I still disagree. The part with which I disagree is that our "natural passions" are "partiality, pride, revenge, and the like."
Intelligent, social beings are naturally inclined towards empathy and sympathy, not brutality; it is part of the mechanism that allows the social dynamic to work. We see others' reactions, and we project our own emotions onto them, effectively saying to ourselves, "I would feel like such, in that situation, therefore that other person must feel like such, too." It extends further than just our interactions with other humans; we even project our human emotions onto other animals, attributing to them grief, pain, sorrow, and joy such as we ourselves feel.
In fact, the Golden Rule ("doing to others, as we would be done to") derives fairly simply from those traits of sympathy and empathy, so Hobbes cites the very basis of the refutation of his statement that Leviathan is necessary to enforce the social order in that self-same statement. The Golden Rule can be thus derived: "If that other feels as I would feel in such various situations, then that other would no more wish to be victimized than I do. Further, if that other is so alike myself, then that other can reason as I do, and come to the same conclusions as I do. Therefore, if I wish that other to behave towards me in a manner I would like, it behooves me to behave towards that other in a similar manner, so as to entice a similar response from that other to myself."
(That said, there are other reasons why I hold that Leviathan is necessary to uphold the social order, but they have to do with criminals from within and raiders, bandits, and soldiers from without the state, not from Hobbes' "Laws of Nature.") |
