Rousseau, Locke, and Hobbes

From the mid seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, there was an Ð''Enlightenment' movement that swept across Europe. The theorists behind this act rejected the Ð''original sin' concept, maintained the argument that humans could grow and progress, and stated that humans could reorganize society on the grounds of equality, justice, and freedom. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were all members of The Enlightenment movement, and each had their own idea on how human society should be structured and run. Locke and Hobbes lived around the same time, and some of their political theories were the same, however, by the time Rousseau came along, much had changed.

Born in Geneva to a middle class watch maker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was to become one of the most influential thinkers of the eighteenth century. Being well educated in music and reading, he entered an essay contest in a newspaper. The topic: "Has the revival of the arts and sciences done more to corrupt or purify morals?", sprung a moment of clarity for Rousseau, and he won the essay contest, launching his career as a philosopher. After losing his second essay contest he began attacking the ideas of Enlightened thinkers. Because of this, historians see Rousseau as a "transition figure, from Enlightenment to Romanticism" (lecture, Jan 29th).

Rousseau published his book "The Social Contract" in 1762, and it was almost immediately it was banned in Geneva and burned in France. He was declared a criminal and had to flee the country. The book asks the crucial question: Ð''If civilization is bad for us, how can we structure a government that will allow people to remain as free and happy as they were in the state of nature?' Rousseau decided that it was only possible to do so in a direct democracy where all power is in the General Will of the people. To start this, individuals must engage in a Ð''social contract'. In this contract every individual must give up his or her rights to the whole community, making all rights for every individual equal. Individuals must give all their rights away when coming into the social contract for the good of the whole community. At some point they cannot survive by themselves and everyone needs to come together for the common good In giving everything to the community the individual receives everything he or she has lost plus "more power to preserve what he has" (189). Lives must be lived in and for the group; the life as an individual must be merged into the life of the state, and the people must be involved in all aspects of government. There can be no clubs, separate churches, power groups, or political parties, because these would create separate rights for individuals, and give some individuals more power than others. By creating this, Rousseau annihilates power struggles between the rights of a group and individual rights. In this system, there is no one ruler of the community. A citizen who puts his or her community first is ruler, and ruled. The political government is one united system, it does what the community wants it to do.

Thomas Hobbes was born on April fifth,1588 in Wiltshire, England. With his education, he began his career easily as a tutor, then philosopher, and published his most famous text 'Leviathan'. His main concern was the problem of social and political order: how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict. The criteria for his social contract is that individuals should give their obedience to an "unaccountable sovereign": a person or group empowered to decide every social and political issue to keep the people from themselves. Evidence of Hobbes being a supporter of the King becomes clear with the previous statement. Hobbes' society would be almost tyrannical, but free. Hobbes does not believe, like Rousseau, that humans can live freely in a state of nature, unchecked. He thinks that three things will happen, a) individuals with fight with one another out of fear, b)some individuals will seek high status over other individuals, and c)humans will begin to fight to guarantee their own safety. In Hobbes' society individual not only have the right to ensure self-preservation; There is also the right to judge