PHL100Y1 Study Guide - Final Guide: Political Philosophy, Natural Person, Moral Agency
Document Summary
Thomas hobbes (5 april 1588-4 december 1679: life and times. Scotland at war with rest of great britain. Wrote leviathan to provide some sort of reassurance for the government: at last: philosophy written in english, materialist. Everything is made up of things in motion: the project of the leviathan: A) to establish a rational and secular basis for government. B) to assess political systems scientifically, that is, through first principles. C) to identify the necessary features of government. Hobbes couches his project in terms of his scientific materialism, which, surprisingly, extends all the way to the mind-for hobbes thinking is no more than rearranging parcels of matter: see 5. 1 for instance. In short, hobbes wants to make a fresh start in philosophy, which he takes to be an empirical enterprise. The technique hobbes uses in the leviathan is known as social contract theory. Its guiding intuition is that social institutions are the product of voluntary agreement among free individuals.
