State Of Nature Right example essay topic

In The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes is writing during a time of great political turmoil and upheaval, the English Civil War. He claims that in a state of nature, people are constantly warring against each other, and the only way to overcome this is to form a commonwealth; what Hobbes also calls an "artificial man". He does this by going over the conditions that characterize a state of nature, certain rights that all people have by nature, and the method for transferring these rights, by way of a covenant, to a sovereign, whether it be one person, or a group of people in order to achieve a state of peace. While Hobbes makes a very relevant and clear argument, it does contain some shortcomings when examined closely. Hobbes addresses these issues and tries to convince the reader that his commonwealth is the only way a society will experience lasting peace.

Hobbes argues that when there is no government or civil authority, humans are living in a state of nature. This state is what Hobbes calls a war, "of every man against every other man" (Leviathan pg. 106). Since there is no order, everybody can lay a claim to anything they want for themselves. To Hobbes, this war is a result of three different causes.

Hobbes claims that humans are, for the most part, physically equal. By this, he acknowledges that some people are stronger than others are, but we are all mortals, have basically the same mental faculties, and are vulnerable at times. This means that a competition ensues among any person or group of people that desire something. For example, if I desire something that somebody is in possession of already; and this person is bigger and stronger than me, I can band together with a few friends and physically overcome him in order to gain the object of my desire. War also arises out of diffidence, or attacking somebody for fear that they are about to attack you; a pre-emptive strike. So, if I think that somebody wants to take something of mine, I may, on this assumption, take something of theirs beforehand to harm them for the purpose of protecting my own self-interest.

The third cause of war is glory, or the desire to be feared and have a good reputation, so people will fear to attack you in the future. All of these desires stem from the Right of Nature which says that people will act in order to protect their own well being as well as the well being of their loved ones, and the Law of Nature which states that a person cannot rationally act in any way that will endanger ones own life. From theses two laws follow the fundamental Law of Nature that says people will seek a state of peace, "and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war". (Leviathan, pg. 110) Hobbes doesn't think that humans are absolute brutes constantly battling just because they love to fight; he does, however, think that a society without the protection of a sovereign can deteriorate into this state because of the desire people have to look out for their own self-interests and to preserve their own lives. Living in this state of nature has a number of consequences. First, Hobbes is a materialist, meaning he believes that everything in the world is simply matter in motion.

As a result of this, he rejects the idea of a highest good, or "summum bonum". Nothing in the world is intrinsically good or evil. So in a state of nature right and wrong is simply what is right or wrong to each individual person, since there is no government or laws that spell out right and wrong. The only way people can make agreements with each other is by way of contract, which is a mutual exchanging of rights. It is important to note that when Hobbes speaks about contracts, he means that the rights are transferred immediately and on the spot. There is, however a special circumstance of this contract called a covenant.

A covenant is a contract in which one person will give up one of his rights to somebody under the condition that the other person's right will be given to him at a later time. Covenants are the basis of all laws, rights to property, and in general, most aspects of a civil society. However, according to Hobbes, all covenants between people living in a state of nature are null and void because "He that performs the first has no assurance the other will perform after". (Leviathan pg. 115) This means that because the parties aren't bound by any law or statute, the second person has no incentive to perform his end of the covenant at a later time, because there is no law and he cannot be punished for reneging on the contract.

So far, Hobbes' prospects for humanity seem pretty bleak and grim. However, Hobbes does propose a way to overcome this state of nature. The only way that man can overcome the state of nature "is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will". (Leviathan, pg. 142) A commonwealth is created when a group of people gives up their natural right to anything they desire and self-protection, provided that everybody else in the group does so as well, to a common sovereign. This sovereign can be either one person (a monarchy); a certain group of people (an aristocracy) or everybody in the commonwealth (a democracy). The sovereign institutes all laws to be obeyed.

These laws must be for the good of those who are governed because it is the people who created this sovereign in the first place. It is essential to note that whatever the sovereign decides to be just or unjust becomes the just or unjust because the sovereign becomes the voice of the desires of the people. The making of laws is perhaps the simplest duty of the sovereign. The important part is that these laws must be enforced. In the state of nature, all covenants are void because there is no punishment for breaking them. In a commonwealth, however, it would be against the law to break a covenant, so the person would be punished.

It follows logically that the person would not break the covenant to begin with out of fear of the punishment. According to Hobbes, "covenants without the sword are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all". (Leviathan, pg. 139) He argues that if there isn't a punishment that is worse than what would happen if the person went through with his end of the covenant, then in fact there really isn't a law because there is nothing to fear. The law must be both punishable and enforceable in order to be a law.

This argument seems both feasible and logical, given the fact that humans will act according to the fundamental law of nature. The main problem with Hobbes' argument is that the sovereign has an awful lot of power, unlimited in fact. In the commonwealth, any law the sovereign makes actually becomes what is good and just and right, because the sovereign reduces all the wills and voices of the people in to one single voice. For this reason, there can be no such thing as a just rebellion. Anybody who is rebelling would be in violation of the law, and therefore wrong and unjust in doing so. Also, because the sovereign determines justice, there is nothing the sovereign can do which is unjust.

This means the sovereign can do anything he wants to, and nobody can justly say or do anything about it. While there is no such thing as a just rebellion, Hobbes does acknowledge three things that humans, by nature, will resist against. These are: death, bodily injury, and imprisonment. It seems that a sovereign could be very oppressive in his policies toward the people. Hobbes attempts to solve this by saying that the condition of the people reflects upon the condition of the sovereign, so it is in the best interest of the sovereign to treat the people well. Also, since the sovereign is created by the people out of their desire to live in a state of lasting peace, he should act accordingly in order to achieve this state.

If the sovereign doesn't work toward a state of peace, then the people would be closer to the state of nature; but the whole reason the people give up their right to self-protection is to ensure a lasting state of peace. In his Leviathan, Sir Thomas Hobbes seeks out the condition in which human beings can overcome their natural state and live in a society that enjoys lasting peace. In theory, it makes a good deal of sense; but questions arise whether it would work in a real world situation because of the unlimited power of the sovereign.