Thomas Hobbes Research Paper

Thomas Hobbes, one of the greatest 17th century English philosophers, is in several instances hastily and vehemently grouped into the category of ‘defender and advocate of despotism’ by many. Often regarded as a flagbearer of illiberal thinking and absolutism, few see Hobbes for the claims he subtly, nonetheless, effectively promotes; claims that antithetically contain some of the building blocks of classical and modern liberalism. Though Hobbes, through his main work, Leviathan, does promote certain strands of thought that have illiberal elements—like an opposition to democracy, unlimited power of a sovereign, and restriction of freedoms like that of owning private property—he also promotes a multitude of concepts, that in the era of the 17th

Accordingly, this is the reasoning that brought about social liberalism—which prioritizes collective flourishment as opposed to classical liberalism’s individual flourishment—with the idea that all deserve to live lives that are prosperous on a relatively equal basis (via being granted equal rights and liberties), primarily because, in the eyes of the state, all citizens are equally worthy. Hobbes was one philosopher most devoted to the belief that all men are equal. Of course, his quintessential idea of equality was rooted in the way he viewed the state of nature saying that it was a war of all against all because everybody had an equal ability to compete with or harm one another for scarce resources. The passion of competition only arises due to a belief in equality. “Where there is equality, Hobbes says, each competitor calculates that he has a chance to overcome the other” (Hamilton, 2013). However, Hobbes’s perception of man’s equality had more to do with than just the state of nature. Constructing the sovereign requires the consent of each individual member; there cannot be a smaller communal body that consents on behalf of all individuals because the existence of a body that acts on behalf of all individuals (sovereign) is created primarily via consent on an individual level (Malcolm, 2016). Further, Hobbes’s notion of man’s equality is rooted in his belief in moral relativism. He believes that an absolute account of good or bad and justice or injustice simply does not exist in nature. Every man has his own viewpoint of what comprises good versus bad and all these viewpoints are equally valid while making decisions. Since men are not by nature substantially wiser than one another, each individual person