Working Through Locke Comparison Sheets: A Practical Guide
I've seen these worksheets assigned across a dozen different colleges over the years, usually in intro poli-sci or philosophy survey courses. They're not difficult, but students tend to overcomplicate them because they treat every blank like it needs a perfect quote from the primary text. It doesn't. The typical Locke comparison worksheet asks you to pit Locke's ideas against another thinker — most commonly Hobbes or Rousseau — on points like the state of nature, social contract theory, natural rights, and the role of government. Here's how to actually get through them efficiently.
Vs Locke Worksheet Answers
Let's start with the structure most of these follow. You'll see columns or paired prompts that ask you to identify what each philosopher believes and then articulate where they diverge. The core tension always comes back to the same three axes: human nature, the necessity of government, and the right to revolt. Locke's state of nature is a condition of perfect freedom and equality, governed by natural law that reason teaches all humans. People already possess rights to life, liberty, and property before any government exists. Hobbes, by contrast, sees the state of nature as a war of all against all — life is brutal and short, and people surrender nearly all their rights to a sovereign in exchange for security. That's the foundational split, and almost every question on the worksheet branches from it. When you encounter a section asking about the social contract, the trick is to recognize that both philosophers use the framework differently. For Locke, the contract is a conditional agreement — government exists by the consent of the governed and only to protect pre-existing natural rights. If government violates that trust, the contract is broken and rebellion is justified. Hobbes' version is essentially irreversible once established. You can't summarize this in one sentence. Give it two or three, and cite the Second Treatise if the worksheet asks for textual support.
I ran into a borderline case recently where the worksheet asked students to compare Locke's view on property with Rousseau's. The standard answer they wanted was the obvious one — Locke sees private property as a natural right earned through labor, while Rousseau calls it the moment humanity fell from grace when someone first enclosed land. But the worksheet had a follow-up question that tripped people up: it asked what happens to those who already possess property under Rousseau's system. The honest answer is that Rousseau doesn't offer a clean resolution here, and recognizing that gap actually demonstrates more understanding than forcing a false parallel. Another common pitfall is treating Locke and Hobbes as direct opposites on everything. They agree on the methodological move of starting from a hypothetical state of nature and using a social contract to justify political authority. Their disagreement is about the contents of that nature and the terms of the contract, not about the framework itself. Students who write "Hobbes believes government is bad, Locke believes it's good" will get partial credit at best. The worksheet answers themselves tend to reward specificity over length. You don't need to reproduce an essay for each cell. A phrase like "natural rights exist prior to government" is worth more than a paragraph that wavers between "rights come from God" and "rights come from society." Locke is explicit about the source — natural law, discoverable by reason — and sticking to that precision makes the comparison sharper.
Get the Full Details
If you're looking for resources, the basic Locke texts are available freely through Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet History Ideals Project. The Second Treatise of Government is the primary source for most worksheet questions. No subscription needed. The limitations of these worksheets are worth noting upfront. They tend to flatten Locke's actual arguments into a set of position statements that ignore the nuanced theological and empirical grounding he provides. Locke doesn't arrive at his conclusions through pure rationalist deduction the way Hobbes does — his empiricist epistemology from the Essay Concerning Human Understanding shapes his political theory, and most worksheets never ask you to connect those dots. If your instructor is reasonable, pointing out that disconnect will register as genuine engagement rather than dodging the assignment. For the property section specifically, there's a detail most answer keys gloss over: Locke's provisos. Property acquisition is legitimate only when there is "enough and as good left in common for others" and when the goods don't spoil before use. When the worksheet asks about the moral limits of appropriation, citing these provisos will separate your answer from the generic ones most students turn in.
Bottom line: work through each comparison axis methodically, cite the secondary text where required, acknowledge where either philosopher is ambiguous rather than papering over it, and resist the urge to reduce the debate to a simple binary. The worksheets aren't designed to test whether you can regurgitate a study guide. They're testing whether you can hold two complex positions in your head at the same time and articulate the precise point of disagreement.
