Conclusion

Images: Banksy. 

The purpose of this blog has been to inform the reader about three of the most ground-breaking political philosophers of the Pre-Modern era. Its goal was in no way to be exhaustive but rather to point out the parallel concerns that have interested thinkers who lived ages apart. What should strike the reader is the variety with which these thinkers have answered similar questions: why do men come together in polities, what legitimizes authority, and what societal values ought to be protected? 

If we retrace our steps we see that for Rousseau freedom was the paramount virtue and the chief goal of politics was to instil people with the right kind of freedom, and not just to supply them with the limited elbowroom of the natural condition. Morality would then spring from the actions of these transformed human beings. According to Hobbes, on the other hand, morality could only be squeezed out of people using a massive amount of pressure. The more powerful the Leviathan, the more obedient and safe its people were. The only thing that a government should guarantee is safety from external and internal corrosion. Though Hobbes and Rousseau probably find themselves on the extreme ends of the spectrum at least they find themselves on the same scale, speaking the same language, whereas Locke seems to occupy a position outside of their paradigm. Both Rousseau and Hobbes are extreme in their ideas. They adhere to some kind of truth: that morality is either the product of liberated -republican- thought or that it comes about by extortion. 

Locke does no such thing and perhaps that is why now, post-French revolution and post WWI and II, in this world that is predominantly characterized by disillusion and scepticism Locke's ideas are the ones that have survived in their most concrete form. To adhere to any kind of truth too firmly is to risk everything. Locke's theory does not preach any truth except, perhaps, for toleration. Rather it supplies a blueprint for dealing with people and living in complex, multi-cultural, societies; societies where people may have nothing in common, not even their values. It protects individuals from each other, as much as from their government. Ironically, the right to own property, which was meant to do away with hunger and to empower the citizen, has been misused to throw up walls between people. Perhaps we should consider tearing them dow.