Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes are two of the most influential political philosophers. Yet their theories on the formation of political communities are as far apart as the times they lived. In 340 B.C. Aristotle’s Athens practiced one of the earliest forms of democracy. The male citizens voted on legislation. Women were expected to “stay in their homes”1. Slaves made up the majority of the Athenian working force. Despite the inequality of social hierarchies there was stability within the city-state. Conversely, Hobbes’s pluralistic 17th century England was burdened with instability. In 1598 King James I asserted his divine right. He felt no need to justify his heavy-handed policies to the rest of the country. Meanwhile religious turmoil arose between Puritans and Catholics. Civil war ensued. Neighbors fell victim to each other’s barbarianism. Predictably Hobbes’s Leviathan and Aristotle’s Politics clash. Aristotle’s community derives from man’s interdependence. Hobbes’s community begins with a “social contract”2. Both doctrines overlook key elements in the formation of communities. The Leviathan leaves a major gap in its rationale when it fails to explain how war-minded individuals begin to trust others enough to discuss a “social contract”. Politics does not account for human conflict in the forming of communities. However Aristotle’s theory is preferable for two reasons: his chain of logic remains unbroken if we add conflict to his equation and his theory of human nature is more inclusive than Hobbes’s exclusively self-interested man.
Hobbes’s “state of nature” is the antithesis to Aristotle’s human nature. According to the Politics we “cannot exist without each other”3. Man is a political animal. In addition to our interdependence we have “a moral disposition” “which causes us to act justly”4 or unjustly. This is the virtue of practicing “good”5 towards others. In the Leviathan the “state of nature is a state of war between equals. The weakest can...