Humans lives together in societies despite several differences. Inside societies men abide rules and laws that are set upon by their comrades or by earlier generations. The natural tendency of human to group themselves together and form societies involves manner and actions that stirred up discussions from scholars such as Adam Smith and Thomas Hobbes, several years ago. Each looks at the situation with a different point of view. Hobbes focused his assessment on human nature which includes rationality and passion.On the other hand, Smith gathers his thought from an economist perspective, taking into account wealth as a primary factor in his arguments.
This essay shall look into the emergence of cooperation in the society in the light of Hobbes and Smith’s ideas. This essay would first look into the fundamental philosophies of each thinker. There will be a comparison of the thinker’s idea which will end with an elucidation of the importance of these concepts. Thomas Hobbes is known as a ‘social contract theorist’ (Lee, 1997). This denotes that his views encompass the idea that societies are formed in a sort of, contractual manner.Such social contract implicates several men gathering together and forming societies with rules and laws which aim to protect and secure towards a common benefit.
This idea started with a careful look at human nature. Hobbes identified two prevailing human characters: passion and reason. Reason is divided into two; knowledge of facts and knowledge of consequences. Knowledge of fact is derived through sense-experience while knowledge of consequence is attained through reasoning and affirmation from another person (Lee, 1997). Passion is also divided into two categories.The first includes appetite while the other is known as aversion (Spragens, 1973).
Simply stated, appetites comprise of the things that humans wanted while aversions are those the humans hate. To better understand the two concepts, Hobbes tried to look into the condition of man prior to the establishment of a society. He calls this condition ‘the state of nature’ (Lee, 1997). Prior to society, everything in earth is for a man’s taking.
There is no established ownership and man has a ‘right to everything’ since there are no laws with respect to property and there are morality to guide action (Spragens, 1973).In the state of nature, Hobbes implied that ‘life of man is solitary, nasty, brutish, and short (Raphael, 2003 as quoted from Hobbes)’. Nonetheless, this ‘state of nature’ brings about human passion towards self-preservation. In such savage-like scenario one person is concerned only about himself. He tries to gather as most food as he can in order to survive.
If another person has what he needs, he will do everything to get what he wants. To the end, this includes even killing that other person. Thus, in such condition, humans are persistently unprotected from nature and other humans as well.This condition can be best depicted as ‘war’ of humans against one another. Pursuing one’s own interest or appetite alone generates war; nonetheless, aversion which is in the form of ‘fear’ of death accompanied by reason helped man to realize the need for a contract with other individuals (Spragens, 1973). Such contract undermines surrendering one’s right.
One individual would reason out and convince another to cooperate since cooperation would naturally bring more success. This is something blatantly observable in nature, such as in the case of animal herds.In the occasion of cooperation, Hobbes believed that humans agreed to transfer their rights to a superior person, a ‘Leviathan’ (Spragens, 1973). Societal norms are established towards ‘self-preservation’.
This show how human’s tendency towards cooperation results to the formation of social stability. Adam Smith, on the other hand, determines the establishment of society in terms of human’s ‘natural propensity to barter, truck and exchange (Wood, 1993 as quoted from Smith)’. Adam Smith, one should take note, is an economist who believe humans are naturally rational and selfish.Adam Smith demonstrates social cooperation in terms of division of labor (Malloy and Evensky, 1994).
Principally, Smith’s approach towards history of labor is heightened by the duality of a ‘master-slave’ relationship. This relationship is tightened by the selfish need for each other. A ‘master needs a slave while a slave need a master’. This need boils down to an exchange of service and goods.
The master would benefit from the slaves’ services, while the slaves’ would be paid by accommodation or some form of monetary medium or goods.Therefore, Smith perceives cooperation in terms of ‘exchange’ (Wood, 1993). In a more concrete scenario, a person who possesses one good cooperates with other people to gain other goods. This creates a mutual need for one another and leads to the establishment of societies where people cooperate towards selfish pursuits. The accumulation of wealth, later on becomes a societal goal, which further increases cooperation within societies.
Moreover, Smith also emphasizes the human’s tendency towards enhancing oneself due to the propensity towards ‘self-love, sympathy and desire to be free’ (Wood, 1993).This means that a person, in Smith’s perspective, would engage in such ‘exchange’ due to the benefits that the person will get. Despite seeing man as selfish, Smith render such trait with a positive connotation implying that selfishness leads to people working together to attain a certain end, which in this case, ‘wealth’. A brief comparison of the ideas by Hobbes and Smith is essential to create a generalization regarding social cooperation in general. As discussed above, both thinkers illuminate the fact that societies are formed through cooperation. Both of them identified cooperation as something that stems out of selfish will.
Hobbes distinguishes selfishness as a natural propensity of humans to move towards passion. Smith gathers selfishness as a form of benefiting oneself in an exchange of something. Clearly, in Smith’s concept, exchange is a dominant factor that leads to the establishment of societal market. This prototype market that virtually includes ‘exchange’ also undermines the division of labor.
One person makes something which contributes to the whole. On the other hand, Hobbes, take into consideration reason and passion as the dominating attributes leading to cooperation.Furthermore, Hobbes believes that ‘self-preservation’ is the prevailing factor which necessarily leads to cooperation; the root aversion being ‘fear of death’. Social contract which is represented by the government is what Smith considers as the social institution that facilitates the cooperation among its constituents.
Smith’s ideas illustrates that social cooperation would yield to better market exchange. This in turn, increases ‘wealth’ which determines the ability to undergo exchange and to produce goods necessary for human and societal survival.On the other side, Hobbes believed that social cooperation would result to the protection of individuals or increased security and a more nonviolent society guided by the government. Government plays a central part in Hobbes philosophy. Government is portrayed as the solution to animosity that exists prior to social cooperation.
In Smith’s argument, government seems to be disregarded since it is the market that has the most important role. It is through the establishment of market that humans attain cooperation and wealth is seen as a factor that drives people to cooperate. Hobbes exposition portrays darker scenario than those of Smith.Hobbes suggests that if man would not enter a ‘social contract’ they would annihilate one another. This is rather grotesque and shows nothing ‘good’ from human nature.
Hobbes thoughts are plainly negative with ‘government’ through social contract as the only way out to regulate or somehow suppress the ‘negative’ side of human. Smith portrayal of human nature is a bit lighter. Smith agrees that humans are indeed selfish but he sees this selfishness as a preliminary step or a pre-requisite of self improvement. In a market exchange is made towards attainment of something that one doesn’t have.The tendency of humans to cooperate is not demonstrated as ‘forced by circumstances’ as implied by Hobbes presentation, rather, it is a natural outcome of man’s need to improve himself.
In essence, both thinkers have discussed the idea of societal cooperation as a product of human selfishness. Nevertheless, their perspectives take different turns when they emphasize the reason for the establishment of such cooperation including its necessity and repercussions. Both thinkers illustrate cooperation as a scenario that improves human relationship and serves as a medium to hold society together.
