Hobbes vs. Locke vs.

Rousseau - Social
Contract Theories Compared
Imagine a world without rules. Nothing is illegal.
Nothing is immoral. Everyone is absolutely free. We have no government.
Would it be a utopia or would it be our worst nightmare?
let's explore what philosophers
thomas hobbes
john locke and jean-jacques rousseau
had to say
on these very questions
before the explosion of european
philosophy during the enlightenment
most rulers claimed their right to rule
from their divine DNA

people being very gullible/ religious,

they didn't really question these claims
The enlightenment however saw the
development of what we call
social contract which explains the relationship between
people and government where the belief
is that the right to rule comes from
the people
these different philosophies
however saw the social contract in very
distinctive ways concerning
how much freedom people should give up
to their governments and to the rulers
in exchange for security and protection

the first philosopher im going to discuss

is thomas hobbes
He believed that human nature is inherently destructive and if left to ourselves
we would have violence and chaos together with a non existent society.
in his book leviathan he wrote that in the
state of nature
people are in that condition which is called war and
in such condition there’ll be a total absence of culture ,equity ,diversity and Peace
the only constant would be fear and violent death
and the life of man would be ‘solitary poor
nasty brutish and short’
so in terms of the social contract
hobbes very much believed that the most
important thing to have is this strong
authoritative figure that he called the
leviathan who we might call monarchs
or even dictators but they wouldn't get
their power from god
hobbes believed that people
would voluntarily
give up their freedom knowing that if
they were left to be free
they would descend into chaos and
violence and that people
should willingly give up their freedom
to that
authoritative figure
(how about the system of check and balances)

john locke however

believed almost the polar opposite of hobbes
he believed that people were born a blank slate and there was no
original anger or destructive tendencies
in people. For eg nobody is born racist. so, if left on their own people would find a way to
better themselves and just better
society as a whole being given as much freedom
as possible
and so locke believed the utmost
importance in society was a limited
government that served to promote
people's life liberty and property
Now some of you might be skeptical of this.
You might say, look, humans are fundamentally good.
If you give 'em that freedom, they have a conscience.

BUT THEN WE HAVE PEOPLE LIKE

the only way anyone can strip
off the state of nature
and clothe himself in the bonds of civil
society is for him to agree with other
men
they should realise that their own survival and the
success of society
was dependent on their cooperation with
others
so locke believed
that not only should people be
free to enjoy their rights and freedoms
but they should have the right to select their
leaders and their gov
furthermore locke believed that if we
felt that these leaders
aren't acting in our interests anymore
we should have the power
to overthrow those leaders (hoping that mr narsinghen will correct me if im wrong….) and
this could come in the form of a
revolution but more commonly we see this
in the form of elections in our liberal
democracies around the world
leaders
Taking the example of Mauritius, I believe that our leader is a fusion of the leviathan and of lockes …
(hoping that mr narsinghen will correct me if im wrong….)

rousseau on the other hand went in an

entirely different direction
altogether he believed that all these
freedoms and society that lockes world
would create
would essentially lead to the kind of
corruption
and destruction that hobbes talks about
and his saying is that man is born free but everywhere in chains
so all these social structures that have
been set up are what lead to
corruption, jealousy and
the disintegration of society
so then if we strip away all of these elements
what's left is people being free together
in total equality making decisions for
what's best for the community or what rousseau
called the general will
avoiding this situation where all of a
sudden you might start getting power
inequalities between people
that lead to corruption as rousseau saw
it
and so in this world of rousseau's
decisions are made together by the community
laws are made directly
by the people of the community and
sometimes they might get their way
other times they might not
sometimes
and even then it's for what the majority of
the community want or again this idea of
the general will of the community and what
society deems best
(summary)

Most modern societies

draw on the ideas of these three
philosophers and their theories of what
the social contract should look like
generally most liberal democracies are
going to be most strongly related to
john locke's ideas
of government protecting personal
freedom and private property (how about all these camera)
However, I believe that the Mauritian system has a small hint of Hobbs’ Leviathan authority as we
can’t seem to overthrow our leader even when he’s clearly not acting in the best interest of the
community.
This restriction is bound to make us worry about the extent
That we allowed the government and laws
to limit our freedom
in exchange for security

well that's what happens so if we're to

summarize
these three philosophers with famous
their catchphrases
if you will right you have thomas hobbes
and his belief that human nature is
nasty brutish and short
so you need that strong authoritarian
dictator
in order to keep security in check
with locke and his belief that freedom
is of the utmost importance
government should be limited and only
protect life
liberty and property and finally
rousseau's big catchphrase
that man is born free but everywhere in
chains
people are good but society corrupts and
so
you strip away all of society and what's
left is
that pure form of equality between
individuals
state of nature: whereby people are to live without government or written laws.