Thomas Hobbes Debate

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230 years, at the time of this paper’s writing, marks the duration of the world’s oldest written constitution : the U.S. constitution. Forged a decade after war with Britain, the constitution symbolizes American repudiation of British oppression of human rights. Consisting of maxims such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and other natural rights of man, the US constitution receives praise as a revolutionary document that altered the worldview on the basics of sovereignty. Yet, dating back to the 13th century, the same innovatory legislation of America appeared in British law from the Magna Carta to the English Bill of Rights. Obsessing over the rights of man over state, America refuted bonds with Britain, yet devised a bureaucracy …show more content…
Differentiating between the rights of the people and the rights of the government, British philosophers of the 15th and 16th century obsessed over the structure of government. Arguing for absolutism, Thomas Hobbes devised the idea of the social contract that is unbreakable for the “life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” without a king. Therefore, Hobbes implies humanity’s self-destructive nature will lead to ruin if they do not blindly follow a king with divine right. Yet, John Locke, the inspiration for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” argued for a new form of social contract: a breakable union. Locke believed that mankind’s state of nature was that of “free, equal, and independent” arguing that their inherent altruism would allow for a form of self-government where the majority would make decisions in a community. Because of this self-governance that relied on the fact every man would pursue “life, liberty, and socage,” he speaks that birth does not dictate the system that one follows refuting Hobbes ideology of ceaseless government and man’s duty to follow the government which raised him. Radical in premise, Locke argued that the British king was not absolute and that man should break the contract if government violates their state of
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