Locke and Rousseau on the Nature of Government

Specific texts such as Locke's The Second Treatise on Civil Government and Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Discourse on the Political Economy, and On the Social Contract will be employed in the report. Additionally, reference to materials discussed in the class will be made. The critical difference between the two theorists to be explicated herein is that Rousseau argued for a far more active role for citizens than did Locke (Rousseau, 1987, p. 176).

During the February 20, 2004 Friday Lecture, Locke's belief that we know through the exercise of the faculty of reason rather than faith was discussed, leading to the conclusion that reason is in the center of Locke's philosophy. Locke

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mily, and one's property. Rousseau (1987) said that the social contract was necessary because society breeds war (here he agreed with Hobbes on the probability that human beings would turn to violence and anarchy in order to gain authority and acquire possessions). Because society breeds war, Rousseau (1987) argued that there is a demand implicit in society for a system of law to impose law and tranquility, leading to an agreement between men to live under a political system. The nature of this social contract invariably depends on the ability of men to negotiate rights, the distribution of power, and societal control. Here, Rousseau (1987) responded to earlier ideas and asserted that while sovereignty must be absolute or nothing, but that it was possible for men to be at once free and members of a political society. Rousseau (1987) (in both The Social Contract and The Discourses) saw dictatorship as an unacceptable system of government which should be permitted only for a very brief period. Were dictatorships to be adopted on a permanent basis, Rousseau (1987) said that any dictatorship will become either tyrannical or idle. Nevertheless, Rousseau (1973) recognized that there were those occasions in the historic
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Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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