Locke vs. Rousseau Essay

?According to Rousseau, the original condition of mankind was a peaceful and quixotic time in which people lived solitary, rustic lives. This differs from Lockes concept of the state of nature in that, his natural condition of mankind was a state liberty in which one was able to take up ones life as they saw fit. Like Rousseaus, it was a time of peace between the people, but Lockes was not necessarily a solitary life. ?The state of nature for Locke was a state wherein there were no civil authorities or governments to punish people for transgressions against rectitudes, but was not a state without morality.It was pre-political, but was not pre-moral. In it, persons were assumed to be equal to one another, and therefore equally capable of realizing and being obliged by the law of nature. (The law of nature being one internal, which commanded that no one should harm another as concerning their life, health, liberty, or possessions p. 4). In Lockes pre-contract condition, one was not a t absolute liberty to do whatever one chose to do they were inherently bound by the law of nature. ?Rousseaus state of nature had no unavowed retention. Private property was something which arose from the stages leading up to the need for authority.Where Locke saw property as something which was naturally protected in the state of nature, Rousseau conceived of property ? the result of greed, argument and vanity- as humanities reason for abandoning such a time and entering into the contract. ?For Rousseau, the few needs of the people in the pre-contract condition were easily satisfied by nature. Because of the abundance of nature and the small size of the population, competition was non-existent, and persons rarely even saw one another, much less had reason for conflict or fear.?Moreover, for Rousseau, the undecomposable and morally pure persons in the pre-contract condition were naturally endowed with the capacity for pity, and therefore were not inclined to bring harm to one an other. There were no inherent ? laws forbidding transgressions on another it was an internal aptitude for pity. It was the division of labor (once families and communities had developed and leisure time had resulted) that led to value and property, whereas Locke saw property as something that was existent in the natural condition.