Thomas Hobbes On Commodious Living. A Critical Examination of "The Safety of the People"
The current literature on Hobbes shows little interest in what can be regarded as central in Hobbes's theory of the state, namely, the notion of the safety of the people. However, in all of his major political works, Hobbes consistently indicates that the only reason human beings create a political association is to secure their safety. The present dissertation points out the primary importance of the Hobbesian notion of safety, and attempts to offer a proper understanding of it. In Hobbes, mere survival is far from what people pursue in social life, and securing the safety of the people cannot be reduced to securing bare life. The Hobbesian notion of safety can only be adequately understood in light of men's fundamental aspirations, and Hobbes regards war as mainly what frustrates the fulfillment of these human aspirations. His notion of war is more complex than appears at first sight. It goes beyond acts of fighting and of engaging in a physical conflict to include any social context or political state of affairs characterized by the predominance of a paralyzing fear in people's lives. This broad and complex notion of war points to a concept of safety that is ample enough to include any war-like situation from which people have to be protected. If the notion of safety refers to protection of people from war, and war refers not only to acts of physical violence, but to any fearful condition of life susceptible to cause a premature, preventable, and unnecessary death, then, to secure the safety of the people entails to free them from all such intolerable conditions of life. There is safety when different causes and fear of war-like situations are removed or significantly reduced to the point that people can pursue what they consider to be their goods and, hence, live a more contented life. In regard to the fragile and uncertain peace of our modern world, the need to reflect on the notion of safety becomes more urgent, and Hobbes remains undoubtedly one of the most important sources of inspiration.
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