Assess the Hobbesian Notions of the State of Nature and the Social Contract (50 Marks) Schoolboy Attempt. Yet to Be Graded

The state of nature for human beings at this point in time could be considered to be rather monitored and policed; although most people would believe that they have free will it is free will within the boundaries of what will benefit the majority.

Hobbes once asked people to consider what life would be like if we were able to do whatever we pleased, a society with no precise laws, no over ruling leaders, a place where we could do whatever we wished. Would people truly maintain a fair and just outlook on the world and the people around them? Could people really make accurate judgements in a land where everyone could potentially be right? This would make us our own judge for every situation we make, with what could most probably lead to a constant clash of beliefs in a constant attempt to maintain and maximise our self interests. This would lead us to what Hobbes called "The state of mere nature". Now instantly Hobbes is criticising our basic morals within the state of nature based on the assumption that left without supervision of an overseeing power we would evidentially lead to a state of war and constant anarchy; he states that naturally we need someone above us to allow us to express the freedoms that we truly desire. For example, if a man lived in a lawless world and was in a situation where he had the freedom to kill someone but didn't, and another man slaughtered his entire family without consequence, the widower would consider that the lack of consequence or punishment to such animosity would be considered a lack of justified freedom. No matter what exists in the world one of the most important freedoms that a human being wishes to have is the freedom to live; there is a likeliness that if you created a rule whence that if you ever ate chocolate you would be killed most people would obey the law in exchange for their life and the rest of their freedoms; these ideas could contribute to the idea that most regular citizens are content with their lives if they are given the gift of "survival" within a comfortable regime. Humans have the reason (which is not reason in the moral sense of right or wrong) to understand that they need a civil society in order live harmoniously.

Hobbes continues to state that a lot like in the Buddhist religion, no human being is completely satisfied with their position in society, and people will constantly strive to reach higher and higher in the hierarchal ladder of existence; if the top of the ladder is empty everyone will be in a constant battle to reach the top and rule over the entire land; creating a forever infinite competition between others. And with no laws to suppress people from attempting to maintain morals and respect everyone would have the ability to kill another (Hobbes states that it's the issue of every person being equal). So the main enemy within a state of nature is our urges of "desire". As long as someone else desires what you possess you will never be safe from attack. However, if the Buddhist ideas of human nature are the issue couldn't Buddhist religion and commune be the solution without resorting to a tyrannical state? If we created a Vihara commune where people were in an environment void of desires of any shape and form, cut out by routine and work that was equal to all; would we not be void of this idea that we need someone above us? Although this removes the idea of a lawless society working it does question whether we truly need a hierarchy to which people are able to move up and down for them to succeed; the Vihara communes are still active all over the world and show little signs of faltering. A lot of what Hobbes says against the state of nature is stating that a lot of the things human beings do is based entirely on self interest and malevolent intentions. Where a person will go to extremities to increase their own self interest (e.g. if throwing a child off of a cliff will give you notoriety so people do not attempt to submit to your own self interests Hobbes would state without an absolute human figure above this would inevitably happen) but there are a lot of things that we wouldn't be able to do not based on morals, but on our own self interest and our basic instinct of "fear". If we were afraid that the result of the previous example would lead to someone taking the law into their own hands and most possibly killing them. Is fear linked with our self interests? We could potentially say that the fear of death is based on our self interest and desire to live. But would we better ourselves in such a way if we potentially knew how dire the consequences would be? Nietzsche speaks of the superhuman as someone who is willing to better themselves above others, but is everyone a superhuman? Nietzsche would say no. Unless we live in a land where everyone is not meek and wishes to be at the top instead of content with a simple existence; Hobbes idea of the human being could be overemphasising the ambition of most humans.

Another concern that seems to arise is the idea whether, if living in a lawless world; would laws not naturally be produced? How long will it take people to gradually create their own somewhat primitive and tribal rules to sustain their own self interests? Or even create social contracts of their own? Hobbes' answer to this is that we are infinitely paranoid, and gives the example of how people are more likely to bad mouth people behind closed doors, and this is during an authoritarian state therefore the assumption is we will be even more suspicious within a state that is completely free of authority. However, in an authoritarian society it would take extreme life threatening suspicion to break the laws of society and eventually kill someone for your own good (e.g. if you knew that someone was planning to murder you and you caught them in your house at night with a knife there is quite a high change you will retaliate; especially if you knew you couldn't run away) therefore we can see that when people attempt to break the rules of society people are more likely to resort to breaking the rules themselves, showing that absolute enforcement needs to be done within society or the basic underlying morals of the state of nature (that Hobbes stated we all have) will surface and break down our society.

Hobbes talks about their obedience to a higher power to be"sovereignty by institution" at which we accept the contract of obedience in exchange for protection and reign of their power across their land; and as stated above, the main drive into accepting this contract is fear. One issue with this is how far these unspoken contracts truly go. For example, if we are to look at the basic family unit should we not give our person's sovereign power over ourselves because they have protected us throughout our most vulnerable points, at which without help we would probably die? It is our parents that provide us with food and shelter that give us the right to live even if they acquired it from a power above them we still must be obedient to our immediate providers if we wish to survive when we are most vulnerable. But if we were not as vulnerable would we be reliant on this social contract? Most probably not; therefore when looking at rebellion of society (and in particular the English civil war which is what Hobbes refers to for most of his book "The Leviathan") if people were entirely reliant on the overseeing power no matter how corrupt they were, then they would never be able to rebel or consider forming rebellion; however, looking through society even some of the most repressed societies completely crippled of independence from their leader will still go by Hobbes idea that people will act on their self interests and replace the leader if they do not satisfy the majority of the people's needs; when a ruler becomes the overall power of a society and they place people under the social contract of his/her reign s/he also agrees to their own social contract. Hobbes stated that the original social contracts that men have two main prerequisites and agreements of the social contract: to renounce the rights to commit harm unjustly against other people that they originally had, and to give absolute power to a single individual or assembly to enforce the laws of the social contract; now returning to the previous point, can an enforcer enforce themselves? The main reason that people serve under someone is for the underlying protection and their inevitably superior judgement; but there is nothing stopping the ruler from changing their rules to their own self interest? Hobbes states that if a ruler disagrees to the tacit consent of their own social contract, then that is what creates rebellion. But the king having to agree with a social contract contradicts the idea of absolute law as he is under a law which he can not control without it ending in rebellion.

Hobbes states that within the state of nature "every man has a right to every thing; even another's body" where he is stating that property or ownership is never official within a state where moral guides are blurred; he calls this the "right of nature". But without any exact laws can we even have a statement of ownership at all? Would all property be deemed theft? If we look at property through the ideas of Locke's property theories; if we were to set these rules as an outline without entirely enforcing them, it would be in most people's self interests to follow them (e.g. acquiring property through one's own labour creates a sense of equality) as it would seem the fairest and safest way to achieve something (without having the fear of dying). The issue of course is the idea of minority uprising, those who are not getting the better deal and are not in fear of being punished for doing anything against it will work against the system, potentially creating a war between those for and against the ideal system; in fact can any theory be universally stated without enforcing it on people that don't agree with it? If we look at both the capitalist and communist societies, both of them are (apparently) on either opposites of the wing but if a capitalist government wishes to become communist (e.g. Russia entering many years of communism after a very hierarchal government) it takes lots of revolution and anarchy to emphasise the belief even if it's the majority that accept it and the original ruler has gone against his/her social contract. This is because collective rationality (when a group of people agree on one idea) is incredibly difficult to come by due to everyone's subjective ideals meaning that of course you have to sometimes resort to immorality or violence to enforce it. Even some of the most pacifist groups in societies such as the Tibetan monks seem to accept that if they need to make a universal protest they have to resort to violence (in this case it was violence towards themselves). You can not own a monopoly of collective rationality when the mind is so complex that there is a 2^nd opinion on most ideals, even the most vital life to most "The Right to Live" has been contradicted with the quantity of suicides around the world; punishment (or even at a lesser stance "guilt") must be used to keep the ruler's collective rationality.

Hobbes stated that human nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" and when we look at a lot of the ideals of Hobbes put into action there is quite a bit of evidence that tyrannies with one single ruler who even forces tight regimes does incredibly well. Throughout society groups like the Spartans, Attila's Huns, The Soviet Union, and even The USA work because they have specific rules which regardless whether people have all agreed to every single rule are still under the social contract and law of the country regardless of whether they do it by fear or self interest they seem to continue working under their societies (while they were still active of course) without instantaneous rebellion. However, does this mean that having absolute free will is against our human nature? Throughout human's existence there has almost always been large societies that have thrived while weaker individual groups start to wither away, could our whole idea of society be based on an evolutionary innateness that helps our species survive? All these ideas of social contracts and reaching for the top aren't necessarily ideas that we are taught and most are on a very sub conscious level, but as far as most societies are concerned, in democracies people are happy because they have freedom, while tyrannies are happy because they have security. Are they not all deep down just happy to have someone rule over them so that they adopt the ideals of their leaders as their own? A main issue I have with Hobbes idea is that we are unsuspicious when we have a leader, but is there any society with freedom of speech that doesn't criticise their leader for every mistake that they make? George Bush, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, even Obama (who some people treat like a messiah) have been turned into comical satirical features of many sceptical people. As we can see the human mind is complex and although Hobbes does touch on some ideas about our innate obsession with survival leading to suspicion and going against our morals (and therefore social contracts are made so that we keep ourselves in line). The ideas could be seen as reductionist, as we don't know the entireties of the human psyche and sub conscious even today. Human nature may well be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" but like many things in the world today that doesn't mean people do not have the freedom to potentially do the opposite; as much as free will could be considered a paradox by some, as much as some may consider a society without an absolute ruler as foolish, the fact that democracy is growing as an ideal government by most societies, shows that humans still crave the freedom that they could potentially have in a world of no laws.

Oliver Goss