Government
- Works for the good of the public by providing the essential goods and services such as water
- Freeways, sanitation, and public education
- Defend its citizens against foreign aggression
- Establishes law and maintain order
Thomas Hobbes
- “Life is nasty, brutish, and short.”
- Leviathan (1651)
- Nature is anarchy
- Human beings are cruel, mean, and brutish in the state of nature
- Reason can remove man from nature
- It is reasonable to transfer rights to a higher power to escape nature
- Government, therefore, is a contract between the rulers and the ruled
- Importantly, this changes government from a pre-ordained ruler to aa consenting contract
John Locke
- “New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but
Because they are not common”
- Indirectly expands and refuses the ideas of Hobbes, although he does not mention Hobbes
By name
- Does not believe that humans are naturally and completely brutish, nasty, or mean, but
Rather calm and rational
- Being honest and civil is natural in all humans
