Hobbes and The State of Nature | Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan
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- Опубликовано: 21 июл 2023
- Many people who aren't even interested in philosophy have heard of Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher. He's often recognized for his thoughts on what humanity would look like in the state of nature. To quote the man himself, life in the state of nature would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
But as a philosopher, he's obviously going to provide a justification for this position. While there is a more theoretical explanation for this state of nature, he also asks us to reflect on how we behave around strangers in practice.
We lock our doors at night, install security systems, and generally take precautions when going out. This is all in a society with laws and police, mind you, so you can only imagine the heightened anxiety and suspicion in the state of nature. Ultimately, his more practical defense relies upon our impossible total security when it comes to safety even in the modern world.
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Exploring Hobbes' outlook on human nature, it becomes apparent that his notion isn't founded on the idea of innate malevolence, but rather on an inherent self-interest that arises from a state of nature without laws or social standards. In this viewpoint, actions aren't necessarily deemed unjust or evil; they're simply essential for survival. This encourages us to take into consideration the significant part societal dynamistic structures play in influencing our behaviors (guilds), a standpoint that prompts us to see ourselves as not merely separated entities, but as components of a complex and interconnected societal fabric.
Nice efficient and simple presentation. Thank you.
I was more into Calvin and Hobbes in high school.
I think Hobbs forgot a HUGE factor here. Man has never existed as 2 alone cave men. (Outside a man-made prison environment) There are always "others" Usually the others are foreigners or long ago predators. We are likely to work together and sacrifice for strangers that are also willing to sacrifice back for us so that we can work together and accomplish more working together then we can working alone but apart. I would think we would have figured this out very early on. Community and humanity go hand in hand.
As Aristotle said, we are a political animal. Because we have the ability to be rational and communicate we have always naturally formed goals that can only be reached by cooperation and communication. Additionally, because we are social we have to have a social structure and thus a hierarchy that than must be managed justly and peacefully for the benefit of all. Ideally.
I personally feel that there are dual natures in humans: The Conscious and the Unconscious.
In this sense, you have the Unconscious mind represent (generally without searching or training) the aspect of a mind that is of the animal, the beast. The unconscious mind here wants its basic needs fulfilled in order for the body to be sustained and sustainable, to thrive and to be content. However, the basic animal mind doesn't have those higher concepts of morality which actually interfere with basic survival.
Then we have the conscious mind, the mind of active thought, reasoning, morality and spirituality. This mind wants to see not only itself thrive, but others who share it's Logos/Pathos/Ethos to survive as well. It is not only a social basis, but in many cases actively supersedes over all of these and develops concepts even further beyond such archetypes into a world of meta-archetypes (things like justice, honor, mercy, forgiveness).
At the start, they are inherent enemies with one another, set at-odds directly. This reasoning is honestly why I feel consciousness is separate from the body as (from a naturalist standpoint) conscious thought and the development of various forms of organization doesn't actively make a species survive nor thrive better; as described above it is actually a hindrance. A man may go hungry for the sake of helping those with less in a notion of altruism such as a hunger strike, an animal based on survival wouldn't have that thought cross their mind whatsoever. The concept itself would be so foreign to the basic survival-minded animal that it might as well be alien in not only the feelings and emotions, but reasoning and idea itself.
The act of Conscious thinking, ergo, is quite literally a consistent act of conquering nature within one's self. We are, as conscious beings, constantly _taming_ the Body of Man to our desires and advancements.
I would defend myself exactly the same way since in practice the state doesn't defend me never did and never will, in fact the state is the biggest aggressor by far and without it i could defend myself much better since they don't even allow me the tools i need to defend myself....
Well, i agree with hobbes. I have barely any faith in human nature. We are all selfishly driven it seems. And if left to our own accord, most people choose hedonistic behaviors and care little about moral
Hobbes was great. He used logic and was realistic.
I wonder what J. Robert Oppenheimer would have thought about this ?
We're doin Barbieheimer tomorrow!
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Hobbs and Rousseau are crazy poles and in the center is Christianity. We have a good but fallen nature.
We have free will to act as we choose, and an intellect with which to inform our decisions, and a conscience to limit us during periods of temptation. We also have powers and principalities which tempt us to do evil, and the evil of others which we experience inclines our hearts to evil. Furthermore our desire for separate goods is often very disordered due to a lack of fore thought or training in long-term decision-making.
Historically we would sacrifice others to pay for the evil of all. Now, following the example of Christ, we sacrifice ourselves in expiation of our sins, and those of others.
There is no god
Thanks for this video. My views:-
Human beings are basically "very intelligent "(compared to others in the animal kingdom) animals. "Good and evil" are concepts humans invented when they built societies, as societies meant greater chances of survival for individuals in that society than just a lone man or a small number of individuals . Individual selfish desires and wants are often in conflict with the "greater good" of the society and the concepts of "good and evil" were invented to "appease" this persistent conflict.
I don't agree with Hobbes about "equality in nature". Nature is basically a harsh "survival of the fittest". That means, biologically, we humans are "unequal". That is just pretty obvious - we differ in height, weight, intelligence, talents, abilities, weaknesses etc etc. In fact, I think our tribal nature and our hierarchal society is due to this inequality amongst individuals. As for the 2 cavemen fighting over some food(or a mate), there would be either a stalemate(when they are "equal" in brute force) or a clear winner and loser(when they are unequal in brute force). This remains the same, just that in supposedly more "civilized " societies, physical violence (hopefully) takes a back seat and the game is played in different means. We never got rid of our cavemen ways because that's what we humans are. We came up with concepts of good and evil, we came up with laws to regulate this cavemen behaviour to not only reward people with brawns but also those with other characteristics/traits deemed important for society to survive and thrive and compete with other societies such as intelligence or "good" personality.
So, if I got your video right about Hobbes, I agree that trying to find out if human nature is evil or good is asking the wrong question. Humans, like animals, are sensate creatures , by their very nature self preserving and sensual. Our animal nature needs to be "tamed" to live in a society, so those animal traits came to be deemed "evil"( selfishness, lusts, violence, greed etc) and the concepts we came up to tame the animal within are deemed "good". Our intelligence plus our innate animal nature makes us a potentially more destructive species compared to all others animals.
Love your response!
You had a student high school experience different from mine
Slow down talk too fast
no it isn't, killing a stranger in the state of nature out of the concern for safety isn't evil
He DOES look like a blue mosquito 🦟
that’s what she said 🎴🎴