Locke or Hobbes?

[ialsop]

Which worldview is more in line with Catholic social teaching, that of Locke or that of Hobbes?

Locke being that humans should be free in as much as possible and they will naturally be good.
Hobbes being that in order to restrict vice, which is human nature, we must have an authoritarian government.

 

[Binto]

I’m sure Thomistic thought says that neither are right… Modern political theory can be a little cloudy on the nature of human freedom. Hopefully some smarter folk can back me up!!

 

[mikeeh]

Which worldview is more in line with Catholic social teaching, that of Locke or that of Hobbes?

Locke being that humans should be free in as much as possible and they will naturally be good.
Hobbes being that in order to restrict vice, which is human nature, we must have an authoritarian government.

You can’t really determine the answer to your question based on such simplified examples of their philosophies. If you read more of their work you would probably find that Locke is more aligned with Catholic social teaching. Locke argues that the individual is good and has natural rights including liberty. For Locke, that human goodness and natural rights stem from God. What I assume you are getting at is that some people use Locke to justify going against the Catholic Church, while Hobbes argues for a structured organization to help the people similar to the Catholic Church. The problem is Locke and Hobbes are political philosophers, and you should always be careful when trying to compare political ideas with religion.