Hobbes
No one has masterfully argued that people are essentially estranged as Thomas Hobes, the mordant and witty English philosopher. The natural human state, Hobbes maintained, is one of war "of every man, against every man." Where there is no strong central government "to overawe them all," then "men have no pleasure, but on the contrary a great deal of grief, in keeping company." Life in such a state, Hobbes asserted in one of the most famous phrases in the literature of political theory, is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
2 levels of estrangement in Hobbes's philosophy.
Psychological level and Ontological level
Hobbes was a materialist , he saw every reality as wholly definable in terms of space, time, and the laws of causation. The universe is composed of objects in motion. Hobbes believes that each person is concerned with personal safety.
Hobbes says that peace is needed by everyone.
Among the great political thinkers only one, Thomas Hobbes, maintained that in their purely worldly qualities people are essentially equal. Hobbes view people are les deserving of equal respect than of equal disdain.
Hobbes opposed constitutionalism because of his pessimistic appraisal of human nature. Many passages in Hobbes writings show that he did not desire or even envision the possibility of anything like modern totalitarianism.
For Hobbes, any division of power was an invitation to chaos.
Locke
John Locke defended the establishment of constitutional government in England and who influenced the framers of the American Constitution, clearly did not believe people to be equal in their observable qualities. They were, for Locke, equal only in ...