What Does Hobbes Do During The English Civil War

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.

According to Startwell, author of “The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror”, humans have the “desire for our own security and that of our family and friends to the extent we are willing to make moral compromises to preserve it.” This is a common motive of many people and helps us understand why we feel inclined to follow our authoritative figures despite some of the extreme measures. Our flight or fight response is our internal motivation to do anything to survive. It is triggered when we feel we are in life threatening situations. This natural instinct of ours explain why our judgement is frequently off in these types of situations causing us to make rash decisions. In addition, Lessing, author of “Group Minds”, highlights that we prefer to not be singled out in a crowd since we are afraid of the negative consequences. It does seem easier to listen to the rules instead of having to go against them. If we would try to defy the authority, it is highly possible that we would be isolated from the crowd. The others, typically, lean more towards taking the authoritative figure’s side since they are afraid of what the consequences would be if they were to also try to rebel. Standing out from the crowd is very uncomfortable since there is an unknown certainty if anyone else will join; therefore, we have the tendency to not attempt it. In general, people

In this essay, I will be explaining about certain topics. First of what this supposed “moral crisis” is. Last is how Hobbes responded to this “moral crisis”. And how Hobbs believe we can solve this “moral crisis” on our hands.

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.

Throughout history violence has plagued our human race. We have passed laws to protect society, but the

Hobbes claim that a right can be transferred or abandoned is an arguable matter that has many reasons why or why not it is true. I agree with Hobbes claim, firstly with his law of nature. His first law states that we must seek peace and follow it. This goes hand in hand with the second law, which are rights to self-defense. This is a state of anarchy, so to have a safe civilization; everybody must give up their rights to do whatever they want to another person to gain peace. This way, we are abandoning our rights to absolute freedom or are transferring our rights to a higher power to keep control of all of us. Hobbes also has a Social Contract Theory in which the people give/transfer some of their rights to their monarch to keep control to

Since the establishments of governments, since human societies had kings and queens, since governments were ran under a religious doctrine, there has always been conflict among different groups of people. There will always be differences among people of different cultures, religions, race and ethnicity. There has always been a division of power between people and inequality in the world. There was a point in human history that slaves were bought and sold as property, as if life was insignificant and could be bought again. It was the norm between cultures to push away any new movement that threatened ideologies of their regime and it was necessary to maintain control of their people. It is difficult to imagine a world where people didn’t have a voice, but there was a time in our history that these inequalities in government really mattered and defined you as a person. How did governments and regimes handle conflicts and upheavals? War. War was the first and last defense, it was not used as a noun but an action verb. It was the only thing that gave a sense of security and to an extent it was necessary. Not so much because we were unmoral people, but simply because it was another established norm. War was the way to settle differences among governments it gave right to peace between people after a war.

People become power hungry. It's happened time and time again. We’ve had dictators rule people's lives for centuries. From Aulus Postumius Albinus to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, humans like to rule. We have a sense of power and almost pride when humans dictate.

Thomas Hobbes wrote during the time of the English Civil War and these events were heavily reflected within his writing. This time demonstrated a tremendous amount of political instability within the state and the violent war caused tension and unrest amongst the citizens. Hobbes advocates for the need for an all-powerful sovereign in order to ensure peace and security within society. Hobbes argues that humans were naturally drawn into a state of war and the only way to escape this conflict was if humans entered into a social contract in which they traded their individual liberties in exchange for protection from a higher political power of authority. For Hobbes sovereignty is best achieved when humans, “owe under the immortal God, [their] peace and defence” (Hobbes, 332). According to Hobbes when humans sacrifice their personal liberty they are avoiding the fear of violent death and instead would be able to live a peaceful life. Hobbes states that in the natural state of war humans seek to destroy one another, “ 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” (319). It is essential to enter into a social contract because without a constant source of political authority in their life, human life would result in chaos. In an attempt to avoid the violent wars that result in the state of nature and in order to escape violent death that he

To support his ideas, Thomas Hobbes asked the question,” If men are naturally in a state of war, why are they carrying arms and need keys to lock their doors.” In other words, even when the country is at peace, people are still using things which can get them a better advantage over others and keeping their own interests a secret from others. According to Thomas Hobbes, the reason that this is the case is because people are selfish and evil and that they must protect their interests really well by using certain tactics to make sure other people devastate their needs and wants. Also,

In Thomas Hobbes quote above he is stating that the only way to hold such a strong power and a strong government is to strip all the freedom and rights of the people and give that power to the government. This is part of a work called Leviathan, which is a paper that he argued; people were naturally cruel, greedy, and selfish. If not strictly controlled they would fight, rob, and oppress one another. He states that the only way for the people to be defended is to take away their only source of power, leaving all their chances and outcomes in the hands of the government. This method did not work for the common working man throughout the years. The government would become very corrupt and left the people to survive by themselves, thinking that they could not discipline such little power in the first place. A social contract would work perfectly for Hobbes type of

Men make war on each other when there is no common enemy because they believe their thoughts and actions are correct. They become blind to other people's opinions. Hobbes believes "there are very few men who agree with one another. This is caused by men, hindering one another, and reducing their strengths by popular opposition to nothing" (2). Because of Hobbes believes war is inevitable without the commonwealth. Men disagree and only care about their thought. This is what causes war. Hobbes' view makes sense, and without the government and rules, I believe War maybe is inevitable. However, I do not think war is necessary because people should understand everyone has their beliefs, opinions and they all have a right to their opinion and belief.

The difference between Hobbes and Mill despots is that Hobbes think that for a society to be in order and secure it needs an authoritarian government – a sovereign with an absolute power, the Leviathan. Hobbes gave all the powers to the sovereign for a reason to protect and secure the lives of his subjects. Hobbes believed that people should transfer their rights to the sovereign, and let sovereign decides what is appropriate for the security wellbeing of the people and society. Hobbes also believed that people should not interfere in the decisions that sovereign make as they are in one sided mode of contract with the sovereign. Hobbes believed that monarchy is the best form of government in order for the society to be in peace. Whereas, Mill

Thomas Hobbes has come up with his answer about how government needs to exist to keep individuals under control because they will naturally cause chaos if they are left alone. Hobbes refers to us humans as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” He generally believes individuals are born in bad quality and not good enough for the world. “And therefore, if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies…endeavor to destroy or subdue one another.” (Hobbes 95). Hobbes approaches the idea that humans automatically become hostile against each other if they strive for the same goal. There are many examples of this kind of situation. Basically, if we watch some of those generic love dramas where

The way Society is going now is controlled by a ‘few’ who have control of vast resources for directing and manipulating the masses. And they have violent oppression of those who will not submit to their structured system of control as a back up resource.