State of Nature
State of Nature
The state of man as it would he if there were no political organization or government. The concept was used by many philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a criterion of what man’s naturnl condition might be and as to what extent that condition has been spoiled or corrupted by civilization. It was used as an argument for man’s original rights to liberty and equality (Hooker, Locke, Rousseau), but occasionally also as an argument for the necessity of the state and its right to control all social relations (Hobbes). — W.E.