Hobbes State of Nature
CHAPTER THREE- THE ORIGIN OF THE STATE IN THOMAS HOBBES.
3.1 THE ANALYSIS OF HUMAN NATURE Hobbes’ analysis of human nature begins with passion, and sees it as the different forms of appetite and aversion. Man is moved to action not by his intellect or reason, but by his passions, and appetite or desires.
PASSION
The way one expresses his passion in speech differs from the way he expresses it in thought. According to Hobbes in the Leviathan:
Passions may be expressed indicative; as I love, I fear, I enjoy, I deliberate, I command: but some of them have particular expressions by themselves, which nevertheless are not affirmations, unless it be when they serve to make other inferences, besides that of the passion they proceed from (34).
The passion to be singularly beloved, is called the passion of love and the fear that the love is not mutual, is called jealousy.
APPETITE
In the Leviathan, Hobbes defines appetite as: “Endeavour when it is toward something which causes it” (28). The nature of man has made man to be attracted toward these things he thinks will help him survive and hates whatsoever he judges to be a threat to him.
So we can put as Hobbes first propositions about human motivation as the way men are moved by appetite. As soon as the moving force of appetite has been stated, Hobbes set out several further propositions about appetites.
First he said:
Some appetites are innate like that of food. The rest, which are appetites of particular things, proceed from experience, and trial of their effects upon themselves, or other men (28).
Secondly, appetites continually changes and are different in different men:
And because the constitution of a man’s body, is a continual mutation; it is impossible that all the same things should always cause in him the same appetites, and aversions (28).
Thirdly, appetites are incessant, that is, they are operative as long as a man is alive: “Life itself is but motion and can never be without desire, not
3.1 THE ANALYSIS OF HUMAN NATURE Hobbes’ analysis of human nature begins with passion, and sees it as the different forms of appetite and aversion. Man is moved to action not by his intellect or reason, but by his passions, and appetite or desires.
PASSION
The way one expresses his passion in speech differs from the way he expresses it in thought. According to Hobbes in the Leviathan:
Passions may be expressed indicative; as I love, I fear, I enjoy, I deliberate, I command: but some of them have particular expressions by themselves, which nevertheless are not affirmations, unless it be when they serve to make other inferences, besides that of the passion they proceed from (34).
The passion to be singularly beloved, is called the passion of love and the fear that the love is not mutual, is called jealousy.
APPETITE
In the Leviathan, Hobbes defines appetite as: “Endeavour when it is toward something which causes it” (28). The nature of man has made man to be attracted toward these things he thinks will help him survive and hates whatsoever he judges to be a threat to him.
So we can put as Hobbes first propositions about human motivation as the way men are moved by appetite. As soon as the moving force of appetite has been stated, Hobbes set out several further propositions about appetites.
First he said:
Some appetites are innate like that of food. The rest, which are appetites of particular things, proceed from experience, and trial of their effects upon themselves, or other men (28).
Secondly, appetites continually changes and are different in different men:
And because the constitution of a man’s body, is a continual mutation; it is impossible that all the same things should always cause in him the same appetites, and aversions (28).
Thirdly, appetites are incessant, that is, they are operative as long as a man is alive: “Life itself is but motion and can never be without desire, not