A State of Nature

Since the separation of human from the animal world, he/she is interested in the question of what rights he/she has as a person and what rights he/she has in relation to society. In the formation of different types of society, people are wondering who should control all its activities and what legal form it should represent. In other words, if there is a state of the union people, and what rights and responsibilities occur between the state and the people. Both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke propounded their views about humankind and society as a broader sense. In the following paper, their views will be compared according to their views on a nature of human and principles of “healthy” living conditions of citizens.

In my opinion, philosophy of Thomas Hobbes about a state of nature of man is natural and vital. We can observe in the animal world the natural state of people described by Hobbes. Remaining in a state of nature, animals are constantly waging a war of “all against all”. And not only predators fight against the victims, but beasts of prey of one kind fight against each other, and different kinds of them fight with other species. Having equal rights since birth, all kinds of living creatures use their capabilities for the maximum benefit for themselves. Where there is no power that is able to force them not to violate the natural rights of others, there is always a state of war.

Wherever there is a weakening of the state government or the established political regime, the society moves to its natural state and thus to the war of “all against all”. Events of world history can serve Hobbes as vindication of the philosophical theory. Revolution in England in 1688, Revolution in France in 1788, revolution and civil war in Russia in 1917, collapse of the USSR in 1991, uprising of the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine 2004, revolution and civil war in Libya in 2011 are the confirmations of his theory. In addition, sovereign states continue to be in the war of “all against all”. However, this condition makes states to conduct an arms race.

Pre-state condition of Hobbes justifies a strong shape and it is easier as the clash of sets of human individuals is inevitable. According to Locke, pre-state condition is a state of complete freedom, but it has three disadvantages:

“There is no default, defined, and well-known law that would have been recognized and approved by consensus as a standard of right and wrong.”

“There is no any knowledgeable and impartial judge.”

“Often there is no power that could assist and support a just verdict and carry it out”.

As for the philosophy of absolute monarchical governance, the same history has shown the failure of the theory of Hobbes. Nowadays, there is no state where an absolute monarchy remained. In general, the philosophy of law and state of Hobbes has illiberal and non-individual character. In his interpretation of the law (positive human law) Hobbes opposes it to the civil law, state and the right. That way, the law epitomizes a lack of freedom, people’s rights in relation to sovereignty and freedom, and sovereign powers in relation to the subject. In philosophical and legal concepts of Hobbes an idea of ??the legal law and understanding of the law and the state as a form of freedom in a civilized state is absent.

The philosophy of John Locke about natural rights of man is based on the equality of people in their natural state. In contrast to the theory of Hobbes, he believes that people are not in a constant war of “all against all”. Such a state of war arises only at the intersection of interests. However, this condition can last indefinitely. In order to ensure reliable natural rights, equality and freedom, protection of person and property, people agree to form a political society, to establish a state where the purpose of education is a desire to stop a war.

Following Hobbes, Locke admitted the existence of the original people in their natural state. He believed that peoples have inherent natural rights in a natural state: freedom, life and property. In the interpretation of Locke's triad that are the natural rights of a human.

Locke was more progressive than Hobbes in terms of the philosophical theory of the state. A doctrine of Locke's state and law was a classic expression of the ideology of early bourgeois revolutions, with all its strengths and weaknesses. It has incorporated many of the achievements of political and legal knowledge and advanced scientifically during the XVII century. These achievements were not only collected in it, but deepened in the light of historical experience. Thus, they have become useful to respond to the high practical and theoretical questions of political and legal life in the XVIII century. The only revolutionary proposal was Locke's separation of powers. This principle has become the basis of all legal states.

Unlike Hobbes, who believed that individuals give up their natural rights to the state during the entering into a social contract, Locke thought otherwise. According to him, a state overcomes the shortcomings of the state of nature allowing an individual to realize natural rights. In confirmation of the fact that natural human rights are not subject to alienation in favor of the state, Locke uses a proof by contradiction, because one cannot assume that a rational being changed its state to the worst deliberately.

Hobbes criticized the concept of separation of powers, and Locke proposed to divide the state power and distinguished three branches: legislative, executive and federative.

Both philosophers followed the theory of contractual origin of the state, but the natural state was different. According to Hobbes, it was a war of “all against all”, and according to Locke it was the state of the world of intelligent people. Locke believed that the state overcomes the disadvantages of the state of nature, allowing individuals to realize their natural rights. Hobbes asserted that the possibility to realize any natural rights for individuals is sovereign.

Comparing the political and legal views of Hobbes's with views of Locke, it is possible to see many differences. Locke became the founder of the philosophical direction of empiricism, the idea of which was “all the knowledge derived from our feelings”, while Hobbes was based on materialism.

A political philosophy of Hobbes is very contradictory. Anyway, he became the first who described the urgent need for the prescribed manner of a civil society, turning the state into his instrument. Hobbes’ “Leviathan” is designed to ensure the normal life of civil society, with all the rights that belong to it. That is why I give my choice to political views of Hobbes. Despite the fact that he was wrong in the idealization of the absolute power, he was right saying that in the context of social chaos right is dying, and it can be prevented in a way of stabilizing the society initially, concentrating the right to rule at one point in the hands of the state that is able to perform an absolute monarchy.

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