Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Tuck Richard

Author:Tuck, Richard [Tuck, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2002-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

The second claim which Hobbes made, and which has proved puzzling to many readers, was the one which I summarized earlier by saying that men in a state of nature can agree that if they wish to exercise their natural right to self-preservation, they will have to do certain things: they cannot, for example, exercise this right merely by sitting around and not responding when attacked. Hobbes expressed this claim by talking about the law of nature. In the Elements of Law he argued as follows:

Forasmuch as all men, carried away by the violence of their passion, and by evil custom, do those things which are commonly said to be against the law of nature; it is not the consent of passion, or consent in some error gotten by custom, that makes the law of nature. Reason is no less of the nature of man than passion, and is the same in all men, because all men agree in the will to be directed and governed in the way to that which they desire to attain, namely their own good, which is the work of reason. There can therefore be no other law of nature than reason, nor no other precepts of NATURAL LAW, than those which declare unto us the ways of peace, where the same may be obtained, and of defence where it may not. (I.15.1)

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