Hobbes And Rousseau On Human Violence

In this essay, I will be examining the birth of human violence and how it has developed and grown over the years to become a major player in our society today across the globe. To achieve this, I will be critically analysing the different views and opinions of those who have researched the origins of human violence and discussing the strength and relevance of these perspectives. Firstly, I will discuss some of the earliest philosophical viewpoints associated with the beginnings of human violence at its most basic level. I will then proceed to assess a counter perspective which focuses on the concept of human war and violence before modernity in ancient civilisations such as Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Violence and warfare from this time
Hobbes and Rousseau were two philosophers that shared very different opinions when centred on the idea of human nature and what humans desired out of life in terms of social conduct. To put it simply, Hobbes believed that humans were born with the innate desire to perform violent acts upon their fellow human beings. In stark contrast, Rousseau was of the viewpoint that humans were born to be largely peaceful and compassionate creatures that have been forced to demonstrate violence as a result of imposed social orders such as class division and institutionalised greed within society. Hobbes and Machiavelli were of the belief that enforced social rules were the very element that controlled and tamed the natural born predator within all human beings. Rousseau and Kant disagreed, claiming that a society which imposed order was solely to blame for the corruption of the human species’ natural desire for peace and harmony in the area in which they
This is due to the fact that a substantial degree of organisation is a necessity when carrying out violent action upon other human beings. Without organisation in a society, large scale collective violence is not possible. Without this prerequisite along with other elements such as ritualism, group mobilisation and social hierarchy, violence on a large scale would fail very quickly. Early human societies lacked such structural conditions and so violence was not a common occurrence at the time. It was not until the beginnings of civilisation did violence and warfare start to play a highly influential role within