Hobb hum essay

Thomas Hobbes was a famous English philosopher, who was developing the ideas about human nature and politics. His most well-known works were: The Elements of Law (1640), De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651). The last one of course is the most complete expression of his philosophy. The author has an absolutely materialistic approach to the nature and knowledge. Hobbes lived during some of the most tumultuous historical times, no wonder then, that his views and theories were pessimistic regarding the human nature. Human beings were believed to be in a perpetual struggle against each other. Hobbes believed that people possessed a passionate love of survival (right of nature) and some degree of rationality (law of nature). Logically, if all the people were struggling with each other, as it was already mentioned, some time will pass and they will come around to agreeing, that they should refuse from the right to use violence.

It would seem rather difficult to separate the political and moral views in his works. He had composed his own division, he stated that ethics concerned the human nature and political philosophy was supposed to deal with what happens, when human beings interacted.

He told that the human body is simply a machine, and a political organization is like an artificial human being. There are two main aspects of human nature. Hobbes considered the motives that make people act rather important. But he is rather skeptical about human powers of judgment and reasoning. Hobbes considers human judgment unreliable, he has his several reasons for that, like for example the fact that all the people are under the influence of the surrounding world, of self-interests, pleasures and pains.

Hobbes has some special attitude to the future, for him “the knowledge of consequences” is just a science, which is supposed to bring some kind of reliable knowledge of the future and helps to overcome the faults of human judgment. But this idea of him is not plausible in the physical sciences.

The way to Hobbes’s philosophy could be the understanding of his idea of human motivation. Some interpreters presented the Hobbesian man as self- interested, rationally calculating actor. It was common for the readers to become convinced that he believes that we are all basically selfish, it was also due to his rather shocking claims, which he liked to use, like for example: “I obtained two absolutely certain postulates of human nature” – he says, “ one, the postulate of human greed by which each man insists upon his own private use of common property; the other, the postulate of natural reason, by which each man strives to avoid violent death” – the meaning of it is rather simple – everybody wants to get all he can and everybody wants to avoid death. But we can not deny that his view is not absolutely correct as people are also able to do some altruistic deeds, even against their interests.

According to Hobbes human being are sophisticated machines, the functions of which can be explained in mechanistic terms. But we should not forget that there are difficult processes operating in human’s nervous system. The scheme of motivation by Hobbes is the following: some specific desires appear within the human body, which are considered uncomfortable and are to be overcome, thus the will of a person is determined by the strongest present desire. So such terms as “good” and “bad” serve only to describe our appetites. The author tackles the question of adult-children-relations in the same way. He states, that the adults care for their children, only because they have their own self-interest, i.d. they become the recipients of a strong sense of obligation that helps them to survive rather than die. Hobbes is also convinced that human beings are not reasonable.

However, if we try to consider the political climate, in which Hobbes lived – political and religious conflicts, civil war, examination of governmental authority, we would come to the conclusion that no wonder that he was looking for the way to stop that chaos and to provide real stability. One of his main ideas also was, that if to chose between the State of Nature and any form of government, government would be a better choice to let people reach their happiness and prosperity.