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Thomas Hobbes: Are People Naturally Good Or Evil?

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Are humans naturally good or evil? This question alone has brought up numerous debates between philosophers and scientists all around the globe. It’s a question that many would think would have a simple answer to, yet, is constantly refuted. Human nature leaves us to ponder this simple question because of the complexity in which individuals act. It would be great if everyone could come to agree that humans are all good, however, that is not the case. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were two great intellectuals during the age of Enlightenment, with strongly opposing viewpoints. One of those opinions being that people are inherently good, with morals and the ability to reason, as stated by Locke. The other declaring that humans are naturally cruel, greedy, and selfish. These two opinions have impacted many people, thus affecting our own government. However, the one that reigns the closest to the truth is Thomas Hobbes. Humans are simply born selfish without the knowledge between right and wrong. From birth, babies cannot distinguish what is right or wrong. The same goes for toddlers, although their actions are caught early enough as to what they should or shouldn’t do. Parents have to teach their children between right or wrong in fear of them hurting themselves or others. If they aren’t taught what is right, they will …show more content…

We are born that way and are only taught how to be good as we grow. Our behaviors are constantly put into check by others, and if they weren’t, it would be a chaotic world. Humans would show more animalistic behaviors as they would need to survive be it killing, stealing, or just downright greedy. The human race is ultimately cruel, but is phased out with the sense of judgement as time progresses. Though it could be argued that Hobbes lacked in human psychology, his opinion of human nature and government left a great impression on others and the

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John Locke and Thomas Hobbes were early English philosophers who each had very different views on the roles of the government and the people being governed. Their interpretations of human nature each had a lasting and vast impact on modern political science. Locke believed that men had the right to revolt against oppressive government. “‘Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

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Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, was about a group kids, from Britain, who had gotten on a plane, and the plane was shot down. Before it had crashed though, the group of children jumped off and survived. It was good they survived but now they are trapped on an island. Together they must work as a team to survive until they can be rescued.

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John Locke believed in a democracy and expressed that humans have the ability to govern themselves. However, Hobbes believed that humans are selfish and need a single leader(king) that should govern all affairs. Post French Revolution people lived under Hobbes theory, but wanted to become a democracy.

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Over the centuries, the most challenging question to find an answer for; is about the human nature. Are people born with evil nature or good nature? However, until today, no person can find the truth about humanity. In fact, almost all people defend about the goodness in their souls and believe that they are far away from wickedness, although wars, murder and violence show strong evidence of evil in humans. In contrast, Shirley Jackson in her short story argues that evil is firmly rooted in human beings.

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Hobbes believed that natural state of humans was violent and therefore needed order and control to ensure a just and equal society (Robinson 2016, 4). However Hobbes believed that a sovereign could maintain power without deceit and manipulation. Hobbes believed in the social contract which is when people could have a moral understanding about right and wrong to avoid the chaotic violent human nature. Hobbes believed in the idea of utilitarianism which would “maximize the most good and minimize the pain” (Robinson 201, 4). This would ensure that the sovereign was doing things for the right reasons and not to better himself but to better society as a

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Some people could be born with evil souls and some could be born with good souls and the reason we are always fighting with each other is because it’s evils opinion against goods opinion. Or are we all born with a nutreal soul and then decide to be either good or evil based on the type of enviroment they grew up in. The most popular opinion is that people are born evil but choose to do good things to make up for it and

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Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Discourse on Inequality and Social Contract each attempt to explain the rise of and prescribe the proper management of human society. At the foundation of both philosophies is the principle that humans are asocial by nature, a precept each philosopher interprets and approaches in a different way. Hobbes states that nature made humans relatively “equal,” and that “every man is enemy to every man.” Life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” he says, and “every man has right to everything.” Rousseau outlines primitive asocial man having “everything necessary for him to live in the state of nature” from “instinct alone,” and being “neither good nor evil.”

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