How do their differing conceptions of the 'state of nature' influence the philosophy of government of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau?
Anamay Viswanathan Imagining a time before society is hard. Yet these three political thinkers all tried to imagine such a time, using their versions of the state of nature to shape original and provocative thoughts not only on how a state should be run, but also on what legitimates government to run a state. The fact that Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau wrote independently of each other helps to explain the drastic differences in their conceptions of the state of nature. What is more interesting, however, is the fact that these differences led to different adaptations of the same philosophical concept, the social contract. Accordingly, to fully gauge their views on government, we must first look at how each imagined life before society. The state of nature, for Hobbes, is a state of anarchy. This is because there is no complete authority to limit the actions of men. Man is thus driven by his desires, and because all men are fundamentally free, he pursues his desires at the cost of other men. Though all men have the same basic desires, not everyone has the ability to realize them because resources are limited. Hobbes calls the resulting state a war “of every man against every man” ( Leviathan , p. 62). His pessimistic outlook on human nature and the state of nature can best be summarized by his assertion that “the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’ ( Leviathan , p. 62). Humans are encouraged to attack another human in three ways under the state of nature: for safety, for gain, and for glory. Morality does not figure in Hobbes’ theory, because everything is necessarily justifiable in a state of nature. Locke holds quite a different view to Hobbes. Locke’s state of nature is a state of complete freedom, a state of complete equality assured by the Law of Nature. When it comes to the notion of liberty, he believes we are given the freedom to do what is morally acceptable. Nevertheless, Locke reasons that everyone would be required to enforce the Law of Nature in a state of nature. Among the many rights that need to be secured, for Locke, the most essential is that of private property. He asserts we must have land that is rightfully ours since God would not put us on this earth to starve. In all, Locke’s portrayal of the state of nature is more optimistic than Hobbes’, mostly because he believes that man can live and survive in this state. Rousseau’s state of nature is unlike those of his predecessors. He agrees with Hobbes and Locke that within a state of nature men’s principal desire is self-preservation. He does however believe that they both overstated the possibility of falling in to a state of war. For Rousseau, a man is like a savage in the state of nature, whose actions are dictated by immediate needs, like food. He also states that humans have “an innate repugnance at seeing a fellow creature suffer’ (Rousseau, p. 50), and so a man’s natural aversion to suffering and pain causes him to avoid harming others. However, Rousseau’s point on morality is dramatically different form Locke’s one. He thinks there is no room for right, law and morality in a state of nature. Moreover, he sees the concept of private property (which is so crucial for Locke) as a source of inequality and jealousy and thus undermines his notion that all men are equal in the state of nature. One major point of contention between these three versions of the state of nature is the concept of property and ownership, which naturally transcends into an aspect of what constitutes legitimate governance. Hobbes is very clear that every man has a right to everything, even to another’s body, since the notion of self-preservation justifies a man’s need to kill another man. As a result, in a land where there are no rights of property, or even rights of self, the idea that an over-arching, powerful sovereign is required (the head of the Leviathan) to organize the brutal anarchy seems like quite a natural inference to draw. Indeed, Locke’s theological view is incompatible with Hobbes’ materialist philosophy, as he states that we have a clear duty not to harm others since we are all creatures of God.
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