Question

Out of all of the Enlightenment thinkers, who stood out the most and why? Do you agree with Hobbes' Enlightenment ideas? Support your answer with one reason​

Answer 1

Answer:

Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher and scientist, was one of the key figures in the political debates of the Enlightenment period. Despite advocating the idea of absolutism of the sovereign, he developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought.

Hobbes was the first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed social contract theory that appeared in his 1651 work  Leviathan. In it, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality.

Hobbes argued that in order to avoid chaos, which he associated with the state of nature, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society.

One of the most influential tensions in Hobbes’ argument is a relation between the absolute sovereign and the society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some rights for the sake of protection. Any power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted because the protector’s sovereign power derives from individuals’ surrendering their own sovereign power for protection.

Hobbes also included a discussion of natural rights in his moral and political philosophy. While he recognized the inalienable rights of the human,  he argued that if humans wished to live peacefully, they had to give up most of their natural rights and create moral obligations, in order to establish political and civil society.

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