Hobbes: The Defender of Absolutism

Starting in the 1600s, European philosophers began debating

the question of who should govern a nation. While some
accepted the absolute rule of kings, many Enlightenment
philosophers argued for different forms of democracy.

In 1649, a civil war broke out over who would rule England—
King Charles I or the popularly elected Parliament. The war
ended with the beheading of the king. Shortly after Charles
was executed, an English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), wrote Leviathan,
a defense of the absolute power of kings. The title of the book referred to a leviathan, a
mythological, whale-like sea monster that devoured whole ships. Hobbes compared the
leviathan to government, a powerful state created to impose order.

Hobbes began Leviathan by describing the “state of nature” where all individuals were
naturally equal. Every person was free to do what he or she needed to do to survive. As
a result, everyone suffered from “continued fear and danger of violent death; and the life
of man [was] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” In the state of nature, there were
no laws or anyone to enforce them. The only way out of this situation, Hobbes said, was
for individuals to create some supreme power to impose peace on everyone.

Hobbes borrowed a concept from English contract law: an implied agreement. Hobbes
asserted that the people agreed among themselves to “lay down” their natural rights of
equality and freedom and give absolute power to a sovereign. The sovereign, created
by the people, might be a person or a group. The sovereign would make and enforce
the laws to secure a peaceful society, making life, liberty, and property possible.
Hobbes called this agreement the “social contract.”

Hobbes believed that a government headed by a king was the best form that the
sovereign could take. Placing all power in the hands of a king would provide a more
consistent, firm exercise of political authority, Hobbes argued. Hobbes also maintained
that the social contract was an agreement only among the people and not between
them and their king. Once the people had given absolute power to the king, they had no
right to revolt against him.

Hobbes warned against the church meddling with the king’s government. He feared
religion could become a source of civil war. Thus, he advised that the church become a
department of the king’s government, which would closely control all religious affairs. In
any conflict between divine and royal law, Hobbes wrote, the individual should obey the
king or choose death.

But the days of absolute kings were numbered. A new age with fresh ideas was
emerging—the European Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers wanted to improve
human conditions on earth rather than concern themselves with religion and the
afterlife. These thinkers valued reason, science, religious tolerance, and what they
called “natural rights”—life, liberty, and property.
Key Terms:

Absolutism (Absolute rule of kings, Absolute monarchy)-

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Constitutional Monarchy: ________________________

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Sovereign: ___________________________________
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State of Nature: _______________________________

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 Locke: The Reluctant Democrat

John Locke (1632–1704) was born shortly before the English Civil War. Locke studied
science and medicine at Oxford University and became a professor there. He sided with
the Protestant Parliament against the Roman Catholic King
James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1685. This event
reduced the power of the king and made Parliament the major
authority in English government.

In 1690, Locke published his Two Treatises of Government.

He generally agreed with Hobbes about the brutality of the
state of nature, which required a social contract to assure
peace. But he disagreed with Hobbes on two major points.

First, Locke argued that natural rights such as life, liberty, and property existed in the
state of nature and could never be taken away or even voluntarily given up by
individuals. These rights were “inalienable” (impossible to surrender). Locke also
disagreed with Hobbes about the social contract. For him, it was not just an agreement
among the people, but between them and the sovereign (preferably a king).

According to Locke, the natural rights of individuals limited the power of the king. The
king did not hold absolute power, as Hobbes had said, but acted only to enforce and
protect the natural rights of the people. If a sovereign violated these rights, the social
contract was broken, and the people had the right to revolt and establish a new
government. Less than 100 years after Locke wrote his Two Treatises of Government,
Thomas Jefferson used his theory in writing the Declaration of Independence.

Although Locke spoke out for freedom of thought, speech, and religion, he believed
property to be the most important natural right. He declared that owners may do
whatever they want with their property as long as they do not invade the rights of others.
Government, he said, was mainly necessary to promote the “public good,” that is to
protect property and encourage commerce and little else. “Govern lightly,” Locke said.

Locke favored a representative government such as the English Parliament, which had
a hereditary House of Lords and an elected House of Commons. But he wanted
representatives to be only men of property and business. Consequently, only adult male
property owners should have the right to vote. Locke was reluctant to allow the masses
of people who did not own property to participate in government because he believed
that they were unfit.

The supreme authority of government, Locke said, should reside in the law-making
legislature, like England’s Parliament. The executive (prime minister) and courts would
be creations of the legislature and under its authority.
 Montesquieu: The Balanced Democrat

When Charles Montesquieu (1689–1755) was born, France was

ruled by an absolute king, Louis XIV. Montesquieu was born into
a noble family and was educated in the law. He traveled
extensively throughout Europe, including England, where he
studied the Parliament. In 1722, he wrote a book, ridiculing the
reign of Louis XIV and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic
Church.

Montesquieu published his greatest work, The Spirit of the Laws,

in 1748. Unlike Hobbes and Locke, Montesquieu believed that in the state of nature
individuals were so fearful that they avoided violence and war. The need for food,
Montesquieu said, caused the timid humans to associate with others and seek to live in
a society. “As soon as man enters into a state of society,” Montesquieu wrote, “he loses
the sense of his weakness, equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.”

Montesquieu did not describe a social contract as such. But he said that the state of war
among individuals and nations led to human laws and government.

Montesquieu wrote that the main purpose of government is to maintain law and order,
political liberty, and the property of the individual. Montesquieu opposed the absolute
monarchy of his home country and favored the English system as the best model of
government.

Montesquieu somewhat misinterpreted how political power was actually exercised in

England. When he wrote The Spirit of the Laws, power was concentrated pretty much in
Parliament, the national legislature. Montesquieu thought he saw a separation and
balancing of the powers of government in England.

Montesquieu viewed the English king as exercising executive power balanced by the
law-making Parliament, which was itself divided into the House of Lords and the House
of Commons, each checking the other. Then, the executive and legislative branches
were still further balanced by an independent court system.

Montesquieu concluded that the best form of government was one in which the
legislative, executive, and judicial powers were separate and kept each other in check
to prevent any branch from becoming too powerful. He believed that uniting these
powers, as in the monarchy of Louis XIV, would lead to despotism. While Montesquieu’s
separation of powers theory did not accurately describe the government of England,
Americans later adopted it as the foundation of the U.S. Constitution.
 Rousseau: The Extreme Democrat

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was born in Geneva,

Switzerland, where all adult male citizens could vote as a part of a
representative government. Rousseau traveled in France and
Italy, educating himself.

Beginning in 1751, he wrote a series of essays in which he

explained his view that man was naturally good but was corrupted
by society. He described savages in a state of nature as free,
equal, peaceful, and happy. According to Rousseau, when people
began to claim ownership of property, inequality, murder, and war
resulted. Rousseau concluded that the social contract was not a willing agreement, but
a fraud against the people committed by the rich. He concluded that the powerful rich
stole the land belonging to everyone and fooled the common people into accepting
them as rulers. His ideas made him a celebrity in the French salons where artists,
scientists, and writers gathered to discuss the latest ideas.

In 1762, Rousseau published his most important work on political theory, The Social
Contract. His opening line is still striking today: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is
in chains.” Rousseau agreed with Locke that the individual should never be forced to
give up his or her natural rights to a king. The problem in the state of nature, Rousseau
said, was to find a way to protect everyone’s life, liberty, and property while each person
remained free.

Rousseau’s solution was for people to enter into a social contract where they would
give up all their rights, not to a king, but to “the whole community.” The people, acting as
the sovereign, would meet together to discuss laws and then by majority vote find the
“general will”. He argued that the will of the people could not be decided by elected
representatives. All political power must reside with the people, and there could be no
separation of powers. Rousseau’s ideas were later embodied in the words “We the
people . . .” at the beginning of the U.S. Constitution.

In Rousseau’s democracy, anyone who disagreed with the will of the people would be
“forced to be free.” He believed that citizens must be forced to obey the laws so as long
as they remained a resident of the state. This is a “civil state,” Rousseau says, where
security, justice, liberty, and property are protected and enjoyed by all.

Rousseau believed that religion divided and weakened the state. “It is impossible to live
in peace with people you think are damned,” he said. He favored a “civil religion” that
accepted God but concentrated on the sacredness of the social contract between
citizens of the community.

Rousseau wasn’t sure exactly how his democracy would work. There would be a
government of sorts, but it would be made up of “mere officials” who got their orders
from the people. Rousseau was thinking about a democracy on a small scale, a city-
state like his native Geneva; he realized that democracy as he imagined it would be
hard to maintain.