How Hobbes' and Locke's Differing Accounts on Property Rationalize the Need for a Sovereign

    Hobbes argues, to the end of pushing for a unitary and ultimate sovereign, that man’s state of nature is a constant state of war. This is because any period of time where each man is only secure by way of his own strength/possessions (which is the Hobbesian state of nature), man will constantly be disposed to fight for the sake of his own security or gain. If this is true, it’s a compelling (in fact, imperative) reason to join civil society, even under Hobbes’ ideal of an absolute higher power in the commonwealth. Locke’s picture of the state of nature doesn’t initially necessitate the need for such a sovereign, because it was possible (prior to the formulation of money) for the state of nature to be a state of peace. 


    As I understood it, the reason why Locke and Hobbes differ here is because of their contrasting views on property and possession in the natural state. For Locke, the most intuitive form of property is yourself: “every man has a ‘property’ in his own ‘person” (26). Property also includes anything that is appropriated for self-sustenance (limited to the amount that is useful to you without spoiling), and any offspring of labor. You have the rights to any benefits resulting from your toil. The abundance of what the Creator endowed us with meant that, when goods were still valued proportional to their use, cumulative overconsumption was not possible. Without scarcity, there is no competition, and so the state of nature may be a state of peace. For Hobbes, while property is not even an aspect of the state of nature, he says that “every man has the right to everything, even to one another’s body” (14.4). Because of this, there is always a lack of security, yielding a constant state of war. 


    Therefore, I think the argument for a sovereign by Locke comes, not from the purported ‘state of nature = state of war’, but instead from the development of money, which enabled man to enlarge his possessions beyond what was immediately useful (thereby leading to competition and the need for arbitration). Conversely, for Hobbes, the state of nature in and of itself is the ultimate rationalization for entering the social contract. 


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    A tangential question I had regarding Locke’s claim that, “though man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it” (6): 

    

    Does this imply that suicide is permissible if for some greater good? Hobbes does not include any such caveat in his definition. Or is this rhetorical, because only the Creator would be able to determine what a ‘nobler use’ than a man’s existence may be? 


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