Hobbes's State of Nature

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) wrote Leviathan, published in 1651, after living through the English Civil War. He asked readers to imagine a 'state of nature' with no government. Because people are roughly equal in ability, compete for scarce resources, fear one another and seek glory, he argued, they would fall into 'a war of every man against every man'. In such a condition there would be no industry, no arts, no society, and the life of man would be 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'.

Hobbes did not claim that all humanity once lived like this; he pointed to civil war and to relations between sovereigns as examples of what happens when no common power keeps order. His thought experiment broke with Aristotle's view that humans are naturally political animals. Critics have objected that it underestimates human cooperation, but supporters argue it captures how insecurity can drive even decent people to violence.