On Hobbes' And Locke's Viewpoints Of Freedom And A Comparison Between Them

Although"freedom"is one of the most important value at the present age, there are various different view points of"freedom", for instance, the national freedom, the personal liberty; the negative liberty, the positive liberty; political liberty , and the free will. As the founders of modern theory of freedom, Hobbes and Locke discussed"freedom"from philosophy and probed into ethical and political freedom, and established their theories of liberalism. Therefore, the study of their freedom theory would contribute to comprehend the changes of the meaning of freedom from the Middle Ages to modern society; while the comparison of freedom theory between Hobbes and Locke(the paper discusses the causes and influences of their different freedom theory) could be beneficial for us to understand modern freedom theory.This paper is composed of three chapters. To begin with, the preface of this paper sets forth the current situation of studying the subject and clarifies the two layers of the meanings of freedom before modern times: the freedom in ontological sense and the free will in individual sense. And the theory of the free will is divided into three layers: the freedom of mentality, the freedom of morality , the freedom of politic. The chapter 1 introduces briefly the historical background which Hobbes lived in and his works on"freedom"; then, illustrates three layers of his"freedom"concept; and at last, illuminates the will, desire and determination of his"freedom". The chapter 2 analyzes the freedom theory of Locke in the light of the similar structure of chapter 1, including the works of freedom, the notion of freedom, the connection between free and will, the relation between free and desire. The chapter 3 compares the freedom theory between Hobbes and Locke on the basis of above two chapters, which is the emphases of this paper, including analyzing the differences between their freedom notions, different attitudes to reason, different concepts of good and evil, and different theories and practice of political freedom. At last, this paper discusses the modern development of"free will"theory and makes comments on the influences of the freedom theory of Hobbes and Locke in the conclusion.