Research Paper On Thomas Hobbes

British political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, through his renowned Leviathan, describes the “natural state” human beings would be in, out of an environment that lacked political rule (Cahn, 2005: 283). According to Williams, Hobbes believes “political authority is artificial” because the concept of governance is created by mankind thus the “natural condition of human beings lack[s] government” (Williams, 2003), he further states that the only form of authority that exists naturally is between a mother and her child. Hobbes encourages us to consider what life would be like in the “state of nature”- which the Stanford encyclopaedia describes as “a condition without government” (Stanford edu, 2002)- whereby the three prime causes of conflict arise which he describes as “competition, diffidence [and] glory” (Leviathan, chaptr 13 in Cahn, 2005: 293).
The existence of these “principal causes of quarrel” brings about an un-peaceful and tense environment, which Hobbes calls a state of “war” whereby “every man is enemy to every man” (Leviathan, chaptr 13 in Cahn, 2005: 293 & Williams, 2003). Furthermore there is no “agency with recognised authority” to arbitrate conflicts and enforce law and order (Stanford edu, 2002) and the “life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Leviathan, chaptr 13 in Cahn, 2005: 293) and thus making it impossible to have basic secure structure that can support a “comfortable, sociable [and] civilised life” (Williams,