The four philosophers
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant addressed themselves to diverse aspects of the idea of human rights:
Hobbes emphasized the need to justify consistently the exercise of political
power in the face of every member of the polity. On this foundational idea, his successors would build their theories.
Locke conceived the human rights as protecting the individual over against the state.
Rousseau viewed the human rights as entailing that each person in the polity
participate in the process of lawmaking.
Kant brought these diverse strands together. The function of the state is to protect
the individual rights to freedom; at the same time, lawmaking is subject by a principle of democracy.
