Hobbes\' State of Nature a War of All Against

¶ … Hobbes believes that the cruel nature of human beings causes the state of nature to be a war of all against all. To do this, we will explain the difference between collective and individual rationality and how it applies to human beings in the Hobbesian state of nature. Also, we will identify the assumptions that cause Hobbes to believe the state of nature is a war of all against all and explain why he needs them. By delving into this assumptions, we can abandon our philosophical heritage from Locke and understand the opposite position of Hobbes.

Of the social contract theorists, Thomas Hobbes is the most extreme in terms of his view of human nature. Hobbes wrote a number of philosophical works, but the English Civil War with its horrible violence left an indelible impression upon him. In his magnum opus Leviathan that he published in 1651 he presents his view that humans are in a constant state of nature war with each other. In this state, everyone has a right to everything else. These unfettered rights among people leads to unending anarchy and suffering. Without establishing a social contract amongst themselves and without a strong sovereign, they would destroy themselves via their own selfishness and fight for personal gain. According to Hobbes, it is certain that during the time that me live without a common central power to keep their animalistic natures in check, they are in a constant state of war against every other person. Unchecked, this state of war is of every man against every other man. There is no individual rationality. Only a common rationality reigns that keeps this horrible violence in check that would otherwise leave on fear the danger of violent death. The collective security of the strong provides a path from tis life that would leave man alone, poor and with a horribly short life (Wolff, 1996, 9).

The state specifically exists to prevent human beings from destroying the society as a whole. Hobbes centers upon demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to prevent societal violence and civil war. This is played out in the tendency of people to live to maximize the attribute of pleasure and to minimize pain. This state mediates between these needs and the people as a whole need to obey the central power that the collective whole has contracted with to preserve the entire civilization. In reaction to the religious and political hysteria of the war, he formulated a very mechanical basis of the state that was based completely upon a concept of materialism ibid.).

The above is especially played out in Hobbes use of Galileo's model of order with its heliocentric system. This would have been a reaction against the religious anarchy that Hobbes had seen in his life. Just as Galileo had imposed a secular order, so would the secular central government of Hobbes also impose a rational order upon a chaotic political and social system. The earth could not be the center of this system with its human frailties. Rather, like the solar system, there had to be a central physical power around which everything else orbits and pays fealty to (ibid.).

Certainly, in our liberal society, our reaction to Hobbes was immediate. Probably, he was more lauded and decried than any other thinker of his time. It is the opinion of this author that he would have been either loved or hated. There probably could have been no middle position.

While Hobbes has been attacked for promoting a strong and more authoritarian form of government, this author thinks that it is unfair to miscategorize Hobbes as justifying megalomania and dictatorship. This is the reason for Galileo. The order is rational and objective.

This author thinks that while Hobbes' views may seem extreme in the modern context, he must be understood in the dimensions of his time. He had very good reason to distrust human beings. After all, civil war had just ripped his country apart. While he did not see it first hand (he remained in France during the duration of the war), no doubt he lost family and friends. Like the U.S. Civil War, brother was fighting brother. Certainly, families and friendships were torn asunder. Also, considering that he was in as much or more trouble with the royalists, one can be assured that he was speaking his own mind and was not in the pay of the royalists.

What Hobbes was trying to construct was a philosophical basis for a completely secular government, one that was rational and not subject to the religious and politically capricious whims of the moment. The government he dreamed of was stable, permanent and planned, the exact opposite of the world in which he lived. The social contract that was derived to bring it about gave it permanent legitimacy in the eyes of its subjects who had pledged to obey its dictates. Self-defense against death, Hobbes' highest human necessity, was fulfilled by the government portrayed in the Leviathan that protected the lives of all of its citizens. Like Galileo's heavenly bodies, this system would have had a constant motion, and therefore a constant legitimacy (ibid., 8-9).

This is why Hobbes adds a reasonable assumption that a state of nature there is an inherent scarcity of material goods. This brings about two or more people desiring the same goods and services and trying to possess the same things. This causes humans then to be constantly on guard to protect their possessions from being taken. Such pressures would make perpetual war inevitable and the perpetual lust for power to make this possible (ibid., 9-10).

This gives Hobbes then what he sees as the three principal reasons for people to attack in a state of nature, including for gain, for safety, or for glory/reputation. This tendency is held in check by the central power. For Hobbes, there can not ever be morality in a state of nature. Rather, in his system, an act of injustice is an act against order and rationality as imposed to reign in man's primitive, warlike nature and to channel these energies into positive directions (ibid., 10-11).