Western Civilization-Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes

Western Civilization : Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

2007

Chapter XIII of Leviathan which is entitled , Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning Felicity and Misery ' intends to articulate the following

I . Equality

For the author of Leviathan named Thomas Hobbes , there are numerous characteristics that distinguish man from other creatures (Hobbes n .p According to him , primarily , men are equal ' FIRST PARAGRAPH (Hobbes n .p . Furthermore , he stated that the aforementioned is manifested in three ways : 1 ) equality in terms of or in the faculties of body and mind

2 ) equality of hope in reaching goals as well as 3 ) equality in the exercise of man 's natural right to self-preservation (Hobbes n .p Of course , Thomas Hobbes is not telling readers that there are no differences among men .not exactly (Hobbes n .p . As everyone knows men are not exactly equal particularly in terms of strength and intelligence (Hobbes n .p . So what equality is Thomas Hobbes speaking about you may ask ? Well , actually there are differences but these differences are not significant enough to matter (Hobbes n .p . At this point , readers should accept Thomas Hobbes ' view that men are by nature equal ' FIRST PARAGRAPH (Hobbes n .p

II . State of Nature

Also , Thomas Hobbes wanted to describe the state of nature through the following characteristics mentioned in the most popular line excerpted from Chapter XIII of Leviathan , The life of man in a time of war is solitary , poor , nasty , brutish and short ' NINTH PARAGRAPH (Hobbes n .p . What is this condition of war , you may ask ? Well , according to Leviathan 's author , the state of nature is a condition of war of all against all ' NINTH (Hobbes n .p . Explaining further , according to him the two elements of war include : force and fraud (Hobbes n .p . Here men are not actually covered by rules (Hobbes n .p . No central authority exists as well (Hobbes n .p . Men consider each other as a threat to their personal or respective interests (Hobbes n .p . This is the kind of condition wherein the only recourse is help from one 's self (Hobbes n .p . The problem with the condition of war of all against all ' NINTH is that each man would assume that he has the natural right to carry out anything for the purposes of preserving his life and of course , such would bring about only chaos (Hobbes n .p . In turn , such chaotic situation would of course cause constant fear and danger of getting violently annihilated by other men (Hobbes n .p . This is actually the condition of war that Thomas Hobbes is referring to however , for the sake of clarification he does not actually mean that men are always into trouble and constantly fighting each other , like in a battle (Hobbes n .p . What he wants to express is that this is man 's predisposition to war , meaning , since men consider each other as enemies then there is always a tendency that men will be engaged...