The State of Nature

[Cyclotron]

Having read Hobbes' Leviathan a few months ago, I began thinking about whether the "state of nature," i.e. the condition of people without government, actually exists or not, and in what sense it could exist. Hobbes influenced later political philosophers (Locke, Rousseau, etc.) to speak about humanity in the same terminology, even if their conceptions of what the state of nature was were quite different.

The questions are these:

- Is there a fundamentally different condition of man sans government? I'm leaving the definition of "condition" open-ended here.

- If yes, what is it? To use the famous phrase, is the state of nature "nasty, brutish, and short" or more ideal?

- If no (there is no different condition of man before government), is the concept of the "state of nature" still useful as a hypothetical construct? Hobbes considers it more theoretical, while Locke (whose State of Nature is entirely different) speaks of it as a very real state of being). Consider this, from the Leviathan:

It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before.

- Is there a real difference between government and society? That is, can there be society without government, or government without society?

[Ecthy]

Have you no Uni with seminars to discuss these matters? Or are you yet another wit wasted on natural sciences/engineering?

[Cyclotron]

Oh, I have discussed them. It's a slow night and I wanted some different opinions to read. My classes currently are all more practical - International relations, organizations, etc.; I feel starved of theory.

And I'm a politics major, not an engineer. My wit is wasted in the liberal arts.

[Ecthy]

International relatiosn

[Ted Striker]

Turkish chicks

[BlackCat]

Re: The State of Nature

Originally posted by Cyclotron
- Is there a fundamentally different condition of man sans government? I'm leaving the definition of "condition" open-ended here.

Non.

- Is there a real difference between government and society? That is, can there be society without government, or government without society?

Yes - anarchy.

[Odin]

Even back when there was no government (hunter-gather groups and early neolithic farmers), there were still customs and traditions. All societies have rules, where the rules come from is what differs between primitive societies and modern ones. The "state of nature" in the Enlightenment sense never existed. I also don't think it is useful as a hypothetical construct. Humans are social animals, man and society go together, they cannot be seperated.

[Az]

Actually I think the 'state of nature' did exist, Odin. Cracatoa aftermath in the stone age, IIRC.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Az
Cracatoa aftermath in the stone age, IIRC.

I'm a little confused - do you mean that cracatoa forced stone age society upon those hit ? If I'm not wrong, it exploded about year 1900 which isn't quite stoneage.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Az
Actually I think the 'state of nature' did exist, Odin. Cracatoa aftermath in the stone age, IIRC.

Your thinking of the Mt. Toba eruption 75,000 tears ago, what does that have to do with society?

[Kuciwalker]

The state of nature only exists when people don't interact with each other.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The state of nature only exists when people don't interact with each other.

And since the vast majority of people are not hermits, that is irrelavent.

[Kuciwalker]

Which is my point...

[Az]

Your thinking of the Mt. Toba eruption 75,000 tears ago, what does that have to do with society?

You're correct. My point is:
when the human population of the earth was very low, AFAIK, there were no tribes, and 'scoety' was limited to groups of people almost never surpassing the number of digits on one hand.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Az

Your thinking of the Mt. Toba eruption 75,000 tears ago, what does that have to do with society?

You're correct. My point is:
when the human population of the earth was very low, AFAIK, there were no tribes, and 'scoety' was limited to groups of people almost never surpassing the number of digits on one hand.

The impact of the eruption is overblown, I have not seen any evidence that the population bottleneck was associated with the eruption. Based on what I'ved heard and read, the bottleneck occured during the 2nd to last glacial maximum around 150,000 years ago, and that small population was concentrated in a small part of Africa, so group size would of been normal.