Hobbes's View Of Fear In Leviathan

Since ancient Greece,political scientists have been thinking about the root causes of the country.Plato believed that the foundation of the country lies in"knowledge"and advocated that"philosophers"should be in power.Aristotle holds that "virtue"is the foundation of the country.Later,with the establishment of Christian status,"divine right of kings"became the legitimate source of rulers'legitimate ruling rights.Different from the above-mentioned sages,Hobbes believes that the legitimacy of state rule comes from its ability to maintain peace and ensure the safety of citizens.Therefore,he discusses the emergence of the state and its power base from the perspective of human nature.Hobbes believes that human passion begins with two basic movements:desire and aversion,both of which are generated by intention.Desire is the tendency of human inner self-conscious movement towards profit,while aversion is the tendency of avoiding harm.Desires such as vanity and conceit can lead to conflicts and wars between people,while aversion to death fear is passion for peace.Unlike animals,human beings have foresight and the ability to calculate or consider rationally.They can realize that peace is more conducive to self-preservation than war.For this reason,Hobbes proposed that peace can only be maintained by suppressing instinct(vanity and conceit)with instinct(fear of death)and resisting passion with strength.Hobbes believes that the minimum of peace is natural law,and natural law is the minimum moral law.Hobbes focused on the first two natural laws:the first is to seek peace and abide by it;The second is the contract.The emergence of these two natural laws is a rational choice made by people to avoid fear.But reason alone is not enough to make people voluntarily obey natural law and abide by contracts.Abide by the contract can only rely on fear,Only when H Leviathan"is used to suppress desire and suppress passion with power can we get out of the natural state.In short,Hobbes believes that passion such as fear plays an irreplaceable role in the construction of his country:First,the mutual fear among people is the source of the nation's establishment.Second,after the establishment of the country,fear has not disappeared.Sovereign power also uses this fear to restrain the people and make them abide by the contract.To some extent,sovereigns transform people's mutual fear into a political tool to safeguard the country's rule.Fear is not something that needs to be excluded.On the contrary,fear can be effectively utilized,thus transformed into a rational factor that serves as the basis for building political life and maintaining peace.