Midterm Practice 2

"Fear [sic], and Liberty are consistent...Liberty and Necessity are Consistent..."(Thomas Hobbes). Could it be? Is fear, liberty, and necessity always present? I believe that this is so because everyone has fear and necessities as well as liberty. Perhaps people may fear bugs, spiders, high places, bad driving, guns, animals, water, failure, etc. The necessities of many, may be material things such as money, cars, food, education, etc., but may also be intangible items such as love, care, and those type of things that aware the person that he/she is important. Liberty can also be a necessity, and is constantly present. Liberty grants a person independence and freedom, permitting that person to do whatever he/she wants as long as this freedom is not abused. Fear, Necessity, and liberty are consistent because everyone fears, needs, and has freedom, whether they like it or not because its our own human nature.

I agree with the well-known philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, because everyone does has fear, everyone needs necessities to live, and everyone has freedom. The way human beings were created, from the very beginning, was with feelings such as love, hope, fear, anxiety, jealousy, etc. Also, everyone has necessities in life, whether they truly need it or not. For example, to survive in this world, money is a major necessity. In order to survive, one must eat, in order to eat, one must have money to buy the food. There is also shelter that is needed as well as transportation. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a.k.a the UDHR, is what allows each and every individual to have liberty. It states in the UDHR in Article 1, that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." It also states, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." This means that everyone is equal, there is no greater person. Although there are those who may seem "better", meaning they have money, education, nice cars, a fancy house, etc., those people still have the same rights as a hobo living on the streets may have. Therefore, because I see fear and liberty present in the lives of everyone today, I agree with the statement of Thomas Hobbes.

Thomas Hobbes says, "Fear, and Liberty are consistent....And generally all actions which men do in Common-wealths, for fear of the law, are actions, which the doers had liberty to omit." When he says this, he means that the members within the civil society, Common-wealth, are bound to this society by covenant, and has given up their individual rights to become part of this society. Therefore, because they are bound, they fear the law, and although they may have given up their rights to become part of the society, they are granted separate rights within the body as well as contributions. Hobbes believes that the natural condition of man is also part of the fear and liberty that are consistent. The natural condition of man is that man fears the things they are bound to because they are restrained; that is where the liberty comes in, so that man will not be completely restrained. This philosopher also states, "Liberty and Necesssity are Consistent. Because they proceed from their will, proceed from liberty; and yet, because every act of man's will, and every desire, and inclination proceeds from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain, (whose first link in the hand of God the first of all causes,) they proceed from necessity." Thomas means that because of the liberty man has, necessities are formed to which becomes a desire. When he describes the continual chain, he means that from one necessity, comes another, and then another, and so on and so forth. The endless chain of desires will go on, started from the first desire caused and granted by God. God has the power to stop this chain, but he continues this desire because of the free will that man has been granted by the grace of God.

My beliefs, stimulated by Thomas Hobbes, are that fear, Necessity, and liberty are consistent because everyone fears, needs, and has freedom. Fear and liberty present in the lives of everyone today, because of the natural condition of man as well as free will. Once again, the natural condition of man is that man fears the things they are bound to because they are restrained. Liberty controls that restraint making it more "lenient". As mentioned before, God has the power to stop this, but every individual is granted free will, by God. This is why there are Christians as well as non-believers. God allows every person to choose whether they believe in Him or not. No one is controlled by anyone, but follow guidelines and promises made by that person.