Thomas Hobbes and John Locke Today
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and John Locke (1632–1704) were two English philosophers, considered to be the founders of modern political philosophy. They lived in the era of the enlightenment. Both Hobbes and Locke justified and articulated the reasons for the role of State. In their reasoning, they both start with a priori natural state of human society without any existence of State. In this respect, they had something in common between them and their philosophical ideas are therefore discussed jointly together in any political philosophy discourse.
But their reasoning and role of State certainly differ from each other. They both start from the opposite end of the spectrum in assumptions about human nature. Hobbes starts from a priori state of nature where it is war of all against all, in which human beings constantly seek to destroy each other in an incessant pursuit for power. Life in this state of nature is “nasty, brutish and short”. Citizens therefore agree to form the State in order to escape the horrors of this natural condition. The power of the State protects them from the abuses of one another. Citizens surrender all individual rights to the State for this purpose. Hobbes calls this State the Leviathan.
Locke on the other hand starts from a priori state of nature where human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believes that it is human nature to be selfish. He also believes that human beings have the natural right of life, liberty, health and possession of property for self sustenance. Locke acknowledges that these individual rights can conflict with each other. Citizens therefore agree to form the State that helps them in protecting their rights. In Locke’s State, citizens do not forfeit all individual rights to the State and the State is constrained with limited power. State is thus the product of individuals’ enlightened self interests.
The difference between the ideas of the two political philosophers therefore is most stark in their assumption about the state of human nature. Justification for the varying degree of State power emanates from it.
The enlightenment era that the two philosophers lived through, was also the era of the political turmoil in England. English civil war broke out in 1642 between royalists supporting King Charles I and parliament forces. It resulted in the beheading of Charles I in 1649. Hobbes had favored the absolute monarchy while Locke was in favor of the parliament representing the denizens and limiting the monarch’s governing powers.
The Lockean view of human nature with its associated limited role of State seemed to have historically prevailed in many liberal democracies in the world until recently. It is enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. It is also the view that I would like to believe in. But I must admit that the current reality in many parts of the world seems much different. Two different views on human nature and the role of State currently dominate. The first is the Hobbesian view. We are now asked to believe that we need the State to protect us from our own savagery. State can trample over all our individual rights in carrying out its functions. In Hobbes’s world, the State was the monarchy that claimed its legitimacy through divine rights of the monarch to govern. In today’s Hobbesian world, the State is the autocrat who claims his legitimacy to govern for life through freshly altered constitution by pliable cronies stuffed in nominally functioning legislatives and judiciaries.
But the second dominant view is also not Lockean. It is a view which assumes that human beings are weak, vulnerable and dependent on external stronger power for their welfare. State therefore becomes the benevolent power that stretches its arms to mold individuals’ welfare affairs. It is even entitled to manipulate the value of personal as well as common property in order to fulfill its paternalistic responsibilities. Modern tools used by this different unrestrained Leviathan are complex but yet subtle. Unsustainable deficit financing in fiscal policy and quantitative easing in monetary policy do assaults on the useful value of the individuals’ private property now and in future. Yet the citizens are hardly aware of the extent of the damage to their private property caused with these modern tools.
These two dominant versions of the Leviathans are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Two avatars sometimes simultaneously coexist. We therefore assume human nature that is both savage and also dependent on external means for its welfare. The Autocratic State is also the patronizing one toward its citizens.
Locke is now dead. Long live Locke, in the minds of those few true believers!
