THE UNRAVELLING
EXPOSITION
INTRODUCTION
Before, everything was chaos, from the instinctual drive of the senses emanates beastly disposition; from the gratification of the brute drives unearthed pleasure; from the spark of sensual gratification follows self-interested motives (considering their equal desire for the same) and to a desperate clamor, a war against one mushroomed into war against all. Thence, onward a wild confusion ravaged human situatedness among them.
This is how we grossly infer Hobbes’ deduction on man in the absence of the binding power. We understand that Hobbes was so engrossed with the invincibility and transcendent office of the sovereign as the sole catalyst of this murky human atmosphere, a power to over-awe each individual into a bunch under control.
Thomas Hobbes inductively commenced his philosophical siege by disclosing man’s physiological as well as the psychological milieu. He addressed man’s physiological peculiarities to that of the animals. Consequently, Hobbes’ mechanistically patterned psychological brainwork on man underscore’s one’s discretion on good and evil. What one likes or dislikes goes off as good or evil.
Self-preservation on the other hand, as a conjoined of the previous arguments, comes with man’s delectation to felicity (besides the intimidation from death), or happiness or comfort. Some of the few determinants of this pursuit are friends (who allegedly come to rescue when we are intimidated); wealth (it buys allies); and intelligence (it alerts us from danger). These he prompted as powers. And in a hopeful or desperate desire to preserve himself amidst the pandemonic ‘state of nature’, man craves for power after power which ceases only in death. But while men are in the state of nature, wherein everyone is in the quagmire of incessant warfare against every body, there is no promising surety for his security that hails his self-preservation. One of the underlying factors that call man to grapple for self-preservation is the fear of death, besides the personal interest of desiring and enjoying the same. Besides, according to Hobbes man was made so equal such that equality of desires and ability mounts the equality of hope aspiring to own a certain object of felicity. In the later result, comes conflict.
Thomas Hobbes recline his surveillance on the contentious and ‘orphaned’ populace – that is, without the custody of a political organization. He was able to gleaned a tripartite principal sources of quarrel which he coined a ‘universal war.’ A war that existed logically rather that historically. A state of war or the ‘natural condition’ may take its havoc at anytime and to any place without the virtue of the binding power, the sovereign. He in fact practically cited few respective places in America.
The upshots of Hobbes’ notion of the nature of man find the nexus to the avenue of the ‘natural condition,’ the ‘state of war’ and its proceeding outcome.
To pacify this ‘gruesome’ condition, practical reason stirs every individual through rational channeling that there’s a great necessity calling for every ones’ security, else the race and the entire populace will be mashed out. Hence, this negotiation heralded the dawn of the precepts of the “laws of nature” as formalized in the social contract.
This chapter will be especially devoted on the unraveling of Hobbes’ ideologies on man as an agent directly attached to social and political dilemma. Few socio-political paradoxes will be cited and be paralleled in the progress of this thesis, wherein the significance of this work will be akin to it; to its theoretical and functional touchdown. This will be furnished by Thomas Hobbes’ ideology and in cahoots of other intellectuals in the bivouac of philosophy.
1. ON THE NATURE OF MAN
In the culmination of Hobbes’ theory on man, he describes man under the vail of passions, desires and aversions. He describes in detailed fashion even the microscopic psychological and physiological components of man. Which in the later outset, man came out as mechanically driven beast.
Human being by nature is endowed with equality in mental and physical faculties, though evidently, among the circle, theirs somebody manifestly stronger in physical strength and somebody more intelligent than the rest. Yet, according to Hobbes, when everybody is subject to reckoning the difference is not far considerable, that one can claim any sort of profit as the other does. He added that in line of bodily strength, even the weakest has the propensity or the power to outsmart the strong one either by confederacy with others or covert mechanization with others with same risk as he is. Thomas Hobbes continues,
“Nature hath made man so equall in the faculties of body and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or quicker in mind then another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man, can there upon claim to himselfe any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he. For as to the strength of the body the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either in secret mechanization, or by confederacy with others, that are in same danger with himselfe.”
The claim is more radical when the argument is channeled to the mind. Hobbes, however, disregarded the scruples brought by arts grounded upon words and sciences. Instead, he turns the picture into each individual’s claim of wit. That is, man frames himself in a greater degree than the others.
For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves. For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance.
Hobbes inferred that in man’s nature there are at least three general causes of dispute: competition, diffidence and glory.
I. Elements of Thomas Hobbes’ Psychological Theory
Hobbes inaugurated his tasks by laying a microscopic point of view of man before advancing to macroscopic strata. He asserted that, similar to animals, in man, there are two motions common to them: the vital and the voluntary motions. Vital motions began to function since the generation stage of the being; such as blood circulation, palpitation, breathing, concoction, nutrition excretion etc… These are independent of the aid of imaginations. Voluntary motions on the other hand are obviously volitional and voluntary. Motions are equated and imamates from the mind. These small beginnings of motions, within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking and other visible actions, are called ENDEAVOR. And endeavor, which is of approaching an object, is APPETITE or DESIRE and commonly quoted for the delight for food, such as hunger and thirst. The proceeding endeavor is most likely the radical opposite; the endeavor is from ward a thing and is rightly called AVERSION.
Both appetite and aversion signify motions, one of approaching, the other of retiring. Love and hate are synonymous counterpart of desire and aversion. Those that man desire straightly connotes what they love. Those that they hate are aversions.
These elements are innately established in them. And an experience of other people and of one self according to their effects gives ground to these basic elements. For things we do not know to be, cuddles us to taste and try them. However, aversion for things doesn’t carry out only those that would inflict us harm but also those that we know or not would hurt us. Those things, which we neither desire nor hate we, are said to contemn; CONTEMPT being nothing else but the immobility, or contumacy of the heart.
And it is the fact that man’s body is undergoing a series of mutation, then it is impossible that all same things would draw him same appetite and aversions.
II. Of Good and Evil according to the Mechanistic Psychological
Theory
We call good the object of man’s desire, while those of his hate and aversion evil; and of contempt, vile and inconsiderable. Good, evil and contempt are utilized in lieu of the person using them.
“There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from the nature of objects themselves; but from the person of the man (where there is no Common-wealth;) or, (in a Common-wealth,) from the Person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the Rule thereof.”
III. Self-preservation as Determinant of Felicity and of the
Binary Truth – Good and Evil
Men in a reorganized state are engrossed to their primary objective, which is self-preservation by virtue of their description of good and evil. Continual success in preserving oneself, Hobbes terms felicity or happiness. Various objects of man’s desire, that is, goods such as friendship that would come to the rescue when we are intimidated or in difficulties; wealth, that buys allies necessary for security; intelligence is good because it alerts us from danger.
Hobbes termed powers the objects of desires when scrutinized from the perspective of potency in promoting felicity. Hobbes denotes to humans the general inclination to “a perpetual restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in death” Following that when several persons draw a desire towards the same object, antipathy arises; and since their mental and physical faculties equalizes in power in both of them as endowed by nature, the personal confidence which each one inhibits mounts the likelihood of conflict.
“And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot enjoy, they become enemies; and in way to their end, which is principally their owne conservation, and some times their delectation only, endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another. And from thence if comes to passé, that where an Invader hath no more to feare, than an other mans single power: if one plant, sow, build, one possesse a convenient Seat, other may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to deposes, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labor, but of his life and liberty. And the Invader again is in the like danger of another.”
IV. The Principal Causes of Quarrel
As an account to the previous elements of arguments, man now enters into an all out cataclysm against his fellow man. Thomas Hobbes took few stances behind to have a clear capture of the people under the scenery of contentiousness without the virtue of a political organization. He discovered three fountains of controversy in human nature. Consequently, these tripartite elements brought about the birth of the ‘natural condition’ or the ‘state of nature’, which he dubbed further as ‘universal war.’ Universal war as such that he asserts, that the state of nature exists logically rather than historically. This, in a respective time or place as long as civil society is not functioning, the state of nature or natural condition will take plague. This he exemplify as follows,
“So that in the nature of man, we find three causes of Quarrel; First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first, maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves Masters of other mens persons, wives, children, and catell; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles as word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other signe of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflextion in their Kindred, their Friends, their nation, their profession, of their Name.”
Hobbes further emphasized that during the time wherein there is no binding power to keep them still – man is in the state or condition of war. And such condition not only secluded to the actual battle but to a known disposition of the will to contend and fight. Hobbes used weather as an analogy; for as the Nature of Foule weather, lyeth nor in a shower or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many dayes together.” Such so, that the nature of war is manifested not in actual fighting but in a known disposition.
2. THE NATURAL CONDITION
As being carried on by the previous discussions, natural condition or the state of nature is a condition that recounts being what they are (in virtue of their founded nature according to Thomas Hobbes), would eventually or necessarily behave without the presence of an authority that would lay down a covenant; enforce law or contract. This condition was expounded by man’s behavior as fostered by his nature, an unrestrained struggle of man against his fellow men. It is a struggle for ‘power’ after ‘power’, which ceases only in death. In the natural condition man lives in a murky ‘social’ atmosphere, wherein justice, as an exponent of a vital building block of a well-rounded society, is absurd. One is in continual intimidation of owning a personal or private property, wherein in an ideology of such is taboo. One also bears the repugnance of a continual warfare over the inordinate desires of those in the authority; their recurrent jealousies and derision over each other.
The absences of fundamental constituent elements of a good society are those of the instantaneous end results of this demeaning condition. In behalf of this, however, reason serves as a catalyst to pacify this pandemonic phenomenon. Under the arrest of an authority, as Thomas Hobbes asserts, (these) laws are initiated to every individual to bind them and for them to follow in a form of a covenant.
I. Consequences Grounded on the Natural Condition.
Thomas Hobbes pressed on some dramatic fallout of the state of nature or natural condition as follows:
I.1 The Absence of the Fundamental Universal Imperative
Thomas Hobbes elaborates that consequent to this condition wherein a man is against his fellow man, and that justice is a virtue hardly and vaguely conceivable. No justice, no injustice as well. The right and wrong ideals have there no place and are radically illicit. This, because of the absence of the common power, who is the fount of laws – and of justice itself. Maintaining in this quagmire of conflict, force and fraud are two pillar virtues. Justices and injustice cannot be, and cannot ascent as a position neither of the mind nor of the body. He elaborates these as follows,
“To this warre of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be Unjust. The notion of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law: Where no Law, no Injustice. Force and Fraud, are in warre, the two Cardinal virtues. Justice, and Injustice are not of the Faculties neither of the Body, nor the Mind. If they were, they might be in a man that there alone in the world, as well as his Senses, and Passions.”
I.2 Subjective Futility of Private Property
Further radical consequence of this condition is the vain concept of ownership, of owning and dispossessing of personal or private property. It is the futility of a mine and thine ideals. He points out,
“It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no Propriety, no Dominion, no Mine and Thine distinct; but only that to be every mans, that he can get; and for so long as he can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition, which man by meer Nature is actually placed in; though with a possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the Passions, partly in his Reason.”
As a worst corollary, and a sort of countering havoc of an impending danger, one is called to preserve oneself, by property, in particular. Thomas Hobbes said, “ It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to another’s body.”
I.3 Perpetual Warfare
Thomas Hobbes conjectured that though there never be a tine wherein man is in the condition of war, conflict would still be inevitable to crop up because of the continual grudges and jealousies of those at power. He stressed,
“But though there had never been a time, wherein particular men were in a condition of ware one against another: yet in all times, Kings, and Persons of Sovereign authority, because of their Independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of Gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, Garrisons, and Guns, upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continual Spyes upon their neighbors; which is a posture of War.”
I.4 The Absence of the Fundamental Social Foundations
In this later upshot, Thomas Hobbes underline the absurdity of the basic (material) foundations of a society because of the lack of communion and contact among men, which is obvious in the state of nature. He stressed,
“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other Security, than that their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; ;and consequently no Culture of the Earth, no Navigation, nor used of the commodities that maybe imported by see; no commodious Buildings; no instruments of moving, and removing 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 worse of all, continual feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man; solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short.”
This condition of man’s contempt against his fellow, wherein man, according to him has this natural tendency to invade and destroy one another, because man is not at ‘ease’ with his fellow, such that collegiality and communion, is a one big absurd idea. Industry, navigation, letter, arts and the like are nowhere in the societal planes. This he overshadowed as he elaborates further,
“It may seem strange to some men, that has not well weighted these things that Nature should thus dissociate, and render man apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to his Inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same continued by experience. Let him therefore consider with himselfe, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when in his house he locks his chests; and this when ‘he knows there bee Lawes, and publike Officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him;’ what opinion he has of his fellow Subject, when he rides armed; of his fellow Citizens, When he locks his chests. ‘Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions,’ as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse mans nature in it.”
Thomas Hobbes conjectures that desires and passions of man are in themselves inculpable. Even the actions that precede them till they know a certain law that forbid them. Man cannot know its culpability until the law is legislated; more a law can be made without the consensus of the populace and the person making it. Thomas Hobbes cited America as one of a particular and frank example of this concern. Though, he did not claim that natural condition really existed and bonded man in every part of the world, he only admits its logical existence where a civil society is not functioning.
II. Resolution by the Instrumentality of Reason.
The abolishment of the perpetual warfare in the state of nature is advocated by the instrumentality of reason. Every individual will be alarmed by their condition; that they kept brutally outsmarting each other by which, would endanger their lives, their fancy for commodious living, their race and so the whole populace, from this consciousness, a rational deliberation is then channeled to each other for the security. With reason as expounder, comes the advent of the “right of nature” and the “laws of nature.”
II.1 Lex Naturalis
In response to man’s daunting social relations wherein a commodious existence is unattainable, a precept or general rule prompted a supposed alliance. He stressed,
“A LAW OF NATURE, lex naturalis, is a precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which man is forbidden to do that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to comit that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved.”
The law of nature simply binds or obliges every individual to renounce or forbid to abdicate that, which is essential to persevere oneself.
II.2 Jus Naturale
If the law of nature consist in the prohibitions and determinations the axioms to be followed necessary for the preservation, the right of nature consist the freedom to do or to forego things necessary for the same. He points out,
“…because RIGHT, consiseth in liberty to do, or to forebear; wheras LAW, determineth and bindeth to one of them.” The first is more liberated while the other points is an obligatory precept. The fundamental law of nature asserts that to seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend ourselves.”
II.3 The Covenant
The previously mentioned laws are dependent rules. Such when we put into account man’s egoistic nature, whereby we draw out inconsistency and breaching of such laws. That law is the performance of the covenant. He elaborates,
“that men perform their covenants made: without which, covenants are in vain, and but empty words: and the right of all men to all things remaining, we are still in the condition of war.”
Hobbes suggested that sanctions or punishment must accompany upon the breaching of the covenant in order to compel every individual to faithfully perform this covenant.
III.The Golden Rule
Hobbes capsulate those laws to a certain rule which every one admits, the Golden Rule, which states, “do not unto others which thou wouldest not have done to thy self. This is the concision of the lengthened exposition of the laws of nature and the right of nature. A sort of a material mutuality must take place between men. [mine: “I will not kill you because you will not kill me.”]. Besides, particular vices or strokes of intemperance were opposing elements prohibited by the law of nature, yet pokes less or no significance at all in the laws of nature, such that the deduction is so subtle. And that he has no more to do in learning the Lawes of Nature, but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own, they seem too heavy, to put them into the other part of the balance, and his own into their own place, that his own passions, and self-love, may add nothing to the weight; and then there is none of these Lawes of Nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable.
CONCLUSION
Hobbes is well known of his philosophy orbiting man’s interpersonal and political upbringing, though prominently, Thomas Hobbes is renowned of his political treatise. This thesis partly elucidates Hobbes’ overview of man. From the beginning of the thesis, the researcher begins by elucidating Hobbes microscopic lore on man. After the nitty-gritty evaluation, Thomas Hobbes arrived at the macroscopic view on man – the personal-social-political affairs of every individual.
Hobbes’ breakdown on the nature of man runs in an inductive fashion. He began by elucidating man’s psychological and physiological grades. Later, he comes out with man’s delectation for ephemeral matters and the trepidation on death which puts him into the crucible of securing himself, by consequently, in the course of his performance, endanger other men, as well as himself.
With this viewed condition of man, come the three principal causes of quarrel which adds up to the despoiling condition of man. This disposition from the very outset eventually brings further havoc to man, jotted as the ‘state of nature’ or ‘natural condition.’ This state further limbs out several demeaning consequences; such as the absurdness of justice and private ownership, continual warfare and the absence of essential elements necessary for the foundation of an integrated and wholesome society.
Further, it is cited in his thesis that in a pre-social state; wherein there is no sovereign with a strong power to put everything in order, man is in constant chaos against each other for the sake of self-preservation. This is so, as he emphasized, that the natural state of man is war. A war known from the very beginning, a propensity to contend, to fight and to depose his fellow either of his contemporary level or of flourishing dominion – as stated in a known disposition. He said, that nature has given all to man; and that profit is the measure of right.
However, comes the ‘benevolence’ of reason reminding men to channel their present disposition in such a way that both of them will be beneficiaries of a ‘commodious living.’ This necessitates the assent of the two laws, the general rules that serves as catalyst to the said state of nature; the law of nature and the right of nature which are contained in a social contract. These laws consists of forbidding, determining, allowing and foregoing which seems are perfectly ‘engineered’ to comply with man’s endeavor for peace and the submission to it. The latter, by all means, allowed him if only, necessary for his preservation.
The Golden Rule unfolds the finale of these abstractions, wherein it aims man’s unbecoming attitude. It mediates as, do not unto others what one doesn’t want to be done unto him.
