If prompted, the majority of Western society would likely agree that government originates from our consensual participation in the state. However, even among those who are in consensus regarding the emergence of the civil state, there is a discrepancy in how they perceive the purpose of government; there are those that advocate intensive government involvement, stringent policies, and an ideology akin to the Hobbesian understanding that humans are basically brutish and ruled by their self-interest. Apart from them would be those who prefer a partnership between the government and the governed; the state being a means to protect natural rights and promote general well-being, similar to the conclusions detailed in Aristotle’s Politics. Reflecting
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When Thomas Hobbes was considering the possibilities in the late 1500’s, the wars that dominated England influenced his conclusion that men are basically self-interested and prone to brutality. In Leviathan, he would describe the culture of fear that would dominate a world without the sovereign, circumventing any relations beyond that for the sake of reproduction and rendering humans asocial animals: there would be no opportunity for the trust required to build partnerships because in absence of enforced law there is only the Right to Nature (the right to self-preservation by any means necessary) and the lust for glory. Assuming this is true, his conclusion that civilization runs against mankind’s state of nature must also be true. Although he never comprehensively outlines how a nation would materialize beyond individuals being united by their desire for self-preservation to enter a contract by which they relinquish their right to nature, Hobbes is explicit in describing the form this state would take: Opening Leviathan is a chapter describing an Artificial Man representing the sovereign: “For by art is created that great leviathan called a commonwealth [..] which is but an artificial man,” suggesting that the state was created by art (rather than …show more content…
According to Aristotle, this is where the polis finds purpose; in taking away the stress of survival by allocating the basic necessities for life, citizens will have the opportunity to achieve their telos. Furthermore, the state would function to secure the hierarchy amongst men that Aristotle believes to be innate in all humankind; those who were born to be philosophers will have the occasion to do so because the state will allow them to have slaves to do menial tasks. The ideal Aristotelian state would be one in which those who govern are in turn governed, and citizenship is defined by participation in the legislative process; this participation extending to the responsibility to form the laws that structure society. He saw this as the method of attaining an ideal society because those would ruled would have to be simultaneously aware of the effect the laws they advocated for while in government would have on themselves as well the rest of the population. Due to the universal effect policies would have on the entire upper and middle class, the distinction between the government and the governed became
When Thomas Hobbes was considering the possibilities in the late 1500’s, the wars that dominated England influenced his conclusion that men are basically self-interested and prone to brutality. In Leviathan, he would describe the culture of fear that would dominate a world without the sovereign, circumventing any relations beyond that for the sake of reproduction and rendering humans asocial animals: there would be no opportunity for the trust required to build partnerships because in absence of enforced law there is only the Right to Nature (the right to self-preservation by any means necessary) and the lust for glory. Assuming this is true, his conclusion that civilization runs against mankind’s state of nature must also be true. Although he never comprehensively outlines how a nation would materialize beyond individuals being united by their desire for self-preservation to enter a contract by which they relinquish their right to nature, Hobbes is explicit in describing the form this state would take: Opening Leviathan is a chapter describing an Artificial Man representing the sovereign: “For by art is created that great leviathan called a commonwealth [..] which is but an artificial man,” suggesting that the state was created by art (rather than …show more content…
According to Aristotle, this is where the polis finds purpose; in taking away the stress of survival by allocating the basic necessities for life, citizens will have the opportunity to achieve their telos. Furthermore, the state would function to secure the hierarchy amongst men that Aristotle believes to be innate in all humankind; those who were born to be philosophers will have the occasion to do so because the state will allow them to have slaves to do menial tasks. The ideal Aristotelian state would be one in which those who govern are in turn governed, and citizenship is defined by participation in the legislative process; this participation extending to the responsibility to form the laws that structure society. He saw this as the method of attaining an ideal society because those would ruled would have to be simultaneously aware of the effect the laws they advocated for while in government would have on themselves as well the rest of the population. Due to the universal effect policies would have on the entire upper and middle class, the distinction between the government and the governed became