What did Thomas Hobbes discover?

Answer 1

Hobbes was a materialist. Human beings are governed by desires and aversions. We describe as good those things that we desire and bad those things that could harm us. Before governments and civil society were created, humans lived in a state of nature. Humans in the state of nature have natural rights. The right of each person to seek to preserve his life is one of the fundamental natural rights that cannot be given up. In the state of nature, there is as yet no private property and each person may take whatever he or she wants. Each person is completely free to do whatever they desire. Each person has complete liberty. Each person has the natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of property (later changed to happiness by Thomas Jefferson). In the state of nature according to Hobbes, each person is equal in that even "the weakest he" can kill "the strongest he" when he is sleeping. In Hobbes state of nature, the life of man is "nasty, brutish, cruel, and short." It is an entirely undesirable condition.

But Hobbes acknowledges that human beings do have reason. They can perceive the undesirability of the state of nature and, through a social contract, they can create a government that will provide them with order. Hobbes lived during the English Civil War that ended up executing King Charles I. For Hobbes, even the most oppressive government is preferable to the wantonness of the state of nature. Hobbes was a defender of absolute government, but he provided a modern "explanation" or justification for government as such. Government is formed by a social contract. In Hobbes this contract is indissoluble. Once you give up your natural rights, you cannot get them back.