# How did Enlightenment thinkers defend liberty?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-enlightenment-thinkers-defend-liberty/950117>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [September 4, 2021, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-enlightenment-thinkers-defend-liberty/950117 "2021-09-04T22:07:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2021, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-enlightenment-thinkers-defend-liberty/950117/1 "2021-09-04T22:07:38Z")

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Since they disputed the Hobbesian concept of the government as Leviathan, yet acknowledged that anarchy was not a desirable situation, how did they answer this question, as it might have been phrased at the time: “What is government, save compelling men to do that which they would not? Wherefore liberty then?” What middle ground did they propose and how did they defend that?

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**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2021, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-enlightenment-thinkers-defend-liberty/950117/2 "2021-09-05T07:03:08Z")

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A relatively universally adopted set of moral axioms that people lived by while exercising liberty.

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**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2021, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-enlightenment-thinkers-defend-liberty/950117/3 "2021-09-05T07:29:26Z")

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Locke was far more influential than Hobbes.

> **[John Locke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke)**
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> John Locke FRS (/lɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political p...