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So, half of you don't actually know what "Hobbesian" means, and yet you are debating whether or not it is a good thing? This could be very funny indeed....
Oh, all right...from the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy on the State of Nature:
Hobbes, for example, characterized it as an utterly lawless state of affairs in which 'the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice ... have no place', and where each man has the right (or liberty) to do whatever he deems necessary to preserve himself. Such a condition, he says, is 'called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man'. He observes that under such circumstances 'the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. Thus, Hobbes concludes that the only kind of political authority strong and stable enough to safeguard us from ever falling into such a horrible condition again is unlimited political authority, preferably an absolute monarchy. The authority of such a sovereign must be unconditional and indissoluble; the right to rule conferred on the sovereign must be such that 'whatsoever he doth, it can be no injury to any of his subjects, nor ought he to be by any of them accused of injustice'.
Locke, on the other hand, characterized the state of nature as a pre-political state, but insists that 'the state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that, being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions'. Because of this he views the state of nature as merely involving certain inconveniences. These inconveniences consist in (1) the lack of an established, known law that gives an authoritative interpretation of the law of nature, (2) the absence of an impartial judge to determine violations of the law and their proper punishment, and (3) the want of a power sufficient to ensure enforcement of the law.
Thus, while granting that 'civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature', Locke also admonishes us 'to remember that absolute monarchs are but men' and asks, 'if government is to be the remedy of those evils which necessarily follow from men's being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is than the state of nature, where one man commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases ... and in whatsoever he does, whether led by reason, mistake, or passion, must be submitted to'.
Locke concludes that the proper remedy for the state of nature must place ultimate political authority in the will of the majority, who will then entrust political power to governmental officials only under the condition that the latter promote the common good, reserving the right to remove them if they violate this trust. |
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