Describe Hobbes's state of nature [M.U. 2011]
Ans. Having described the natural person, Hobbes proceeded to portray the state of nature. In the eight of bleak and pessimistic human nature the picturization of the state of nature was gloomy and sordid. Hobbes saw human relationships as those of mutual suspicion and hostility. The only rule that individuals acknowledged was that one would take if one had the power, and retain as long as one could. In this 'ill condition', there was no law, no justice, no notion of right and wrong, with only force and fraud as the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice "relate to man in society, not in solitude". Society was not natural; in fact, individuals had to be educated in order to live in one. The state of nature prohibited the possibilities of ensuring commodious living or civilised pursuits that made life worth while and meaningful forr in such condition, there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain and consequentlyl no culture of the earth, no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building, no instruments of moving such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts; no letters; no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
The principal cause of conflict was within the nature of man. Competition, diffidence and glory were the three reasons that were responsible for quarrel and rivalry among individuals.
The first make the man invade for gain; the second, for safety, and the third for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons ......... the second to defend them, the third, for triples (Hobbes) Hobbes did not attribute the predicament of the natural person to either sin or depravity, but to human nature. The individual was the author of his own ruination. The state of nature degenerated into a stae of war. a war of every man against every man' such in condition might not exist all over the world, other than in America where the savaces lived in a nasty and brutish manner. The state of nature was a condition where political authority failed.
The Hobbes was not referring to an actual historical process of development of human society. The conditions in which men lived were of their own making civil society either controlled or suppressed the natural instincts, but never changed them. Interestingly Hobbes toned the aggressive view of human nature. He described the natural state as one of war which wa snot responsible for the evil in human nature.
In a state of nature, individuals enjoyed complete liberty, including a natural right to everything even to one another's bodies. The natural laws, indicates of reason. These were not 'laws' or 'commands'. Subsequently, Hobbes argues that the lawsl of nature were also proper laws, since they were counsels of prudence. Natural -laws in Hobbes's theory did not mean eternal justice, perfect morality or standards to judge existing laws as the stoics did. They did not imply the existence of common good, for they merely created the common conditions which were necessary to fulfil each individual good.
Difference from Locke
There is an explicit difference between the contracts stipulated Locke and Rousseau. According to A. Hacker, "This conception makes a departure from Hobbes and Locke's definition of freedom." Whereas Locke's contract was only for al specific object in view, Rousseau's contract was a continuous process, he believed that the community could grow rich and become fertile only with the constant participation of individuals in the welfare of the society.
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