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Thomas Hobbes’ Remedy for. Thomas Hobbes begins Leviathan with Book 1:
Of Man, in which he builds, layer by layer, a foundation ...
... Thomas Hobbes was born in 1588 and died in 1679. ... Hobbes, just like Machiavelli,
thought he had the remedy to run a successful government. ...
... state of war of all against all 1. His sole and unique remedy for that ... the works
of RE Ewin, Virtue and Rights The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, 1991, and ...
... Promise or a set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy, or
the ... Too many individuals share the beliefs of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. ...
... Locke opposed Thomas Hobbes's view that the original state of ... the decision of the
law, for remedy in a ... Hobbes, on the contrary, asserts that without subjection ...
Submitted by blynne on July 29, 2005
Category: Philosophy
Words: 681 | Pages: 3
Views: 168
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Thomas Hobbes begins Leviathan with Book 1: Of Man, in which he builds, layer by layer, a foundation for his eventual argument that the “natural condition” of man, or one without sovereign control, is one of continuous war, violence, death, and fear.
Hobbes's depiction of this state is the most famous passage in Leviathan:
[D]uring the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in a condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man. . . . In such condition, there is no place for industry . . . no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation . . . no commodious Building; no instruments of moving . . . no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short (I-13, 186).
The final sentence of that passage, “And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short,” seems to sum up what Hobbes has been leading up to in the first twelve chapters of Leviathan: that without a sovereign power, without Leviathan, the natural life of man is simply horrible. It is a life in which people naturally and constantly seek to destroy one another.
Sadly, I think Hobbes is correct, though clearly he was writing in the abstract. While all people do have within them elements of both good and bad, as The Osmond Brothers said so succinctly in the 1970’s, “one bad apple can spoil the whole darn bunch.” Even if 99.99% of the population was good, pure, philanthropic, and just, it only takes one “evil” individual to upset everything. As Hobbes pointed out – everyone must make a singular commitment to have freedom from the natural condition.
Hobbes tells us what that commitment must be, how to choose an alternative to a life of “warre.” He writes that people must give up certain “natural” rights to a sovereign power....
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