| Thomas Hobbes |
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| Focus:
State of nature, without government
Major Work: Leviathan, 1651 |
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| "... the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. ... The condition of man ... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone." | |
| John Locke |
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| Focus:
Life, liberty and property
Major Works: Two Treatises of Government, 1679 |
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"Government has no other end, but the preservation of property." "The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom." |
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| John Stuart Mill |
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| Focus:
Individuals possess an inherent right of freedom
Major Work: On Liberty, 1869 |
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| "The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself." | |
| Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
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| Focus:
Individuals
form societies to secure protection of their liberties and property
Major Work: On the Social Contract, 1762
"Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers." "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles." |
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| Baron
de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat
Focus: A government should maintain a separation of powers, preventing any one branch from gaining too much power
Major Work: The Spirit of Laws, 1748 "Liberty is the right to do what the law permits." "In the state of nature...all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law." "In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also is despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing." |
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