Hobbes and Rousseau's Depiction of the state of nature and human Essay

Hobbes and Rousseau's Depiction of the state of nature and human nature - Essay Example The state ought to protect the lives of its citizens. The people who elected them into power should not live in fear of their lives. They should enjoy peace and stability. With these, the law of conservation of motion Hobbes tries to tell us that human beings are constantly looking for something in life. â€Å"Life itself is but Motion, and can never be without Desire† (129-130). What he is saying is that human beings are never satisfied; they always want more and more each moment ( Rousseau and. Their search for felicity is what causes human beings to be at war with each other. When death becomes a fear, there is creation of the state. Furthermore, Hobbes argues that human beings are equal in respect to the nature. They have equal skills and power. Moreover, according to Hobbes, human beings are by nature made equal, in a sense that the human’s possess are equal in terms of skills and power. â€Å"The weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or confederacy with others† (Hobbes and Helena 183). According to Hobbes theory morality has no room because, in a state of nature there are no unjust acts. He goes ahead to say that human beings rational behavior causes them to attack others and make them obey the law of nature only when surrounded by others and sure that they are obeying the law too. By this he means that human beings are self-centered in nature and fear is what makes them to reason (Hobbes and Helena 5) In Rousseau’s state of nature, human beings are like savages, their dealings are first dogged by instant and basic requirements food, sexual satisfaction, and sleep and fear only hunger and pain. The force of self-preservation and pity drives the savage man. To him human beings are naturally affected by others’ human beings’ sufferance, in other words they have â€Å"an innate repugnance a fellow creature suffers†