Locke, Rousseau & Mill on Government

John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill are three of the philosophers who have contributed much to the understanding of the role of government in civil society and the distinction between the rights of the individual and the power of the state. This brief essay will consider the views presented by each of these philosophers.

It should first be noted that Locke (1632-1704) (238) was an English philosopher of the Enlightenment who lived through the Glorious Revolution and saw the curtailment of the powers of the British sovereign. In contrast, Rousseau (1712-1778) lived in the later Enlightenment during the years immediately preceding the French Revolution. Finally, Mill (1806-1873) was a Victorian Englishman who lived in an era in which individualism and individual rights came into even sharper focus than they had during the Enlightenment. Consequently, the views of these thinkers on this topic were very much influenced by the socio-political circumstances in which they lived.

John Locke (242) saw society as entered into voluntarily, arguing that the conjugal bonds between husband and wife were replicated to a degree in political society or in the commonwealth. For Locke (245), men who joined to create a civil society give up much of their autonomy and individual rights as enjoyed in nature. By establishing laws, designating a monarch or some other institution of government, men a

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au (356) recognized that the passage of man from a state of nature to the civil state brought about remarkable changes in human beings. Rousseau felt that what man acquires in the civil state is nothing less than moral liberty which made man master of himself. Government, in Rousseau's (358) view, was ideally an agent that possessed the qualities of a moral person whose life is in the union of its members. The body politic was seen by Rousseau (358) as acquiring power over its members, but also as having limited powers. Rousseau's (358) construction of civil society and of government was a construction in which the principles of justice, equity, and fair play were important. While the state had sovereign powers over its members, there were finite limits to these powers which were of necessity meant to be exercised equitably. In essence, Rousseau (359) believed strongly that the State needed to ensure that each and everyone of its individual members received the same treatment, had the same basic rights, and were entitled to identical protection under the law. Here again, Rousseau appears to agree with Locke in his analysis of the rights of individuals and the limits placed on those rights by social contracts or compacts.
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Approximate Word count = 1410
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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