Thomas Hobbes is a British philosopher who is remembered for his illustration of the transition from barbaric to contemporary thinking in Great Britain. He is one of the philosophers who developed philosophical vocabularies in the English language, forming technical terms used by the ancient Greek and Latin novelists. From carefully chosen words, Hobbes was able to express common ideas in mind (Spragens 13). Imagining a society in a state of nature, a society with no rules and code of how we live, it looks much impossible to coexist in such an environment.
Hobbes wrote several philosophical quotes on the social contract accounting for human psychology. He noted that self-preservation, or rather protection, is something that can be rationally sought by the community through an agreement. He came up with strategies for how our societies can be structured for our own benefit. The Golden Rule was very significant to his assurance of logical philosophical argument. His argument was that he could not merely ordain a philosophy or rather would not state a principle conventional to many but would provide a reasoning supporting his principle (Fish 153). With a conclusion that it is rational for people to dispatch some liberty and responsibilities for the security of self-preservation, he came up with a conception of forms of both social and political structure consistent with the aims.
He described social contract as a case where one surrenders some liberty in exchange for his common security, that is, the mutual transfer of rights. Naturally, everyone has the right to do anything at any time without limits, and this is a state called natural liberty. He, therefore, states that social structure is all about the contracts we make socially in the form of an agreement to mutually transfer our natural rights. By saying this, his argument was that I decided to give up the natural right of stealing your food since you also do the same to me. In that case, a natural right is created in the society whereby my right to property is limited (Höffe 8). Hobbes states that we make these agreements overtly since we are raised in societies with conventional laws already in place to guide us. He states that in most cases, we entitle certain bodies like the government to help us enforce these laws in society. He believes that the leaders in place are God chosen, and no one should challenge them as they exercise their roles.
Hobbes ideas and philosophies implicate our modern-day society in very different ways. According to him, for peace to prevail in society, we have to engage in manual contracts within our societies by giving someone the power to make decisions that are neutral to all of us. His ideas have been applied in very diverse sectors of our current world. Governments guide most countries with the people in surrendering some of their sovereign rights so that the whole population can be free. Despite the fact that this agreement limits one’s freedom, it creates a common environment where everyone in the society can fit in. It also creates an organized state where peace and stability remain the major gains to the community. Major economies of the World, like the United States, have applied Hobbes’s ideas in many sectors. For instance, citizens of the United States are by no means autocrats (Höffe 5). That, though, in any chance, does not mean the country is in a state of anarchy. That was only possible when the country was under a dictator or king, but in this case, the country was guided by the constitution upon which the sovereign power of the people lay. This means that the real sovereign power lies with the people themselves since the citizens form the constitution. Hobbes has stood out as one of the most critical philosophers whose ideas are seen working in a range of social organizations, beginning from schools, churches, and nations.
Thomas Hobbes is one of the figures whose philosophies have shaped the political arena to date. He is one of the most outstanding political philosophers, and his masterpiece Leviathan remains substantial in political writings related to Plato and Aristotle. Hobbes believed that when human beings are left in their state of nature, a state of continuous warfare would exist in the whole world. He believed that in a state of nature, life would be solitary, nasty, brutal, and short. He therefore came with an idea of forming a government with sovereign power over every one (Martinich 77). I support Hobbes’s idea even though his most preferred form of government is absolute monarchy. This idea, when clearly analyzed, gives us the democratic governments we have today. I, therefore, feel it right that Hobbes’s idea was pessimistic enough, considering the fact that during the time he did his philosophical work, he used the present form of government, which was a monarchy. His social contract made him ascribe all power to the governor, whom he felt should own all the powers. Expanding this in the modern world, the sovereign power lies with the constitution, which should never be rebelled by any under the rule.
In summary, Thomas Hobbes is one of the shapes of the world in the field of philosophy. He was very brilliant, and references to his philosophical work still remain incrusted in the laws guiding various parts of the world. The social contract theory is very important for the welfare of the societies in which we live. The ideas he had in mind have been applied in schools, governments, and institutions, and it has kept those areas in peaceful coexistence.
Work Cited
Spragens Jr, Thomas A. The politics of motion: the world of Thomas Hobbes. University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Pp 12-17.
Fish, Stanley. “Thomas Hobbes: The Father of Law and Literature.” Law & Literature 29.1 (2017): Pp 151-156.
Höffe, Otfried. Thomas Hobbes. SUNY Press, 2015. Pp 7-9.
Höffe, Otfried. “Thomas Hobbes: De Cive.” (2018). Pp 3-5.
Martinich, A. P. “Leo Strauss’s Olympian Interpretation: Right, Self-preservation, and Law in The Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.” Reading between the lines–Leo Strauss and the History of Early Modern Philosophy 3 (2015): Pp 77.
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