Locke and Hobbes "View of Justice"

Final Topi for Rational Animal Locke and Hobbes "View of Justice When discussing the concept of justice it would be difficult to find two philosophers who present such widely divergent views than Thomas Hobbes and John Locke . Although Locke was influenced by Hobbes ' writings and philosophies , his conclusions regarding both the "state of nature and the essentially character of ethics and social morality are , in most regards , in opposition to Hobbes more cynical interpretation and definition of justice . For Hobbes , justice involves a vision of human society as "a war of

each against all a condition in which each person has a right to all things (Ewin 93 ) and because , according to Hobbes there is in nature an absence of justice and ethical law , justice is best envisioned as "the condition that obtains between sovereign states a condition in which each is his own judge (Ewin 93 ) and this assumption , of course , relies to a great extent on the notion of power

The idea of power find expression , morally , not only in interpersonal relationships , but in civic relationships for Hobbes , there must be authority to administer justice where it is absent in a state of nature . What Hobbes has created is , in effect "a reductio argument to show the necessity of authority relationships in any social life (Ewin 94 ) and it is from these authorities that justice is both defined and enforced upon an essentially amoral or even immoral universe . Although Hobbes ' language on the subject of the state of nature may seem dense and hard to penetrate , his conclusions are essentially simple : that the laws of nature must only be observed "as they subject us not to any incommodity , that in our own judgment may arise , by the neglect thereof in those towards whom we observe them (Ewin 118 ) but Hobbes is certainly not promoting or extending the idea that in the state of nature anything like an absolute sense of justice exists . instead , it is a war for power and the ability to define justice and the state of moral and ethical determinations

Hobbes turns to the concept of a "leviathan " or a form of social-poltical construct (a State ) which would act as the communal opposition to the inherently destructive natural instincts for selfishness and pursuit of individual hedonism that arise from the state of nature . Within the context of the relationship between individual desires and the power of the state , the individual must submit to the will of the State

As a matter of justice[ .] Communal life in the face of disagreement requires that some submit to others . If we are to have communal life that submission is inescapable . The question to be asked is whether the procedure determining who submits to whom is a just one (Ewin 201

For Hobbes , notions of freedom , justice , personal liberty , and personal property are not rooted in nature but constructed from human rationality in the face of lawless nature . The adjudication and enforcement of any system of justice...