Give Hobbes' three psychological arguments for the state of war

Hobbes argues that in a ‘state of nature’, individuals are not subject to a common higher authority; instead they are free to follow their desires and act upon their own private judgement. We all have a natural right to follow our own desires and are not obliged to do otherwise. However, when everyone follows their desires, we end in the worst possible condition for our self-preservation. ‘Good’ for each individual is different as each individual follows their own desires. Humans are not necessarily selfish but fragile and for Hobbes this leads to the three psychological causes for war. Hobbes argues therefore that a ‘state of nature’ is a ‘state of war’.

The first psychological cause of war is competition. When two people desire the same thing (food, water, shelter) controversy will arise. Neither person has a right over that which they desire and there is no higher authority to instruct them who can have the thing that they desire. Therefore, these two people are likely to fight over the thing which they desire. In this case it is not selfishness that leads us to war but our right of self-preservation. In a state of nature, Humans will naturally compete with each other over resources.

The second psychological cause of war is diffidence. Hobbes argues that all men are roughly equal. This equality leads to a notion of universal vulnerability – any person has the power and ability to kill any other person. Even if one man is stronger and fitter, another man can use resources and make weapons to attack the first. Moreover, once we realise that all humans are fragile, we become uncertain towards each other’s motives and unable to trust the other. As we cannot tell the motive of the other, it seems as if our best option is to pre-emptively strike (which gives us an edge over the other). However, we also realise that the other has an incentive to strike first. This escalates our psychological distrust of the other.

The third psychological cause of war is glory. Hobbes argues that we can distinguish between two different types of pleasure, sensory pleasure and pleasure of the mind. Pleasure of the mind consists in imagining yourself satisfying your desires, both in the future and in the past. Hobbes argues that we when we anticipate a future satisfaction of our desires we’re actually contemplating our own power. Hobbes calls the process of imaging our own power ‘Glory’. When people indicate that they recognise my power it gives me pleasure (boosts my glory) and reaffirms my own sense of power/pleasure of mind. When people undervalue my power it causes me pain and so I will resent them and often seek revenge against them. Once we realise that everyone is a glory seeker we also recognise that everyone is a threat to our glory. Moreover, we recognise that we could offend someone very easily and unintentionally confront existential threat. Furthermore, it is very likely that people don’t value you as much as you value yourself. Therefore, offense can be made easily over small seemingly inoffensive issues. Therefore, Hobbes believes he has, from empirical observations of the material world, identified the three psychological causes that force a ‘state of nature’ to be a ‘state of war’. He will next move onto how we can rationally emerge from this ‘state of nature’.