Editing Social contract (section)

===John Locke's ''Second Treatise of Government'' (1689)===
[[John Locke]]'s conception of the social contract differed from Hobbes' in several fundamental ways, retaining only the central notion that individuals in a state of nature would willingly come together to form a state. Locke believed that individuals in a state of nature would be bound morally, by the Law of Nature, in which man has the "power... to preserve his property; that is, his life, liberty and estate against the injuries and attempts of other men". Without government to defend them against those seeking to injure or enslave them, Locke further believed people would have no security in their rights and would live in fear. Individuals, to Locke, would only agree to form a state that would provide, in part, a "neutral judge", acting to protect the lives, liberty, and property of those who lived within it.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gaba|first=Jeffery|date=Spring 2007|title=John Locke and the Meaning of the Takings Clause|url=https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3727&context=mlr|journal=Missouri Law Review|volume=72|issue=2|access-date=2018-04-19|archive-date=2021-03-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210305162433/https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3727&context=mlr|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Locke|first=John|author-link=John Locke|date=1690|title=Two Treatises on Civil Government|publisher=Books on Demand |url=https://english.hku.hk/staff/kjohnson/PDF/LockeJohnSECONDTREATISE1690.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://english.hku.hk/staff/kjohnson/PDF/LockeJohnSECONDTREATISE1690.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|isbn=9783749437412}}</ref>

While Hobbes argued for near-absolute authority, Locke argued for inviolate freedom under law in his [[Two Treatises of Government#Second Treatise|''Second Treatise of Government'']]. Locke argued that a government's legitimacy comes from the citizens' delegation to the government of their absolute right of violence (reserving the inalienable right of self-defense or "self-preservation"), along with elements of other rights (e.g. property will be liable to taxation) as necessary to achieve the goal of security through granting the state a monopoly of violence, whereby the government, as an impartial judge, may use the collective force of the populace to administer and enforce the law, rather than each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner—the condition in the state of nature.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}}