Question

1)For Hobbes, what is a contract?

2) Why are all contracts in the state of nature potentially void?

3) What is the principle reason for the fact that the state of nature is a state of war of all against all?

Answer 1

• Hobbes defines contract as "the mutual transferring of right." In the state of nature, everyone has the right to everything - there are no limits to the right of natural liberty. The social contract is the agreement by which individuals mutually transfer their natural right.
• State of Nature:-
• -People are sufficiently similar in their mental and physical attributes so that no one is invulnerable nor can expect to dominate the others
• -People generally "shun death"; the desire to preserve their own lives is very strong in most people
• -While people have local affections, their benevolence is limited, and they have a tendency to favoritism
• -Life in the state of nature is essentially a state of constant violence, a state of war
  
• Conflict in State of Nature:-
• -Self-preservation requires utilizing natural resources and - if necessary - using force to take them from others
• -Conflict is inevitable where resources are scarce or where arrogant people try to dominate and exploit others
• -Since people are roughly equal in physical strength and intelligence, this struggle could never be resolved
• In this state, Hobbes believes that men are involved in a never ending free for all war, where the strongest, or smartest, wants to survive and outlive the weakest, or dumbest. In this state, there are no laws or codes, anyone can kill you or take advantage of you if you let them. Men want always more, men are conatus, a latin term which means “crave for”. And they crave for goods, for power, for selfish accomplishment and improvement, even if this means hard times for others.
• The right of each to all things invites serious conflict, especially if there is competition for resources, as there will surely be over at least scarce goods such as the most desirable lands, spouses, etc. People will quite naturally fear that others may invade them, and may rationally plan to strike first as an anticipatory defense.
• Moreover, that minority of prideful or “vain-glorious” persons who take pleasure in exercising power over others will naturally elicit preemptive defensive responses from others. Conflict will be further fueled by disagreement in religious views, in moral judgments, and over matters as mundane as what goods one actually needs, and what respect one properly merits.
• Hobbes imagines a state of nature in which each person is free to decide for herself what she needs, what she’s owed, what’s respectful, right, pious, prudent, and also free to decide all of these questions for the behavior of everyone else as well, and to act on her judgments as she thinks best, enforcing her views where she can. In this situation where there is no common authority to resolve these many and serious disputes, we can easily imagine with Hobbes that the state of nature would become a “state of war”, even worse, a war of “all against all”.