Thomas Hobbes claims that "where no civil law is, there is no crime," (Leviathan, Part II, Ch. 27). These circumstances existed when the state of nature was the state of war. Killing is in fact a "right of nature" for Hobbes, who imagined a primordial lawless society in which people had a right to seek only their own advantage, and wherein no bonds of trust were acknowledged or enforced. We surrender these rights, according to Hobbes, in recognition of the "law of nature," which stipulates that we seek self-preservation. This basic instinct gave rise to Hobbes's political philosophy advocating for a sovereign. The sovereign was Hobbes's touchstone individual who need not surrender his rights, but act as the enforcer of them. Despite Hobbes's acknowledgement that man's state of war permitted killing, under the natural law and rule of the sovereign, man could in fact disobey the sovereign when the matter of self-preservation was concerned (i.e., the sovereign couldn't order anyone to harm themselves).
Locke doesn't acknowledge a natural state of war at any point wherein killing was acceptable. For Locke, unlike Hobbes, morality prevailed from the inception of social life. For example, in the Declaration of Independence, which espouses Locke's views on the state of nature, it is proposed that man's rights include "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Locke proposes a moral imperative that Hobbes disavows. While Hobbes acknowledges that killing is wrong within the confines of the Social Contract, he allows that it is permissible—even rational—in the state of nature (before natural law).
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, famous social contract theorists writing in the 17th – 18th centuries, wrote extensively about man's ability to self-govern. Both Hobbes and Locke were concerned with how men acted in the state of nature. The state of nature here refers here to the social world that existed before the advent of what we would call society in contemporary terms.
Hobbes viewed the state of nature in a negative way. Essentially, he sees the state of nature as a constant state of war, where individual existence is continuously threatened. Hobbes believed that within this chaotic state of nature, man has a right to defend and protect himself. In Hobbes’s state of nature, we see the absence of law, justice, or property. Each man has a right to project his own life, at any cost. Because no supreme power or authority is present to enforce rules, hand out punishments, or see to it that there is justice, men must protect themselves. Mankind will vie for power and try to get it any way possible. Here’s another way of thinking about it: In Hobbes’ state of nature, everyone basically has a right to everything. So I have a right to kill you and you have a right to kill me.
John Locke had a different take on the state of nature and the right to kill. He believed that man had the right to kill only in one instance: to punish someone who violated the peace and what Locke called the “preservation of mankind.” So, in other words, people have the right to punish thieves and criminals because they threaten to disrupt equilibrium in the state of nature. Locke theorized that man would largely uphold obligations to one another in the state of nature, thus avoiding the chaos Hobbes saw. We have a duty not to harm people but we also have a right to protect our property, for example, which explains why Locke believed it was acceptable to punish a thief.
Hobbes and Locke agreed that the state of nature is a state of freedom and equality but they differ from there. Hobbes interpreted this as the freedom to satisfy our desires in any way possible (so, killing in the name of self-preservation) while Locke had a moral interpretation: no one has the power to hold power over someone else. Locke agreed with Hobbes about self-preservation but not if it mean harming others.
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