Enlightenment thinkers
Chat with our AI personalities
The pilgrims, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke
There were three men who are historically linked to social contract theory. They are Thomas Hobbes, john Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Both Hobbes and Locke were Englishmen.
Thomas Hobbes John Locke
Hobbes argued that because the "general will" of the people was for freedom, the people as a whole should force individual citizens to conform to the general will.
Thomas Hobbes (1651) and John Locke (1689) had the idea that the government cannot function as a strong system when power is shared or split between two or more groups.