Social Contract and Equality Essay Example

people will be guaranteed of their equality. This civil society is based on two assumptions, that, the people collectively and reciprocally relinquishes the rights they held against one another in the State of Nature, and that, authority and power to enforce the contract is vested on one person or a group of persons. John Locke differs with Hobbes in his depiction of the State of Nature as a peaceful place governed by the Laws of Nature.

In the State of Nature people exist equally uphold sound morals. [Locke, par. 6] Therefore to Locke the State of Nature is not a state of brutality as Hobbes boldly claimed: it is a state of liberty. However, it can deteriorate into a state of war when two men or more harm one another. In such a situation the war is likely to continue since the State of Nature lacks a civil authority to settle such disputes.

This brings out the reason as to why men have to abandon the State of Nature and form a civil authority.Men recognize that civil society entails equality, and therefore through contracts they create civil governments in order to protect their property and themselves. Men also leave the State of Nature to form, and to submit themselves in “one body politic under one government. ” [Locke, par. 97] By forming and joining such bodies, men gain three things which they lacked in the State of Nature: laws, judges to adjudicate the laws, and the executive power necessary to enforce these laws.