h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Hobbes' Social Contract - A1015822
Author: Researcher 224010 - U224010

Well, this is just a short article about Hobbes' Social contract, what can i say... if anyone here knows anything that i got wrong or just knows anything else to add critique away... leave comments!

~Bill Miller

Hi Bill,

Interesting analogy. However, if you want it to get into the Edited Guide if would think about re-wording the last paragraph. Two reason:

Reference to current events makes it dated and therfore would not make a lot of sense to someone reading it in the future. It is a personal opinion and the Guidelines require Edited Guide entries to be balanced.

See Writing-Guidelines

Also, in the current climate, it is likely to be moderated, then no one will be able to read it. See A735275

You could put it in the Alternative Wrinting Workshop Writing-Alternative but it would still be liable to moderation as it is.

Stuart

Stuart-

The whole thing about the current situation making it moderated. I don't quite understand that seeing as its philosophy... thats all it is is philosophical principal.

I'd love to say that the last paragraph is personal opinion but it isn't a personal opinion. All i'm doing in this entry is teaching people a philosophical principal (redundancy is one of my vices). And as for my example i think it fits nicely in some ways but yes i have to agree that it should be revised in one or two places. thank you for the critique,

~Jon "Bill Miller"

Jon,

The mere mention of the current situation will get it moderated as it appears to have been. If you take out the refernce to the current situation and be a bit more general, it should be alright.

Its a pity its moderated because I agree with you.

Stuart

I look forward to its return!

I skim-read this earlier on, and I do think that more needs to be said about Hobbes and about social contract theories in general. There are many different kinds of social contract, and Hobbes' is only one.

What's particularly interesting about Hobbes is that (writing after the English civil war) is the importance that he attaches to state power, and his fear of factionalism. Hobbes argues for a leviathan - an (near) absolutist authoritarian state to keep order and to keep the peace. Mostly deeply unfashionable stuff, but looking at Former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, one wonders whether he might have been right.

Any article on Hobbes *must* include his famous description of the state of nature and life without a controlling state:

'No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'

It's back, but the last paragraph is still problematic.

This entry is still problematic, and the author is AWOL, so the entry is eligible for the Flea Market. Any scouts to second?