Hobbes vs. Locke on Parental Authority: A Critical Comparison
This essay compares Thomas Hobbes' and John Locke's competing theories of parental authority, arguing that Hobbes' contract-based interpretation is more coherent and persuasive than Locke's. Hobbes grounds parental authority in a mutual exchange: children offer obedience in return for care and protection, with no obligation to comply if parents fail to fulfill their end. Locke, by contrast, grounds authority in biological inheritance and natural rights, yet repeatedly contradicts himself — alternating between contractual and inherent justifications, and applying different standards to family and political relationships. The essay also examines points of convergence, such as the "age of reason," and concludes that socialization, rather than biology or contract alone, underlies our intuitions about parental duty.
- Introduction: Two Theories of Parental Authority: Thesis favoring Hobbes over Locke on parental authority
- Hobbes and the Contract of Care: Hobbes' servitude model and child-parent contract
- Locke's Contradictions on Parental Rights: Locke's inconsistent biological and contractual claims
- Similarities and Key Differences: Shared age-of-reason concept and government analogies
- Dominion, Slavery, and the Limits of Locke: Locke's forced dominion contradicts his political theory
- Filmer, Creation, and Hobbes' Linear Solution: Filmer's biological claim and Hobbes' coherent alternative
- Conclusion: Socialization and the Social Contract: Socialization as the foundation of parental duty
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What makes this paper effective
- The thesis is stated clearly at the outset and consistently reinforced throughout: Hobbes' account of parental authority is more coherent because it is linear and contractual, while Locke's is undermined by internal contradictions.
- The paper engages directly with primary texts — Leviathan and Two Treatises — using specific quotations and page references to substantiate each claim rather than relying on paraphrase alone.
- The author acknowledges similarities between the two thinkers (the age of reason, the analogy between family and government) before sharpening the contrast, which strengthens the comparative argument.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates internal critique: rather than simply preferring one philosopher over the other on external grounds, the author shows that Locke contradicts himself within his own texts — oscillating between biological and contractual justifications, and applying different standards to family authority versus political authority. This technique is more persuasive than mere preference because it uses the opponent's own framework to expose its weaknesses.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a clear thesis favoring Hobbes, then devotes successive paragraphs to Hobbes' contract model, Locke's inconsistencies, their shared elements, the slavery-and-dominion comparison, and the Filmer interlude. A personal modification of Hobbes' view is offered before a conclusion that broadens the argument to socialization and social contract theory generally. The structure is linear and thesis-driven, suitable for an undergraduate philosophy or political theory course.
Introduction: Two Theories of Parental Authority
Parental authority is something Thomas Hobbes believes is based on a contract. Parents take care of children in exchange for the child's obedience. Locke believes parental authority relies on biological inheritance and the natural rights bestowed on a parent to care for a needy creature they bring into the world. He also states that children are bound by honor to obey the parent until they reach an "age of reason." Such a convoluted and complex interpretation of parental authority is why Locke's perspective is wrong and Hobbes' perspective is right. Hobbes' interpretation of parental authority is simple and linear, introducing the concept of choice and obligation for both parent and child. By establishing that both parties bear responsibility — and that if either party fails, the other has no corresponding obligation — Hobbes makes parental authority appear more like a responsibility than an innate right. This makes Hobbes' perspective more convincing. This essay argues that Hobbes' idea of parental authority is more convincing and sound than Locke's.
Hobbes and the Contract of Care
Hobbes sees parental authority as rooted in the needs of the child. In a sense, Hobbes argues that children enter a kind of servitude in exchange for protection and care from the parent. Hobbes examines servitude and slavery and distinguishes one from the other in order to remove the notion of slavery from the child-parent relationship. Although his reference to "dominion over the child" can be read in a slavery context, Hobbes maintains that the child chooses to enter servitude in exchange for care and safety. Whenever those conditions are not met, the child is not obligated to obey the parent.
This can be confusing at first because history shows that people have often legitimized dominance by claiming ownership of those they dominated. If parents dominate their children, this might seem to imply they own them. Hobbes' notion of "servants" can be interpreted as slavery because the person's rights are controlled by the owner. However, because the child or servant can reclaim freedom when the owner fails to meet their needs, this is precisely where servitude and slavery differ: there is choice behind servitude and no choice behind slavery. Hobbes does muddy the distinction in Leviathan when he introduces servants as slaves: ". . . there be two sorts of Servants; that sort, which is of those that are absolutely in the power of their Masters, as Slaves taken in war, and their Issue, whose bodies are not in their own power, and that are bought and sold as beasts" (405).
Locke's Contradictions on Parental Rights
Like Hobbes, John Locke believes there is a contract between parent and child regarding parental authority until the "age of reason" is reached. However, his interpretation can be confusing — especially because he also believes contracts can govern marriage and politics. As A. John Simmons notes, "Wives may have the right of 'last determination' themselves, if this is agreed on, or the mates may decide conflicts by lottery or by taking turns, and so on. The authority of husbands is neither natural nor necessary" (174). If Locke believes options and agreements govern relationships, what then leads him to also believe in the biological right of a parent to dominate a child?
This tension connects to Locke's belief that the state is entitled to kill murderers and potentially enslave them. It seems there is an inherent right that is supposed to be a contractual and optional interaction, yet Locke rejects the option and the contract by making biological rights appear to trump everything, thereby granting biological parents rights over their biological children. As Simmons observes, "it appears that Locke wants to ground parental rights simply in the biological relation of parents to children. He refers to the ground of these rights as 'nature' and calls their basis 'the right of generation' or the 'right of fatherhood'" (180). Locke then reverses course, suggesting parents are not creators but procreators, and thus parental rights are not inherent but earned. This inability to form a clear and cohesive position reveals a fundamental weakness in his argument.
Conclusion: Socialization and the Social Contract
Locke's perspective on parental authority is confusing at best and delivers contradictions upon contradictions. Hobbes offers a clear and easy-to-understand account of parental authority that remains internally consistent. While both thinkers believe in some form of contract between parent and child, Hobbes delivers a coherent interpretation: children obey because their lives depend on the care they receive.
Social contract theory is an archaic framework for explaining relationships that uses contracts to describe the bonds and duties people bear toward one another. It has been employed by thinkers such as Locke and Hobbes to explain patriarchal society and government. As David Boucher and Paul Kelly observe, "The social contract replaces the law of the father with impartial, public laws. However, the unconscious law remains patriarchal" (207). This suggests that socialization shapes our perceived responsibilities. Children perceive the need to obey, for instance, because they are at the mercy of their parents. Parental authority thus comes to feel like a natural right — as thinkers like Locke argue — precisely because children cannot fend for themselves and must rely on parents for survival. The broader question this raises is whether socialization ultimately dictates a person's responsibilities to others, and whether social constructs define personal and interpersonal duties in ways we rarely examine critically.
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