The Nature of Man "early Modern" anthropological suppositions and their role in the construction of the State

Résumé du document

The opposition between the Ancients and the Moderns is often criticized. If there is anything like this, one may find it in the opposition of natural rights. In classical natural right, the nature is an essence to be realized; it is an aim, not a presuppose of society. On the contrary, in early modern natural right, nature is a series of subjective rights attached to the person.
But if these rights exist before society, this does not mean they disappear with it: the citizens may suspend or limit the use of some rights; they will not relinquish them to the sovereign. What I would like to show is that these subjective natural rights remain central in civil society. Modern natural right is very diverse: what is understood as subjective rights remain very different from one author to another. I will here present Hobbes and Locke's anthropologies, often considered to open the two main directions of modern natural right: on Hobbes' side, positivism, on Locke's side, modern jusnaturalism. One may consider Hobbes' man a very cynical or at least pessimistic anthropology. Everyone heard of man being wolf to man, homo homini lupus, as said in De Cive. But actually, Hobbes' description of man, in the first part of Leviathan, goes far beyond that.

Extraits

[...] One can legitimately get out of civil society when his life or health is threatened by the state. For Locke, on the contrary, there is a right of resistance, when the sovereign goes beyond its attributions, i.e. defending life health, liberty and property. This has very concrete and structuring implications for theories of law: on one side, positivists refer to Hobbes there is no law above the sovereign, whereas jusnaturalists would prefer Locke the sovereign should respect fundamental laws. In conclusion, Hobbes and Locke present two different visions of man. [...]

[...] The Nature of Man “early Modern” anthropological suppositions and their role in the construction of the State The opposition between the Ancients and the Moderns is often criticized. If there is anything like this, one may find it in the opposition of natural rights.[1] In classical natural right, the nature is an essence to be realized; it is an aim, not a presuppose of society. On the contrary, in early modern natural right, nature is a series of subjective rights[2] attached to the person. [...]

[...] First, a universal anthropological assumption based on an “evident supposition”: the desire of power. Every man is led by the desire to increase his power, whatever form it may take: riches, knowledge or honour, and this desire never ends. This desire inevitably leads to quarrel and fear which is the second central passion - in three different ways: competition when two men fight for something, diffidence when one man suspects someone else of bad intentions and feels the need to defend, finally glory, when the pride or value of someone is questioned, and therefore must be reasserted through violence. [...]

[...] The state is necessary because it avoids the arbitrary. It provides neutrality, for it is not judge and party in conflicts between men. Finally, two different anthropologies lead to two different conceptions of the state. For the pessimistic Hobbes, man is wolf to man, and the State is but the arbitrary power that rules by force these potential conflicts. For the more optimistic Locke, since men have natural responsibilities towards human nature, the State does not have this fundamental role. [...]

[...] II - Locke's notion of the nature of man We presented Hobbes' conception of man. That was a two-dimension problem: Hobbes' anthropology strictly speaking, and its relation with the construction of the state. We saw that speech, desire and fear were the main components of Hobbes' description of man. We then understood how these principles could “geometrically” generate the State, and what their role was, once the State built. If the state of nature had disappeared, the nature of man was still at the very heart of Hobbes' construction. [...]