Rational actor model: Thomas Hobbes Flashcards
Emphasized that…
it is the exercise of human free will that is the fundamental basis of legitimate social contract.
Fear and punishment..
can ensure compliance, but only if entry into the contract and the promise to comply with it has been freely willed, given and subsequently broken.
His view of humanity was…
negative
Social institutions will…
enforce social contracts and laws
“War against all”
In a state of nature, people would be engaged in a “war against all”.
People must…
subject themselves to the power of an absolute ruler or institution- a leviathan- which, as a result of political contract, would be legitimately empowered to enforce the contracts that subjects make between themselves.