As Hobbes himself outlined, people are naturally, that is without a government of some formation to control them, greedy, selfish and often violent in their actions to survive. In his view is was only the rule of law and the threat of violence or punishment that kept people in check and civil with each other. But what keeps the leaders of society in check? If the leaders of society are in fact human then they are in fact subject to the aforementioned view. That is to say that if the leaders of society don't have rule of law and threat of punishment then they will behave in a greedy, selfish, violent and uncivil manor. This is a flaw in Hobbes' way of thinking. He might have argued that that is what a social contract is for but I argue that history shows that that may be a good idea in theory but rarely is a government truly in control of the people or at least equal to the people. Are social contracts reliable in practice? Are the checks and balances implemented in today's government effective?
Another question that we asked was based of Hobbes' view, in what context did he view himself? Did he believe he was bound by the same flaws as everyone else or did he consider himself to be the exception?
I personally dont believe in Hobbes' philosophy because if people could never trust enough to make alliances, we would not have society in the first place
ReplyDeleteI think that the US really is using the best system there is. yeah our country makes bad choices and government does things not everyone likes sometimes, but overall checks and balances and a democratic system is the only way to keep a government from being completely totalitarian and also show enough affirmation that people cant revert to a "greedy, selfish and often violent" society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of you. How could any community be made without making alliances with people first?
ReplyDeleteThere may be corrupt people in our government, but the idea of checks and balances is still there and seems to be the best system to use. As Eli brought up in class, we are one of the youngest countries, only 230 years or so, but we are so far advanced compared to others that have been around centuries or even millenniums longer.