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Hobbes' Views on Law & Coercion

which are not present in the state of nature.

Men submit to the laws of political society, then, in order to acquire a sense of safety which is foreign in the state of nature.

However, because the state of nature is based not simply on force but on the right to use that force for selfish purposes, the person entering into the political society must, on some level, willingly surrender a portion of that "universal right" in exchange for the protection provided by the political society.

As Hobbes himself writes, there cannot be injustice of any sort in the state of nature, for all is force, coercion, war: "Therefore before the names of just and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power, to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants, by the terror of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant; and to make good that propriety, which by mutual contract men acquire, in recompense of the universal right they abandon: and such power there is none before the erection of a commonwealth" (Hobbes, 1968, p. 94).

In the state of nature, Hobbes believed that there existed a sense of the desirability of peace, of agreeing to get along with one's neighbors. However, the conditions and circumstances of the reality of the natural world---before political or civil society's emergence --- were not always conducive to such peace and agreement. Coercion was not a part of the natural system, but rather a necessity in the face of the circumstances which prevented man from acting out his most civilized and just and peaceable impulses.

In the political society, however, man has emerged from the state of nature by agreement. He and his fellows have agreed to surrender to the social structure and authority some of the rights that th

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Hobbes' Views on Law & Coercion. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 15:37, April 26, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1705039.html