State of nature

Categories: Political philosophy

"State of nature" is a term in political philosophy used to describe the hypothetical or empirical condition of humanity when or if government did not exist. Alternately, a state of nature is the condition before the rule of law comes into being. Some have thought that there was a time before any government, any official monopoly on the initiation of the use of violence, came into being. The concept of a state of nature is an integral part of social contract theories.

History

The concept of a state of nature was first posited by the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan. Hobbes described the concept in the Latin phrase bellum omnium contra omnes, meaning "the war of all against all." In this state any person has a right to do any thing to preserve their own liberty or safety.

Hobbes does not base his argument on the historical existence of such a state.

Hobbes believed that human beings in the state of nature would behave "badly" towards one another ("badly" in the sense of the morality that we would commonly apply: but Hobbes argued that people had every right to defend themselves by whatever means, in the absence of order). Famously, he believed that such a condition would lead to a "war of every man against every man" and make life "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes's negative view of human character was shaped at least in part by the civil war in England at the time and by the Christian doctrines of original sin and total depravity; the Christian tradition is generally at one with Hobbes in supporting the need for government. However, Hobbes would strongly disagree with the Christian view of the innate, inherent, and inescapable sinfulness of human beings: in Hobbes's view, these problems are soluble by good government. As he incisively stated in its "De cive. Epistola dedicatoria", borrowing a well known aphorism from Plautus's Asinaria: "homo homini lupus" (man is wolf to man).

Hobbes's view was challenged in the eighteenth century by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who affirmed instead that people in a state of nature would be born good; their bad habits are the products of civilization, and specifically social hierarchies, property, and markets. Rousseau's view underlines much of the Romantic period's political thinking, including the thought of Karl Marx.

John Locke further explores the state of nature in his Second Treatise on Civil Government writen in the wake of England's Glorious Revolution of 1688. Locke argued that unlimited government leads to abuses and that government should be from the people and that it should be limited so as not to violate the natural rights of people. Locke states that the entire population has the right to punish an offender so that he will not commit the crime again and so that others will be deterred from moral law breaking.

John Rawls used what amounted to an artificial state of nature. To develop his Theory of Justice, Rawls places everyone in the original position. The original position is a hypothetical state of nature used as a thought experiment to develop Rawl's theory of justice. People in the original position have no society and are under a veil of ignorance that them prevents from knowing how they may benefit from society. They do not know if they will be smart or dumb, rich or poor, or anything else about their fortunes and abilities. Rawls reasons that people in the original position would want a society where they had their basic liberties protected and where they had some economic guarentees as well. If society were to be constructed from stratch through a social agreement between individuals, these principles would be the expected basis of such an agreement. Thus, these priniciples should form the basis of real, modern societies since everyone should consent to them if society were organized from scratch in fair agreements.

Between nations

In Hobbes's view, once a civil government is instituted, the state of nature has disappeared between individuals because of the civil power which exists to enforce contracts. Between nations, however, no such power exists and therefore nations have the same rights to preserve themselves - including making war - as individuals possessed.

Rawls also examines the state of nature between nations. In his work the Law of Peoples, Rawls applies a modified verision of his original position thought experiment to international relations. Rawls says that people, not states, form the basic unit that should be examined. States should be encouraged to follow the principles from Rawls's earlier Theory of Justice. Democracy seems like it would be the most logical means accomplishing these goals, but begnin non-democracies should be seen as acceptable at the international stage. Rawls develops eight principles for how people should act on an international stage.ja:自然状態 pt:Estado Natural fi:Luonnontila