A liberal is someone who believes in the primacy of liberty as a socio-political value. Liberalism posits freedom a priori, and thus within its tradition the burden of proof rests on those who would limit or somehow restrict individual freedom. Definitions of freedom within the...
Thomas Hobbes concludes his great treatise on politics, Leviathan, saying he composed the work “without partiality, without application, and without other design than to set before men’s eyes the mutual relation between protection and obedience, of which the condition of human nature and the laws...
Hobbes begins Leviathan, a primarily political work, with a description of man, whom he sees as an isolated unit, a mechanical automaton whose only connection to the outside world is through the senses. Even his thoughts are determined by external objects whose effect is translated...
The Practicality of Ethical Principles: Duty Before Fear Made-to-order essay as fast as you need it Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences + experts online Get my essay In this paper I will demonstrate how Immanuel Kant’s ethical principles presented in...
The definition of a “liberal thinker” greatly depends on the context it is examined under. In the Leviathan, Hobbes understands liberty to simply be “the absence of external impediments” (Hobbes, 21.1). However, classically, it is often used to describe people who favor more individual liberty...
The focus of this essay is to examine the political theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as presented in their books, Leviathan and The Second Treatise of Government, through the analyses of their definitions and uses of the terms: natural equality, natural right, natural...
Born on the day of the invasion of the Spanish Armada, Thomas Hobbes said himself that he was born a twin with fear. Living with the turmoil of the ongoing English civil war, Hobbes lived in fear and uncertainty. When he became convinced that the...
Thomas Hobbes lays his political foundation on the explicit assumption that men are equal in strength and prudence. Strength refers to bodily strength, and it is equal among men because each individual theoretically has the capability of killing any other individual. Prudence is a sort...
In the 17th century, political philosophy was widely practised as a discipline adhering to the psychological-realist school. Whereby, theories of governance and the state were theorised based on what humans are, not as what the state ‘wants them to be’ (Spinoza, Tractactus Politicus 1/1). The...
The philosophy of Thomas Hobbes is perhaps the most revolutionary and unique philosophy of the seventeenth century. Hobbes had a unique view of the world in all its components: society, politics, physics, religion, and nature. Unlike his contemporaries, Hobbes was able to fuse these otherwise...