Criticism of Thomas Hobbes Leviathan
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The state of nature, as Hobbes argued in his Leviathan, is a state of war in which everyone competes over power. The only way for man to escape this state of war is for him to create a common power to regulate nature by making a social contract amongst his fellow men. Hobbes argues that man willingly gives up his power and enters into a social contract in order to escape the state of nature (80). Man willingly enters into a social contract because all men seek peace as one of the fundamental laws of nature (80), and because life in the state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short. In order to escape the state of nature, however, two things must be accomplished. First, all people must agree to forfeit all of their powers and give them to the future sovereign of their society, thereby forming a contract amongst themselves. Secondly, those who formed the contract must form a covenant with the future sovereign. In exchange for their current powers, the future sovereign agrees not to kill his future subjects. Thus a common power is formed over the people, ruled by the sovereign, and the state of nature is replaced by a civilized and relatively peaceful state.
Although this argument seems clear and simple to execute, there is a problem with one of its premises...