Similarities Between John Locke And Thomas Hobbes

Crawley 1
Emily Crawley
Daniel Cline
AP US History
October 2015
Thomas Hobbes vs John Locke Our Earth is filled with polarities, from little things like chocolate and vanilla, to more large scale things, such as Heaven and Hell. These opposing choices haven’t changed throughout history, some have only adopted new names. There’s many prominent polarities in politics, like who has the best ideas, who do the people like the best, and even Democratic and Republic. Although politics hadn’t advanced that far in the 17th century, opposing ideas still existed and fought each other. And somewhere in the realm of 400 years ago, two prominent opposing “parties” were Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Hobbes’ ideas were more strict, as he was less of a ‘for-the-people’ kind of guy, while Locke believed in many natural rights for man; and in the end, the colonists being affected by these two men’s political battles, went for the man who seemed like someone who actually wanted people to like him - John Locke. Thomas Hobbes has been called many things, from a lunatic to a genius, but despite what some people might say, the man had his political thoughts in order. As the founding father of political philosophies, his number one concern in his work was how human beings could live simultaneously together peacefully, all the while avoiding the

Hobbes had a materialist view on humans. He saw them as machines with no natural rights. Hobbes says that when placed in a natural situation, that of which has no sense or form of government, man would not be able to identify what belongs to himself and what belongs to another. Therefore, Hobbes believed that rights were given to man only by the government. Hobbes also believed that there was technically only one form of correct government; absolute monarchy. With absolute monarchy, Hobbes believed, there would be no discontent or disturbances as the society would be completely peaceful under the rule of a central