But without a government, these agreements will fall apart, because there’s nobody to ensure that all parties stick to the deal. Hobbes thinks that humans are rational creatures, and we can all see that it would be better if we agreed not to rob from and murder each other. If life in the state of nature would be intolerable, then what is the solution? To escape the state of nature, Hobbes proposes that it would be rational to establish a government. Even with the police just a phone call away, don’t you lock your doors when you sleep at night?Īccording to Hobbes, if you can’t trust your neighbors to leave you alone even when there are laws against theft and assault, imagine how much worse it would be if people were free to do anything they thought was necessary to survive in the state of nature. Hobbes says that if you doubt it would be so bad, think about how you act under your existing government. Everyone lives in “continual fear and danger of violent death.” It’s awful! Someone can take it from you at any moment. In this state of nature, projects like farming, manufacturing, science, and the arts are a waste of time, because there’s no guarantee you’ll enjoy the fruits of your labor. You must constantly be ready to fight, even if you’d prefer not to, because the only way to ensure your safety is to go after others before they go after you. The end result is that the state of nature consists of a war of all against all. Even those who don’t need or want to attack you are a danger, because they can’t trust that you will leave them alone, so to be safe, they must attack you first. Others would attack you because they want to be more powerful than everyone else. Some people would attack you because they need your resources to survive.
All of your belongings, and your life itself, might be taken at any moment, because there is no greater power to stop anyone from attacking you. In the state of nature, this equal ability to kill each other leads to mistrust.
Even the weakest person can kill the strongest if there’s nobody around to stop them. Nobody is powerful enough to be immune to attack. Hobbes thinks all humans are equal when it comes to matters of survival. Hobbes imagines what life would be like in the “state of nature,” a hypothetical world without governments. This essay explains why he thinks this, and it presents his solution, which is to create a government with absolute power. He argued in his book Leviathan that, without government, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) famously leaned in the latter direction. What would life be like without any government? Would it be a utopia, or would it be miserable? Category: Historical Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy
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