Nothing like the state of nature ever existed and there is absolutely no evidence in history to show the State to have emerged by mutual and deliberate agreement. The Social Contract is impossible. For the history of primitive societies has shown conclusively that men move from status to contract. Hobbes’ claim is just the other way. namely,that men move from contract to state. Nor is man so inherently. Selfish, self-seeking and aggressive as Hobbes has described him. Man is a rational and social being, thoung his irrationality cannot be ignored altogether. Hobbes’ dogma that man is by nature unsocial and an enemy of his kind is diametrically opposed to the Aristotelian dogma, that man is a social animal. Society exists by nature and necessity and if has existed since man made his first appearance on this planet. As man is social he cannot lead an isolated life and his sociability makes him a tational being, co-opertive and sympathetic towards his fellow-men. Hobbes’ ethical and political philosophy is based wholly on egoism and hedonism.
Hobbes described the state of nature as pre-social and pre-political. At he same time, he said that man enjoyed in the state of nature natural rights. Kights always arise in a society. If there is no society, as Hobbes’ state of nature was how could there exist any righta? Every right has a corresponding obligation. But Hobbes’ man in the state of nature had no obligations he did anything that pleased him and possessed anything that he could take and hold against all other. Again according to Hobbes therewas a surrender of rights. But it is against commonsense to believe that man would ever surrender all his rights. Hobbes himself becomes inconsistent when he says that man retained to himself the right of self-preservation. There cannot be complete surrender and then reservation of a right.
A contract is always between two parties it cannot be unilateral or one-sided. Hobbes makes the sovereign the beneficiary of the contract but not party to it And the contract is perpetual and irrevocable. This transaction hardly appeals to human reason. Hobbes also fails to distinguish between the tate and government . He confounds the legal absolutism of the State with govermental absolutism and he does not see that changes in the forms of government do not imply the dissolution of the State.