Humans as Machines in Hobbes

Humans as Machines


Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) theorized that all men act as machines, as if they were programmed to be mentally limited and inherently selfish. It is these traits that force men, in the absence of fear, to remain in a constant state of war. Hobbes’ argument is centered on the assumption that we are not creatures of logic nor reason, but programmed to be creatures of emotion, motivated by pride and vanity. He begins his argument by mechanistically describing the human body’s physical characteristics, which he uses as a precursor to describe the mechanistic nature of the human mind.
The Leviathan begins with a number of sordid, mechanical explanations for human traits. One such explanation is “the cause of vision, that the thing seen, sendeth forth on every side a visible… show.” (Hobbes I, 5) He continues to describe imagination and memory in the same fashion to clearly establish that humans have mechanistic tendencies. This sets up the ar...