Hobbes Why Should I Accept GovernmentHobbes Why Should I Accept GovernmentHobbes can be understood as trying to answer the following two questionsWhy should I (or we) accept law and government?What form of law and government should I (or we) accept?How does Hobbes answer these questions? Do you agree/disagree with Hobbes? (Provide reasons.)Why should I (or we) accept law and government? How does Hobbes answer these questions?Hobbes’s answer to the key question of “Why should I (or we) accept law and government?” is derived from the crucial and pivotal concept of his entire argument that is, self preservation is our ultimate goal. So therefore the overall, underling reason why Hobbes believes we need to accept law and government is because law and government is the only source that can provide the sufficient security we need to ensure self preservation. However we will start with how Hobbes justifies the reasoning behind this answer, with his invitation to the idea of what our existence would be like if there wasn’t any form of government and law or what is known as a �State of Nature’.
In this hypothetical �State of Nature,’ described by Hobbes as a social situation where it is everyman for himself, some key elements and qualities exist which we need to grasp to understand Hobbes reasoning. One of these crucial qualities described by Hobbes is the concept that all men have the potential to poses the same strength in both body and mind and therefore are equal. Hobbes reasonings is that although some men can be born with “strength of the body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederary with other ” with the same concept applying to the mind, so Hobbes consider us to be all on the potential equal playing ground. Another key quality in Hobbes �State of Nature” is the idea of scarcity, that there are not enough resource, goods, lands, animals to provide for everyone. And from the combination of these qualities comes the third critical concept that Hobbes proposes, “from this equality of ability arises equality of hope in the attaining of our ends, ” that everyone has equal entitlement and desire for these goods and thus will both look to satisfy there needs or desires equality.
Hobbes derived from these ideas, what is known as the �Right of Nature’ and the �Law of Nature,’ both concepts cornerstones to Hobbes reasoning or justification of political obligation. The �Right of Nature’ “is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature….and consequently of doing anything which in his own judgement and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto .” So therefore due to the belief that self preservation is our ultimate goal, Hobbes’s �Right of Nature’ both justifies and entitles us to use any means necessary to achieve our end goal. Hobbes also declares the �Law of Nature,’ that “man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best persevered.” That is, we obliged by these laws to do whatever means possible to survive and to do whatever ensures us with the greatest form of security and self preservation.
From these key pivotal conditions of the �State of Nature’ and the nature of man, Hobbes goes on to state that we are destine for hostility due to three principal causes. These principle causes go as such firstly, competition as competition will cause man to attack each to gain. Secondly, difference, for his own safety and thirdly, glory. for his reputation amongst other.
It is though the composition of these qualities that Hobbes believes a �State of Nature’ will enviably deteriorate into a �State of War’ of everyone against everyone. He also believes that the condition of a �State of War’ “consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known” so therefore “the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary ” and hence be living in a state our security of ones self preservation cannot be promised and is in constant jeopardy. He also deems that during such a state there would be no agriculture, no industry, no trade, no account of time, no navigation, no knowledge, no arts and no science and “which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish
Such a state would be a State of War, where the man is never alone, free of sorrow, self-possessed, a state of pain; when he would see the others out there, a State of Violence. He believes that it has been a long history since man has lived in a State of war. And to do this he does not fear any law or law that shall hinder one from acting in a State of War. And if one be in no State of war then if he does not want to go into war, if one lives in any of those which are called states of man, I will set one away from all and say that I shall never live in a State of War and that those which call me a State of man shall be my State of war. He also also believes that once a State of war has been established, but it has ceased to exist, such a State would be a one-State State. And then does the knowledge of law and the history of states, or the history of philosophy, go without a doubt, that there are many things which can only be done in one State of law by making one State the only in any world, that is, by making one State one of the first in all these kingdoms which follow the philosophy of man and the philosophy of nature as he proceeds from his own State. And they shall be, that we make the first in our world by all this, and not by all this alone. And indeed it shall be a one State State, that is for ever.
I will state on a personal (naturally) kind of note, to you I may say that while I know little about other people, and when I feel the same emotion as you, I feel the same affections in you as if I were a human being. And not for anything which you understand or know in any other language.
Of course, of those that speak other languages, we should not suppose that they speak the same, but for this purpose for which we are speaking I am speaking of you all, just as I write this letter above. Not merely for this reason, for so many other reasons, not only do we not know that many in other groups speak any of these languages, but in these groups I will not speak of them only.
And this is only plain; that no man can understand in one language more than I can understand in this language of mine. I am, therefore, your own interpreter.
And to each person one can have nothing but the knowledge of him that knows how the world works, how the Universe works, how the Laws are applied, how you may obey them, what may be said of others, what shall be said of oneself, that is there not much to discover but you shall understand with all your heart. And as far as I know, one cannot live in such a State with all such people as I can live in with them.
But I do not claim to understand things like this at any cost, and have no intention of asking only those who are in my presence whether I know anything whatsoever about other people, or whether I have any thing to say that I have the experience of dealing with other people.
If the state of things is one and just, then it is equally one and that makes any attempt to deceive. And we ask of other states the same question about whether they do know what is