A Response to Paul Rowland's 'Hobbes, Stirner, and Authority'

The revolution generated radical changes in the principles, opinions, and sentiments of the global people. New ideas and issues affected political ideas. In addition a new government was also changed. A few of the many enlightenment thinkers were Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, baron Do Montesquieu, and Jean Jacques Rousseau.

There would be a power of authority that would enforce the laws to protect individuals from the human nature of others. Failure to comply would result in consequences. The sovereign would control the law, giving onto people what is moral. He fears without sovereign, man would strive towards power and even killing. This would threaten the sovereign and result in chaos. Hobbes believes that everyone will agree to authority because it is in their best interest. After all, human beings are self-centered according to Hobbes. Therefore, human beings voluntarily surrender freedoms to live in harmony. This was called the Leviathan, and considered it necessary for social order. I find this more persuasive because it poseses structure, boundaries and expectations. It holds a clear message that if we all agree to the law, then we can live in

A form of government ruled by one person whose authority is not restricted by law or governing bodies is absolutism. It is arguable if this form of government can truly be successful due to its impression left throughout the course of history. Justification of absolutism by Thomas Hobbes, Jacques Benigne Bossuet, and analysis of Louis XIV rule reveal why absolutism in ineffective. Due to its removal of self-authority, vulnerability to a power, and the possibility of weakening a country make absolutism inefficient.

Hobbes and Smith are at odds about the idea of how power plays into social order creation. Hobbes believes that in the state of nature, man has no power to control others, and because of this, everyone is aggressive towards one another, as no one can trust another. Because of this, social order is necessary to give man incentive towards cooperation and trust, by selling your individual rights to freedom in order to gain social rights of security and safety. The role of the social order is to combat man’s aggressiveness, man’s power to hurt one another and direct this towards positive social ends instead of destructive.

Thus, small groups invite invaders and foster dissent. Hobbes to accepted that man bestowing his power in one leader, “is more than consent, or concord; it is a real unity of them all, in one every man, I authorize and give up my right of governing myself, to this man, or on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like manner.” (CWT III, 38). The preceding quote was Hobbes’s opinion of a social contract. This, Hobbes believed, was essential to man escaping the state of nature, and to the formation of a responsible government.

Locke and Hobbes are both famed political philosophers whose writings have been greatly influential in the development of modern political thought. In addition, the two are similar in that both refer to a “state of nature” in which man exists without government, and both speak of risks in this state. However, while both speak of the dangers of a state of nature, Hobbes is more pessimistic, whereas Locke speaks of the potential benefits. In addition, Hobbes speaks of states of nature theoretically, whereas Locke points out examples where they exist.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have authored two works that have had a significant impact on political philosophy. In the “Leviathan” by Hobbes and “Two Treatises of Government” by Locke, the primary focus was to analyze human nature to determine the most suitable type of government for humankind. They will have confounding results. Hobbes concluded that an unlimited sovereign is the only option, and would offer the most for the people, while for Locke such an idea was without merit. He believed that the government should be limited, ruling under the law, with divided powers, and with continued support from its citizens. With this paper I will argue that Locke had a more realistic approach to identifying the human characteristics that

Thomas Hobbes was a divisive figure in his day and remains so up to today. Hobbes’s masterpiece, Leviathan, offended his contemporary thinkers with the implications of his view of human nature and his theology. From this pessimistic view of the natural state of man, Hobbes derives a social contract in order to avoid civil war and violence among men. Hobbes views his work as laying out the moral framework for a stable state. In reality, Hobbes was misconstruing a social contract that greatly benefited the state based on a misunderstanding of civil society and the nature and morality of man.

Thomas Hobbes claims that in a state of nature, people are constantly fighting against each other, and the only way to overcome this is to form a commonwealth. He does this by going over the conditions that describe a state of nature, certain rights that all people have in nature, and the method for transferring these rights, by way of a pledge to a sovereign, whether it to the one person, or a group of people in order to achieve a state of peace. While Hobbes makes a very clear argument, it does contain some faults when examined. Hobbes addresses these issues and tries to convince the reader that a commonwealth is the only way a society will experience lasting peace.

“Everyone is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies (Hobbes, 120).” Thomas Hobbes, who is a considered a rational egoist, makes this point in his book Leviathan. Hobbes believes that the means of person’s actions can only be amounted to how it ultimately affects that person. Our moral duties that we perform in the end, all stem from self-interest, rather than being justified as morally right or wrong. Hobbes states that our desires pit us against one another, and the only way to protect our self-interests is to create a common power that protects the people who consent to it.

John Locke (1689) and Thomas Hobbes (2010) share a common underlying concern: establishing a social contract between the government and the governed. To be legitimate, government must rest in the final analysis on the “consent” of the governed, they maintain. They also share a common view of humanity as prone to selfishness (Morgan, 2011 p. 575-800). Given the modern era, Hobbes views of the state of nature and government seem antiquated; no longer do the masses wish to be subservient to anyone man without question. Lockean principals are now the base for today’s modern, just, prosperous and free states.

If mankind is so self centered it would be hard to create a stable society. Hobbes says, “So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory” (293). Through this one can see that people do actually act according to their own benefit. If each person seeks things for their benefit, it wouldn’t be long before fights would break out. These fights would soon become mini wars and maybe worse than that. If there is no control mechanism for this kind of society there would be no trust amongst the people and war would be never ending. Hobbes looked further into the issue and came to the conclusion that mankind was being selfish not merely for that reason but for the sake of survival. He believed that man was inherently prone to fight to survive but without a structure to that mindset survival would transform to what I have mentioned before selfishness. Hobbes goes on to speak about mankind’s “natural right,” he says, “as long as this natural right of every man to every things endureth, there can be no security to any man” (295). The only way to balance this fact of human nature is to establish an absolute power that can put some control amongst the people. Hobbes proposed something that would meet the requirements to control a society that is naturally looking for their own survival. He goes on to say, “a common power, to keep them in awe, and to direct their actions to

A state is sovereign when its magistrate owes allegiance to no superior power, and he or she is supreme within the legal order of the state. It may be assumed that in every human society where there is a system of law there is also to be found, latent beneath the variety of political forms, in a democracy as much as in a absolute monarchy, a simple relationship between subjects rendering habitual obedience, and a sovereign who renders obedience to none. This vertical structure, of sovereign and subjects, according to this theory, is analogous to the backbone of a man. The structure constitutes an essential part of any human society which possesses a system of law, as the backbone

From the complex ideas introduced in the selected passage, Hobbes proceeds to construct a very significant yet disputable argument in which he encourages the need to submit ourselves to political authority. He justifies that although men are rational they are naturally self-interested and thus require the authority of a sovereign to govern them. The

Thomas Hobbes born in 1588, was an English political theorist who believed in Monarchy. Hobbes felt that humans, by nature were inherently selfish beings. During the English Civil war, he expressed the need for an absolute ruler. Like how a man has control over his household. To Hobbes, “without an absolute ruler people would kill each other” (Lawrence Smith Lecture). Due to humans being inherently selfish, they would risk the commonwealth of the community for themselves. This would likely cause complications in society and the social disorder. Hobbes conveyed that, “laws make people behave as civilized people” and without them, people