Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Archos, Homo Economicus
Document Summary
We would be better off without government. In a state of anarchy, the people would cooperate (like animals do) Ideas of animals at the time (not a lot of research on actual animal patterns and ideas) Cooperation is beneficial, so it tends to evolve. Regardless of how cooperative society is as a whole, a few bad apples can ruin the whole system by making things difficult (raise fear and suspicion, etc does not take a lot to disrupt the anarchic system) Can"t have anarchy because can"t trust humans to cooperate. Rousseau says that bad apples do not just happen because they are born that way something is happening to them (structural, internal, etc) to cause them to misbehave or disrupt the cooperation of the society. Hobbes argues that both moves seem too optimistic: humans are naturally good. Is not suggesting that goodness is not possible for people, but that they are not naturally good: social cooperation without coercion is possible.