Pros And Cons Of Hobbes

There are two objections that interrelated to verify Hobbe’s assertions to be inaccurate. The first objection would be that the specific mechanism that initiates Hobbes’s assertion of the state of nature is actually not egoism, but rather, the idea of “uncertainty”. The second objection would be that the state of nature does not necessarily mean lack of government. Conflict, violence, and war are still very prevalent in today’s society although we have authority such as the government. The idea of uncertainty means that not everyone is motivated to kill for personal gain however; it may be the uncertainty of someone else’s actions that forces them to choose the side of conflict. Hobbes blatantly states that for a modest person, it is
primarily fear compared to the desire for power that will motivate the individual to attack. Therefore, if fear was non-existent or there was certainty of another party wanting peace then the modest person would happily unite and seek harmony with other people in the state of nature. Hobbe’s is committed to the concept of egoism which once again claims that all human beings are solely driven by self-interest. When people initially hear the story of Hobbes’s state of nature, many are curious as to why Hobbes didn’t think it is possible to attain universal peace through human’s natural efforts and cooperation. The customary answer is because Hobbes thought that in nature; everyone is selfish. Hobbe’s flaw in his argument is that not everyone has to be selfish by nature but they can be scared of uncertainty which makes the state of war a default. It is a matter of looking at the underlying cause. Furthermore, even if the state of war was based on lack of government, Hobbe’s made a bold statement claiming that authority will reduce or diminish conflict.
However, one can object that even with authority, there is still conflict which may be because people are still uncertain of other’s actions. Here Hobbes admits that his descriptions of “state of war” are mainly hypothetical and may have never happened, we can still refer to the times civil war and look at how “savages” lived in the Americas. It is not completely true that general populations are all selfish in the way that egoism describes. Therefore, there is a high probability to prevent people from accepting Hobbe’s argument. Hobbes’s explanation for the government use should be weakened if there is no dependable way for majority of modest or peace seeking people to differentiate themselves from a the smaller amounts of power hungry/war seeking individuals. In other words, even when large amounts of the people specifically favor shared peace and cooperation; a law of nature does not guarantee the certainty that peace will arise. For example, there is clearly law enforcement or for some a spiritual enforcement (God) that says people should not steal; however, there are many who still defy the law and cause trouble in fulfilling their self-desires which can result to the victim feeling the freedom to kill or do whatever harmful to the offender because he broke the peace although enforcement was
made. Another example is if a stranger started staring at a man for a lengthy period of time and the man started to yell at the stranger for staring (almost engaging in a fight). The conflict did not occur because of self-interest but because the man was uncertain of the stranger’s stare and what it meant. The stranger staring could have meant admiration or in the man’s eyes, staring meant he was planning to do something bad to him. In return, the man may try to pick a fight even though authority such as the police force does not allow unruly altercations. Therefore, social contracts (minute treaties) in response to the state of nature can be considered unnecessary. The main idea is that the government does not provide certainty which is what facilitates this idea of the state of war. Therefore, Hobbes needs to reframe his work to distinguish what exactly causes a state of war.