Hobbes

Hobbes
1. Hobbes wrote, “The utility of morality and civil philosophy is to be estimated, not so much by the commodities we have by knowing these sciences, as by the calamities we receive fromnot knowing them.” What does he mean by this, and does the selection illustrate it?
Hobbes means that the value of morality can be better measured by what we can achieve as a society than what we canachieve for ourselves.
2. Is Hobbes’s view of human nature accurate? Do we always act out of the motivations of fear and distrust? Are people entirely self-interested egoists? Is psychologicalegoism, the view that we always do what we perceive to be in our best interest, too bleak and one sided?

Not everyone but some of the people with more power in our society seems to always act to getthe best of the situation for themselves not caring or leaving almost anything to the rest of the people. Yes we can say that people that are entirely self-interested can be considered egoists and thatpsychological egoism can be one sided because they always think in them first or before anything else, the only act for their own interests and not considering how the rest could be affected orbenefited.

3. Hobbes thought that only an absolute sovereign could establish or ensure peace and civil society. Is he correct? What would his estimation of democracy be? Could democratic society makeuse of his analysis? How would democrats modify Hobbes theory?
He may be right depending on how you interpret the definition of an absolute sovereign. If you think of only one man ruling, somethinglike a king, and he acts morally good then he may be able to ensure peace in to society. But if he acts only for his own interest and no morality then we can expect a bad situation for the rest of thesociety. In this situation there won’t be any democracy at all because only one man would take all the decisions. Democratic society could use this analysis by setting rules or laws made for the...