these rights can still be violated and that brings about another Natural Right, that of judgment
and punishment. 6 In this manner, for Locke the state of war is not the equivalent of the State
of Nature as with Hobbes but rather the condition when force is used, either to infringe or to
protect one’s rights, without been legitimized by an authority and the importance of that lies
on its applicability to civil society as well. 7 Effectively, the social contract is for both the
passing of this right to judgement (law) and the right of punishment (force) to a sovereign
authority, the state, in order to preserve peace. Hence, Max Weber’s definition of the state
as a community that has the monopoly of violence in a given territory. 8 These different views
of human nature and its manifestation in the State of Nature have profound implications
regarding the type of government Hobbes and Locke are proposing.
For Hobbes, regardless if is a Monarch or a body of elected government officials, the
sovereign- being the only one who remains in the state of nature by enabling everyone else
to make the transition to civil society of which he is the protector- is absolute and possesses
all rights including the power of law which becomes the product of sovereign’s reason which
is established as definitive since it cannot be that anyone’s reason can produce law. Thus,
justice becomes the prerogative of the sovereign and cannot serve as a restriction to his
authority, and neither can Natural Law which is equated with civil law since it is, for Hobbes,
a theorem (a mental enterprise). Consequently, the sovereign authorises religious doctrines;
invades property in the name of common good (judged by himself); can suppress free speech
in the name of peace and security; and even the right to life is not immune since the sovereign
processes the ultimate standard of reason and judgment and will not do something
6 McClelland, pp. 233-234. 7 Robert A. Goldwin, ’Locke's State of Nature in Political Society’, The Western Political Quarterly, 29.1 (1976), 126-135 (p. 127). 8 See, Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (Philadelphia, Fortress Press 1965).
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