Selma Singer wrote: > I guess my question has to do with Hobbes's basic sense of human nature. If, > as I understand him, he believes that our nature is to act only in our > self-interest, and if that self interest has to do only with our physical > and material preservation, why would he care to inform us ... > about what is in our best interests. That seems to me > to be an act that goes beyond self-interest to an interest in general human > welfare, or an act that comes from some creative need (?) in Hobbes. > > ... people who engage in creative work, like > writing, are doing something that goes beyond their own self-interest. And I > believe strongly that creative work ... > defines us much more > accurately than does our need to preserve our lives or even our comfort.
Hobbes is so interesting to me because he so clearly sets forth right at the beginning all the wonderful and problematic features of our "modern age" as they continue to effect our lives today, some 350 years later. Hobbes is basically asking: What if Galileo is right? How shall we live? What is the human condition? ... if Galileo is right. One thing is clear: the traditional answers to these questions, those offered by such as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, or (pick your favourite philosopher), *must* be not wrong - and not merely wrong so much as *wrong-headed*! Since they point in the wrong direction, to non-existent things, it makes no sense to think of "revising" traditonal thought. It must be discarded. Now I would say that a person trying to think things through in these circumstances is engaged in extraordinarily creative activity. Secondly, since it is clear that JUSTICE and CIVILIZATION do not exist just "by nature alone" the way the plants and planets do, Hobbes faces the challenge of figuring out how justice and civilization, and decency, and all those things that go with a rich and healthy civil life ... how these things can be gained and secured - given, I say, that they are NOT going to emerge securely all by themselves if nobody pays attention and just lets nature take its course. So for Hobbes, we are *on our own* in this life, and a civil society is OUR work, not something that happens "by nature" or is bestowed upon us by benevolent higher beings. It will not help in our task if we are frightened, oppressed, and confused by wicked people and the false or empty, superstitious, and ideological doctrines which they use to prop up their power over us. (etc etc etc). Because he loves civil life and the exercise of human powers, it is very much IN Hobbes's INTEREST to try to see clearly and to assist the rest of us to see clearly what our situation is and what remedies are available to us. It is in each of our interests to be always vigilant and to join our powers cooperatively to create and sustain human communities. This, I think, is pretty clearly Hobbes's message. (And, as Ed W pointed out, H's ideas are at the ideological center of the attack on feudal despotism and the emergence of a robust liberal-democratic polity.) Stephen Straker Vancouver, B.C. [Outgoing mail scanned by Norton AntiVirus] _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
