The Problem of Human Motivation by Hobbes

Hobbes is one of the outstanding philosophers, who offered his views upon the problems of social interaction and human motivation and judgments, which could be useful for the sphere of psychology. Hobbes devoted a lot of attention to investigating of the problem of human motivation. Hobbes has also studied the human powers of judgments and reasoning, revealing his skeptical position about them. There were a lot of philosophers, who made their attempts to work out their account of human morality, which is inherent to everyday beliefs. For example Plato assumed that knowledge should be contrasted to opinion. Hobbes contrasted science with other forms of less reliable beliefs. Human motivation is one of the most controversial and arguable aspects of human personality and way to explain human choices and behaviors within societies.

Hobbes underlined that fact that human judgment could not be considered reliable and thus needed guidance from the side of science. He explained this by the fact that human judgments are under the strong impact of individual self-interests and desire for pleasure and these are the major motivations for people. Even in case individuals are able to share equal basic passions, sill all the factors from the surrounding world have different impact upon each single person. In addition all individuals prefer to use their own feelings in order to measure the behaviors of other people around. Hobbes writes “men vehemently in love with their own new opinions…and obstinately bent to maintain them, [who give] their opinions also that reverenced name of conscience” (Hobbes 2012). So this is the way, how individuals act in case there is no enforcement of social and moral norms.

Hobbes (2012) states that only science “the knowledge of consequences» could provide really reliable knowledge about the future and thus is more important that human judgments. Generally Hobbes considered individuals to be self-interested and self –centered and on the surface his philosophy might seem to grading all people as basically selfish. The interpretations regarding self-interest come from his lines “I obtained two absolutely certain postulates of human nature,” he says, “one, the postulate of human greed by which each man insists upon his own private use of common property; the other, the postulate of natural reason, by which each man strives to avoid violent death.” (Hobbes 1983). It is true that people want to get the things, which they want to get and that they want to avoid death. This position is only partially correct. In fact all individuals have their own interests and goals and they are looking for the ways to reach these goals. However, they are forced to live in a society and to adhere to certain social regulations and thus they are not able to do all the things, they want for the sake of their private goals. In addition there are a lot of examples of individuals, who are ready to give their money, their time and even their lives for the sake of other people.

Hobbes argued that an effective government could be built only on the basis of absolute authority and there is no need to divide its powers or to limit them. He explains that legislation could not be effective without reinforcement, in other words it would not regulate human conduct. Stepping aside from his concepts of authoritative government, it is possible to accept his position about enforcement. There is a need to create some form of social organization, otherwise humanity would be forced to live in chaos, if manages to survive at all. Individuals need these frames and reinforcement, as they often need to be guided from their childhood years. For example if a child is not told that he should respect his teachers and listen to them, then the teachers would hardly be able to gain their authority and have the chance to teach at all. This child would follow his instincts and natural egoism and would have a lot of difficulties in the future.

Irrespective of the kind of profession, either it is related to medicine, education or technology, there is a need to introduce and support certain norms and regulations, which would be necessary for all participants of the work process. Individuals would benefit from them themselves. If most of workers, for example computer scientists were committed to acting ethically and there were some, which preferred not to do this, still there could have been problems for both categories. The ethically-concerned ones would definitely want either to start playing without rules themselves and then there would have been chaos or they would want the “unethical” ones leave the profession and this would lead to serious conflicts, both social and professional. In reality the role of professional ethics could not be underestimated for computer science. Information in the modern world is one of the most important things and thus ethics in information technology should be designed to educate the IT professionals of the significant impact of ethical uses for informational technology and the whole business world. Specialists in this sphere should be able to make the corresponding decisions, when they face difficult and controversial situations and this would have positive impact upon the field of information technology.

If to assume that Hobbes is right and individuals really need enforcement in order to secure introduction of ethics, then this enforcement would be theoretically needed also for professional codes of ethics.  The types of penalties could be worked out in the form of a system, which could be based upon the degree of the breaking of this regulation.

Works cited:

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Oxford University Press, 2012

Hobbes, Thomas. Warrender, Howard, ed. De cive. The English version entitled, in the first edition, Philosophicall rudiments concerning government and society. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
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[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
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