Appraisal of Thomistic political philosophy as a solution to bad government

Appraisal of Thomistic political philosophy as a solution to bad government

CHAPTERONE/ INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy takes, as it’s starting point a pessimistic view of man’s nature. For Hobbes, the basic motivation of mankind is “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.”‘ Given the Universality of this desire for power, life in the state of nature, before the imposition of civil laws backed by sovereign force, must be a perpetual struggle for the possessions, supremacy and glory.

Thus, the outcome of man’s productive effort is always uncertain, and life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”To avoid this intolerable situation conjectured Hobbes, men following the dictates of natural law, seeking peace, renounced some of their rights or freedoms to a single sovereign authority, by entering into a social contract or covenant thereby creating an artificial man, that a. great Leviathan, called a commonwealth or state. Hobbes’s account does not point to any single form of government. But he does insist, however, that whatever form the sovereign body takes, its authority must be absolute, unlimited and irrevocable. Hobbes’s theory of absolute sovereignty was presented to us as a fiat, meant to be a general theory for all human society, but in Igala political thought, power and authority belong to all.

Thomas Hobbes‟s ideas on corruption have been largely overlooked. My first aim is thus to uncover Hobbes‟s understanding of corruption. Hobbes uses the term over 100 times, and textual analysis shows that he often talks of what I will call „cognitive‟ corruption – the distortion of mental processes, by faulty reasoning or improper attitudes.