From Natural Man to Artificial State : Hobbes's Political Thought

According to Hobbes's view, men are not naturally sociable, but competitive with one another and act quite egoistically. He defines the state of nature as a state of war, a war of everybody against everybody else. When, however, natural men come to know that their unlimited right of nature, contrary to its own purpose, leads them to a miserable death, reason suggests to them 'convenient articles of peace', i. e., the laws of nature. Though, on Hobbes's view, the unity of a commonwealth can be given only by the existence of the sovereign with absolute power, it is necessary for the maintenance of this unity that the majority, if not all, of the subjects have come to the recognition of natural law and are conscious of natural obligation; without which the absolute sovereign power itself would lose its own foundation. Some commentators on Hobbes assert that in his system natural obligation could exist only as obligation by Divine moral laws, with the consequence that the Christian belief in Eternal Salvation must be introduced into his moral and political philosophy as an important element. I should like, however, to maintain, that natural law can, quite independently of God, oblige men to seek for peace in the natural state, and to obey the sovereign in the social state. It originates in the human reason itself, and teaches men to behave prudently, i. e., in accordance with rational rules. It is based upon and consistent with egoism. But this is the rational egoism which can oblige men to act, in most cases, against the short-sighted demand of their passion. Natural obligation occurs when reason is superior to passion in its capacity to find out a better means for self-preservation, and this obligation is the only possible basis for Hobbes's civil philosophy. In this sense also, Leviathan is the product of reason; it is artificial, not always in its origin, but at least in its existence