Comparing Thomas And Hobbes

Thomas Aquinas holds that man is created as an autonomous being capable of developing standards from the circumstances and characteristics of the times in which man lives. In other words, the moral world is not fully formed by God; the man has basic moral principles that captures participation in the rational order of creation and freely build his daily live. On the other hand, Hobbes believes that the existence of society, political power, laws, and institutions is artificial; the truly natural, fundamental truth, the starting point of systematic construction, is the individual. Hobbes says that the man calls good and evil to what he subjectively finds pleasant or annoying, respectively. It Advocates, consequently, a radical nominalism, meaning …show more content…
this means that knowing and doing everything and only that which defends and promotes the own well-being, such as satisfaction, best interest, happiness, the greatest good, a good of indifference to others or when faced with this and worry more for the sake of himself rather than for the sake of others. Following the theory of Hobbes, it may be impossible to resolve conflicts of interest. An ethical theory is asked to provide guidance to live, which includes living with other people, and therefore solving interpersonal conflicts. If each agent does what it most benefits him, then when a conflict approaches and each defends his interests, the agents will do the right thing for their own benefit, but the conflict will not be resolved. Selfishness, rather than solving, will seem to despite its appeal to rationality and self-interest, will end up …show more content…
For him, in this world created by God, everything is perfect and wonderful, but there is evil as privation of good. The reason that argues Thomas Aquinas that evil is necessary in the creation, is that thanks to this, the man approaches divinity. Physical evil and pain is inseparable from the human essence. Feeling pain and pleasure are inseparable characteristics of human nature and respect to the moral evil present in creation is also necessary for man to freely choose the path of divinity. I believe that Hobbes theory is flawed and full of ironies until some point. His psychological egoism theory is clear and persuasive. It is a clear point because there is no difficulty in understanding the message and it is persuasive because it brings close the duty to the desire, what man reflexively desires, is the morally right thing to do. However, I consider it to be a flawed theory because it gives no value to the interests of others by itself, when it is appropriate it should be respected, but when it is not, then it should not be respected. Accordingly, Hobbes's theory cannot justify moral principles such as human dignity. The great irony of his approach is that the individual can only live in peace under absolute power. And this is also his problem, because since his theory is not possible to set limits and safeguards against state power, which can destroy that