Question

What are the conditions for the war of all against all for Th. Hobbes? Why is equality a problem within these conditions? What role, if any, does free will play?

Answer 1

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”.