When Hobbes and Rousseau both agree that individuals are by nature equal, why do they come to such different conclusions about the best form of government? That is, why does Hobbes favor absolute monarchy while Rousseau believes in direct democracy?
Is it simply the cynic vs. the naif? I’m having a hard time wrestling with their two trains of thought. Anyone have any ideas?
thanks nabbergnossi, i guess what i don’t really get is why hobbes thinks absolute monarchy is the best. is he saying that this ruler would be able to control the worst parts of human nature and therefore allow them to be good?
furthermore, rousseau’s view of nature isn’t exactly glowing. does he just assume that there is enough good in us (or nobility as you call it) that we can come together as a collective and rule ourselves democratically?
Hobbes felt that a king who represented god on earth would be the best because absolute authority is necessary to keep humans from killing each other.
Hobbes believed the life of the human being was “continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.â€
Rousseau say human’s natural state is good. Humans are born good for Rousseau. If we are born good, what makes us bad? Society. Rousseau had a vision of a self-legislating human rather than one pushed around by authority structures.
Yes, well at least to some extent. He had a case of enlightenment enthusiasm, sometimes that lead good thinkers to very optimistic conclusions.
That is probably up to opinion but in my opinion, Rousseau is more correct. I don’t think people are born evil. I think Hobbes’ view is poisonous to our conception of humanity.
i personally believe people are born evil or savage. evident in the fact that it is not innate to a child to not harm another human being/animal, the desire has to suppressed and learnt to be overcame, as well as the fact that those who have not had this sort of upbringing grow up to be right evil gits (evident with princes/sons of dictators etc).
just because of the fact we’re evolved monkeys, it doesnt change the fact that we’re still just animals and all our beliefs/creations/judegments of the other species doesnt change this fact
rousseau accepts hobbesian’ critique of nature, if you consider that in a period of man’s history, the hobbesian state did exist. the thinkers departed because rousseau thought man moved past that point. try reading the 2nd discourse, it’ll explain everything. also, get a copy that includes rousseau’s footnotes, its especailly in there that he specifies how he agrees with hobbes, why, and where they depart.
the other responses to this question have been far to polemical to be true reps of rousseau’s and hobbes’ account
The hobbesian state still exists. In my view there is a dynamics between the need for authority and freedom, which opposites are represented by Hobbes and Rousseau. They were both looking at the same thing in a different time, and from a different view.
I think people need authority. It gives meaning and order to little people lifes.
people certaintly need social settings. authority giving meaning is rather bullshit, but being in the netherlands i’m not sure you’ll be able to grasp that. north amreican culture doesn’t really have authroities, and those that we do are taunted and ridiculued and generally unappreciated. any meaning extracted from them comes at their expense, and in the negative form.
the ‘great’ problem of both hobbes and rousseau’s philosophy is that man does not exist, ever and in any capacity, as an isolated individual. this is a myth, a lie, that both built their theories on. both came up with decent theories depite this, but they are inadequet.
different time yes, i think rousseau shared the hobbesian view to such an extreme that he didn’t think it was possible to end where hobbes ended. the social contract and living in a highly rigid society under a great legistlature, is not self-determinate freedom. rousseau never advocated that. he held a freedom in the extreme authoritarian sense – probably, however, had doubts it could exist (to his credit).
It goes even further. All those individuals makes up mankind. But an individual is an dynamic being, and I think we all have a period where we look for authority, and on the other side wanting to be free.
Hobbes wrote his work when the church was still in full power. Rousseau was at the beginning of the enlightment. But where w now are, we need laws, rules and force to not let our society fall apart.
Hobbes was right about one thing: even Fascism is preferable to the savage anarchy or Stalinist equality advocated by Rousseau.
“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe [State of Nature], they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.” – Thomas Hobbes
“To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.” – Thomas Hobbes
“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” – Thomas Hobbes