Comparing Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, And Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were prominent modern political philosophers that had an enormous impact on how politics and religion is viewed and carried out today. These political philosophers had various views and theories of government and religion. The diversity of views on topics such as: human nature, natural law, human law, origin of government, purpose of government, etc. allows for one philosopher to stand out from the others in regards to which one has the most scripturally correct theory of government. Comparing and contrasting each political philosopher allows for a deeper analysis of the way each philosopher viewed the world in terms of political and religious aspects. The first political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, brought some unique views into the world and most of his views are based on a time where there was political and religious turmoil. A civil war was taking place at the time and …show more content…

“From this institution of a commonwealth are derived all the rights, and faculties of him, or them, on whom the sovereign power is conferred by the consent of the people assembled” (Cahn, 2012, pp. 407). Hobbes believed that a sovereign individual needed to be placed in government in order to provide protection from living in a state of nature. Referring back to Hobbes’ view of human nature, with man being selfish, government was necessary to have order and cease chaos in Hobbes’ opinion. The role of state was to prevent and protect people from taking each other’s personal property and from killing each other. Although Hobbes believed the role of the state was to protect each individual from getting property stolen, he did not see property as being of high importance. “He considered the right to own property something emanating from the sovereign. Individuals could only claim ownership of a thing as long as the sovereign permitted it” (Lecture Notes,

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