Original scientific paper
EQUALITY AND COMMUNITY: STATE OF NATURE AND SOCIAL CONTRACT IN HOBBES’ AND RAWLS’ THEORY
Ana Matan
orcid.org/0000-0001-9037-3908
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author compares Hobbes’ state of nature and Rawls’ original position in an attempt to answer the question: How to arrive at a community starting from individualistic premises? The comparison shows a striking similarity between Hobbes’ and Rawls’ initial positions showing itself in the radical equality of the denizens in both ‘states of nature’ and the insistence on the part of both authors to secure recognition of such equality. The essentially similar conditions in the state of nature suggest that the difference between their “social contracts” should lie in the other parts of their theories. The decisive differences lie in Rawls’ assumption that individuals are motivated by a sense of justice (much stronger than in Hobbes’ theory) that enables a choice of principles of justice in Rawls’ state of nature. The agreement on principles is an expression of human sociability, while an agreement on a sovereign is a concession to human unsociability.
Keywords
Hobbes; Rawls; equality; community; state of nature; social contract
Hrčak ID:
21816
URI
Publication date:
25.7.2005.
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