Student Question
How are Thomas Hobbes and John Locke's ideas expressed or modified in the Declaration of Independence?
Quick answer:
The Declaration of Independence primarily reflects John Locke's ideas, particularly those from his "Second Treatise on Civil Government," which emphasizes natural rights and the social contract. Locke's belief in the right to alter or abolish a government that fails to protect these rights is echoed in the Declaration's language. While Thomas Hobbes also discussed social contracts, his support for absolute monarchy contrasts with the Declaration's advocacy for government by consent, making Locke's influence more pronounced.
If Hobbes had no influence on the Declaration of Independence, then I must ask why in Leviathan Hobbes clearly discusses natural rights and freedoms and how men and women establish governments in order to secure peace. How is this not the social contract theory that Jefferson argues in favor of? Locke later borrowed this theory from Hobbes. He changed it because he didn't believe in the absolute right of governments to rule like Hobbes did, but the concept is still very much the same.
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I respectfully submit that no part of the Declaration of Independence is based on the ideas of Thomas Hobbes; rather it is almost entirely a restatement of John Locke's position in his Second Treatise on Civil Government.
Thomas Hobbes in his famous work, Leviathan, had supported absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings. He believed this to be...
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the only way to prevent the "war of all against all," in which life was "nasty brutish and short." Nowhere in the Declaration are these ideas found. Locke, in fact, had disputed Hobbes' theories in hisFirst Treatise on Civil Government in which he dismissed the notion that governments were necessary to protect ourselves from each other. Locke's Two Treatises on Government written to support the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which the British people had deposed James II and invited William of Orange and Mary to take the throne, stated:
- All men are born with certain "natural rights."
- These rights include life, liberty and estate.
- People through a social contract form a government to protect their rights.
- People have the fight to change that government if it no longer protects their rights.
Locke had argued that James II had no longer protected the rights of the British people, and they therefore had the right to depose him. The language of the Declaration is strikingly similar:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.