Second Treatise On Civil Government, By John Locke

In John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government, Locke starts his political discourse with his views of the state of nature. The state of nature, as defined by Locke, is the state that all humans are naturally in before any political authority arises. Locke’s state of nature might not be the most pleasant state that a human being would wish to be in, yet Locke acknowledges that even humans in the state of nature have intrinsic rights. What would another thinker on political theory, Thomas Hobbes, think about Locke’s state of nature? In Hobbes’ text on political power Leviathan, he takes a very different approach to the state of nature, with his state of nature being a very barbaric and brutish state. What would Locke think about this view?
While this is a state of equality, man does not have uncontrollable liberty to harm another being. Locke states that reason which governs all men, demonstrates that since everyone is equal, that all have the right to life, health, liberty,and possessions. We were all created by our maker, according to Locke, and set in his workmanship to share “all in one community of nature.” (Locke 155) Since everyone is in this community of nature, Locke argues that our preservation will not come in competition, but through the preservation of mankind. Due to mankind being fully devoted to their preservation, Locke states that every man has a right to “punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation.” (Locke 155) Every man, in Locke's view of the state of nature, has the right to punish another man or, in other words, take the law into his own hands, all for the preservation of mankind, justice, and reason. The state of nature, then, for Locke, is a state where all men are equal and have the capacity to reason and punish one another
While Hobbes’ view shares the fundamental idea of the state of nature, that it is the state before any political authority arises and not a civilized state, he goes about it in a much different way. Hobbes’s does not state anything about an equality among the citizens in his state of nature. On the contrary, his state is full of “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Hobbes 132) Hobbes state of nature is a continual state of anguish and war, where there is no right and wrong, no morality. Hobbes even boldly proclaims that “The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place.” (Hobbes 133) What would Locke think about this view? In his state of nature, while men do not have a common power to unite under, there is still some form of justice and injustice, where each citizen is a policeman, in some sense, for his community. While this may not be the most effective form of government, a kind of morality is still there under the surface. In my opinion, because of what Locke asserts about the state of nature, he would disagree with Hobbes’ view of the state of nature. Locke firmly believes in the rights of the people. Even in the state of nature, Locke demonstrates that because the people’s intrinsic rights to peace, liberty, and property are so crucial,