A PROJECT REPORT ON

Hobbes conception of Human Nature & its Social contract

Submitted to:
Dr. B.K Mahakaul
(Professor, Political Science)
Submitted by:
Pranav Vaidya
Roll no:-117
Semester-II

Date of Submission: 24th of February 2014

Hidayatullah National Law University
Table of contents:
 Acknowledgements.
 Objectives.
 Research database.
 Methodology.
 Overview of Literature.
 Methodology.
 Introduction.
 Chapter-1
 Hobbes conception of Human Nature.
 Chapter-2
 The Social Contract.
 Chapter-3
 Criticism of Hobbes theories.
 Conclusion.
 References.
 Bibliography.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First & foremost, I take this opportunity to thank Mr. B.K Mahakaul, Professor Political Science,
HNLU for allotting me this challenging topic to work on. She has been very kind in providing
inputs for this work, by way of suggestions and by giving his very precious time for some
discussion and providing me resource of his vast knowledge of the subject which helped me to
look at the topic in its very broad sense also to look at some of the very narrow concepts by
expertise view. Therefore she proved to be a database in making this project. Hence I would like
to thank her for all her cooperation and support.

I would also like to thank my dear colleagues and friends in the University, who have helped me
with ideas about this work and also a source for constant motivation and hence they were a
guiding force to me in making of this project. Last, but not the least I thank the University
Administration for equipping the University with such good library and IT lab.

My special thanks to library staff and IT staff for equipping me with the necessary books and
data from the website.

I would also like to thank the hostel staff for providing me a healthy and clean environment that
provided me a great concentration level.

Pranav Vaidya

Roll No.-117, Sec-C

Semester- II
Objectives:
The objective of the project is to understand the concept of Human Nature & its Social Contract
with reference to its application during the 15th& 16th century as well as to study the human
behavior which use to persist in the views of Thomas Hobbes.

This project focuses on the concept of Human Nature& its Social Contract as put forward by
Thomas Hobbes.

Overview of Literature:

Articles:

 The Social Contract by Thomas Hobbes(1651).

Here he talks about the Social contract which the humans established after the state of
war in order to attain peace and hence obey the supremacy of sovereignty.
 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan(1985).
He discussed about the ideal human nature and the state of nature, as to why this society
need a ruling body or a supreme power to govern.

Methodology:
This project work is descriptive & evaluative in approach. It is largely based on the evaluation of
works of Mr. Thomas Hobbes. Books & other references and articles as guided by faculty of
political science were primarily helpful for the completion of this project.
 Introduction
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, born on 5th April 1588 in Malmeusbery. He was an
English philosopher who gave a new direction to western political thought. He was an idealist
who got influenced by the Civil war, which gave him the idea of the brutish nature of human
beings. He favored anarchy because he thought that the state of war existing can be changed by a
dominating force of the king or authoritative ruler.Hobbes was a champion of absolutism for the
sovereign, but he also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right
of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order
(which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate
political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal
interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.

His understanding of humans as being matter and motion, obeying the same physical laws as
other matter and motion, remains influential; and his account of human nature as self-interested
cooperation, and of political communities as being based upon a "social contract" remains one of
the major topics of political philosophy. In addition to political philosophy, Hobbes also
contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, geometry, the physics of gases,
theology, ethics, and general philosophy.
 Chapter-1

Hobbes conception of Human Nature

Thomas Hobbes lived during the most crucial period of early modern England’s history: the
English Civil War, waged from 1642-1648. To describe this conflict in the most general of
terms, it was a clash between the King and his supporters, the Monarchists, who preferred the
traditional authority of a monarch, and the Parliamentarians, most notably led by Oliver
Cromwell, who demanded more power for the quasi-democratic institution of Parliament.
Hobbes represents a compromise between these two factions. On the one hand he rejects the
theory of the Divine Right of Kings, or the Natural Power of Kings which held that held that a
king’s authority was invested in him (or, presumably, her) by God, that such authority was
absolute, and therefore the basis of political obligation lay in our obligation to obey God
absolutely. On the other hand, Hobbes also rejects the early democratic view, taken up by the
Parliamentarians, that power ought to be shared between Parliament and the King. In rejecting
both these views, Hobbes occupies the ground of one is who both radical and conservative. He
argues, radically for his times, that political authority and obligation are based on the individual
self-interests of members of society who are understood to be equal to one another, with no
single individual invested with any essential authority to rule over the rest, while at the same
time maintaining the conservative position that the monarch, which he called the Sovereign,
must be ceded absolute authority if society is to survive.

Hobbes’ political theory is best understood if taken in two parts: his theory of human nature;
Psychological Egoism, and his theory of the social contract, founded on the hypothetical State of
Nature. Hobbes has, first and foremost, a particular theory of human nature, which gives rise to a
particular view of morality and politics, as developed in his philosophical
masterpiece, Leviathan, published in 1651. The Scientific Revolution, with its important new
discoveries that the universe could be both described and predicted in accordance with universal
laws of nature, greatly influenced Hobbes. He doesn’t agree with the concept of Aristotle that
man is a social animal. He, at that time analyzed that when state becomes weak, then men tend to
behave like an animal. He adopted geometrical as well as the method of natural sciences to
understand human nature.
He sought to provide a theory of human nature that would parallel the discoveries being made in
the sciences of the inanimate universe. His psychological theory is therefore informed by
mechanism, the general view that everything in the universe is produced by nothing other than
matter in motion. According to Hobbes, this extends to human behavior. From Hobbes’ point of
view, we are essentially very complicated organic machines, responding to the stimuli of the
world mechanistically and in accordance with universal laws of human nature.

In Hobbes’ view, this mechanistic quality of human psychology implies the subjective nature of
normative claims. ‘Love’ and ‘hate’, for instance, are just words we use to describe the things we
are drawn to and repelled by, respectively. So, too, the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ have no meaning
other than to describe our appetites and aversions. Moral terms do not, therefore, describe some
objective state of affairs, but are rather reflections of individual tastes and preferences. In
addition to Subjectivism, Hobbes also infers from his mechanistic theory of human nature that
humans are necessarily and exclusively self-interested. All men pursue only what they perceive
to be in their own individually considered best interests – they respond mechanistically by being
drawn to that which they desire and repelled by that to which they are averse. This is a universal
claim: it is meant to cover all human actions under all circumstances – in society or out of it,
with regard to strangers and friends alike, with regard to small ends and the most generalized of
human desires, such as the desire for power and status. Everything we do is motivated solely by
the desire to better our own situations, and satisfy as many of our own, individually considered
desires as possible. In addition to being exclusively self-interested, Hobbes also argues that human beings
are reasonable. They have in them the rational capacity to pursue their desires as efficiently and
maximally as possible. But this capacity of human beings is utilized by them to fulfill their own
selfish desires and ends.Hobbes believed that human beings naturally desire the power to live
well and that they will never be satisfied with the power they have without acquiring more
power. After this, he believes, there usually succeeds a new desire such as fame and glory, ease
and sensual pleasure or admiration from others. He also believed that all people are created
equally. That everyone is equally capable of killing each other because although one man may
be stronger than another, the weaker may be compensated for by his intellect or some other
individual aspect. Hobbes believed that the nature of humanity leads people to seek power. He
said that when two or more people want the same thing, they become enemies and attempt to
destroy each other. He called this time when men oppose each other war. He said that there were
three basic causes for war, competition, distrust and glory. In each of these cases, men use
violence to invade their enemies’ territory either for their personal gain, their safety or for glory.
He said that without a common power to unite the people, they would be in a war of every man
against every man as long as the will to fight is known. He believed that this state of war was the
natural state of human beings and that harmony among human beings is artificial because it is
based on an agreement. If a group of people had something in common such as a common
interest or a common goal, they would not be at war and united they would be more powerful
against those who would seek to destroy them. One thing he noted that was consistent in all men
was their interest in self-preservation. He said that political actions are sought to be explained by
psychological actions. So his methods applied that both natural as well as political worlds should
be understood as machines. This mechanical world is the sum of all parts. According to him,
society can be treated as machines because its main constituent is an individual who are joined
together by mechanical unity as each part remains its original self.

Hobbes views of human nature lead him to develop his vision of an ideal government. He
believed that a common power was required to keep men united. This power would work to
maintain the artificial harmony among the people as well as protect them from foreign enemies.
This power would either be one man or an assembly appointed by the people. The people would
make an agreement among themselves to all submit to this ruler. The people would submit their
wills to the will of their ruler who would in turn assure their self-preservation. Thus the ruler
would have absolute control over his domain. Hobbes referred to this kind of ruler as a
Sovereign and his people as subjects.In the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes pairs a descriptive
account of an unchangeable human nature, with his prescription for a system in which a supreme
sovereign rule with absolute power gifted him by the people. He maintains that the nature of man
is to desire certain things, not least of all power, and to work toward those desires, and argues
that the pursuit of these desires will lead to a war of 'all against all', in which the constant threat
of violent death will loom over every man. To prevent this war, men must choose to cede their
power to a Leviathan, who must then have absolute control over them and their lives. In
exchange, they will receive protection from each other. This arrangement will last until such time
as the sovereign is no longer able to provide protection, at which time it will dissolve.He states
that there is no good but the object of a man's desire, no evil but an object of aversion, and that
there is no absolute right or wrong, but merely a relative morality that favors the reason of the
user. The prime object of men's desire is for power, and in order to continue in his possession of
it, he must obtain more, because one man's power diminishes another's, until the "general
inclination of all mankind, is a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that cease only
in death. Men will attack each other in competition for power, out of fear, and for glory. In this
war for power between all men, which Hobbes calls the State of Nature, there is no unjust action,
for any action which preserves a man's life is just, and so every man has a right to everything. He
postulates that without any type of regulation, men's lives would be, "...solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short." Hobbes introduced the concept of natural equality because all men are not
equal to each other in different respects. Hobbes uses the 'Fundamental Laws of Nature' to
explain the need for men to give up their right to everything to end the war of all against all. He
would establish a Leviathan whose power is assigned to it by its subjects, who has complete
authority to prescribe laws and absolute control over punishment, whose obligation, in turn,
would be to protect the people from death at the hands of each other. It is also in the realm of the
Leviathan to establish what is moral and immoral, just and unjust, by creating laws and
doctrines, because to Hobbes, there is nothing moral but what the state says is moral, and nothing
immoral but what to the state is immoral. Subjects would follow the Leviathan because they have
agreed to, by a contract that exchanges their freedoms for their protection, because it is in their
best interests to, and because it is in everyone's best interest to do so. The contract between men
and the Leviathan is binding until such time as the sovereign can no longer protect a man, at
which time a man is free to leave the Leviathan's control, or until the sovereign himself threatens
the life of a man, forfeiting his part of the contract.
 Chapter-2

The Social Contract

Thomas Hobbes famously said that in a "state of nature" human life would be "solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish, and short1". In the absence of political order and law, everyone would have
unlimited natural freedoms, including the "right to all things" and thus the freedom to plunder,
rape, and murder; there would be an endless "war of all against all”. To avoid this, free men
contract with each other to establish political community i.e. civil society through a social
contract in which they all gain security in return for subjecting themselves to an absolute
Sovereign, one man or an assembly of men. According to Hobbes (in whose view government is
not a party to the original contract) citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it
is too weak to act effectively to suppress factionalism and civil unrest. According to other social
contract theorists, citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey or change the leadership,
through elections or other means including, when necessary, violence, when the government fails
to secure their natural rights (Locke) or satisfy the best interest of society (called the "general
will" in Rousseau, who is more concerned with forming new governments than in overthrowing
old ones).

According to Hobbes, the lives of individuals in the state of nature were "solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish and short", a state in which self-interest and the absence of rights and contracts prevented
the 'social', or society. Life was 'anarchic' (without leadership or the concept of sovereignty).
Individuals in the state of nature were apolitical and asocial. This state of nature is followed by
the social contract. The social contract was an 'occurrence' during which individuals came
together and ceded some of their individual rights so that others would cede theirs (e.g. person A
gives up his/her right to kill person B if person B does the same). This resulted in the
establishment of the state, a sovereign entity like the individuals now under its rule used to be,
which would create laws to regulate social interactions. Human life was thus no longer "a war of
all against all".

1. Hobbes (2005) Sovereignty and Security’ In Cottingham, J (ed.), Western Philosophy: an anthology. Pt. IX,
Section 3, PP481
But the state system, which grew out of the social contract, was also anarchic (without
leadership) with respect to each other. Just as the individuals in the state of nature had been
sovereign and thus guided by self-interest and the absence of rights, so state now acts in their
self-interest in competition with each other. Just like the state of nature, states were thus bound to
be in conflict because there was no sovereign over and above the state (i.e. more powerful)
capable of imposing some system such as social-contract laws on everyone by force. Social
contract theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons’ moral and/or political
obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which
they live. However, social contract theory is rightly associated with modern moral and political
theory and is given its first full exposition and defense by Thomas Hobbes.

Natural law theory paralleled the mechanistic scientific theories successfully demonstrated by
enlightenment figures such as Galileo and Newton. Natural law theory held that there were
immutable principals of law that existed as part of the natural world that define what is right, just
and good for man. These principals were discoverable by the use of reason and all men were
subject to these laws. States or other sovereign entities could only have validity and legitimacy if
their laws were consistent with these natural laws. As Hobbes defined natural laws as a general
rule found out by reason for which a man is forbidden to follow which is destructive for his life.
The natural laws were those by which an individual mutually agrees to act in a manner which is
conducive to peace & goodwill of the society as a whole. Thus man will be prepared to enter in a
contract & such contract will be followed by all. This mutual agreement given by Hobbes was
known as Social Contract. According to Thomas Hobbes, the state of nature does not refer to a
peaceful, harmonious social life but instead it is a hellish life with chaos and violence. Hobbes
believes that the state of nature in history was a “state of war” during which all individuals
struggled against all other individuals and finally ended this chaotic life by making a social
contract. Hobbes believes that human beings are naturally selfish and they can do all kinds of
bad acts when they can gain from these bad acts2. This understanding of the enormous
selfishness of human beings directs Hobbes to a very dark theory, which does not trust in human
beings and thus favors a regime of absolute monarchy with severe rules and little space for
freedoms. Hobbes considers human beings as rational egoists that always look for the
maximization of their self-profits, and he tries to explain the transition from the state of nature to

2 . THOMAS HOBBES, LEVIATHON, Penguin Books 192(1985).

the organized state by human beings’ realization that it is more profitable to live in an organized
state. Hobbes thinks that humans are somehow naturally equal and there is not too much
difference between their mental and physical abilities. According to him, this equality of ability
increases the competition for limited resources between people, especially in a world without a
central binding power in which even the weakest can beat the strongest by taking help from
others or by using weapons, etc. So, in a stateless stage individuals have the motive to compete
with others in a very hostile sense; in addition, they live with the fear of being killed or loosing
what they have. Hobbes calls this fear “diffidence” and explains it as the lack of confidence
people have in the state of war due to their inevitably unsafe lives. This fear forces individuals to
look for power after power not only to gain more profit, but also to protect what they have in
their hands. After competition and diffidence, the third motive that orients people in the state of
war according to Hobbes’ theory is the desire to have glory. People want to have reputation and
power but what they really want is to prevent potential threats by frightening or threatening other
people who could attack and kill them in this unsafe world. Hobbes concludes his theory by the
realization that rational egoist human beings will profit more in an organized state, and thus, to
make a social contract among them and give their power to a sole person who would be like a
mortal God called “Leviathan” who would provide peace and order in society by making laws
deriving from laws of nature and by punishing guilty people3.The social contract theory can be
defined loosely as a sort of hypothetical or actual agreement between society and its state. This
agreement has been said to be responsible for the bases of our moral decisions and stances. In
other words we merely abide by the governments rules and regulations in the hope that others
will do the same, subsequently leading to a more secure and comfortable life. Hobbes maintains
that there can be no obligations on any men which could arise not from his own act. The political
obligations must be traced to consent or contract. And this sovereign enjoys absolute and
supreme authority. So all men except the sovereign itself, become its part as a subject, & this
power conferred to sovereign cannot be withdrawn because if men choose to revive, again the
condition of state of nature will prevail. So Hobbes also condemned the English Civil War,
which promoted monarchy. He argued that men shouldn’t be given a right to revolt against the
Supreme power. He stated that the state and society had came together to enter in the

3 .THOMAS HOBBES, LEVIATHON, Penguin Books 227-228(1985).

contract&that why Hobbes treats Sovereignty as an absolute, indivisible and inalienable organ of
the society.
Hobbes also argued that the society can only be founded on the basis of mutual trust; because
of the on-social inclinations of men. When men agree to enter in the contract to form civil
society, the force of mere words would not be enough to bind them together. Sovereign can
provide security to men when it is powerful enough & it must be capable of punishing those who
break the laws of the contract. Hobbes stated force as a necessary tool of the contract & that is
why he stated absolute power as a necessary condition of sovereignty.
 Chapter-3
Criticism of Hobbes’ theories

For Hobbes, the necessity of an absolute authority, in the form of a Sovereign, followed from the
utter brutality of the State of Nature. The State of Nature was completely intolerable, and so
rational men would be willing to submit themselves even to absolute authority in order to escape
it. But he was totally opposed and criticized by various other thinkers who came after him.
Unlike Hobbes, For John Locke, the State of Nature is a very different type of place, and so his
argument concerning the social contract and the nature of men’s relationship to authority are
consequently quite different. While Locke uses Hobbes’ methodological device of the State of
Nature, as do virtually all social contract theorists, he uses it to a quite different end. Locke’s
arguments for the social contract and for the right of citizens to revolt against their king were
enormously influential on the democratic revolutions that followed, especially on Thomas
Jefferson, and the founders of the United States. Because Locke did not envision the State of
Nature as grimly as did Hobbes, he can imagine conditions under which one would be better off
rejecting a particular civil government and returning to the State of Nature, with the aim of
constructing a better civil government in its place. It is therefore both the view of human nature,
and the nature of morality itself, which account for the differences between Hobbes’ and Locke’s
views of the social contract.

Unlike Hobbes, the Law of Nature, which is on Locke’s view the basis of all morality, and given
to us by God, commands that we not harm others with regards to their “life, health, liberty, or
possessions”. Because we all belong equally to God, and because we cannot take away that
which is rightfully His, we are prohibited from harming one another. So, the State of Nature is a
state of liberty where persons are free to pursue their own interests and plans, free from
interference and, because of the Law of Nature and the restrictions that it imposes upon persons,
it is relatively peaceful. The State of Nature therefore, is not the same as the state of war, as it is
according to Hobbes. Legal scholar Randy Barnett has argued that, while presence in the
territory of a society may be necessary for consent, it is not consent to any rules the society
might make regardless of their content. A second condition of consent is that the rules be
consistent with underlying principles of justice and the protection of natural and social rights,
and have procedures for effective protection of those rights (or liberties). This has also been
discussed by O.A. Brownson, who argued that, in a sense, three "constitutions" are involved:
first the constitution of nature that includes all of what the Founders called "natural law"; second
the constitution of society, an unwritten and commonly understood set of rules for the society
formed by a social contract before it establishes a government; by which it does establish the
third, a constitution of government. To consent, a necessary condition is that the rules
be constitutional in that sense.

Locke did not accept that absolute monarchy was the best structure for a state or the best way to
govern a society. Rather Locke believed in the supremacy of the legislature over the monarchy.
Locke was however in agreement with Hobbes on the social contract. Locke said that the proper
role of a government was to act as a commonwealth of men guided by the ‘eternal' law of nature
to preserve the life, liberty and estate of the members of society.
Nature did not necessarily protect property so it was for man to make such laws. Property rights
could only be claimed once a man had mixed his labor with nature
Locke thought that men were in a social contract with their sovereign for the protection of three
inalienable natural rights of ‘life, liberty and estate' which were given by God. He identified a
fourth right – the right to rebel against unjust laws and their makers. (the right to with draw
obedience is a group and individual right).
 Conclusion

Thomas Hobbes concept of the social contract is the enduring contribution to legal and political
philosophy. ‘Hobbes own goal was to rule out the legitimacy of civil rebellion and thus to
eliminate the possibility of civil war; which he regarded as the greatest of evils.

Hobbes believed that in the absence of a state, human beings would react to each other with great
savagery. He believed that all humans had equal ability to kill one and other creating a constant
state of insecurity. As a result they would seek law and order for their own protection. They
would all agree to place someone in authority to tell them what to do. Hobbes suggested that a
number of people would appoint a king for the sole purpose of giving orders and preventing
constant turmoil. He argued the only way to achieve this is by removing the individual's power
and bestow it upon one man. As a consequence the king has an absolute right to make what ever
laws he wants, he owes no responsibility to the individual other than to keep the peace. In effect
Hobbs was setting up an absolute authority free of any contractual or natural law restraint
entrusting all power to the ruler to enforce unity obedience.