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Lord Of The Flies Hobbes Vs Locke

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Lord Of The Flies Hobbes Vs Locke
Lord of the Flies: Hobbes vs. Locke
In the novel, Lord of The Flies by William Golding, several young boys are stranded on an island and must maintain civilization on their own with no real authority. Their attempt at maintaining a peaceful and civilized state between each other can help to explain the theories of philosophy stated by Jack Hobbes and John Locke. In Locke’s philosophy, he states that people are naturally good. He believes that is in our nature, as humans, to be good people and do what it is that we know is right and what we are told is right. Hobbes, on the contrary, believes that we have a very selfish nature and often do what is in our best interest, regardless of what we are told is right. Their philosophies can help to explain the novel by revealing the reasoning for some of the behaviors that the boys reveal and the actions that they demonstrate.
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One of the boys, Ralph, gets voted to take leadership and assigns responsibilities for the group. Ralph assigns the choir to be the hunters and their leader, Jack, is assigned a co-leadership position under Ralph. Although Ralph is voted leader of the group, Jack still strives for a main leadership position, causing conflict between the two. Jack then takes complete control over his choir, the hunters, and they separate into their own group, apart from Ralph and the rest of the boys. This eventually leads all of the boys to a brutal and violent nature, ending in the cold-blooded killing of two members of Ralph’s group, Simon and

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