4 A. Reading: The Philosophical Perspective
Introduction
Why do we need government? In search of the answer to this question, two English philosophers, both writing in the later half of the seventeenth century, asked another question: What would the world be like if there were no government?
Thomas Hobbes
In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), conjured up a time and place before governments existed. Humankind before the invention of government, Hobbes believed, was in a “state of nature” in which the life-sustaining needs and passions of individuals dictated their interactions with each other. With no governmental authority to settle disputes between individuals, each person acted as a sovereign—an authority that answers to no one but itself. Because every individual in the state of nature was autonomous and because food and other items people wanted were scarce, life in the state of nature would be characterized by an incessant war of “every man against every man.” It was an existence that Hobbes characterized as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Hobbes argued that it was the violence and uncertainty of life in the state of nature that motivated people to form governments. Because life was so bad in the state of nature, Hobbes argued that the desire for peace and stability would become so profound that the people would seek out a “sovereign” or ruler to whom they could transfer or give their own sovereignty. In return, the sovereign would provide the peace and stability the people wanted. So long as they abided by the laws the sovereign established, the people would then be free to pursue happiness without constantly fearing for their lives and property.
At the time when government was formed, Hobbes maintained that the people gave up their sovereignty absolutely and permanently. The sovereign, however, did not participate directly in the agreement made by the people to transfer their sovereignty because that might limit the sovereign’s efforts to ensure the peace and stability. For example, Hobbes argued that a ruthless sovereign might actually promote order because the people would be motivated by fear to obey the laws of the sovereign. Hobbes further argued that because the transfer of sovereignty was permanent, the right to revolt against the sovereign was nonexistent. In fact, any attempt to reform a government through disobedience (revolution) would be an injustice that would produce more harm than good. Better to suffer the excesses of an unjust king than to overthrow him and be left with anarchy.
The arguments Hobbes presented in Leviathan were radically original perspectives on the nature of man and the origins of government. Being in the employ of the monarchy, at least one motive behind Hobbes’ writings was a desire to create a plausible defense of the monarchy. In defending the monarchy, however, Hobbes ultimately defended the absolute authority of the sovereign, monarch or not. It was an argument neither the peopl