Hobbes And Locke As Early Liberal Thinkers ✓ Solved

Hobbes and Locke can be thought of as early liberal thinkers

Hobbes and Locke can be thought of as early liberal thinkers. Examine the role of negative liberty for Locke and Hobbes. What freedoms can citizens reasonably expect from their governments? What obligations do citizens have to each other and to the common wealth? Write an essay of at least 3-4 pages discussing the Big Sort. What do you think and how do you expect it will further impact American society?

Paper For Above Instructions

Thesis

While both Hobbes and Locke ground political authority in social contract thinking, they articulate distinct visions of negative liberty—Hobbes emphasizing security from violent interference and Locke focusing on protection of natural rights (life, liberty, property); together their theories imply both limits on government intrusion and reciprocal civic obligations to the commonwealth. Contemporary social phenomena such as the "Big Sort" erode shared public goods and mutual obligations, threatening the conditions under which negative liberty and liberal order are sustained.

Negative Liberty in Hobbes and Locke

Isaac Berlin’s distinction between negative and positive liberty helps clarify Hobbes’s and Locke’s differences (Berlin, 1958). For Hobbes, negative liberty primarily means freedom from the arbitrary threat of others: in the state of nature there is "no place for industry" because life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Hobbes, 1651). To secure negative liberty, individuals cede certain rights to a sovereign whose monopoly on legitimate force prevents violent interference among citizens (Hobbes, 1651). Thus Hobbesian negative liberty is procedural and security-oriented: citizens can expect protection from physical harm and enforced peace as the core governmental obligation (Hobbes, 1651).

Locke frames negative liberty in terms of natural rights. For Locke, human beings possess inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property in the state of nature; government exists to secure those rights through impartial rule of law (Locke, 1689). Negative liberty in Locke’s account is primarily the absence of unlawful interference with one’s person and possessions. Citizens can reasonably expect a government limited by consent, separation of powers, and rule of law—institutions that minimize arbitrary intrusion while protecting property and personal autonomy (Locke, 1689).

Comparing Freedoms and Civic Obligations

Both theorists converge on limited government as necessary to negative liberty, but they diverge on the source and scope of obligations. Hobbes places supreme priority on security: citizens’ chief obligation is acquiescence to sovereign authority to avoid the chaos of the state of nature (Hobbes, 1651). Locke, by contrast, grounds obligations in mutual preservation of rights: citizens owe one another respect for life, liberty, and property and have a duty to uphold institutions that protect these goods (Locke, 1689).

From these positions, citizens can reasonably expect that governments will refrain from arbitrary arrests, unlawful seizures, and summary punishments (negative liberties), while actively securing public order and property rights (Hobbes; Locke). The reciprocal obligations include paying taxes or contributions to public goods, obeying laws that protect others’ rights, and participating in civic processes that sustain the commonwealth (Rawls, 1971; Putnam, 2000). Where Hobbesian stability-focused obligations emphasize obedience, Lockean obligations emphasize stewardship of institutions that protect mutually recognized rights.

The Big Sort: Definition and Mechanisms

The "Big Sort" describes the demographic and attitudinal clustering by which Americans increasingly live among like-minded people, reducing cross-cutting social ties (Bishop & Cushing, 2008). Mechanisms include residential self-selection, economic stratification, school choice, media consumption, and social networks that reinforce homogeneity (Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2011). The result is political and cultural enclaves with higher intra-group trust and lower inter-group contact—a process with wide institutional consequences.

Impacts of the Big Sort on Negative Liberty and Civic Obligations

The Big Sort undermines the shared public space required for stable expectations about negative liberty. When communities homogenize ideologically, the social norms enforcing respect for opposing perspectives weaken; majorities in localities may support policies that restrict dissent or marginalize out-groups, testing the limits of negative liberty (McCarty, Poole, & Rosenthal, 2006). Moreover, polarization makes consensus about basic rules of fairness and impartial law enforcement harder to sustain (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018).

Obligations to the commonwealth—taxation, public investment, tolerance—are eroded by sorting. Putnam’s analysis of declining bridging social capital shows that segregated communities invest less in public goods that benefit diverse populations (Putnam, 2000). If citizens live only among like-minded peers, they may rationalize lower contributions to federally redistributive schemes or resist policies that protect minorities, thereby weakening the institutional scaffolding Lockean theory requires for negative liberty protection (Fiorina, Abrams, & Pope, 2005).

Policy and Normative Implications

To preserve negative liberty in the face of the Big Sort, government must reaffirm impartial rule of law and strengthen institutions that mediate social fragmentation. This includes ensuring robust civil liberties protections, nonpartisan law enforcement, and institutional checks that prevent majorities from curtailing dissent (Rawls, 1971; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018). Encouraging cross-cutting associations—integrated schools, civic forums, and pluralistic media ecosystems—can rebuild bridging capital (Putnam, 2000; Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2011).

Normatively, citizens have reciprocal obligations: they must respect legal protections for minorities, participate in public life, and support institutions that protect negative liberty for all. The Hobbesian lesson—that unchecked fragmentation breeds insecurity—recommends prioritizing stable public order, but Locke’s insistence on rights demands that order be achieved without undermining individual freedoms (Hobbes, 1651; Locke, 1689).

Conclusion

Hobbes and Locke provide complementary warnings and prescriptions for negative liberty: security and rights must be balanced. The Big Sort threatens the social and institutional conditions that sustain both—by hollowing out bridging ties, enabling majoritarian excesses, and making impartial governance more difficult. Protecting negative liberty going forward requires institutional reinforcement of the rule of law, renewed investment in cross-cutting civic spaces, and a recommitment by citizens to obligations that sustain the commonwealth.

References

  • Bishop, B., & Cushing, R. (2008). The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
  • Berlin, I. (1958). Two Concepts of Liberty. In I. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford University Press.
  • Fiorina, M. P., Abrams, S. J., & Pope, J. C. (2005). Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. Pearson Longman.
  • Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2011). Ideological Segregation Online and Offline. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(4), 1799–1839.
  • Hobbes, T. (1651). Leviathan.
  • Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. Crown.
  • Locke, J. (1689). Two Treatises of Government.
  • McCarty, N., Poole, K. T., & Rosenthal, H. (2006). Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. MIT Press.
  • Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster.
  • Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press.

Related Assignments