QN 1(a) “How would I and my fellow human beings behave if we were to find ourselves in a state of nature, and what does this behavior tell us about our innate pre-dispositions?” (Thomas Hobbes)
QN 1(a) “How would I and my fellow human beings behave if we were to find ourselves in a state of nature, and what does this behavior tell us about our innate pre-dispositions?” (Thomas Hobbes)
State of nature is a hypothetical concept, which deduces what kind of situation would have prevailed before the evolution of organised society. It has been widely used by political philosophers to understand the origins of state and their nature.
Thomas Hobbes had witnessed the Puritan revolution of 1640's. It was chaotic, anarchistic and riots. It ended with the beheading of the monarch. This even had lasting impact on Hobbes. His main work Leviathan establishes an all powerful state, whose main aim is to provide security and stability.
Hobbes is considered as the modern and scientific thinker. He made most of his observations on the basis of scientific and analytic thinking of that age. His analysis of human behaviour was also made on that basis.
Based on the scientific idea of that time that all matter was compressed of particles Hobbes concludes that human behaviour is controlled by the moment of particles in individual's mind. He deduced two types of reactions,
- Liking or love : external stimuli which causes pleasure is seeked more by the human mind
- Disliking or aversion : stimuli that causes pain or avoided by the human mind
He concluded that since an individual is only able to comprehend the movement of particles in his brain he won't be able to understand the feelings of others. Thus he felt man's innate predispositions were to be self centered, greedy, highly individualistic, pleasure seeking and pain averse.
His further analysis that man would seek power for security. Is decide to seek security wood fuel and competitive race with no end. Thus the state of nature was a state of uncertainty and pain. Hobbes concluded that life was shot brutish and violent in the state of nature. To him, there was no scope for letters,navigation or industry.
Though most modern states perform welfare functions, there is no denial that rule of law, security and stability are basic for any advancement in civilization.
I think its not proper intro and conclusions
ReplyDeleteIt’s just dummy answer, which gives you roughly idea , how to frame ans.
ReplyDeleteaccording to hobbes state of nature is a situation where every individual is sovereign and everyone have all the rights to do whatever they want. but because of the limited resources and unlimited want only the powerful among them gain maximum resources.
ReplyDeletethis will create a kind of powerstruggle between individuals and create a situation of all vs all. in this chaos maximum number of individuals feel dissatisfied
man is pleasure seeker and man is fearful of loosing things which gave him pleasure. the biggest fear is the fear of death because life is a source of pleasure.
hence it is for the protection of life or self preservation that man enters into contract and creates the state .
so, the above description gives us a glimpse of the human nature and the behaviour which are innate predisposition of human being …
they are :
1.man is individualist and only have reason to satisfy his desires.
2. man is power seeker , who always want to become more powerful.
3. man is fearful and hobbes said that “I and fear were born together “ this means that fear is innate in man and biggest fear is fear for death .
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