War of All Against All

Thomas Hobbes perceived the state of nature to be a state of utter chaos. Hobbes argued that there could be no morality in the state of nature because everyone would be fighting for individual survival. To Hobbes, moral notions had no place in the state of nature because everyone has an equal claim to everything. Without a government, no laws exist to regulate behavior. Since no one has the power to regulate human behavior (on a large scale) alone, any notions of justice or morality must arise from a social contract that all individuals adhere to. Without government, everyone’s equal claim to everything combined with the scarcity of resources leads everyone into the war of all against all: Everyone is the enemy of everyone else, and every individual must compete with others to gather enough resources to survive.

Hobbes considered the war of all against all to be unacceptable. Life in such a state is too short and too fraught with suffering and insecurity. Hobbes proposed the establishment of an authoritarian state which had the power to control its subjects and establish a civilized society. In this authoritarian state, the ruler or governing body, known as the sovereign, has the ability to violate an array of individual rights to promote peace and prevent society from reverting back to the war of all against all.