Analysis Of John Locke's Discourse Of Inequalities

1718 Words7 Pages

John Locke wrote The Second Treatise of Government and within it he expresses his views of how he believed that private property can be originally appropriated and that it can cause inequalities in terms of wealth. The Discourse of Inequalities, written by Jean Jacque Rousseau, can be used to criticize this because of its own particular way of viewing what is natural and unnatural inequality as well as his beliefs of the modernization of civilizations.
In this treaties, Locke explains that the law of nature is basically a state of equality in which the people have no power over one another and they are free to do as they so please. Here, he is careful to state that this is not giving the people the license to abuse others or to be destructive. …show more content…

For example, they both agree along the lines that a social contract is an agreement that is made between the members in a society. But, Rousseau's Discourse of Inequality criticizes Locke's view of government because Rousseau believed that a government should be established and that everyone should have a say in what they'd like to implement. This helps keep everyone in harmony and united. Locke on the other hand believed that a government's purpose should only be to secure natural rights; such as our right to property and Liberty. Another key difference is that Locke would say that the social contract is shown just by the way that we are living while Rousseau would argue that this is a myth and those in power need to establish a government fit for its people through the making of …show more content…

Rousseau was famous for thinking that were better off in a state of nature because we were goo in compassionate and we had not been exposed to vanity of sin though the corrupt ways of society. He felt that with just the basic passion such as self- love, pity and empathy for others. He felt that through the emergence of modern civilization, a new type of self-love was introduced to the people, one that was vain and started unnecessary competition. He believed that we should be moving towards a time in which we would be “noble savages” such as our ancestors because it was innocent and noble were rather than be moving towards a modernized

Open Document