According to Thomas Hobbes, what is the purpose of government control over citizens?

Question:- According to Thomas Hobbes, what is the purpose of government control over citizens?

Answer: In the context of political thinking, control as exercised by government over citizens is with a view to bringing order instead of strife as propounded by Thomas Hobbes. According to Hobbes, people in the state of nature are far from being civilized; they are rather depicted as living a solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short life and this can be presumed since people are naturally inclined towards violence and selfishness and so require the institution of a sovereign to enshrine and enforce laws. This is because for people to stop living in the hypothetical state of nature where their lives are extremely vulnerable and their rights have no meaningful protection, the real force of legitimate violence in the form of a government was required. Government for Hobbes is the civil peace where people surrender some rights in return for the protection of an all-powerful authority.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *