DA LI JE ŽIVOT U PRIRODNOM STANJU USAMLJENIČKI, SIROMAŠAN, OPASAN, SKOTSKI I KRATAK
IS LIFE IN THE STATE OF NATURE SOLITARY, POOR, NASTY, BRUTISH, AND SHORT?

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I intend to question Hobbes’s well known claim that the life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. Without leaving the framework of Hobbes’s materialism, naturalism and individualism, then starting from the basic assumptions about human nature, I’ll try to show that life in the state of nature would be far different from how it was described by Hobbes. To achieve that I will try to show that the basic Hobbes’s assumptions about human nature are too rigid and not entirely factually based, though Hobbes insists that they are. For this reason, I believe they are only partially justified. In accordance with the Hobbesian naturalism some of the basic assumptions about human nature are reexamined and amended with new information obtained in the natural and social sciences, from biology to economics. On the basis of similar findings, some of the underlying assumptions regarding Hobbes’s conception of the state of nature as an ongoing conflict have been dropped. In the final part of the paper Hobbesian views on property and property rights in the state of nature have been critically evaluated. The implication of these analyses is that the Hobbesian individuals wouldn’t choose to constitute the overwhelming state apparatus.

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