Hobbes Vs Kant

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As time passes ideology and government change, for the better or worse. Kant, Marx, and Hobbes all lived in a different world with their own set of set of difficulties and opinions. I believe none of them are truly correct in their ideas of humanity and government, and by understand their beliefs in relation to the time period we can better understand all of their works while at the same time formulate our own perspective on the issue.
Before delving into their beliefs we need to first understand the world in which they came from. Thomas Hobbes lived during a time of civil unrest, during the English civil war, and throughout his life had a negative view on humanity. Due to this, he published the “Leviathan” in 1651. Many years later in the …show more content…

We live by the law of nature and act accourding to our own best interests without regard for others. This would directly go against Kant’s categorical imperative and belief that morality is black and white with no exceptions. The categorical imperative stated that an action is moral only if it can become a universal maxim and is done out of duty. Likewise, stealing an item from someone would go against Kant’s belief of not using people as a mean, which Marx would also agree with. Both Marx and Kant did not won’t people to be taken advantage of, but in contrast with Kant, Marx would agree with Hobbes that there is no such thing as moral rules. Marx claimed that morality was created by the ruling class to keep themselves in power. In this same way Hobbes said that society, not nature or God, created the rules on what is moral. Likewise, what is morality right was always changed with time depending of who ruled. Because of this Marx wanted to figure out was not what morally right in this society, but how people should act to create a new one in which there is an equal playing field for everyone to agree on what is moral.

Even though Marx criticized capitalism and government in general, he know they were a necessary evil, but unlike Hobbes and Kant who believed government was here to stay, Marx felt that once the time was right, government should be abolished

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