POL SCI 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Political Economy, Leviathan, Sovereign People
Document Summary
Hobbes- the state of nature, self interested , passions and appetite. We have to move on the state to realize peace or order. Our natural right is self preservation there is no law that says that your self preservation isn"t protected in the state of nature. Individuals don"t have the capacity to think beyond themselves. We need a sovereign, to an extent that the state of nature impeads on self preservation, we need a sovereign. Sovereign facilitates self interest but does not impede on someone"s self interest. For hobbes there is a natural inequality. Some have a capacity to be rational, to not live at the mercy of someone else. Regardless, whether inequality is a feature of the natural world we have a sovereign. Natural man is not pre disposed to exercise their own will on one another. All this stuff about domination and property is a social construction is to dictate inequality.
