state of nature

cruelty

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Thomas Hobbes

G.W.F. Hegel

is a thought experiment that imagines that civilization and the state were to disappear. It concludes that the resultant state of nature would be 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.''.

For Hobbes, the state of nature functions as a thought-experiment, as in: what would the world be like if we took away civilization and the state.'. . . characterized by the 'war of every man against every man,' a constant and violent condition of competition in

is based upon a strict moral code that defines the relationships between those who inhabit it.

Unlike Thomas Hobbe, Locke defines the state of nature as based upon a strict moral code that defines the relationships between those who inhabit it. Specifically, the law of nature defines this moral impulse: 'The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and Reason, which is that Law, teaches all Mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions' (Locke 1690 para 6).

is characterized by the absence of any common authority such that 'want of a common judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature'.

In this sense, the state of nature is characterized by the absence of any common authority: 'Want of a common judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature' (Locke 1690/ para 19).

is one of peace, good will, mutual assistance, and preservation. Right and wrong are determined eternally and positive law is merely an apparatus for the enforcement of existing rights.

Locke attacked Hobbes's state of nature. Locke saw the state of nature as one of 'peace, good will, mutual assistance, and preservation.' The only defect of Locke's state of nature is its lack of organization, courts and magistrates, and written law. Right and wrong in Locke's state of nature ater determined eternally. Positive law merely provides an apparatus for the enforcement of existing rights.

is that which defines the boundaries of the political. It is a state of perfect freedom for every man to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions, and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

In this sense, '[t]he state of nature defines for Locke the boundaries of the political' (Simmons 1993, p. 13). For Locke, the state of nature is the state into which every man is born. It is 'a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions, and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man' (Locke 1690/1947, para 4.

is a state in which wrong-doing is impossible. Or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so... and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible... or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so... and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power. Baruch Spinoza

is a state in which nothing can be called good or bad since every man in it consults only his own advantage.

Nothing can exist in a natural state which can be called good or bad by common assent, since every man who is in a natural state consults only his own advantage, and determines what is good or bad according to his own fancy and in so far as he has regard for his own advantage alone, and holds himself responsible to no one save himself by any law; and therefore sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common

is without conceptions of right and wrong, justice or injustice; might and right were one.

Spinoza supposes that men once lived in comparative isolation, without law or social organization; there were then, he says, no conceptions of right and wrong, justice or injustice; might and right were one.

state of nature, n.Definitions

state of nature