WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth century philosopher, believed that human beings always acted from self-interest. On one occasion Hobbes was seen giving money to a beggar. When asked why, he explained that he was trying to relieve his own discomfort at seeing the beggar in need.

Detailed explanation-2: -Hobbes also considers humans to be naturally vainglorious and so seek to dominate others and demand their respect. The natural condition of mankind, according to Hobbes, is a state of war in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” because individuals are in a “war of all against all” (L 186).

Detailed explanation-3: -These three things-competition, distrust, and the desire for glory-throw humankind into a state of war, which is for Hobbes the natural condition of human life, the situation that exists whenever natural passions are unrestrained.

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).