WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Without a strong central authority to keep order, life would be “nasty, brutish and short.” Society would break down into a “war of every man against every man.” Hobbes said kings were justified in seizing absolute power because only they could act impartially to maintain order in society.

Detailed explanation-2: -Hobbes believed that in man’s natural state, moral ideas do not exist. Thus, in speaking of human nature, he defines good simply as that which people desire and evil as that which they avoid, at least in the state of nature.

Detailed explanation-3: -Without government, Hobbes argued, humans would exist in what he called a “state of nature” where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. That is, without some form of collective action and order, humans would resort to violence as they fight for resources.

Detailed explanation-4: -His main concern is the problem of social and political order: how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict. He poses stark alternatives: we should give our obedience to an unaccountable sovereign (a person or group empowered to decide every social and political issue).

Detailed explanation-5: -The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) famously leaned in the latter direction. He argued in his book Leviathan that, without government, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Detailed explanation-6: -Hobbes‟ main weakness is that he is never able to explain why one should not break the social contract and disobey the sovereign, which seems to be little more than a moral responsibility.