obbes and Machiavelli, viewed man as basically good. I do not feel that this is an accurate portrayal because we would not have the need for guns if this were true. However, one of his chief strengths was that he felt that man was capable of reason and therefore capable of knowing right from wrong. He also recognized that even though man is capable of this, he does not always act with this knowledge. He believed that everyone is born free, rational, and equal. Again, I do not believe this is true. Some people are born into better situations or with better talents than others. Locke proposed that man forms a social contract in order to preserve his rights (namely life, liberty, and property) in a more efficient manner. For Locke, “Government simply ends a state of nature in which dangerous self-judgment is the rule.” However, should the government fail to preserve its citizens’ rights (or threaten his rights), Locke said the people had the right to rebel. He did agree with Machiavelli and Hobbes in the area of divine rights. Locke, like them, felt that the public elected leaders. But, Locke also felt that the government was responsible to its citizens and when it failed to do the job properly the citizens had the rights to find someone who could. However, there are fewer similarities and more differences between people like Locke and Hobbes. Hobbes promoted people like Hitler; Lock promoted people like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and should be applauded for his democratic initiative. Jean – Jacques Rousseau lived during the eighteenth century. He was born in Geneva, Switzerland. If Locke’s approach was on the opposite end of the spectrum from Machiavelli’s and Hobbes’s, Rousseau’s must have been in another galaxy (personally, I think Rousseau was in another galaxy). Rousseau felt that the more knowledge governments acquired, the more they inhibited the personal rights of the c...
