To Locke, a Government existed, among other things, to promote public good, and to protect the life, liberty, and property of its people. For this reason, those who govern must be elected by the society, and the society must hold the power to instate a new Government when necessary.

According to Locke, the main purpose of government is to protect those natural rights that the individual cannot effectively protect in a state of nature.

John Locke’s Views on Government The “Two Treatises of Government” (1690) offered political theories developed and refined by Locke during his years at Shaftesbury’s side. Rejecting the divine right of kings, Locke said that societies form governments by mutual (and, in later generations, tacit) agreement.

Locke justifies his doctrine of limited government by advocating that a restrained government is the best way to protect rights. For example, the right to property is one of the natural rights and therefore pre-political.

The Treatises were written with this specific aim–to defend the Glorious Revolution. Locke also sought to refute the pro-Absolutist theories of Sir Robert Filmer, which he and his Whig associates felt were getting far too popular.

It is then revealed that Locke is in fact dead and the Smoke Monster has been impersonating him since his return to the island. Locke is later buried near the original beach camp, and his eulogy is given by Ben, who calls Locke a man of faith and a better man than he’ll ever be.

Locke’s claim is that individuals have a duty to respect the rights of others, even in the state of nature. The source of this duty, he says, is natural law. Locke says individuals have a duty to respect the property (and lives and liberties) of others even in the state of nature, a duty he traces to natural law.

John Locke

In his major work Two Treatises of Government Locke rejects the idea of the divine right of kings, supports the idea of natural rights (especially of property), and argues for a limited constitutional government which would protect individual rights.

There are many different versions of the notion of a social contract. John Locke’s version of social contract theory is striking in saying that the only right people give up in order to enter into civil society and its benefits is the right to punish other people for violating rights.

Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable …

People made two contracts, namely social and political contracts. The Social Contract was made between the people themselves. They surrendered only some of their rights- the right of interpreting and enforcing the law of nature.

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. Locke also disagreed with Hobbes about the social contract.

Hobbes was a proponent of Absolutism, a system which placed control of the state in the hands of a single individual, a monarch free from all forms of limitations or accountability. Locke, on the other hand, favored a more open approach to state-building.

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. This would make life, liberty, and property possible. Hobbes called this agreement the “social contract.”

Perhaps the most influential writtings came from English philosopher John Locke. He expressed his view that government is obligated to serve the people, by protecting life, liberty, and property. Also, he went about limiting power of the government. He favored representative government and a rule of law.

Hobbes theory of Social Contract supports absolute sovereign without giving any value to individuals, while Locke and Rousseau supports individual than the state or the government.

order to gain security of self-preservation, Hobbes develops a conception of what forms of social organization and political system are consistent with those aims. The condition in which people give up some individual liberty in exchange for some common security is the Social Contract.

solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. What are the disadvantages of living in a time of war, according to Hobbes? In war there is no law; and where there is no law, there can be no injustice.

Throughout his life, Hobbes believed that the only true and correct form of government was the absolute monarchy. He argued this most forcefully in his landmark work, Leviathan. This belief stemmed from the central tenet of Hobbes’ natural philosophy that human beings are, at their core, selfish creatures.

According to the Social Contract Theory, we are obligated to obey the law because we each participate in a social system that promises more benefits than burdens. The benefits are the benefits of social living: We escape the state of nature and live in a society in which we are secure and enjoy basic rights.

Specifically for law enforcement, social contract theory is important to justify the power that law enforcement can exert over the population as a whole (Evans and MacMillan, 2014). The power imbalance, held by law enforcement, is part of the contract that society has agreed upon in exchange for security.

Social contract theory says that people live together in society in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political rules of behavior. The U.S. Constitution is often cited as an explicit example of part of America’s social contract. It sets out what the government can and cannot do.

What is Social Contract Theory? View that people’s moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract among them to form the society in which they live.