What Hobbes Thought of Human Nature
Why would life in a ‘state of nature’ be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’?
If you know one thing about political philosophy, it might be that Thomas Hobbes thought life in a ‘state of nature’ was ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. He had a dark view of human nature, one shaped by the horrors of the English Civil War. In Leviathan, written in 1651, Hobbes argued that men, by nature, are selfish. What drives us is fear of death and hunger for gain. This grim understanding of what we are was why we a strong ruler was needed. Without a ‘Leviathan’ to keep the peace, society would collapse into chaos. Even now his ideas stand out in political thought. He is often seen as setting a typically conservative view of human nature.
Life without government, for Hobbes, is marked by endless conflict. In the ‘state of nature’, we are at each other’s throats. We are scared, and in our attempts to keep ourselves alive we often harm others, sometimes justifiably, sometimes in the false belief that they will harm us. In other words, we pre-emptively do harm to those we distrust. And we are all afraid. The air is thick with fear. For though we differ in strength and intelligence, neither is enough to keep us safe. A clever weakling can outwit a strong man, and the sharpest mind can be undone by chance. We are all vulnerable, and so we are all afraid.
Life without government, for Hobbes, is marked by endless conflict. In the ‘state of nature’, we are at each other’s throats.
There are other reasons we fight. We want power, says Hobbes. Indeed, we have a ‘restless desire for power after power.’ It does not stop once our basic needs are met: even when we have food and shelter, we will seek more power, thinking that the more power we have, the more secure we will be. This ‘will to power’ worsens our struggle, for we vie for finite resources. We cannot all get a share.
For Hobbes, virtue or a sense of justice are airy-fairy notions with no ground in real life. The world is material, for Hobbes: we act only to satisfy wants, meet needs, avoid pain. Kindness is just a mask for self-interest. Morality clothes selfishness in pretty colours. We are flesh-and-blood machines, moved by the push and pull of pleasure and pain. There is little room for Hobbes in grand ideals like good and bad.
It is no wonder, given his grim take on human nature, that Hobbes thought the state of nature could not last. Men, at fear of living in a world of endless fear and violence, would crave law. And they would need someone to enforce it. Thus arises the ‘Leviathan’: a strong ruler who offers order in return for the freedom of those he protects. This almighty sovereign, licensed to do violence for the sake of keeping peace, is, says Hobbes, the only way to escape the chaos of the state of nature.
Men, at fear of living in a world of endless fear and violence, would crave law.
Not every philosopher has taken such a dim view of us. Locke thought that if guided by moral law, we could live without a ruler. Rousseau said Hobbes has it backwards: we are born good and made bad by society. But Hobbesian ideas still hold weight. They are the basis of rule by law. They prefigure realpolitik, a system of politics based on practical, not moral considerations.
We continue to invoke Hobbes when we speak about power and authority. His core belief, that men are intrinsically selfish and driven by fear, shapes how we think about the state and its role in keeping the peace. Though he has many detractors, his view of man remains a powerful lens through which the workings of politics may be refracted. Hobbes’ answer to the question, ‘if man is selfish, fearful, and always seeking greater power, how do we keep the peace?’ may have been to submit ourselves to the will of a strong ruler, something many of us find troubling. But perhaps it simply suggests that in the political realm as in ordinary individual life, we must always attempt to balance out chaos with order.
