Nature hath made men so equall, in the faculties of body, and mind as that though there bee found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind then another yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himselfe any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he. You might find this a simple and somewhat amusing way to start approaching the work of Thomas Hobbes: That humans are only altruistic in limited ways.That no one person is more powerful that the rest.That all humans are equal and have equal needs (food, water, shelter, etc).He emphasized the social and political rights of each individual, the natural-born equality of all people, the view that all legitimate political power must be representative and based on the consent of the people, and an interpretation of law that leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.
Hobbes also developed some views that are still commonly held today in Western philosophy. Social contract theory states that individuals have consented to give up some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the head of state, or to the decision of a majority, in exchange for safety, and on the condition that the state might hold other people to their agreements, such as in a contract. Hobbes is best known for the book Leviathan, which established the social contract theory that has served as the foundation for most of Western political philosophy.
Thomas Hobbes, 1588 – 1679 CE, was an English philosopher who is considered one of the founders of modern political philosophy.
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