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.
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
His proposal was to unify morals according to a single standard
(fa, 法) that can be used by anyone: calculating benefit of each act. In
that way, the ruler of the state and his subjects will have the same
morals; cooperation and joint efforts will be the rule. Later his
proposal was strongly rejected by confucianism (especially Mencius) because of the preference of benefit over morals.
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.
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 and even some theories about domestic relations.
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.
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. 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.
Montesquieu
Montesquieu makes use of the concept of the state of nature in his The Spirit of the Laws,
first printed in 1748. Montesquieu states the thought process behind
early human beings before the formation of society. He says that human
beings would have the faculty of knowing and would first think to
preserve their life in the state. Human beings would also at first feel
themselves to be impotent and weak. As a result, humans would not be
likely to attack each other in this state. Next, humans would seek
nourishment and out of fear, and impulse would eventually unite to
create society. Once society was created, a state of war would ensue
amongst societies which would have been all created the same way. The
purpose of war is the preservation of the society and the self. The
formation of law within society is the reflection and application of
reason for 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.
David Hume
David Hume offers in A Treatise of Human Nature
(1739) that human beings are naturally social: "'Tis utterly impossible
for men to remain any considerable time in that savage condition, which
precedes society; but that his very first state and situation may
justly be esteem'd social. This, however, hinders not, but that
philosophers may, if they please, extend their reasoning to the suppos'd
state of nature; provided they allow it to be a mere philosophical
fiction, which never had, and never cou'd have any reality."
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.
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."
John Calhoun
John C. Calhoun, in his Disquisition on Government,
(1850) wrote that a state of nature is merely hypothetical and argues
that the concept is self-contradictory and that political states
naturally always existed. "It is, indeed, difficult to explain how an
opinion so destitute of all sound reason, ever could have been so
extensively entertained, ... I refer to the assertion, that all men are
equal in the state of nature; meaning, by a state of nature, a state of
individuality, supposed to have existed prior to the social and
political state; and in which men lived apart and independent of each
other... But such a state is purely hypothetical. It never did, nor can
exist; as it is inconsistent with the preservation and perpetuation of
the race. It is, therefore, a great misnomer to call it the state of
nature. Instead of being the natural state of man, it is, of all
conceivable states, the most opposed to his nature—most repugnant to his
feelings, and most incompatible with his wants. His natural state is,
the social and political—the one for which his Creator made him, and the
only one in which he can preserve and perfect his race. As, then, there
never was such a state as the, so called, state of nature, and never
can be, it follows, that men, instead of being born in it, are born in
the social and political state; and of course, instead of being born
free and equal, are born subject, not only to parental authority, but to
the laws and institutions of the country where born, and under whose
protection they draw their first breath."
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.
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.
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”.
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.
