign). Everyone in

the commonwealth is his subject, but he is not subject to anyone. All his subjects give up

their judgment when it comes to his actions and his laws. He has the power to make laws

and enforce them, but he is himself not bound to obey any laws. All of his laws are just

because he was authorized to make and enforce them (even when they are bad laws, they

are just). The contract authorizes him perpetually, and in order for the commonwealth to

function in an effective way, in order for him to be able to enforce the laws of nature, there

must be no division of or limits to the sovereign power: all the powers must be

concentrated on him (Hobbes regards the divisions of powers as a disease of the

commonwealth, as a property of an unstable regime that is likely to degenerate to a state of

war).

Hobbes doesn’t seem interested in the way such sovereign actually came into power

(either by institution or by conquest; either way is legitimate for him). His social contract is

not an actual event in the past, it is the reminder of the constant possibility of state of war
that awaits those who have no sovereign. His intention is clear: even when the sovereign

doesn’t seem to be a good one, it is in everyone rational interest to support him and thus

prevent the commonwealth from degenerating into a state of nature, which in Hobbes is

synonym to a state of war.

Locke’s contract is a contract among equals, a contract between individuals that, in

the state of nature, are naturally equal and free, and that therefore freely decide to associate

through their consent in order to overcome the inconveniences of the state of nature

(abstractness of laws of nature and lack of enforcement) to protect life, liberty, and

property. In such conditions, it is impossible to imagine a contract been forced upon

someone. It is also impossible to imagine the possibility of consent to a contract that would

be leave its parties in a worse situation than in such state of nature. The legitimacy of a

government rests on the legitimacy of the contract, on the consent of the people.

In this conditions, and to solve such inconveniences, the people decide to unite into

one community, a ‘body politic’, allowing the majority to decide a certain kind of

government, and giving up their natural freedom to be regulated by a set of laws defined by

a legislative power, a constitution, and giving up their right to punish, trusting the executive

power with such right. However, these new laws must not conflict with the Natural Law

that precedes the contract and the unalienable rights derived from it, and therefore it is not

possible for an individual to give absolute power over him to anyone else. Absolute

Monarchy is not something that could have been contracted into. Unlike Hobbes’s system,

in Locke’s the executive power must be limited through its submission to the law, and

therefore whoever has it must not have complete power over the legislative power. Locke

emphasizes the rule of the law. The crown must be subject to the constitution, and therefore

its power is not a perpetual one, as in Hobbes, but rather a fiduciary power, and as such the
sovereignty remains in the people, who keeps the right to judge if both the legislative and

the executive are fulfilling the tasks they were trusted to. The contract, unlike Hobbes, is

not one of absolute submission.

In this way, Locke’s social contract serves two functions. It operates as a test of the

legitimacy of governments and institutions. In thinking if a particular government could

have been consented to from a natural state of freedom and equality, people can judge if

such government is legitimate or not. It is important to differentiate this could have from a

was or would have…both in Locke and Hobbes the social contract is not conceived as an

actual historical event. A negative outcome of such a test would render such power as

illegitimate and would therefore untie its subjects of their obligations and give them the

right of revolution.

The social contract also serves the purpose of explaining an individual’s political

obligations to a regime. An individual is naturally forced to obey those civil laws that in

any society are compatible with the laws of nature. However, for an individual to be a

member it is necessary that he gives either his tacit (as a resident alien benefiting from a

particular regime) or express (as someone who declares himself a citizen) consent.

In his quest for finding the most stable government that can be agreed upon by

anyone, in the middle of the religious and political conflicts of the English Civil War,

Hobbes proposes an absolute monarchy with no restrictions to its powers and where its

subjects have no right of judgment. On the contrary, in his intent for justifying resistance to

the crown, writing in the middle of the Exclusion Crisis, Locke proposes a constitutional

regime with a division of powers and a right of revolution. History has ruled in Locke’s

favor, proving Hobbes’s arguments wrong (the most stable regimes of our times are

constitutional and have some kind of division of powers). However, to achieve such results,
Locke relies on several moral and theological assumptions (without which some of the

elements of his conception of the state of nature and social contract, such as the

fundamental law of nature and the unalienable rights that derive from it and make possible

the right of revolution, would have no solid ground). Hobbes, on the contrary, bases all his

system on rational self-interest, understandable to everyone, no matter which their religious

beliefs are. Even though his conclusions may not appeal to us and have been proven wrong

by history, his method offers a more adequate and universal justification for political

power, especially in an increasingly secularized world.

Bibliography

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, 1988 Cambridge University

Press.

John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, 2007, ed. Samuel Freeman,

Harvard University Press.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1996, ed. Richard Tuck, Cambridge University Press.