Proponents of liberty cannot escape confronting the issue that came to full fruition in the Enlightenment: liberty and tyranny both found freedom as a result. Classical liberals cannot just point to Locke and Jefferson as the offspring. In this post I will examine the Enlightenment’s evil twin – as represented in Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Thomas Hobbes
His ideas…are especially challenging to any libertarian who would wish to see the state minimised or eliminated. That said, there are elements of his thought that any liberal would welcome.
Casey offers that more than half of Leviathan is about religion, and some take this as the most important part of his work. One can glean Hobbes’ view on religion by the following:
Hobbes’s overall thought was fundamentally materialist…. For Hobbes, all that ultimately exists is matter in motion. …even the extremely complex social and political world too was explicable in materialistic terms.
Hobbes treated all of nature – human nature as well as non-human nature – as a vast system of mechanical causes from which purpose was to be excluded.
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Freedom (Free Will) comes from our Creator.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it is completely and utterly FREE.
We have freedom of speech because we have vocal chords (given to us by our Creator).
We have freedom of movement because we have legs (given to us by our Creator).
We have freedom of thought because we have brains (given to us by our Creator).
Government (especially Militaries) do NOT give freedom.
They only remove freedom (enslave people).
Governments and Militaries were not given to Time by our Creator.
They are inventions of Men and hence, are imperfect.