The 17th Century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes is now widely regarded as one of the most extraordinary political philosophers, whose political masterpiece Leviathan rivals in significance the political writings of Plato, Aristotle, Locke, and Kant all in which we’ve discussed in class. Hobbes is famous for his early and elaborate development of what has come to be known as “social contract theory”, the method of justifying political principles or arrangements by appeal to the agreement that would be made among suitably situated rational, free, and equal persons.(WC#1) He is also infamous for having used the social contract method to arrive at the astonishing conclusion that we ought to submit to the authority of an absolute; undivided and unlimited, sovereign power.(WC#3)
Hobbes was very concerned with the problem of how to arrange society in such a way that the individual self-interest of its members was allowed maximum freedom to operate without encroaching on the......
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Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |