Hello everyone,
Today it’s the second part of Western Political thought–Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill. UPSC has asked 9 ten-mark, 4 fifteen-mark, and 1 twenty-mark in total in the last 12 years.
1.Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
| Block | Core Content | Texts / Events Anchored | Scholars, Parallels & Critics |
| 1 Space & Time | Spanish Armada birth omen (1588) ▸ decline of Elizabethan age ▸ De Cive 1642 ▸ English Civil War, execution Charles I (1649) ▸ exile in France ▸ Leviathan 1651 ▸ Treaty of Westphalia 1648 births modern state-system | Letters; Autobiography; Leviathan ch. 46 chronicle | |
| 2 Comparative Benchmarks | vs Machiavelli: prince ↦ sovereign, rule of arms → rule of laws, scientific deduction replaces historical anecdote. vs Aristotle: rejects teleology/virtue; life ≠ pursuit of good but avoidance of evil; politics about life-&-death not eudaimonia. | Prince; Discourses; Politics | Laski (“whole Renaissance in Machiavelli”); Sabine; Strauss |
| 3 Methodology | • Scientific; geometry model (Kepler, Galileo) • Resolutive–Compositive analysis → synthesis • Deductive reasoning from postulates • Psychological egoism (self-interest) • Ethical relativism (no absolute morals) • Political absolutism as logical output | Leviathan Part I ch. 1-6 | Rawls (state-of-nature = Prisoner’s Dilemma) |
| 4 Human- & State-of-Nature | Humans = matter in motion ▸ vital vs voluntary motion ▸ passions: desire/aversion → power-seeking State-of-Nature: equality + scarcity → competition, diffidence, glory → “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short” war of all against all | Leviathan I-13 | |
| 5 Natural Rights & Laws of Nature | Right = liberty for self-preservation; 19 laws of nature (seek peace, renounce rights, honour covenants, etc.) = rational “theorems of peace” yet unenforceable without common power | Leviathan I-14-15 | |
| 6 Social-Contract & Covenant | Mutual renunciation → covenant creates third person (sovereign). Sovereign not party to contract, only beneficiary; fear-based obligation as valid as consent (sovereignty by institution vs by conquest) | Leviathan II-17-18 | |
| 7 Sovereignty Doctrine | Absolute · indivisible · inalienable · perpetual “monopoly of coercive power” No right to life demand upon subject (except self-defence clause); obligation lasts only while protection lasts | Leviathan II-18-20 | Jean Bodin (first formulates term), Austin (command theory), Robert Caponigri (no intrinsic limits), C. W. W. Taylor shared-sovereignty critique |
| 8 Law Theory | Law = command of sovereign; natural law absorbed into positive/civil law; sovereign sole interpreter; “covenants without the sword are but words” | Leviathan II-26 | John Plamenatz on natural v civil law |
| 9 Religion | Freedom of conscience but public worship under civil authority; church a corporation subject to state; religion useful for peace but subordinate | Leviathan III-42 | Comparison to Indian one-way secularism |
| 10 Individualism & Market Seeds | Methodological & normative individualism; market-egoist psychology; absolutism protects individual self-interest → logical linkage not contradiction | Judith Shklar (“founding father of liberalism”); Sabine (“greatest individualist”) | |
| 11 Main Labels | • Father of modern political science • Pioneer of absolutist sovereignty • Forerunner of liberalism via natural rights • Nascent ideology of market economy | — | |
| 12 Evaluation / Reception | • Sabine: narrow, dated, pessimistic, ignored future role of religion; yet coined modern “state” • Shklar: proto-liberal • Strauss & conservative critics: materialist reduction • Liberal-democratic pluralists: challenge indivisible sovereignty; federal “shared sovereignty” shows diffusion | Modern pluralist / constitutional debates | |
| Keywords (rolled-up) | Psychological egoism · Ethical relativism · Fear · Power-politics · Covenant · Leviathan · Absolutism · Natural right/self-preservation · Laws of nature · Sovereign (internal/external) · Positive law · Church-state · Scientific deduction · Prisoner’s Dilemma · Shared sovereignty |
- John Locke (1632-1704)
| Block | Essential Substance / Keywords | Anchor Texts & Historical Markers | Scholars • Parallels • Critics |
| 1 Space & Time | English Civil War 1642-51 • Commonwealth (Cromwell) • Restoration 1660 • Royal Society milieu • Glorious Revolution 1688 → constitutional monarchy | Life 1632-1704 • Westminster “King’s Scholar” • Oxford education • Exile with Earl of Shaftesbury | |
| 2 Major Works | Two Treatises (1689): 1st Treatise vs Filmer’s Patriarcha; 2nd Treatise → consent, limited gov’t, right of revolt • Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690): tabula rasa, empiricism • Letter on Toleration (1689) | Also Some Thoughts on Education 1693 | |
| 3. Perspective / School | Founding liberalism • Core of Enlightenment empiricism • Optimistic social-contract tradition (vs Hobbes) • Government a fiduciary trust, revocable | Two Treatises preface cites Glorious Revolution | Influence on US Declaration, French Rights of Man |
| 4. Natural-Law & State of Nature | State of Nature = perfect freedom & equality yet moral; governed by reason / God’s law; not Hobbesian war • Rights life-liberty-property inalienable • Individuals obliged “not to harm” others | Second Treatise §4-15 | Parallels Aristotle’s moral teleology; contrasts Hobbes’s amoralism |
| 5. Social Contract & Consent | 2-step process: unanimous consent → civil society; majority → choose government (legislature supreme). Express vs tacit consent underpins obligation. Right to revolt if trust breached. | Second Treatise §95-122 | Hobbes (single covenant) vs Locke (two stages) |
| 6. Organs of Government | Legislature (supreme) • Executive + Judicial bundled • Federative (foreign affairs) • Separation anticipates Montesquieu | Second Treatise §143-148 | Montesquieu elaborates SOP |
| 7. Limits on State | Government bound by natural law, due process, promulgated statutes • No arbitrary rule, no taxation w/out consent • Non-delegation of legislative power | Second Treatise §134-142 | Basis of later constitutionalism |
| 8. Theory of Property | Labor-mixing origin • Limitations ➜ labor, sufficiency, spoilage • Money invention nullifies spoilage • Property = extension of personality | Second Treatise §25-51 | Robert Nozick (entitlement) builds; C. B. MacPherson (“possessive individualism”) criticises; replies by Isaiah Berlin, John Dunn, Martin Seliger |
| 9. Law & Liberty | “No law, no liberty”—positive law valid only if mirrors natural law; liberty secured through law. Contrast Hobbes “liberty where law silent”. | Second Treatise §57; Essay Bk II | |
| 10. Religious Toleration | Church–state separation; conscience free; civil magistrate can’t coerce belief; pluralist state | Letter Concerning Toleration | Influences US First-Amendment thought |
| 11. Liberal Legacy | Prototype of conservative (natural-law) & radical (rights-against-tyranny) liberalism • Basis of night-watchman state ideal • Inspires Montesquieu, Hume, Friedman, Berlin (positive/negative liberty), Dworkin, Rawls; analyzed via Karl Mannheim (sociology of knowledge) | Locke ← softens Hobbes/Machiavelli absolutism into accountable rule | |
| 12. Evaluation / Keywords | Empiricism • Tabula rasa • Parliamentary sovereignty • Rule of law • Fiduciary power • Natural rights • Social consent • Right of revolution • Labor theory of value • Separation of powers • Bourgeois justification (Mannheim) • Liberal constitutional democracy |
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778)
(not explicitly in the syllabus but important)
| Block | Essential Substance / Keywords | Anchor Texts & Events | Scholars / Critics / Parallels |
| 1. Space & Time | Geneva birth 1712 • Protestant → Catholic → Paris (age 30) • French absolutism of Louis XV • Enlightenment / Age of Reason backdrop • Works burnt (Paris & Geneva) • Pre-French-Revolution ferment | 1749 Dijon prize; persecution 1762 Social Contract & Émile | |
| 2. Two Intellectual Phases | Phase 1 (critical / romantic): Discourse on Sciences & Arts (1750) • Discourse on Origin & Foundations of Inequality (1754) ← critique of artificial “progress”, private property, luxury, Baconian abundance. Phase 2 (constructive / rational): The Social Contract (1762) • Discourse on Political Economy (1755) — constructive blueprint using reason & General Will. | Voltaire (mockery of “walk on all fours”) | |
| 3. State of Nature | “Noble savage” • solitary, non-violent • simple needs • no amour-propre • Middle position between Hobbesian brutishness & Lockean optimism (Enemuo) • private property → plunder → inequality → need for pouvoir (Shaapera) | Second Discourse § | Enemuo • Shaapera |
| 4. Inequality Thesis | Natural equality → social / moral inequality via metallurgy & agriculture • first land enclosure = birth of civil society • distinction amour-de-soi (healthy) vs amour-propre (vain) (Christopher Bertram) | “Here is mine!” quote | Mukherjee & Ramaswamy • Gauba |
| 5. Revolt against Reason (1749 Essay) | Arts/sciences corrupt morals • progress a façade • luxury breeds decadence • sentiments & conscience > cold reason | Dijon Academy Question; critiques Baconian programme | |
| 6. Social Contract (1762) | Opening: “Man is born free, yet everywhere in chains.” • Aim: replace illegitimate chains with legitimate ones. • Total transfer of each associate to the whole → creation of moral collective person: State (passive), Sovereign (active). • Contract as process, not one-shot. | Book I chap 6 (form of association) | |
| 7. General Will | Always tends to common good; distinct from aggregate “will-of-all”. • Qualitative universality (origin + object + form). • Requires economic equality (“no citizen rich enough to buy another, none poor enough to sell himself”). • If dissent → “forced to be free”. | Discourse on Political Economy; Social Contract II-3–4 | |
| 8. Direct Democracy & Representation | Real sovereignty = people in assembly; cannot be alienated or represented. • English “free only on the day they vote”. • Factions distort GW. | Social Contract III-15 | |
| 9. Government vs Sovereign | Government = agent/commission; executive & judiciary subordinate; sovereignty indivisible & inalienable. | Social Contract III-1–3 | |
| 10. Legislator | Extra-ordinary “public enlightener” to frame laws, but no coercive power; proposes, people ratify. | SC II-6-7; Political Economy | |
| 11. Democracy & Nationalism | GW works best where political community ≈ culturally homogeneous nation (religion, language, customs). • Civil religion to cement sociability. | Considerations on Government of Poland; SC IV-8 | |
| 12. Women & Family | Domestic role inculcates virtue (Émile, Letters to d’Alembert). • Exclusion from public sphere; men can “represent” women. | Critiqued by Mary Wollstonecraft | Wollstonecraft (“rights of woman” reply) |
| 13. Happiness & Morality | True happiness roots in natural simplicity; civilization multiplies desires. • Moral judgments spring from feelings rather than intellect. | Émile Bk IV; Second Discourse | |
| 14. Key Formulae & Concepts | Popular sovereignty • General Will • Civil religion • Amour-de-soi / amour-propre • Legislator • Forced-to-be-free • Inalienable/indivisible sovereignty • Economic equality pre-condition • Direct legislation (referendum, initiative) | ||
| 15. Influence & Relevance | Intellectual spark of French Revolution 1789 (Appadorai) • Basis for popular sovereignty, modern referenda, revolt doctrine. • Critique of private property illuminates roots of today’s injustice. • Warning against military dictatorships (African context). | Appadorai | |
| 16. Major Critiques | Totalitarian charge: Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper, Isaiah Berlin see unrestricted GW as absolutist. • Classical-republican defence: Philip Pettit reads him as egalitarian republican. • Social-contract ahistoricism (Appadorai). • Risk of anarchy (weak executive). | Russell History of Western Philosophy; Popper Open Society; Berlin “Two Concepts of Liberty” | Pettit • C.B. Macpherson analogy to possessive individualism (contrast) |
| 17. Comparative Grid | Hobbes → war; Locke → property/liberty; Rousseau → noble-savage & General Will. • Purpose of gov’t: Hobbes–order, Locke–rights, Rousseau–harmony under GW. • Representation: Hobbes minimal, Locke essential, Rousseau rejected. | See prompt grid reproduced conceptually. |
- J-S Mill (1806 – 1873)
| Block | Key points / Keywords | Texts & Illustrations | Named thinkers & critics |
| 1. Space & Time | 17-C birth of classical/bourgeois liberalism → 18-C revolutionary ferment → 19-C industrial capitalism, mass exploitation, socialist & Marxist attacks → need to revise liberalism. | Rise of early socialism (Fourier, Saint-Simon, Robert Owen); humanitarian critic Thomas Carlyle; Marx (contemporary). | |
| 2. Influences | Greek philosophy (rational humanism) • Jeremy Bentham (“push-pin vs poetry”, “two sovereign masters” pleasure/pain) • James Mill (democracy) • Harriet Taylor (liberty, gender). | Carlyle (“pig’s philosophy”) | |
| 3. Major works | On Liberty (1859) • Utilitarianism (1861) • Considerations on Representative Government (1861) • The Subjection of Women (1869). | ||
| 4. Perspective | Revised utilitarianism: utility understood as dignity & self-realisation, not mere pleasure. | “Better to be Socrates dissatisfied…” | Roots: Epicureanism, hedonism; Bentham; Hobbes, Locke, Hume |
| 5. Mill vs Bentham | Rejects purely quantitative pleasures; introduces higher vs lower; utility = human development. Adds self-sacrifice & altruism. | Carlyle’s “pig” jibe; Mill’s reply. | |
| 6. Liberty doctrine | Liberty = supreme utility & pre-condition of progress. Three spheres: freedom of thought/ expression • liberty of action (harm principle; self-regarding vs other-regarding) • freedom of association. | On Liberty chap II–V | Ernest Barker: “prophet of empty liberty”, abstract individualism |
| 7. Harm principle | Only purpose for power over anyone: prevent harm to others. All restraint “qua restraint” is evil. Difficult line-drawing, but necessary. | Examples: diet bans, trade restrictions, sale of property. | |
| 8. Representative government | Two functions: use existing qualities & raise moral-intellectual level. ⇒ Representative democracy best. • Suffrage: near-universal incl. women, except illiterate or no taxes. • Proportional representation, open voting, plural / weighted votes. • Split powers: Representative Assembly (Congress of Opinion) + Codification Commission. | Considerations… | |
| • “Reluctant democrat” | Fears tyranny-of-majority; wants qualified voting; liberty requires civic education; unsuitable for “uncivilised” colonies (e.g. India). | ||
| • “Radical democrat” | Still backs wide participation, proportionality, women’s vote, worker co-ops (economic democracy). | Wendy Donner: Mill even more optimistic on workplace participation. | |
| 9. Subjection of Women | First systematic male critique of patriarchy (Susan Okin). Points: laws on marriage, inheritance, property, marital rape unjust. Inequality is socialisation, not nature; “perfect equality” should replace subordination. | Subjection of Women | Susan Okin; IMF note 27 % GDP gain (modern echo). |
| “Voluntary” female consent meaningless under patriarchy. Equality strengthens democracy, civic virtue, economy (competition & efficiency) and has a civilising effect on men. | |||
| 10. Contribution / Evaluation | Synthesises liberty with broader utilitarian good; keeps rights central while insisting on social justice. Criticisms: artificial self/other split, ambiguity of plural voting. Yet legacy spans free-speech doctrine, modern liberal democracy, feminist theory. Mill regarded as the liberal exemplar. |
Scholars Index
Aristotle | Montesquieu | Socrates | Voltaire | A. Appadorai | John Austin | Ernest Barker | Jeremy Bentham | Isaiah Berlin | Christopher Bertram | Jean Bodin | Robert Caponigri | Thomas Carlyle | Henri de Saint-Simon | Wendy Donner | John Dunn | Ronald Dworkin | Sir Robert Filmer | Charles Fourier | Milton Friedman | Galileo Galilei | O. P. Gauba | Thomas Hobbes | David Hume | Johannes Kepler | Harold Laski | John Locke | Niccolò Machiavelli | C. B. Macpherson | Karl Mannheim | Karl Marx | James Mill | John Stuart Mill | Subrata Mukherjee | Susheela Ramaswamy | Robert Nozick | Susan Okin | Robert Owen | Philip Pettit | John Plamenatz | Karl Popper | John Rawls | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Bertrand Russell | George Sabine | Isaac Schapera | Martin Seliger | Judith Shklar | Leo Strauss | C. W. W. Taylor | Harriet Taylor | Mary Wollstonecraft
Practice Questions (Write before 4 p.m.)
Question 1. Discuss, ‘All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility’ (JS Mill) [2014/10m]
Question 2. Individualism is inherent in Hobbes’ absolutist ideology. Comment. [2022/15m]
Question 3. John Locke is a father of liberalism. Explain. [2018/20m]
📌 Model answers drop this evening on the Telegram channel: https://t.me/psirbyamitpratap – keep notifications on.
See you tomorrow on Day 14. Keep practicing!
—Amit Pratap Singh & Team
A quick note on submissions of copies and mentorship
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- Alternate between mini-tests (O-AWFG) and full mocks (ATS) has been designed to tackle speed, content depth, and structured revision—line-by-line evaluation pinpoints your weaknesses and errors. Follow your PSIR O-AWFG & ATS schedule and use the model answers to enrich your content, as rankers recommended based on their own success.
