Thomas Hobbes on the Family and the State of Nature

1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon J. Schochet
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Family

1. The state of nature

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Wolff
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
State Of Nature

This chapter examines whether it is possible for human beings to live in a state of nature. Sometimes it is claimed that not only have human beings always lived under a state, but that it is the only way they possibly could live. On this view, which is often associated with Aristotle, the state exists naturally in the sense of being natural to human beings. In response, some theorists argue that human beings have been able to live without the state. To elucidate the issue further, this chapter analyses the views of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It also considers the arguments of anarchists and suggests that the gap between rational anarchism and the defence of the state is vanishingly small.

The Two Leviathans: R. G. Collingwood and Thomas Hobbes

1987 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Unpublished Works

In this article I draw upon the published and unpublished works of R. G. Collingwood in order to discern the relation between the Leviathan of Hobbes, and that of Collingwood. First, an attempt is made to explain why Hobbes became important for Collingwood, having had no special status in the writings of the latter prior to the composition of The New Leviathan. Secondly, two misconceptions of the ostensible relation between the two Leviathans will be exposed. Thirdly, the two Leviathans are compared at the level of general intent. It is argued that Collingwood never meant merely to update Leviathan in a piecemeal fashion, but instead formulated an entirely different criterion of conduct from that offered by Hobbes. Finally, some of the arguments of the two Leviathans are compared. Principally, Collingwood found Hobbes deficient in failing to provide an adequate account of the perpetual transition from the state of nature to civil life. One of the aims of Collingwood was to make good this deficiency.

Mushrooms, like Men ?

2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Michael Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature

AbstractThomas Hobbes is famed for his adherence to the scientific method of his day. One of the central aspects of his science of politics is the thought-experiment of the state of nature. Like a perfect vacuum, it is an analytic concept. Some of its ramifications occupy these pages.

History and the Family

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sagar
Keyword(s):  
David Hume ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Francis Hutcheson ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
The Family ◽  
Bernard Mandeville

This chapter examines the role of history and the family in debates over human sociability and the foundations of politics, drawing attention to how David Hume was able to revolutionize the use of state-of-nature conjectures in order to elucidate the emergence of institutional structures and related moral values. According to Thomas Hobbes, human psychology was fundamentally characterized by the balancing of appetites and aversions: all motivation could be explained in terms of the seeking of private pleasure and the avoidance of private pain. Bernard Mandeville essentially followed Hobbes, refusing to give any role to fellow feeling in explaining human sociability. The chapter first considers Hume's rejection of Hobbes's and Mandeville's reductive accounts of human psychology before discussing Hobbes's views on the question of the family and his notion of the state of nature. It also analyzes the debate involving Hobbes's British successors, namely: Mandeville, Anthony Ashley Cooper, and Francis Hutcheson.

The Three Families of Thomas Hobbes

1981 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Subject

The extreme rational individualism of Thomas Hobbes has been the subject of rebuttal since the publication of Leviathan in 1651. A good portion of the critiques of Hobbes have centered around his famous description of the state of nature as a condition of individualized warfare. Hobbes's contemporaries based their opposition to his individualism on the historical inadequacy of the state of nature. Filmer, for instance, complained about Hobbes's assumptions that men sprang from the earth as “mushrooms … without any obligation to another.”

Reason and Reciprocity in Hobbes's Political Philosophy: On Sharon Lloyd's: Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-169
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Basic Principle ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
State Of Nature

AbstractLloyd's book, Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, correctly stresses the deductive element in Hobbes's proofs of the laws of nature. She believes that “the principle of reciprocity” is the key to these proofs. This principle is effective in getting ego-centric people to recognize moral laws and their moral obligations. However, it is not, I argue, the basic principle Hobbes uses to derive the laws of nature, from definitions. The principle of reason, which dictates that all similar cases be treated similarly, is. It is important not to diminish the centrality of reason for Hobbes because it is essential to understanding his reply to “the fool” and understanding why the state of nature cannot be a continuum.

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