The State Of Nature, By Thomas Hobbes

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.

Hobbes held a rather pessimistic view of human nature, writing in Leviathan that, in the state of nature, the lives of all humans would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” He believed that, in the state of nature (ie without a without a central power), every man is in constant war with every other man. This constant battle arises from the fact that no one can trust anyone else not to harm or steal from them. You may tell me that you won’t steal my horse, but there’s nothing stopping you from murdering me in my sleep and making off with all of my possessions. Thus, I must expect an attack – to prevent it, it would be wise for me to act first, killing you before you kill me. We see how the natural state of war arises.

Hobbes believed that people should not possess any rights, because if we did, chaos would be created. Chaos would come afloat because humans are greedy, selfish and self-interested, making us unable to think of anyone else but ourselves. Our responsibilities would be to simply follow the “ king’s” rules, or in a society like ours, simply follow the laws. Ultimately in Hobbes's ideal society people would have no freedom and one responsibility, with the exception of the king who is in charge of keeping order; thus making his/her rights and responsibilities flexible. He thought this was because, during the English revolution, the chaos was created because people opposed the leader, and instead disagreed with him and his ruling

Without a strong sovereign power, people would resort back to what he refers to as the “state of nature.” This state puts everyone against each other and is fueled by the unlimited desires of a human among scarcity. Another condition in the state of nature is that everyone is equal, allowing even the weakest person to kill the strongest. There is also a disagreement on good and evil among the people, however everyone searches for a way to protect oneself, which leads to the establishment of a social contract backed up by a great power. The self-serving and dangerous conditions of life in the state of nature now shift to the right of nature, which is self-preservation. This right comes with three laws, consisting of seeking peace when others do, creating a contract for peace, and obeying the contract. Hobbes defines a contract as a mutual transfer of right and should lead to peace, security, and stability as long as each party obeys. Once again, the sovereign is not a party to the contract, and is only there to make sure citizens keep the peace or else face the risk of being back in the state of

The key component of Hobbes’ theory of government is social contract theory: that people give up some of their freedom to a government that protects their safety; as a result, rights are granted by the government, as this social contract is the only protection that people have over their rights. Hobbes’ social contract theory stems from his view of the state of nature, or what would occur if no government existed. In Hobbes’ view, the state of nature is extremely chaotic, or as he writes, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” This chaotic state occurs because people have no incentive not to harm each other, since “if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end endeavour to destroy or subdue one another.” In addition, Hobbes argues that there is no morality or rights in the state of nature, saying “The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.” Since Hobbes believes that people have no inherent rights in a state of nature, and that no one has any incentive to respect the rights of others, he believes that a government is necessary in order to

Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century English philosopher outlines in his book Leviathan (1651) that the state of nature is a state of “warre, as if of every man, against every man”. Hobbes sets out his moral philosophy with regard to human nature; the way humans behave amongst each other and the state of nature; the natural condition of human interaction as a proceed of nature. Hobbes uses the state of nature as a mechanism for demonstrating the preconditions of a political society. By highlighting the pre-political condition as an unendurable state of permanent conflict, Hobbes intends to establish the necessity of a distinctive political society, one that is governed by a collective and undivided absolute sovereign. Hobbes argues that the worst that a man can endure is the reversal to the state of nature, which is when society is faced with a civil war, as Hobbes himself witnessed in his lifetime. Hobbes claims that a sovereign with absolute power is the greatest security against the reversal of the state of nature. Hobbes believes that men are not born to be sociable and that it is not in their nature to seek a life together. Instead, Hobbes contends that men will create an absolute sovereign entity to govern all men. There are contradictions of Hobbes arguments particularly the question of how men are able to give up their freedom and rights to live under a sovereign that implement laws and punishments, rather than staying in the state of nature where they are free to do what

The Sovereign should have the most power and “that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. [p. 190] He strongly believes in control of a higher authority to maintain an ideal state of nature, he believes that man fears and mistrusts every other man in the real world and that there is no such thing as injury or justice, he even goes on to state that it is ‘absurd’. Hobbes believes the Law of Nature is that the “authority of the sovereign is absolute”, in the sense that no authority is above the sovereign and that its will is law. Hobbes says, that “every man has a right to every thing; even to one another’s body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man.” [p.190] In this quote he means that in the state of nature you have no (human) rights of property, self, and everyone else has a right to what you take as yours. This goes alongside Hobbes controlled ideological views of an ideal state. Hobbes discuses the mutual transferring of rights where a social contract subsequently leads man to leave the state of nature, and enter into a contract to transfer the right to thing, exchanges of goods or land and money. He goes against this as he feels that man may become dependent on things, subsequently it will threaten and perhaps collapse the sovereignty because the power of it is compromised and wont be able to protect

Thomas Hobbes is a 17th century political philosopher whose book, Leviathan, is regarded as the founder of modern Western political philosophy. This book forms the basis of his popular social contract theory as well as his understanding of human beings. He describes the functions of human beings whilst in the state of nature. The Hobbesian the state of nature is essentially the “natural condition of mankind” (Wootton 158). By this, he imagines a hypothetical world where there is no civilization and no defined form of commonwealth. This hypothetical state is governed by Hobbes’ Laws of Nature, which is “a precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive to his life, or taketh away by means of preserving the same” (Wootton 160). Throughout the Leviathan, Hobbes imagines how human beings would act in such a world and criticizes the selfish tendencies of human nature. He views humans as selfish, violent, and competitive by nature and people will do anything to preserve their own life, as their own self-interest is their first priority. He describes human tendencies in the state of nature as “war of all against all” and thus, life in the state of nature would be “poor nasty, brutish, and short” (Wootton 159). It is clear that Hobbes does not view human nature in a positive way. Human nature in this context can be viewed as natural qualities possessed by every human being. Hobbes’ pessimistic view of human nature

Hobbes welcomes us to consider what life would be similar to in a condition of nature, that is, a condition without government. Perhaps we would envision that individuals may charge best in such a state, where each chooses for herself the right direct, and is judge, jury and killer in her own particular case at whatever point verbal showdown create—and that at any rate, this state is the suitable illustration against which to judge the legitimacy of political outlines. Hobbes terms this circumstance "the state of direct nature", a condition of famously private judgment, in which there is no relationship with saw vitality to official common contention and productive imperativeness to support its choices.

Therefore, when Hobbes speaks of a state of nature, he is speaking of a state without a governing body. In the natural state, “Every man was continually engaged in a war against all other men (“bellum universale”)” (“The Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes”) in an effort to gain power (“Thomas Hobbes”). In Hobbes’s natural state, all men are equal insofar that each man is able to kill every other man, be it through sheer force, cunning, or by joining his power with others against a stronger foe (Williams). This “equality” leads Hobbes to claim that “there is no natural source of authority to order [men’s] lives together,” (Williams). Also in Hobbes’s bellum universale, “‘nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place [in the state of nature],’” (Williams). The combination of Hobbesian equality and lack of a universal moral system allow there for no agreed authority to decide if anyone’s actions are allowable or not. Unless “people share the same moral ideas…at the level of individual judgment,” (Williams), no conclusion may be arrived at. However, identical moral ideas for each and every judgment on each and every person are possible when political authority exists.

For centuries the question whether war is a product of Man 's nature or an outcome of nurture has been a source of intellectual debate. In the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries each of the political philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau took different stances regarding this issue in their deduction of "the state of nature"; a concept describing people 's lives before the existence of civilized societies and laws.

Hobbes talks about human nature in which we are more needy and weak. We attempt to know the worlds nature around us. Our limit to know the reason is as delicate and it depends on language and too much pressure. We do more selfishly deeds and ignorance on the basics of defective logic or bad theology to other when we act. Hobbes political fate is sounding creature and he thinks that by living together we can get little happiness. Under sounding sovereign we can hope for the peaceful and happy life. The state of nature, condition of making, and insecurity threat in the worst which Hobbes calls in his view. The argument of Hobbes which relates to government is the situation for them in which one can practically wish and people must underline any attempts to make the government responsible and we all must avoid the threatening and violent situation of non government. Therefore sovereign authority is the only reasonable option for us which is completely unaccountable to its subjects. So the natural condition of this non government is also called the state of the nature in which we all have to do arrangement. (Edwards)

Thomas Hobbes was raised and trained to be a humanist. His approach to analyzing the body of politics was to define it as a composition of individuals and humans. In his book, “Leviathan” he considered human beings to be like machines where “the heart [is], but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body.” (Hobbes 1651). As machines, humans would carry out their duties without any emotions or reasoning, which is to survive. Hobbes believes that these individual human beings are naturally self- preserving and selfish creatures. This leads to his refurbished conclusion of the law that determines human nature being that: we can’t trust one another because one’s life matters more to him than that of someone else’s. One will kill or let another die if it ensures their own survival.

Hobbes’ description of man’s nature as a restless desire for power is the central foundation for the creation of Hobbes’ state of nature. Life in what is considered a state of nature is the nature in the condition without government. Hobbes states the scenario as “the condition of mere nature”(84[18]), a state where no authority exist other than whatever authority, privacy, security or power an individual is able to gain privately by themselves. Under this state of nature Hobbes assigns man a right of preservation of themselves which he calls “the right of nature”(79[1]) where “each man hath to use

The sovereign is the most powerful being or body in the state. The social contact is the agreement between people that they will not kill each other and live in peace. Hobbes suggests for the social contract to have any meaning and to ensure that it is not broken requires the existence of the sovereign. This is because without the sovereign people’s distrust towards each other will cause them to break the contract. However, with the establishment of the sovereign, people will not break the contract because of the fear of being punished by the sovereign. The punishment will be greater than any benefit that the person would gain from breaking the contract. The sovereign therefore ensures that the contract is not broken (Hobbes 1839-45, 79). The sovereign and the social contract are therefore necessary and sufficient conditions for getting out of the State of Nature and moving to civil society.