Ferhat asked:

Is Hobbes right about human nature? If there were no legal restraints, how would human beings
behave toward one another?

Why is it that private property and other material goods cannot be "shared" equally by everyone?
Why cannot honor or fame be shared equally by all?

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I don't believe that Hobbes was right. Hobbes took, as his starting point, that humans can be
considered "as if but even now sprung out of the earth, and suddenly, like mushrooms, come to full
maturity, without all kind of engagement to each other". His idea of human nature itself springs from
this radically disengaged picture of humans.

But humans do not arise in this way. As Seyla Benhabib points out, "the subject of reason is a human
infant whose body can only be kept alive, whose needs can only be satisfied, and whose self can only
develop within the human community into which it is born. The human infant becomes a "self," a
being capable of speech and action, only by learning to interact in a human community. The self
becomes an individual in that it becomes a "social" being capable of language, interaction and
cognition. The identity of the self is constituted by a narrative unity, which integrates what "I" can do,
have done and will accomplish with what you expect of "me," interpret my acts and intentions to
mean, wish for me in the future etc." All of this entails that humans are not egoistic pure rational
calculators, but connected individuals who have empathy and commitments to others. See also Mary
Midgley for a good critique of Hobbesian views.

Without legal restraints, humans would probably act with hostility and nastiness to some, and great
kindness and care to others — as we do with legal restraints. I suspect that we would work out some
rules pretty soon anyway.

I don't know the answer to your second set of questions. I suspect humans will always need to feel
that they own some things.

Tim Sprod

I do not wish to inhibit Ferhat from asking questions, but I wouldencourage him to sharpen them in
order to get more satisfying answers than what follows. His first question is not specific enough. No
great philosopher was 100 per cent wrong about human nature. What specific Hobbesian claim about
human nature does Ferhat have in mind?

His second question almost answers itself: without legal restraints (penalties for engaging in certain
behavior) there would probably be more of that behavior. A better question might be, What behavior,
if any, ought to be legally penalized?

His third question is also not well-framed: there logically cannot be privateproperty "shared equally by
everyone." Perhaps the intended question was, Under what circumstances, if any should an individual
have the exclusive right to control and dispose of a given material thing?, which is another way of
asking if the term "private property" can refer to something real. I'm not sure how "everyone," all six
billion of us, can share something equally in any meaningful way. The only exception would be goods
that are abundant, like air: I can breathe all the air I need without diminishing anyone else's supply.
Scarce (or nonabundant) resources, however, have to be transformed or produced at someone's cost
in scarce time, scarce energy, and other scarce resources. Since that cost is not equally shared, it is
not clear why such goods should be enjoyed equally. Finally, honor and fame are merited by
individuals and consequently cannot be shared by nonmeriters.

Anthony Flood