John Locke vs Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke represent the beginning of political science in the seventeenth century,their ideas on what government should or shouldn't do would be refined by Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers thus becoming the basis of the constitutional democracy of the United States. Hobbes took a very different approach than Locke in what he thought of humans in general;the same goes for political matters. He thought people were savages when born and only under someone else's leadership would society be a livable environment. Hobbes was the first to mix morals with political views and Locke continued with this idea. Thought they agreed on some things they presented the ideas in a different point of view. Both see the relationship between the government and the governed in the way that the governed is giving away power to the government, Hobbes focuses more on the civic responsibility while Locke focuses more on the limitations of the government itself.

Both Hobbes and Locke agreed with the social contract theory(the theory that society was created by people agreeing with one another to form a group to protect the rights of the citizens and the laws that had been created, so the overall society could work to its fullest) but shown different beliefs about it. Hobbes contrary to Locke thought of government as more of a baby sitter than a knight in shining armor. Locke thought government should just protect the basic rights of all people and nothing more. Hobbes believed government should control all aspects of the law. Locke also stated in his two treaties of government(1690) that if government doesn't protect the natural laws of the citizens that they can abolish said government or even rebel against it. A far cry from what Hobbes says in his writings.

On the idea of human nature Hobbes and Locke were on completely different sides of the argument. On Locke's side humans were naturally born social animals. Hobbes took a vastly different approach