PHIL 240 Chapter Notes -Political Philosophy, Rational Choice Theory, Rationality
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Believes human beings must live in a state of nature, or else they stop being human beings. Influence by english civil war > saw country digressing into a savage society > favoured strong state to prevent society falling into a war of all against all. Defines conflict as not necessarily actual physical confrontation, but constant readiness to fight. Hobbes" political philosophy therefore begins with the study of human nature: self-knowledge: honest introspection can tell us about what human, general physics: as a materialist, hobbes believed that one must beings are like understand the body. Galileo"s principle of the conservation of motion: objects will stay in motion unless acted upon by a force. Hobbes took this principle and adapted it to the human body > mechanist view of human beings. This meant that, for hobbes, mankind is never at rest, and is continually searching for felicity , or continual success in achieving the objects of desire.