Thomas Hobbes, “The State of Nature and the Basis of Obligation”
In these extracts, taken from Leviathan, one of the most important works in Western political theory, Thomas
Hobbes helps lay the groundwork for the emergence of the first political ideology, liberalism. Hobbes himself
was not a liberal; indeed, he advocated a form of political absolutism antithetical to liberals. Nevertheless, a
number of Hobbes’s foundational premises would prove definitional for later advocates of liberalism. Hobbes
was one of the pioneers of the idea that human beings should begin thinking about politics as practiced within
civil society by imagining a world which preceded it, a “state of nature” inhabited by free and equal individuals.
These assumptions—of individual freedom and equality—are foundational for liberalism. Similarly, many
liberals would later follow Hobbes in arguing that the political world was an artificial construct that people
entered into by means of a “social contract” that led them out of the state of nature through a voluntary act of
self-assumed obligation. This means that the parameters of political power are spelled out through an agreement
that is authorized by the people who enter into it, and that such a contractual agreement specifies the extent of
the government’s powers over individuals. Absent such voluntary agreement, many liberals argue, political
power is illegitimate.
However, it is the sort of contract, or “covenant” that Hobbes imagines will inevitably be agreed to by
individuals in a state of nature that distinguishes his position from a clearly recognizable “liberal” one. Hobbes
memorably described the state of nature as a “war of all against all,” in which none of the amenities of society
could be created because it would be impossible for people to trust each other enough to cooperate. Instead, he
depicted life in the state of nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (p. 58). Nevertheless, Hobbes
believed that people could collectively use their capacity for rationality to reason their way out of this world, by
discovering “articles of peace,” “precepts,” or “general rules of reason”—which Hobbes calls “laws of nature”
(p. 59). These “laws of nature” suggest that if others are willing to transfer their right of nature—in effect, their
right of doing whatever they deem necessary to preserve their life in the state of nature—one should be willing
to do the same. He believes that the result of this will be the creation of a new artificial body, rationally arrived
at by rational, fearful and self-interested individuals. This is the sovereign, or “leviathan,” whose only task is to
keep everyone safe, which is precisely what they lacked in the state of nature. The catch, of course, is that this
sovereign has been authorized by these individuals to do whatever it deems necessary to provide for the general
peace and security of society, and is subject only to this constraint. That is, it has virtually unlimited or absolute
power, so long as it keeps the peace.
John Locke, “Toleration and Government”
It would be difficult to overestimate John Locke’s importance in the development of the political ideology we
have come to call liberalism. The selections from Locke’s work presented here, from A Letter Concerning
Toleration and the Second Treatise of Government demonstrate the enormity of that influence. In
the Letter Locke makes one of the most powerful arguments ever offered for the separation of church and state,
one of the hallmarks of liberalism, and of political modernity. He rejects arguments for religious conformity by
de-politicizing religion and making it a private matter of individual conscience. This was especially important in
the aftermath of the wars of religion that had ravaged Europe. The question driving these wars was essentially
what the official state religion would be in particular countries. In Locke’s own time, this problem had been at
the heart of the English Civil War, and later in the controversy surrounding Protestant King Charles II, his
Catholic brother James II, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Locke argued that the state had no legitimate
business determining the religious beliefs of its citizens; its power “neither can nor ought in any manner to be
extended to the salvation of souls” (p. 64). The power of the state, that is, “relates only to men’s civil interests,
is confined to the care of the things of this world, and hath nothing to do with the world to come” (p. 65).
Instead, Locke maintains, the state should treat churches as voluntary associations of free individuals making
their best assessments of what will be most conducive to saving their souls, and grant broad toleration of a
multiplicity of religious sects. This toleration was not absolute—Locke infamously denied it to Catholics
(because they were beholden to the Pope, not to their own king and country), and to atheists (who, since they
didn’t believe in God, could never be trusted). However, even here Locke’s arguments are important, because
they point out that liberal religious tolerance was not absolute at its inception; and it never has been.
In the Second Treatise, Locke would start out with a similar set of assumptions about the freedom and equality
of human beings in the “state of nature” as his predecessor, Thomas Hobbes, but draw liberal conclusions that
differed radically from Hobbes’s authoritarian ones. For Locke, the state of nature is governed by natural law,
or God’s law, which has substantive moral content. Natural law specifies certain natural rights (life, liberty, and
property) that all individuals possess, at least theoretically. These rights come directly from God, who also tells
us we ought not to deprive other people of their right to the same. On Locke’s account, human beings are
possessed of sufficient rationality to ascertain God’s law, which therefore effectively governs the state of
nature. At a general level (and unlike for Hobbes), this makes the state of nature one of “liberty,” but not
“licence,” because it is governed by God’s law (p. 68). Nevertheless, Locke notes that the state of nature has a
number of “inconveniences” that make it desirable for human beings to exit it. He notes that many people
interpret natural law in ways that are biased in their own interest. The state of nature, then, lacks an impartial
judge and an overarching executive force to carry out the rulings any such judge would make. Hence people
create the artificial construct known as political society through a mechanism of voluntary consent, known as
the social contract. However, government’s purposes are strictly limited; it is meant simply to guarantee and
protect the natural rights that individuals had in the state of nature. Moreover, since this is true, the failure of
any government to protect these natural rights over an extended period of time gives the people a legitimate
right of revolution to change it, as the last portion of Locke’s work excerpted in this reading makes clear.
Finally, Locke’s chapter, “Of Property,” in the Second Treatise, would prove profoundly influential for the
development of liberal economic theory. In it, Locke argues that, while “God gave the world to men in
common…it cannot be supposed he meant is should always remain common and uncultivated.” Rather, Locke
insists, God really gave the earth to the “industrious and rational,” and he “commanded…him to labour” (p. 73).
Thus by laboring, especially on the land, people demonstrated their industrious and rational capacities, and
carried out God’s will. Moreover, by mixing their “property in the person” with common property external to
them, they transformed it into their own private property. For Locke, however, this was a “win-win” situation,
because laboring on land, for example, improved its value enormously, and when the produce of that private
property was productively employed via trading and selling, it was a net benefit to all members of society, he
believed. All of these economic arguments would be vital for later liberals.
Thomas Paine, “Government, Rights, and the Freedom of Generations”
This reading combines excerpts from two works by Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776), and The Rights of
Man (1791-1792). Common Sense was a wildly bestselling pamphlet that has been called the tinderbox of the
American Revolution. In it, Paine elaborates some of the foundational precepts of classical liberalism in
memorable language. Rather than describing government as natural and essential to the development of human
potential and purposes Paine calls it “a necessary evil.” It is “the badge of lost innocence”—simultaneously
proof of humans’ inability to refrain from vice, and the mechanism needed to “supply the defect [i.e., lack] of
moral virtue” that plagues us all (p. 79). The freedom and security of individuals are government’s true (and
limited) purposes. In The Rights of Man, Paine argues, furthermore, that each generation has the right to
reconstitute government when it sees fit to do so, unencumbered by the will of preceding generations, whose
claims cease when they are no longer alive. As Paine puts it, in response to his great adversary and the founder
of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke: “I am contending for the rights of theliving…and Mr. Burke is
contending for the authority of the dead over the rights and freedom of the living" (pp. 80-81).
“Declaration of Independence of the United States”
The Declaration (1776) was written mainly by Thomas Jefferson, and provides the justificatory rationale for the
American Colonies’ separation from Great Britain. The most famous lines from the Declaration, as well as a
number of its most basic assumptions, are strikingly Lockean. Like Locke, Jefferson argues that all men are
born equal; endowed by God with certain natural rights (Jefferson included life and liberty here, but changed
Locke’s “Property” to “the pursuit of Happiness”). And, as Locke had done, Jefferson insisted that
government’s true purpose was to protect these pre-political, natural rights, and defended a right to revolution if
they are violated by government. Furthermore, these truth are meant to be “self-evident,” or easily apprehended
by all human beings, much as Locke understood the precepts of natural law. These assumptions make
the Declaration, in many ways, a strikingly liberal document. At the same time, placed in context,
theDeclaration highlights some of the internal tensions that have been inherent in liberalism from the
beginning. “All men,” of course, excluded all women from “self-evident” equality. Also, like many of the
Founders, Jefferson was a slave owner until the day he died, and wrote at length to justify slavery and the
supposed inferiority of black people in his Notes on the State of Virginia(1784). He later recanted many of the
views that we would now call racist. In this respect, he was like Locke, himself, who held stock in a slave
trading company, and helped draw up the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which established a slave
owning society in that colony. This cannot be ignored. Nevertheless, the doctrine of universal equality, like the
proverbial genie, proved very difficult to put back in the bottle once it had been let out, or in this case written
down in a foundational American document. Successive generations of reformers, from abolitionists,
suffragists, and civil rights advocates would all return to the Declaration as their touchstone, and point out the
painful gap that existed between American theory and practice. Oftentimes, their efforts have eventually been
successful, in no small part because a stated commitment to universality is a powerful tool in the hands of those
advocating change.
“Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens”
Promulgated by the National Assembly in France at the outset of the French Revolution, the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of Citizens would immediately prove to be a world-transforming document. In one fell
swoop, the Declaration attacked the pillars of the so-called ancien régime (or “old order”) in France.
Underpinned by Enlightenment principles of rationality, theDeclarationstruck at the heart of aristocratic
privilege, which relied on ascribed status (or being born into this or that social rank), as the basis for
determining individuals’ rights, or lack of them. It attacked political absolutism, or the notion that the king was
all-powerful and above the law. And, finally, it struck at the notion of religious conformity, or the idea that all
people in society had to affirm the same set of religious beliefs. Moreover, unlike the American Revolution, the
French Revolution and Declaration would help to remake the modern world in very short order. This was
because late eighteenth-century France was a military superpower and a large empire. And, as such, it waged
war on all of Europe during the French Revolution, effectively destroying not only the old order in France, but
on much of the European continent, as well, while spreading the principles of the Declaration.And, as with the
American Declaration of Independence, the principles laid out in the French Declaration soon went far beyond
their authors’ intent. For example, Olympe de Gouges railed against the fact that women were excluded from
civil and political rights, and wrote a “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen” (1791; see
selection 8.53). She was executed at the guillotine, but her ideas did not perish with her. Similarly—and
ironically—the principles of the Declaration were used immediately by African slaves in the French colony of
Haiti. There, the slave Toussaint L’ouverture led a revolt that expelled the French from the colony and led to
Haitian independence; it was a revolt based on the Revolution’s own Enlightenment principles of “Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity.”
Adam Smith, “Private Profit, Public Good”
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, published in the year Americans declared their independence (1776), is
considered the quintessential defense of laissez faire (“leave it alone”) capitalism. Arguing against
mercantilism, Smith recommended an economic policy in which free and equal individuals competed in the
marketplace to sell their goods. Smith believed that by unshackling people from government-imposed economic
restrictions and allowing them to compete for profits, the result would be more, better, and cheaper products
that would in turn benefit society, almost as if their distribution had been guided by an “invisible hand.” In this
way, he argued that the public good would emerge as an unintended but beneficial consequence of private, selfinterested behavior. As a classical liberal, Smith insisted that the government had no business promoting some
substantive conception of the good life. Rather, the minimal role of government was largely to act like an
umpire, or neutral arbiter within a capitalist society, strictly enforcing justice by protecting property rights and
ensuring order, thereby making certain that one competitor in the “race for wealth and preferment,” as he called
it, not gain unfair and illegal competitive advantage over others. Additionally, government should provide for
the common defense, create infrastructure (which Smith called “public works”) to facilitate exchange, and
(interestingly), at least partially subsidize public education to mitigate the mind- numbing consequences of the
division of labor on workers. In this selection from The Wealth of Nations, Smith argues that there is a
“propensity in human nature” to “truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another” which distinguishes us
from other animals (p. 89). Moreover, when it comes to acting on this dimension of human nature, Smith argues
that it is not to the “humanity” of our fellow citizens that we should appeal, but rather their self-interest: “It is
not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their
regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to
them of our own necessities but of their advantages” (p. 89).
John Stuart Mill, “Liberty and Individuality”
John Stuart Mill was the single most influential liberal thinker of the 19th century, and his book, On
Liberty (1859), is one of the true classics in the liberal canon. Echoing his friend de Tocqueville, Mill argues
that the greatest threat to people in modern, increasingly representative democracies was not the government,
itself, but rather the despotism of public opinion, with its tendency towards producing mind-numbing
conformity in thought and behavior. Mill laments that the masses of mankind are ascendant, with the result that
“public opinion now rules the world,” and “individuals are lost in the crowd.” The result for Mill was as
Tocqueville had feared: a tyranny of the majority understood as a form of psychological coercion, culminating
in the rule by a “collective mediocrity,” which is invariably “mediocre government” (p. 98). It was against this
backdrop that Mill articulates his defense of a maximal level of individual liberty, subject only to limitations
imposed by the “harm principle.” As Mill puts it: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully
exercised over any member of or a civilized community against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own
good, ether physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant” (p. 95). The important point to be made here is that
Mill understood the value of individual liberty to be crucial for self-development, to be sure, but it was equally
important for society as a whole, especially a democratic society with a representative government. Put
differently, Mill regarded liberty as having utility, not just for individuals, but for society as a whole. Indeed, as
the second portion of the reading demonstrates, Mill argues that “liberty of thought and discussion” were not
only good for individual cultivation, they also lead to a beneficial competition in a free marketplace of ideas
that is conducive to social and political progress. Mill maintains that, absent liberty, blind conformity to a few
unchallenged ideas will ensue in ways that will lead to poor representative government. Individual liberty, then,
has utility for liberal democracy, and as Mill maintained: “I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical
questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive
being” (p. 95).
William Graham Sumner, “According to the Fitness of Things”
This selection represents the work of the best-known American proponent of “Social Darwinism,” William
Graham Sumner. The book from which these selections are taken is entitled What Social Classes Owe to Each
Other, and the short answer to that question for Sumner is simple: nothing, except to refrain from using the
power of the government for their own advantage. The Social Darwinists adapted Darwin’s theory of evolution
and natural selection to social and political life, and concluded that it would be unjust for government to
intervene in the struggle for existence, and unwise for private charity to do so, even if such action was
voluntary. Like his chief intellectual influence, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (who coined the term
“survival of the fittest”), Sumner is best understood as a neoclassical liberal who believed that government
should perform only the most minimal of functions, that of protecting men’s property and promoting individual
security (Sumner added that it should also protect “the honor of women”). Outside of this, Sumner believed that
government should get out of the way, and let people compete in the marketplace for their very survival. The
strong and clever would thrive and prosper, the weak and dull would become impoverished and perish, and this
was the way it should be. As Sumner put it: “Nature’s remedies against vice are terrible. She removes the
victims without pity. A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency
of things. Nature had set upon him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which
have survived their usefulness” (p. 104).
T. H. Green, “Liberalism and Positive Freedom”
The late 19th century British philosopher Thomas Hill Green was one of the most influential developers of
“welfare liberalism” (so-called because it is said to be concerned with the well-being or “well-faring” of
individuals). Green is best known for the distinction he draws between “negative freedom” and “positive
freedom.” The notion of negative freedom goes all the way back to Hobbes, who argued that people are free so
long as there is absence of external impediments or restraints to their actions. This is often expressed as
“freedom from”; for example, one is free if one is free from chains or jail. In contrast, “positive freedom,” as
Green puts it, is the “power or capacity of doing or enjoying something” (p. 106). That is, positive freedom is
“freedom to”; it is not merely the absence of constraints on action, but the real capacity to develop one’s
abilities and capacities as one sees fit. Contrary to classical liberals like Locke, and their neoclassical heirs like
Sumner, this distinction leads Green to argue that “the mere removal of compulsion, the mere enabling of a man
to do as he likes, is in itself no contribution to true freedom.” Instead, for Green, “the ideal of true freedom is
the maximum power for all members of human society alike to make the best of themselves” (p. 106). The
difference between classical and neoclassical liberals (on the one hand) and welfare liberals (on the other) is
illustrated by the issue of poverty. For classical and neoclassical liberals, the fact that a child is born into
poverty does not diminish their freedom; poverty is not like jail. For welfare liberals, poverty radically restricts
the range of one’s options in life, one’s real freedom, and is therefore a lot like jail. Underlying Green’s
distinction between positive and negative liberty, therefore, is an assumption that we all have “higher” and
“lower” selves. The former is concerned with our noblest ideals and actions, and can only be achieved in society
with the cooperation of others; while the latter is focused purely on our relativistic and isolated assessments of
pain and pleasure, or self interest. The political upshot of Green’s philosophical distinction between positive
and negative freedom is clear: The government should play an active role by intervening with laws to create
positive freedom for all citizens in society. It should regulate freedom of contract pertaining to maximum hours,
minimum wage, health and safety, child labor, and the like. It should fund public education, create hospitals and
social programs for the poor; and it should have the ability to progressively tax the income and regulate the
property of its citizen to achieve such ends.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “New Deal Liberalism: A Defense”
This is the text of a speech given by Roosevelt in 1936, on the eve of his election to a second term as President
of the United States. Roosevelt’s first term had been marked by the launching of the “New Deal,” the greatest
attempt to apply the principles of “welfare liberalism” in America, after the stock market crash of 1929
precipitated the Great Depression. During his own time and since, Roosevelt’s enemies castigated him as a
“socialist,” but this is an unfounded and uninformed description of his position. As a welfare liberal, Roosevelt
did not wish to replace capitalism with a system of publically owned and democratically controlled economic
enterprises. Rather, like all welfare liberals, Roosevelt accepted a capitalist economic system predicated on
private ownership of the means of production and market competition. What he sought with the New Deal was,
rather, to use government actively to regulate economic competition and address the worst social ills and
individual injuries caused by capitalism. In this respect, it is interesting to note that one of the leading figures in
the rise of the modern welfare state was Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898). Germany’s conservative, harshly anti-
socialist “Iron Chancellor.” Bismarck believed that the best way to prevent the emergence of socialism was to
create a strong welfare state to curb the excesses of capitalism. While this may seem strange to students these
days, it also helps explain why welfare liberals have also been simultaneously attacked by not only
conservatives from the right but by socialists and communist to their ideological left. According to their
socialist critics, welfare liberals are those who saved capitalism rather than seeking to destroy it.
Donald Allen, “Paternalism vs. Democracy: A Libertarian View”
In this essay, Donald Allen presents a libertarian view of freedom, which he defends against what he sees as the
dangers of a paternalistic state. Allen fears a government that acts increasingly like a parent, treating its citizens
like children and depriving them of basic freedoms, supposedly for their own good. This is contrary to the
libertarian vision—which is really just a stark form of neoclassical liberalism—that the state should act merely
as a “nightwatchman,” protecting only the security and property of individuals and refraining from the pursuit
of any broader moral purposes. Interestingly, Allen’s model for this argument is John Stuart Mill, whom he
explicitly cites; and specifically Mill’s idea of the “harm principle.” Like Mill, Allen argues that the state has no
business interfering with people engaged in actions whose consequences only affect them; it can only
legitimately pass laws to limit the actions of individuals when they affect others in a harmful way. Similarly,
like Mill and Tocqueville, Allen fears a “tyranny of the majority” in democratic societies, and links his defense
of individual liberty to a defense of democracy, by invoking the importance of diversity for the healthy
functioning of a free marketplace of ideas, which he believes is essential for a flourishing democracy: “If it is to
survive, and flourish, democracy requires an intelligent and informed citizenry, just as the free market requires
intelligent and informed consumers” (p. 117). Because they seek to “dam and channel the free flow of
information as they see fit,” Allen maintains, the defenders of state-sponsored paternalism “are inherently antidemocratic” (p. 115).
Murray Rothbard, “Libertarian Anarchism”
In this essay, the late economist Murray Rothbard takes neoclassical liberalism to what he believes to be its
logical libertarian conclusion. Rothbard begins with what he claims all libertarians share in common, the socalled “nonaggression axiom,” which he defines as opposition to “the use or threat of physical violence against
the person or property of someone else” (p. 120). He then goes on to depict the state as “the one central,
dominant, and overriding aggressor upon all of these rights” (p. 120). For example, the state effectively
aggresses upon individuals when it violates their civil liberties, preventing them (for example) from absolute
unregulated freedom of speech and publication, and preventing them from engaging in “victimless” behavior
like watching pornography or using drugs. Similarly, it engages in “mass murder” every time it conducts a war.
Simultaneously every government economic regulation, subsidy, or tax—in fact, any diminution of a
completely free market economy by the state—is effectively an attack on individuals, an attempt to diminish
their freedom by robbing from them or enslaving them by degrees, or both. Taxation, for example, is anything
but voluntary, Rothbard argues, and he invites people who think it is to experiment with not paying their taxes.
When they end up in jail, he argues, then they will understand that taxation is really a form of state coercion or
aggression. For these reasons, libertarian anarchists support the abolition of the state, and the replacement of all
of its functions—education, fire and police protection, defense, roads and traffic regulation and others—by
private enterprise. They argue that the results of this shift would be more efficiently delivered, higher quality
goods and services that were also cheaper, all of which would be the result of competition and the uncoerced,
free choices made by individuals in the marketplace.
Terence Ball, “A Libertarian Utopia”
In this reading, the contemporary American political theorist Terence Ball imagines what a world governed
entirely by the principles of libertarianism would look like. After engaging in a thought-experiment whose aim
is to delineate the features of such a society, Ball asks his readers to ponder whether this libertarian utopia,
which he calls “marketopia,” would really be a “utopia” or a “dystopia.” Ball is not at all opposed to markets as
allocators of goods and services, per se. He writes: “By and large, markets are a good thing—a reasonably
efficient means of discerning and satisfying people’s preferences, of allocating goods and resources, and
rewarding the more enterprising members of a society” (p. 128). However, he isolates two core problems with
“Marketopia”: its “systematic violation of a fundamental sense of fairness” (p. 128); and its “language of
redescription” (p. 129) in which every form of human interaction is reductively redescribed as a simple
exchange of commodities. Ball fears that if we speak the language of commodification in all of our
relationships—turning politicians and professors into “entrepreneurs” and “service providers,” and voters and
students into “consumers,” we will eventually behave towards one another in this fashion. As he puts it: “as we
speak, so do we think, and therefore act” (p. 129).
Immanuel Kant, “Freedom and Enlightenment”
In his essay, “What is Enlightenment?” the German philosopher Immanuel Kant seeks both to answer that
question, and to discuss the relationship between the concepts of enlightenment and freedom. Kant is not
defining “the Enlightenment” as a historical period, but rather “Enlightenment” as a critical attitude. He argues
that, as such, Enlightenment can be understood as “mankind’s leaving behind its self-imposed immaturity,”
where immaturity is “the inability to employ one’s own intelligence without being directed by someone else”
(p. 92). It is in this regard that the motto of theEnlightenment, as a historical phenomenon should be, in Kant’s
estimation, the formula for the process of enlightenment as a process of shedding one’s ignorance; namely,
“Sapere Aude!”—have the courage, or audacity, to think for yourself. In order to take this step, however, one
thing is necessary: freedom of thought and speech. That is, the government must guarantee a wide degree of
individual liberty to encourage free-thinking and the willingness to throw off old ways of doing things. It is in
this sense that Kant can be understood as a liberal; he even goes so far as to claim that “enlightenment is
virtually assured under conditions of freedom" (p. 92). Since this is a process, however, Kant concludes that his
“is not an enlightened age, but it is an age of enlightenment” (p. 93).