Noah: Smith and Hobbes on Human Nature

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Smith clearly defines the two principles which induce meant into a civil society as authority and utility. His justification for this claim contains assumptions about human nature that run in direct contrast to Hobbes’. Where do their perspectives conflict, and what does this conflict reveal?


Describing authority, Smith makes clear that superior abilities in mind (among wealth, strength, family status, and age) give man authority over another. I agree with this claim, as I submit to the authority of my professors assuming they posses more wisdom on their respective course than I do. Yet, the underlying assumption of men respecting the various levels of intelligence and submitting to the highest is in direct contrast to Hobbes’ view of men as too egotistical to respect a superior mental capacity: “for such nature of men that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent… yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves. For they see their own wit at hand, and other men’s at a distance” (Hobbes 75). 


A similar contrast is seen purpose of civil societies and other organized powers. Concerning Utility, Smith writes that “every one is sensible of the necessity of this principle to preserve justice and peace in the society. By civil institutions, the poorest may get redress of injuries from the wealthiest and most powerful” (Smith 402). Smith emphasizes the power of a civil institution to address class inequality. He also speaks on human nature, in that a natural disposition from destruction underlies idea of all humans understanding the importance of peace in society. This perspective, again, opposes Hobbes claims: “for the laws of nature of themselves, [which for Hobbes generally revolve around egalitarianism,] without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge, and the like” (Hobbes 106). For Hobbes, a ruling power needs to curb the natural instincts of man: “partiality, pride, revenge and the like” will all emerge without one.


Where Smith advocates for a collective institution as a vehicle for a populous to promote their brightest individuals, receive restorative justice between classes, and materialize a proclivity for peace, Hobbes sees a commonwealth as a necessary restrain among men’s inflated sense of their own intelligence and their disposition for immoral action. The contrast, to me, reveals that the systems one advocates for often reflect their underlying assumptions about human behavior. 

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