Equality: Comparing Hobbes and Locke

Hobbes and Locke’s each have different ideologies of man’s state of nature that develops their ideal form of government. They do however have similar ideas, such as how man is born with a perfect state of equality that is before any form of government and social contract. Scarcity of goods ultimately leads to Hobbes and Locke’s different states of nature that shapes their two different ideal governments because Hobbes believes that scarcity of goods will bring about a constant state of war, competition, and greed of man that cannot be controlled without a absolute sovereign as government while Locke believes that with reasoning and a unified government, man will succeed in self preservation of himself and others.

Self-preservation is an important factor in shaping the ideologies of Hobbes and Locke as it ties in to scarcity of resources and how each of them view man’s sate of nature. Hobbes and Locke both believe in self-preservation but how each of them get there is very different. Hobbes believes that man’s state of nature is a constant state of war because of his need to self-preserve. He believes that because of scarcity of goods, man will be forced into competition, and eventually will take what is others because of competition, greed, and his belief of scarce goods. Hobbes also states that glory attributes to man’s state of nature being a constant state of war because that drives man to go after another human or his property, on the one reason of obtaining glory even if they have enough to self preserve. Equality ties in with Hobbes view of man being driven by competition and glory because he believes that because man is equal in terms of physical and mental strength, this give them an equal cha...

... middle of paper ...

...ideal forms of government. They do interlock in ideas very frequently because they both believe in man having god given equality such as their equally right to compete for resources. They do differ in how they view man’s state of nature because Locke believes that man is a rational and social being who will avoid being in a constant state of war while Hobbes says there is no way to prevent that constant state of war without an absolute sovereign as government. Their theories are both based on scarcity of goods because man’s goal is to obtain these scarce goods to self-preserve. Locke and Hobbes both have ideal forms of government, with Locke believing in a unified government that is maintained by the will of the people and Hobbes absolute sovereign as a government. They attest that these forms of government is what is needed to achieve equality and to preserve man.