Camille: Hobbes and Locke on the State of Nature and the Antidote of Government

By

Both Locke and Hobbes begin with a description of the state of nature to describe man’s condition and relationships with one another. However, both philosophers come to different conclusions about human behavior and why government is an antidote to the state of nature. 


Hobbes asserts that in a state of nature, without a common power to submit to, men are in a “condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man” (76). This state arises because all men are self-interested and motivated by “the preservation of his own nature” (79). However, since “nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind” (74), each individual’s pursuit of self-preservation can ultimately conflict with one another’s. In this state of nature, with no common power, no property, no law, and thus, no justice, industry cannot thrive, and competing acts of individuals pursuing their right of nature lead to a state of war. Thus, the origin of society and governance emerges as a solution to this state of war by having everyone submit some of their liberty to an absolute and arbitrary sovereign. Rather than a dog-eat-dog mentality of men pursuing their liberty (“without external impediments” (79)) to the point where everyone is at war with one another, mutually restrained pursuits of self-interest can better lead to the outcome of self-preservation.

 

On the other hand, Locke’s vision of a state of nature begins with freedom and equality. Living according to reason in this state, men have liberties but not full license because “he has no liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession” (9). Additionally, men have “duties they owe one another” (thus the beginning of justice and charity), where because all men are “equal and independent, no one out to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions” (9). Problems arise with this, though, when there is conflict and “no authority to decide between the contenders” (16). As a remedy, individuals quit the state of nature, put themselves in society, and have one common authority which decides controversy and can be appealed to. By everyone quitting their executive power of the law of nature and giving it up to a representative, they go from being in a state of nature to being in a state of commonwealth.


Comments

  1. HurleyJanuary 26, 2023 at 9:51 AM

    Really interesting exchange, you three. It is also interesting to bring Smith's insights in here. Smith suggests that in the development of customary practices peoples go through stages, and that they have private property in animals and common property in land, e.g. the Isrealites in the bible (on his view), before they have private property in land. What would happen if a group that had customs which recognized private property in land encountered a group that had customs which did not, which took it to be as bizarre to claim private property in land as it is to claim private, individual property in the air of the oceans? There would be a clash of customs. And if each group fell into the trap of confusing their customary practices with eternal laws of nature?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Livia: Táíwò and Economic Success in the Global South

By
  Reconsidering Reparations by Professor Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò illuminates the large extent to which racism and colonialism played in creating the current global economic structure, in which the global north dominates the global south. Additionally, this book highlights how current policies implemented by global institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank have further strengthened and reaffirmed this positioning. Taking into account this global historical perspective, we can better understand how “consequences flow from some other parts of the world to other parts, often across national borders, and in ways that complicate geographically and politically narrow ways of thinking about reparations” (24). Thus, some sort of international obligation of social justice must be exist. Táíwò’s emphasis on the role that slavery and colonialism played in establishing the current economic order makes me think about the signal which this sends to the Global South in the development of their p...
Read more

Carlos: Response to Henry's Conclusion

By
I've spent way too long trying to argue against Henry's point because it just seems wrong to conclude with "there is no current social framework by which we might call their lasting effects socially unjust–at least under the political conception of justice". Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I felt I had to agree with Henry's argument regardless of how strange it felt to do so. Still, I did have a few ideas as I was thinking of how to refute Henry's conclusion: -------------------------------------------- 1) With the hypothetical situation Henry provides, if we were to fully extend its logic to our current world, I think Prof. Hurley would have also created a division between the A and B group that would have maintained even into Tuesday. I think were that division were to have taken place, even after Prof. Hurley disbanded the government, the division would have remained and the hierarchy of power would continue into the rest of the week. It seems fa...
Read more

Smith, Locke, Harris, and Justice

By
 On page 79, Smith writes, "the violation of justice is injury: it does real and positive hurt to some particular persons," and thus it is a virtue that, unlike beneficence, warrants resentment if we fail to fulfill it. Upon reading this, I immediately thought, well how are you defining justice?  It became very clear in the following pages that Smith's conception of justice is nearly identical to Locke's Law of Nature. On page 80, he writes, "Among equals each individual is naturally, and antecedent to the institution of civil government , regarded as having a right both to defend himself from injuries, and to exact a certain degree of punishment for those which have been done to them." He continues to say that justice is only those transgressions which spectators would have the right to, and would be compelled to, punish whoever commits them. After this, he explains that no one has a right to advance their own happiness at the expense of someone else's...
Read more