Hobbes and Locke

[spacetime]

Anyone read the books by these historical authors? I was just reading how Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were influenced by their thoughts and wondered if it is worth picking up a copy of their respected books.

[Propertarian]

Locke's book (treatise on government) is an important text to read if you live in America due to its influence on the thought of American thought and structure as well as an important critique of Hobbes book.

Hobbes 'book' Leviathan is one of the three most important books in the history of political thought WORLDWIDE. Arguments from Leviathan are still used today, it is the basis of a lot of game theory (especially the prisoner's dilemma), is the first primary secular justification of both hierarchy and government in the west since at least the middle ages, and is EXTRAORDINARILY well written. Locke and Marx (and Rousseau and Bentham and Mill and Kant etc.) all draw on Hobbes. It is a book of philosophy, poetry, literature; and, read correctly, history. READ HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN. This is coming from someone who agrees with very little of what he says; it is that good.

So my recommendation in terms of action is to read and understand Leviathan, especially the first few hundred pages, and if you are intrigued, read Locke.

If you read Locke and still aren't satisfied or just dig political philosophy, check out John Rawls book A Theory of Justice . Once you have read all three, it is not implausible to say you have read the three greatest works of political thought in western history.

[hmkpoker]

The problem I have with Hobbes is his justification of the state. Hobbes assumes that human beings are inherently evil ("solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"), and I don't believe that that is the case.

[cambraceres]

Non-humanist viewpoints were so popular in his day

[Zygote]

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The problem I have with Hobbes is his justification of the state. Hobbes assumes that human beings are inherently evil ("solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"), and I don't believe that that is the case.

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Hobbes' justifcation doesn't work for democracy. if man is inherently evil, using government controlled by the majority of man doesn't solve the problem any more so than the answer, on the turtoises back, to the person who questions what the earth stands on.

[Propertarian]

Actually I think it works better for constitutional democracy than any other form (although still not satisfactory); it's better to have a majority getting their own way than a single dictator only; tyranny of the majority is preferable to tyranny of the minority.

[Zygote]

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Actually I think it works better for constitutional democracy than any other form (although still not satisfactory); it's better to have a majority getting their own way than a single dictator only; tyranny of the majority is preferable to tyranny of the minority.

[/ QUOTE ]


or we could try the best of both and embrace free markets.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]


The problem I have with Hobbes is his justification of the state. Hobbes assumes that human beings are inherently evil ("solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"), and I don't believe that that is the case.


[/ QUOTE ] I agree with this criticism of Hobbes. I also think his philosophy is self-defeating in a sense when taken literally and parochially: the absolute monarch is a person, and if all people are evil, so is the soveriegn, and he will torture and exploit all of his/her 'subjects' whenever he feels like it.


But he also argues that because humans can't agree on what is ethical or unethical, we need written, human made positive laws in order to coexist peacefully; a more plausible viewpoint imo.


If you take it to mean, instead, that humans should submit to a certain set of positive laws and follow them faithfully; binding themselves to the mast like Ulyssus because they know they are myopic and disagree with each other and emotionl, then he has more of a case. Hobbes can be read as trying to figure out how a group of competitive beings with different viewpoints can get along. In my view, Hobbes overrates how competitive people are, and he also fails to realize that agreement on basic moral issues (e.g. murder, battery, helping someone in need if it comes at a small cost to oneself) throughout human history has been CLOSE to Unanimous. I also do not agree that government should provide ONLY security, as Hobbes posits.

You do not have to agree with a work to recognize its greatness.

[andyfox]

Also that the state of nature is inherently horrible. Marshall Sahlins and other moral economists have made good criticisms of this.

[Riddick]

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Hobbes assumes that human beings are inherently evil

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And I'll add that even if they are inherently evil, each one hating every other one, it would still not lend any justification to government, nor would it change their economizing nature.