1. Noted philosophers
     Mozi (墨子)   Thomas Hobbes   John Locke    Montesquieu    Jean-Jacques Rousseau    David Hume   John Calhoun   John Rawls    Robert Nozick  

2. Between nations

3. Ungoverned spaces and Extralegal Groups

4. See also

5. References

The state of nature is a concept used in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law^[1] to denote the hypothetical conditions of what the lives of people might have been like before societies came into existence. Philosophers of the state of nature theory deduce that there must have been a time before organized societies existed, and this presumption thus raises questions such as: "What was life like before civil society?"; "How did government first emerge from such a starting position?," and; "What are the hypothetical reasons for entering a state of society by establishing a nation-state?".

In some versions of social contract theory, there are no rights in the state of nature, only freedoms, and it is the contract that creates rights and obligations. In other versions the opposite occurs: the contract imposes restrictions upon individuals that curtail their natural rights.

Societies existing before or without a political state are currently studied in such fields as paleolithic history, and the anthropological subfields of archaeology, cultural anthropology, social anthropology, and ethnology, which investigate the social and power-related structures of indigenous and uncontacted peoples living in tribal communities.

Noted philosophers

Mozi (墨子)

The early Warring States philosopher Mozi was the first thinker in ancient China to develop an ideal state of nature as a premise to defend the need of a single ruler in a state. According to him, on that state each person have their own moral (yi, 義). As a result, people were unable to reach agreements and resources were wasted. Since his philosophy promotes the actions that leads to the benefit (li, 利) of the state, such natural organization was rejected:

"In the beginning of human life, when there was yet no law and government, the custom was "everybody according to his moral (yi, 義)." Accordingly each man had his own moral, two men had two different morals and ten men had ten different morals -- the more people the more different notions. And everybody approved of his own moral and disapproved the views of others, and so arose mutual disapproval among men. As a result, father and son and elder and younger brothers became enemies and were estranged from each other, since they were unable to reach any agreement. Everybody worked for the disadvantage of the others with water, fire, and poison. Surplus energy was not spent for mutual aid; surplus goods were allowed to rot without sharing; excellent teachings (dao, 道) were kept secret and not revealed." Chapter 3 - 1^[2]

Thomas Hobbes

The pure state of nature, or "the natural condition of mankind", was described by the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan and his earlier work De Cive.^[4] Hobbes argued that natural inequalities between humans are not so great as to give anyone clear superiority; and thus all must live in constant fear of loss or violence; so that "during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called warre; and such a warre as is of every man against every man". In this state, every person has a natural right to do anything one thinks necessary for preserving one's own life, and life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Leviathan, Chapters XIII–XIV). Hobbes described this natural condition with the Latin phrase bellum omnium contra omnes (meaning war of all against all), in De Cive.

Within the state of nature, there is neither personal property nor injustice since there is no law, except for certain natural precepts discovered by reason ("laws of nature"): the first of which is "that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it" (Leviathan, Ch. XIV); and the second is "that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself" (loc. cit.). From here, Hobbes develops the way out of the state of nature into political society and government by mutual contracts.

According to Hobbes, the state of nature exists at all times among independent countries, over whom there is no law except for those same precepts or laws of nature (Leviathan, Chapters XIII, XXX end). His view of the state of nature helped to serve as a basis for theories of international law and relations^[5] and even some theories about domestic relations.^[6]

John Locke

John Locke considers the state of nature in his Second Treatise on Civil Government written around the time of the Exclusion Crisis in England during the 1680s. For Locke, in the state of nature all men are free "to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature." (2nd Tr., §4). "The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it", and that law is reason. Locke believes that reason teaches that "no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, and or property" (2nd Tr., §6) ; and that transgressions of this may be punished. Locke describes the state of nature and civil society to be opposites of each other, and the need for civil society comes in part from the perpetual existence of the state of nature.^[7] This view of the state of nature is partly deduced from Christian belief (unlike Hobbes, whose philosophy is not dependent upon any prior theology).

Although it may be natural to assume that Locke was responding to Hobbes, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name, and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day, like Robert Filmer.^[8] In fact, Locke's First Treatise is entirely a response to Filmer's Patriarcha, and takes a step by step method to refuting Filmer's theory set out in Patriarcha. The conservative party at the time had rallied behind Filmer's Patriarcha, whereas the Whigs, scared of another prosecution of Anglicans and Protestants, rallied behind the theory set out by Locke in his Two Treatises of Government as it gave a clear theory as to why the people would be justified in overthrowing a monarchy which abuses the trust they had placed in it.{{citation needed|reason=A causal historical claim that needs to be sourced|date=February 2016}}

Montesquieu

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Hobbes' view was challenged in the eighteenth century by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who claimed that Hobbes was taking socialized people and simply imagining them living outside of the society in which they were raised. He affirmed instead that people were neither good nor bad, but were born as a blank slate, and later society and the environment influence which way we lean. In Rousseau's state of nature, people did not know each other enough to come into serious conflict and they did have normal values. The modern society, and the ownership it entails, is blamed for the disruption of the state of nature which Rousseau sees as true freedom.^[10]

David Hume

Hume's ideas about human nature expressed in the Treatise suggest that he would be happy with neither Hobbes' nor his contemporary Rousseau's thought-experiments. He explicitly derides as incredible the hypothetical humanity described in Hobbes' Leviathan.^[12] Additionally, he argues in "Of the Origin of Justice and Property" that if mankind were universally benevolent, we would not hold Justice to be a virtue: "’tis only from the selfishness and confin’d generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin."^[13]

John Calhoun

John Rawls

John Rawls used what amounted to an artificial state of nature. To develop his theory of justice, Rawls places everyone in the original position. The original position is a hypothetical state of nature used as a thought experiment. People in the original position have no society and are under a veil of ignorance that prevents them from knowing how they may benefit from society. They lack foreknowledge of their intelligence, wealth, or abilities. Rawls reasons that people in the original position would want a society where they had their basic liberties protected and where they had some economic guarantees as well. If society were to be constructed from scratch through a social agreement between individuals, these principles would be the expected basis of such an agreement. Thus, these principles should form the basis of real, modern societies since everyone should consent to them if society were organized from scratch in fair agreements.

Robert Nozick

Rawls' Harvard colleague Robert Nozick countered the liberal A Theory of Justice with the libertarian Anarchy, State, and Utopia, also grounded in the state of nature tradition.^[15] Nozick argued that a minimalist state of property rights and basic law enforcement would develop out of a state of nature without violating anyone's rights or using force. Mutual agreements among individuals rather than social contract would lead to this minimal state.

Between nations

In Hobbes' view, once a civil government is instituted, the state of nature has disappeared between individuals because of the civil power which exists to enforce contracts and the laws of nature generally. Between nations, however, no such power exists and therefore nations have the same rights to preserve themselves—including making war—as individuals possessed. Such a conclusion led some writers to the idea of an association of nations or worldwide civil society. Among them there were Immanuel Kant with his work on perpetual peace. This aim was taken up by former US President George H W Bush in the drive to create a "New World Order" which he describes as "a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations".

Rawls also examines the state of nature between nations. In his work the Law of Peoples, Rawls applies a modified version of his original position thought experiment to international relationships. Rawls says that peoples, not states, form the basic unit that should be examined. States should be encouraged to follow the principles from Rawls' earlier A Theory of Justice. Democracy seems like it would be the most logical means of accomplishing these goals, but benign non-democracies should be seen as acceptable at the international stage. Rawls develops eight principles for how a people should act on an international stage.

Ungoverned spaces and Extralegal Groups

Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, humans have incrementally moved beyond the state of nature; however, these state of nature like environments continue to exist today in areas where states are failing to govern or have little interest in governing. Christine Cheng calls these areas “ungoverned” spaces and are defined as areas of territory that lack state institutions, subsequently lacking a state monopoly on violence, much like Hobbes’ state of nature^[16]. Ungoverned spaces often carry negative connotations and have been conflated with radical Islamic terrorism as well as other Hobbesian traits such as, “destructive anarchy”, “uncivilized savagery”, and “Barbarity”^[17]. However, these negative views of ungoverned spaces in civil wars do not necessarily reflect the reality on the ground. Ungoverned spaces are often occupied by what Cheng calls Extralegal Groups, whom provide important state-like functions in absence of the state, in times civil war or when states are failing. Extralegal Groups monopolize dispute resolution and enforcement by consolidating authority under one group. Extra-legal groups are firstly driven by trade, but they also contribute to the stabilisation of areas in which–when successful–they persuade a population to submit to its power and legitimise its authority, offering an unofficial but often effective alternative to the state. The result is a reduction of state of nature conditions in that space.

See also

• Law of the jungle
• Antisocial personality disorder

References

• IAI Harop
• IAI Herod
• IAI I-View
• IAIK
• I Aim at the Stars
• IAI Namer
• IAI Nammer
• Iain Banks/Espedair Street
• Iain Banks/The Crow Road
• Iain Benson
• Iain boal
• Iain Boal
• Iain Bond
• Iain Bonomy
• Iain Bonomy, Lord Bonomy
• Iain Borb MacLeod
• Iain Bryden Percy
• Iain Burgess
• Iain Burnside
• Iain Campbell, Earl of Atholl
• Iain Carnegie
• Iain Carter
• Iain Cheeseman
• Iain Ciar MacLeod
• Iain Clough