Liberty Essays (898 words) - Libertarian Theory, Sovereignty

Liberty Leviathan Liberty is the natural rights of all mankind. It was even created even before our time. Since we have so much freedom, we are in jeopardy by one another due to the fact that we threaten one's will. Competition, aggression, and warfare are always taken place for existence and self-preservation. This is the worse of human nature. We are always striving for peace and serenity, and we do everything that it takes to achieve security for oneself. We all want liberty, but in reality, there is barely any liberty here. As for an example, if a living aquatic animal was to reside all his life in water, it is restrained within the contour boundaries that separates land from water. However, in order to live peacefully without fear, we tend to give up our natural rights to attain our true liberty. Hobbes defines liberty in a different sense. He believes liberty minus all the things that you have to sacrifice in order to obtain true liberty. In other words, we have to surrender certain natural rights to achieve peace and harmony with oneself. He believes each individual can be threatened by one another causing them to be in a state of war. All subjects are willing to go any distance to preserve their own life. Since there are limited resources, each form could possibly desire the same object that will give him the power to continue his existence, resulting warfare in obtaining those objects will be a characteristic of the natural state of man. He believes warfare will be continual as long as seeking of power is continual, which leads to constant fear. In the state of nature, there is always competition, aggression, and warfare; therefore, there is no peace, harmony, and equality. Thus, this force the individuals to form a social contract with the sovereign. They are basically t ransferring their rights to the government to provide them with security and felicity. However, when entering a contract with the sovereign, the rights of the individuals will be formally restrained, which is the product of true liberty. The sovereign forms a set of natural laws that each individual will follow to prevent their extinction. Once the individual enters the contract, the individual has to obey the commands of the sovereign regardless if they are dangerous and dishonorable. For example, one must go to war to protect the sovereign when it is endanger even if one has to risk his own life to protect the state or to protect oneself. If one refuses to defend for the sovereign, it would not be consider unjust due to the fact that the sovereign must punish to maintain order in the government. Hobbes really believes that monarchy has what it takes to retain our tranquility. He believes if there is only man to rule, then there is no need to divide the powers among the others. The re will be fewer conflicts. He also believes that he cannot disagree with himself out of envy or interest, but assembly can, which can lead to a war. Although it is ruled by one man, he can still consider in hearing the people's opinion to give him advice to execute their needs. Simply there are only three kinds of government or commonwealth, which is democracy, monarchy, and oligarchy. While monarchy and oligarchy are dictated by rulers, democracy is ruled by the people. The only difference between monarchy and oligarchy is the number of rulers. Monarchy rules by one, which is a king. And oligarchy rules by a few dictators. In my opinion, I believe there is no alternative form of government that can protect our true liberty. If our sovereign is a democracy, we will be in chaos due to the fact that it rules by the people. That is basically starts from square one even before a government is created. There will be many conflicts in opinions and beliefs, which can lead to hatred among each other, resulting warfare. Things will be more complicated to accomplish to each individual's needs, which results failure of the government. Speaking of failure of the government, I also believe that oligarchy is also chaotic because conflicts can take place among the rulers. They can