Difference Between Locke And Rousseau

John Locke (1632-1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) are among the most prominent influential thinkers of the enlightenment era. Both Locke and Rousseau argued that we gain civil rights in return for respecting the rights of others and by doing so, we gave up our natural rights. In this paper, I will argue how an agreement among members to start a social contract was driven by fear and the desire to change the world for self-interest. Social contract theory, is the view that a persons’ moral or political obligations rely upon a contract or agreement between the people of a state and the government to form the society they live by. This voluntary agreement among individuals exists to serve the people and the government with mutual
According to Locke, in the natural state, no one had authority over any natural resources. In John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, Locke started with the idea that every individual is his own property and no one else can take that right away from you along with the work and labor of your own body. And when an individual blends their labor with their own property to a good, that object now becomes their own because they added their labor to it. Locke then places a type of limitation where one can acquire as many things as one can reasonably use to their advantage. Taking any more than one needs simply becomes a waste of resources that might otherwise been used by another person. John Locke claims that labor is the moral foundation of property rights. Unfortunately, the invention of money made this impossible.
Locke claimed that because man is naturally free and equal in political government as a result of a social contract were people in their nature state transfer some of their rights to ensure stability: life, liberty and property, and that if the government fails to meet these requirements, that it can be resisted and replaced with a new
I believe this because humans are not capable of constantly living in a state of war because of fear. We fear death so much that we are willing to do things that are both morally and ethically wrong just to survive. Fear is what influenced the formation of a society, not private property. John Locke argues that private property plays a crucial role in why the formation of a social contract came into existence. I disagree with Locke because when humans were in a state of nature, they were always in the state of both fear and war. Thomas Hobbes stated: “no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Hobbes 83) Constantly being in a state of war leads to poverty, fear, death and the loss of morality. Did humans give up their nature rights for justice? Or did they give up their rights because of fear? What makes fear astonishing is that it leads to desire. Desire constantly arises in us, only to be replaced by another desire. The fear and desire to control is also what influenced us to leave the state of nature and form a society. Is the desire for more killing us and the