Difference Between Hobbes And Rousseau

As I was pointing out in the intro I will be starting off with Hobbes perspective of social contract. Hobbes believes in a “civil society” which is humanity’s natural state that is ran by fear and ever-present insecurity. There is always a solution to every problem with this problem the solution is to go to war then see the fear of the society and their insecurities of that war, then the government using their reason to discover ways out of the conflict thus ending the war. Hobbes pretty much sums this up by saying “agreeing to end the war”. He says that “They come to see the fear and insecurity of their persons and possessions in the state of nature as undesirable, and peace and order as desirable.” Which means that they reject

Hobbes believes that in the state of nature, man has no power to control others, and because of this, everyone is aggressive towards one another, as no one can trust another. Because of this, social order is necessary to give man incentive towards cooperation and trust, by selling your individual rights to freedom in order to gain social rights of security and safety. The role of the social order is to combat man’s aggressiveness, man’s power to hurt one another and direct this towards positive social ends instead of destructive.

First, Hobbes says that nature is chaos. There are no rules, and the only means of protection are the strengths of each individual. There is no trust among anyone, and each individual only cares about his or herself. Hobbes develops the right of nature, or self-preservation, out of these circumstances. Each individual has a right to think of self-preservation in a world where no one can be trusted. One might think that this wouldn’t fix the problem of the natural chaos. However, Hobbes explains that the focus on self-preservation will be so powerful that individuals will make covenants that will be adhered to because they preserve everyone and hence oneself. This is in accordance with Hobbes’ concept of the laws of nature. He explains the laws of nature to be: seek peace, forfeit rights, and keep covenants. Humans pursuing self-preservation would realize that by seeking peace and forfeiting rights such as taking what one wanted from others as one saw fit self-preservation is easier and more achievable. This also requires the formation of governments to enforce the covenants made. Otherwise, there would be no way to know for certain that the covenants would be respected and upheld. With the formation of government come concepts such as justice. Hobbes bases his definition of justice on the very thing that created the government: covenants, and the keeping of those valid or

     Essentially what Hobbes is saying by all of this is that human beings are not fit to govern themselves. The notion of the social contract serves the purpose of saving us from ourselves because, according to Hobbes, humans are not able to do that on their own. The idea of acting on behalf of the common good is, while comprehensible in theory, impossible for humans to execute.

Drug abuse is obviously a huge issue in our country, but how would Hobbes and Rousseau’s opinions differ on it? Hobbes talks about individual self interests and punishment. Rousseau talks about education and socialization. The both believe however that the sovereign should decide these laws

However Thomas Hobbes saw humans as naturally selfish and quick to fight. He believed people lived in a state of nature which meant everyone had a right to everything. Hobbes was more concerned with protection and order than rights. The social contract was an agreement in which both sides agreed to something in order to reach a shared goal. He believed that once the people agreed to hand over power in exchange for protection, they lost the right to overthrow, replace, or even question the government.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke both share the common vision of the role of a social contract to maintain order in a state. However, their philosophies were cognizant of a sharp contrasting concept of human nature. This essay aims to compare and contrast the social contracts of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in respect to their definition of natural law. This essay will first analyze the pessimistic Hobbesian approach to the state of nature, the inherit optimistic approach of Locke, and then observe how their definitions directly affect their social contract.

Thomas Hobbes was a divisive figure in his day and remains so up to today. Hobbes’s masterpiece, Leviathan, offended his contemporary thinkers with the implications of his view of human nature and his theology. From this pessimistic view of the natural state of man, Hobbes derives a social contract in order to avoid civil war and violence among men. Hobbes views his work as laying out the moral framework for a stable state. In reality, Hobbes was misconstruing a social contract that greatly benefited the state based on a misunderstanding of civil society and the nature and morality of man.

The law of nature essentially forbids humans from committing an act that would be reprehensible to his well being. This left humans to act in a way that was enforced by the a law. Hobbes analyzed both of these human natures and came to the conclusion that the ideal way for humans to exist within a peaceful environment would be be through the law of nature. In order for humans to live by the standards of the law of nature, humans must surrender their rights to a supreme leader (or small assembly)- this surrender is known as a social contract. Hobbes explained that people would would simple put their “Right[s] aside, either by simply renouncing it, or by transferring it to another” The social contract would involve all of the members of society to transfer their power to the all mighty leader. This all mighty leader would have complete control over the society, with no input from the members of societies.

Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have very different views on the social contract largely based on their fundamental views of the state of nature in humanity. These basic views of natural human nature cause Hobbes and Rousseau to have views on opposite sides of the spectrum, based on two controversial speculations, that human is inherently good or that human is inherently inclined towards egotism and perpetual insecurity. Due to his belief that they are of this nature, Hobbes viewed an all-powerful sovereign of a rather totalarianistic nature to be necessary. Rousseau on the other hand, viewed that the sovereign should represent the common will of the people, the sovereign being agreed upon by all constituents. It is my assertion

Thomas Hobbes creates a clear idea of the social contract theory in which the social contract is a collective agreement where everyone in the state of nature comes together and sacrifices all their liberty in return to security. “In return, the State promises to exercise its absolute power to maintain a state of peace (by punishing deviants, etc.)” So are the power and the ability of the state making people obey to the laws or is there a wider context to this? I am going to look at the different factors to this argument including a wide range of critiques about Hobbes’ theory to see whether or not his theory is convincing reason for constantly obeying the law.

Jean Jacques Rousseau idealizes pre societal human life, while Thomas Hobbes suggests that it was too unpleasant and man needs government. The main difference between Hobbes and Rousseau is their conceptions on human nature. Hobbes believes people are all inheritably evil. Moreover, people will do whatever they need (including violent actions) to get what they want. Furthermore, Hobbes theorises that society needs a strong ruler that is beyond challenge, to stop the natural evil ambitions of people. Therefore, in Hobbes view, if we were all taken out of civil society, our life would be a constant warfare and we would most likely live a, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” life. In contrast, Rousseau suggests that humans are essentially born good “Nobel savages,” but the bad influence of society has caused us to become selfish and evil. Thus, Rousseau argues man should

Hobbes argues that man naturally desires security and order. It is the quest for security and preservation, as well as the need to avoid pain and misery that made man to get into a contract. Self-preservation and protection are widespread in the nature of man and in an attempt to achieve it, man voluntarily surrendered all his rights and freedoms to the authority through the

According to Hobbes' theory, without society, we would live in a state of nature, where we each have unlimited natural freedoms. The downside of this general autonomy is that it includes the "right to all things" and thus the freedom to harm all who threaten one's own self-preservation; there are no positive rights, only laws of nature and ‘bellum omnium contra omnes’ meaning ‘war of all against all’. The state of nature according to Hobbes is pre social and pre political in nature and there is no scope for development to take

The Social Contract theory has been debated by many different key thinkers and philosophers throughout the ages. Individuals such as Socrates, Rousseau and many others put forth a valiant effort in attempting to describe what that definition means to them. However, the two individuals focused on in this essay are well-known in this category of thinking. John Locke and Thomas Hobbes both verbalize their contrasting viewpoints and beliefs when it comes to the social contract theory, but they seem to disagree on many different issues that lie within the realm of this topic such as the state of nature, certain laws of nature and even their views on war and peacetime. Although they differ on many of these key details in their philosophies, one of the biggest distinctions between the two is their reasoning why governments are necessary. To Hobbes, it’s purely for self-preservation or staying alive, while Locke believes the government is only necessary for the preservation of property, as well as life and liberty.