Thomas Hobbes and the State of Nature

Devin Stauffer, Associate Professor of Government, University of Texas, talks about English philosopher and author of "Leviathan," Thomas Hobbes (March 4, 2015).

Professor Stauffer specializes in classical and early modern political philosophy. Most of his research has focused on classical thought, but his current work also examines the origins of liberalism, the theoretical foundations of modernity, and the divide between ancient and modern political thought. He is the author of "Plato's Introduction to the Question of Justice" (SUNY, 2001), coauthor and cotranslator of "Empire and the Ends of Politics: Plato's Menexenus and Pericles' Funeral Oration" (Focus Philosophical Library, 1999), and author of "The Unity of Plato's Gorgias: Rhetoric, Justice, and the Philosophic Life" (Cambridge, 2006).

The Emory Williams Lecture Series in the Liberal Arts has been made possible by a generous gift from Mr. Emory Williams (Emory College '32 and Trustee Emeritus, Emory University).

[baikunthamahat]

Special lession to us. Thank you lecturer for this episode.

[gozdetak]

Thanks for sharing the lecture. It was very informative.

[iain.]

I'd suggest watching on 1.5 speed.

[themise]

Shall we stamp that on a few foreheads...Debunking is the path to peace?

Thanks -  enjoyable lecture.

[rafiqulislam]

Really very interesting delivery on how Hobbes influenced to build up his theory of nature and the ultimate goal of his theory of nature i.e. the social contract but we expected some more explanations of human nature. In a whole the lecture is enjoyable and informative.

[deniskovichitv]

от души, братуха, зачитал лекцию. молодец!

[adrianswift]

Hobbes is one rational man, unlike most other philosophers of his time.

[jrshipley]

You spend two sentences talking about "what happened after Katrina, " but the human response to disaster relief is really a key case study for understanding the potentialities of human nature and how they are socially realized. Marcus Aurelius says we are born for mutual aid as top and bottom teeth are formed to each other, a comment later echoed by Dr King and independently stated by Mencius in classical Chinese philosophy. While we see some of the worst of human nature after disasters, we see much of the best as well, after Katrina as after other disasters. Where the cameras choose to focus, and how this focus reinforces authoritarian interests, is another matter. There certainly are nasty and brutish potentialities, but there are kind and cooperative ones too. Hobbes image of the state of nature is distorted by seeing humans in conflict after the collapse of an autocracy, having learned to depend on external control and having an image of power over which to struggle. Who says this is a natural state. Many indigenous cultures are internally peaceful, cooperative, and broadly egalitarian, governed by consensus. Civil war, perhaps, is a product of the resentful and vengeful spirits excited by living under hierarchical regimes that insult our natural sense of fairness and justice, attributable to our innate moral psychology as evolved from small-band primates. The problem of political philosophy is not how to suppress human nature, but rather how to scale it up for larger modern social structures.

[kingmj]

Hobbes was no more pessimistic about humanity than he was optimistic about humanity. He simply recognized that self-interest, fear, and ego were in all of us, and that those three things forever kept us from being angels. But that didn't mean we were demons, either. "Man is a wolf to man" is a misleading misquote. The actual line was about balance, claiming that humans (both male and female) can both aspire to the heights of godhood or descend to the level of predatory beasts.

"To speak impartially, both sayings are very true; That Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe."

[品味历史品味人生]

Machiavelli cleared the bush, Hobbes built a structure.

[MrJonnyPepper]

a great resource for making a sympathetic villain

[leezanewill-cordington]

Weren't these philosophies by those early modern philosophers, such as Hobbes, based on the conditions of Man under Monastic rule as it was at the time? Is this not why eventually that the revolutions took place to remove monarchy, hence, the Russian, French and American revolutions leading to the power being invested in all the people, which led to democracy in which the majority decisions ruled?

He gets it all (or nearly all) wrong. Hobbes is not proposing the way political order "should be". He DESCRIBES the way political order works, actually works. It is not a proposal for a better society: it is an analysis of the actual workings of society and power, not a blueprint for a better society.

[franklinfalco]

Hobbes may not have been exactly right but there are still things we can learn from him.

[bigmike]

How can we ever be confident that we ever truly leave the state of nature when governing bodies are comprised of people who have that nature within them? We enter into social contracts not only with the governing body but with each other as well. Any such contract can be broken at any time in service of the self-interests of those involved. Given changes in incentives or perceptions we are still very much capable of being wolves to each other.

[mohabyounis]

I was considering a PhD at Emory but the low quality of this lecture is a great discouragement.

[ralphricart]

Hobbes' theory is especially noticeable if you've ever been left alone with a woman in the workplace.

[Aganilsson]

I think Hobbes intention was very much to teach to an elite, and that is also shows in his idea of religion; in his way of thinking religion was attended to poor people who would stay in line and obey rich man´s order, who was, in his way of thinking, smart enough to not need religion. He also lived in a time where it seemed that the hierarchies of his time would stayed forever.

[bozorgmaneshrobertsohrabi]

If an embryonic sense forces the tides of Christ to be a frame under the doctrines of forclosed yearlings sequences, the rings that hold no eyes together are the monads of a Binet causing these lost words of anymore good than none ever spoken.

[sandeshkadam]

Most influenced by civil war of British