Hobbes' Leviathan and political authority

¶ … Hobbes' Theories

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a famous English philosopher and political theorist who profoundly influenced the political events during the so-called English Revolution (1640-1660), a time of great upheaval and disorder. Hobbes wrote his famous work Leviathan (1651) in this period in which he advocated a form of government in which the subjects hand over all the authority to the ruler. Hobbes is also thought to be the major influence behind the ethical philosophy of Utilitarianism and has contributed greatly to the development of psychology and modern sociology. Hobbes was one of the first philosophers to give a secular justification for a secular state and was responsible for the departure from a religiously centered thinking (the Scholasticism) in Europe that was opposed to any new ideas beyond the Christian theology and the Greek philosophies. This departure from Scholasticism is one of the turning points in Western civilization as secularism became increasingly important and the all-pervasive influence of religion and theology (on the ways in which the governments were run and on the way people led their lives) declined gradually.

Hobbes' theories have also had their effect on human social relations as he applied the principles of naturalism or mechanism to explain human behavior or motivation. This was a significant departure from the prevalent doctrine of teleology that explained that nature and creation are ordered and regulated by a divine plan. Hobbes attempted to explain the phenomenon of nature by the scientific and mechanical laws of nature. In the field of human psychology Hobbes presented his concept of naturalistic self-interest. He believed that all human behavior is controlled by its instinct for self-interest. He proposed his theory of appetite and aversion that explains human behavior in terms of all efforts by individuals to try and move towards a state of pleasure and away from pain. His materialistic theories had also put him in trouble with the authorities in his lifetime that considered his work atheistic. In his Leviathan observes: "human life in its state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" and that it is engaged " in a war of all against all."

As a consequence, Hobbes greatly emphasized the importance of an organized society and argued that in order to avoid anarchism and a culture of dog eat dog, people seek security by entering into a social contract in which each person's original power is yielded to a sovereign (or the government) who regulates conduct.

Children who are educated on the principles of Hobbes' theories are likely to grow up being skeptical of the theories of divine religion, although not necessarily irreligious. This is because Hobbes was not a rabid atheist and was only arguing for a distinction between knowledge and faith believing that belief in God was a matter of faith and one could not "gain" knowledge of God. One must also remember the historical context in which Hobbes presented his theories as he was reacting to the decentralizing ideas of reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries. Hence, in my opinion children who are brought up with knowledge of Hobbes' philosophy would be more aware of the human psychology and be better off.