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I need some assistance with these assignment. hobbes and rousseau on the creation of political authority Thank you in advance for the help! The Ideas of Hobbes and Rousseau are important for all students of political science, history, sociology and even literature because their ideas have formed the basis of almost all modern western democracies.

Hobbes was the earlier of the two philosophers and outlined his ideas concerning a social contract in his magnum opus titled Leviathan. Hobbes suggests that the natural inclination of mankind breaks men into strong and weak. The strength of a strong man may come from his physical abilities or his mental prowess but in either case, he has an advantage over the weak. However, this advantage to the strong is not so great that they stop fearing death and if a person is faced with death s/he has to avoid it by whatever means possible (Williams, 2006).

In fact, this threat of death can come from a combined force of weaker individuals as well therefore the natural world creates a constant struggle and war between all individuals. Wherever such a state exists life would be brutal, hard and very harsh. Of course, the clear situation where such a state exists is the situation of war where every man has to fend for himself. Hobbes suggests that all men have a desire to disengage from war if they have to face their own deaths. Therefore, it is the fear of death which leads human beings to form civil societies that function under some form of authority (Williams, 2006).

This authority takes away some of the freedoms enjoyed by man in his natural state and in turn gives men a state of internal peace within the society and protection if another groups attacks the same society. To function as an accepted power, the authority must be a ‘Leviathan’ which represents absolute power within that group. Additionally, the authority needs to be strong in order to wage war and defend the people if necessary from outside aggression (Williams, 2006). Fundamentally, Hobbes would function very well as a citizen if he gave up a few of his naturally granted freedoms in exchange for security, peace and protection from outside influences.