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Aristotle's Natural Condition

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Natural condition of man according to Aristotle and Hobbes
Hobbes and Aristotle are known as influential political philosophers in the world. Both of them have profound and significant doctrines; however, their thoughts about natural condition of man are quite various. According to Hobbes, by nature humans are equal in the faculties of body and mind. He claims that even the weakest man has strength to kill the strongest man because nature gives the same rights to everyone. Among men there is not any inequality that gives exclusive opportunity to a person by nature. This “equality of hope” ensures, when two men want the same thing and one of these men can obtain it, they fight each other to achieve their aims. For Hobbes, The natural condition of mankind is a state of war of every man against every man. There is not injustice in the state of nature; every man has a right or liberty to do anything in order to protect himself or his property. There is a natural competition between by nature. Thus, there should be a common power to avoid fights and govern these …show more content…

Aristotle claims that men are by nature social animals, and society helps men to achieve the good: happiness. People obtain positive things out of political life. For Aristotle, the state is natural: A lot of families join together and form villages and many villages form city-states. The simplest form of political communities is family, while the highest is the state. Nevertheless, Hobbes says that men are naturally individualistic and (political) society benefit to avoid war of every man against every man. Hobbes holds that the natural condition of men is “condition of war”. Therefore, creating commonwealth is the only method of preventing conflict between people. Hobbes disagrees the point of Aristotle (about state is natural) and Hobbes holds that creating state is not natural; it is a voluntary agreement or

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