Member-only story
State of Nature and the Man Within
In my readings and writings of philosophy, I have encountered my fair share of the concept of State of Nature. It’s probably one of the most interesting terms I studied up on since going to college and an eye-opener to say the least. What’s extremely odd about this idea is that we all have a frame for it, but never knew it existed.
Before making judgments on whether people are inherently good or evil, or both, we have these things called experience and disposition. These two nature versus nurture factors help to show most of the time why certain individuals see the world the way they do as opposed to other ways of seeing it. With that said, the State of Nature is nothing more than two things sort of lumped together:
- The constant conflict between good and evil.
- Anarchy ruling the masses.
In other words, the conditions people live in before they enter into society and the realm of politics.
Now, I have taken the liberty to list some of my favorite philosophers (although, they are commonly known as well) and revisit their theoretical stances on what we call the State of Nature.
_______________________________________________________________
- Thomas Hobbes
