Hobbes' view was that it is only under a government that people can live in peace with each other, and can pursue common goals such as commerce, industry and art, because the government can impose sanctions if people break faith with each other. With no government (i.e. in the state of nature), it makes sense for the individual to look out for himself at the expense of his neighbour, making life worse for all and making a stable society impossible.
Is Human Nature So Bad?
There are a number of objections that can be made to Hobbes' theory. First of all, perhaps human nature is not as bad as Hobbes says. The idea of a horrible state of nature relies on the premise that everyone would in danger from everyone else, because it would make sense to attack your neighbour before he attacked you (the strategy of "anticipation"). However, perhaps people without a government would not attack their neighbours but would concentrate on providing for themselves. One of Hobbes' "proofs" that human nature is basically malevolent is that people lock their doors at night even in civilised societies, from fear that they will be robbed or attacked. But as one of Hobbes' contemporaries and friends, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, pointed out, that doesn't mean that everyone is untrustworthy, just that a few people are.
What About Tribes?
A second objection is that it might be possible for tribes or co-operatives to grow up in a place without a government. The people in these co-operatives or tribes would be able to protect each other so that there would be opportunity for leisure, art, industry and fun, which would mean that the state of nature would not be nearly as bad as Hobbes says. Of course, it would be possible to reply that, in that case, tribes simply are small states, but since they are nothing like what we would normally call a state, it does seem like this is just begging the question.
Is Any Government Better than No Government?
The weakest part of Hobbes' vision of the State of Nature is the idea that life in any commonwealth (state with a government) is better than life in the state of nature. It is easy to think of commonwealths where life has been more nasty, more brutish and shorter than it would be even in a war of all against all, at least for some of the citizens. Even in the past hundred years it is possible to name a number of fascist and communist governments that this is true of, such as the Nazi government in Germany and the Kmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Hobbes made an important point about the role of an effective government in guaranteeing citizens' quality of life, but his assessment is rather too pessimistic about human nature, and rather too optimistic about governments.
Source:
- Patricia Springborg (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Join the Conversation