The Center for Civic Education`s We the People program features two very clear and fundamental lectures by Peter Woodcock on Hobbes and Locke, each lasting just over eleven minutes. The Hobbes lecture highlights his rather modern and day-new arguments for which people should support the state. In Woodcock`s Locke Lecture, he explains Locke`s arguments for human rights – perhaps the first in political history – his defense of property and religious freedom (albeit qualified), and his argument that people in certain situations have the right to overthrow their government. The lectures can be viewed at Civiced: Unit 1 (Thomas Hobes and John Locke). The seventeenth-century political philosopher John Locke fundamentally contradicted his contemporary, Thomas Hobbes, in every possible way. While Hobbes was an ardent defender of absolute monarchy, Locke vehemently advocated a limited system of government. According to Locke, any proper government (also known as limited government) existed for one fundamental purpose: the protection of private property. People, in Locke`s view, were inherently free, rational, and decent individuals who only needed government to mediate their lives. Therefore, in order to ensure optimal living conditions, people would enter into a consensual social contract in which they would cede some of their natural freedoms to a ruler, who in turn promised to protect their property, settle disputes, and protect their lives.
Locke went a step further with his ideas – in a truly revolutionary claim that just governments were based on trust between the people and their leader. When this trust was violated (perhaps by the leader`s inability to protect property or by his attempt to become a tyrant), the people were fully justified – and even morally obligated – to rise up in rebellion and overthrow their current leader. This last idea was truly shocking and would resonate more dramatically and influentially throughout history than any of Locke`s many brilliant ideas. Peace, prosperity and growing Western influence led to the emergence of an existential crisis for the samurai class, which was increasingly burdened with bureaucracy rather than war; One of the ways samurai coped with the changing world was to go back in time to find inspiration. Thomas Hobbes was one of the most influential political philosophers of the seventeenth century and an ardent defender of the scientific revolution. Hobbes had a rather negative (even critical) view of human nature that jumps from the pages of his most famous work, Leviathan. In Leviathan, Hobbes argues for absolute monarchy, the best possible system of government – at least that`s what Hobbes claimed. According to him, humans are inherently selfish, destructive, chaotic and incurably violent (more animalistic than humanistic). This human condition could not be cured or overcome, and so without proper control and supervision, people quickly sink into a completely bloody confrontation. The best possible remedy for this suffering? An absolute monarch whose strict control, iron grip on every piece of the economic and social machine, and complete monopoly on the use of force could impose obedience, security, and order among the people. Any other form of government, Hobbes warned, would not be strong enough to keep the peace, and soon violence and chaos would erupt again. The best leader, according to Hobbes, was the strongest, the most ruthless, the most absolute, the one who could command and claim unconditional obedience.
If a government does not protect the natural rights of its citizens or breaks the social contract, people have the right to rebel against the government and create a new one. People voluntarily give the government some of their power through a “social contract” to protect their “natural rights” to life, liberty and property. Compare and contrast their beliefs about the state of nature, the best type of government, and the nature of the social contract. The Renaissance awakened a spirit of curiosity in many areas. Scholars began to question ideas that had been accepted for hundreds of years. During the Reformation, religious leaders questioned accepted ways of thinking about God and salvation. While the Reformation was taking place, another revolution in European thought was also taking place. He wondered how people saw their place in the universe. As Newton and Galileo questioned our view of the universe, philosophers began to question how the world`s kingdoms ruled and the nature of human rights. Humanist artists and Renaissance scholars placed great value and importance on education. .