Civil Peace as Absence of War or Physical Conflict

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Introduction

Civil peace can be described as a condition that is more than just the absence of war or any form of physical conflict. It goes to an extent that the contemplation of rising against the government is unimaginable; this results from a situation of lasting social, political, and economic stability. Civil peace is pursued on long-term basis and it involves the process of conflict resolution. The teams involved in creating peace and offering the civil peace services are engaged in wide-base activities that are performed by civilians in regions of conflict with a mission to widen the scope of local campaigners by achievements and presence. The whole process of peace-building entails resolving all forms of conflicts that come up using non-violent means; it also includes building peace and reconstructing the society. The establishment of civil peace is facilitated by peace workers who are trained on peace building process, aggressively creating awareness on the significance of nonviolent conflict resolution and creating a working relationship with local community members where conflicts arise.

It is argued that non-violence is the greatest disposition of mankind; it is the most appropriate way available to human kind in solving the conflicts and misunderstandings amongst the members of the society. It is important to note that the need for civil peace has not arisen out of the vacuum, it 9has come as a result of societal conflicts, which are actually social facts that must be tackled. Civil peace alternates with civil war or conflict. This case, the presence of one must mean the absence of the other. Both cannot exist as social facts simultaneously. This paper examines the claim of Thomas Hobbes with respect to establishment of civil peace.

The contribution of Hobbes to the establishment of Civil Peace and the Disposition of Mankind towards Fulfilling their Civil Duty

According to Thomas Hobbes the main concern for politics is civil peace as opposed to freedom; his main ideas indicate his concern for the political and social order. Moreover, he is apprehensive of how human kind can coexist in peace and keep away from the dangers and fears of civil disagreements. Hobbes has come up with what he believes are the best ways of solving civil strife amongst the members of the society. First, he proposes that human kind should agree to offer their obedience to an unaccountable sovereign authority. In this case, he argues that authority should be given to an individual or group of empowered individuals to make decisions on all political and social matters on behalf of all the members of the society. He argued that if this is not the case, then, there is what he describes as “A state of nature” that is closely linked to civil strife. He depicts this state of civil strife as a condition of universal insecurity in which all members of the society have genuine reasons to be fearful of violent death and also where it is impossible form rewarding human corporations.

Hobbes can be credited for his ideas on t he need for all societal members to submit to a government authority. His thoughts actually provoke the mind to reflect on what life would be in the absence of a sovereign government authority; the fact is that in the absence of a sovereign authority, the society would be ruled or rather guided by the forces of nature. But human beings have differing opinions and only tend to pursue personal interest. The personal interests are never consistent and one’s personal interests may not be what another person wants or likes. The result is that in the process of pursuing different personal interests, members of the society will mostly likely run into conflicts. Consequently, this would lead to extensive fear of violent deaths as Hobbes explains. The implication of Hobbes explanations is that in the state of nature everybody is right in his or her own way and makes judgments according to his or her own interest. In this case, it is impossible to find cooperation among the members of the society.

Even though it is clear that despite the establishment of sovereign authority that makes political and social decisions on behalf of the entire society there are still civil conflicts. Nonetheless, the conflicts that arise despite the existence of a sovereign authority cannot be compared to the kind of conflicts that would be if such an authority were not to exist. This is the point of success for Thomas Hobbes in his quest to establish civil peace amongst the members of the society.

In the state of nature there are no common guiding principles or laws with regards to how scarce resources can be distributed amongst the members of the society. Due to personally perceived rights and freedoms without any form of control or limitation some people within the society will be full of natural worries that other members will most likely invade or attack them (in this case people are assumed to act according to the rights of nature) (Finn, p. 51). In t his cases, the worried members will, rationally, decide to strike their perceived opponents first in a bid to protect themselves and incapacitate the likely attackers; this is an anticipatory defense mechanism. Moreover, conflicts will be facilitated by disagreements due to religious beliefs and principles and issues that pertain to moral judgments and the need for respect by every member of the society.

Despite his propositions, the world social systems are still full of conflicts and misunderstanding amongst the members of the society. The solutions he proposed seem not to work. It is notable that, through his ideologies, he has set precedence about the essentials of political life that has pervaded the current social status. Not so many people agree with his thesis that in order to resolve the political problems in the society, members should agree to regard an unaccountable sovereign person or body of individuals as their exclusive political authority. In the current world systems, it is evident that the established political authorities still requires a lot of justification.

In fact, the existing authorities are acknowledged by few societal members; besides, the political, economic and social inequalities vividly appear to be questionable and as a result, the feelings of mistrust amongst various social groups are common. Far from political authorities, the religious authorities in the world as a whole are also significantly disputed with regards to the roles they play in establishing and sustaining civil peace and human disposition to maintain. The whole issue can be addressed in terms of equality and rights for all members of the society, an idea that the thoughts of Hobbes heralded. With respect to this, the world is now a place where everybody is supposed to have certain rights and freedom which are regarded as the basic moral claims that should guard everybody’s indispensable interest. The questions that arise from this scenario regards the kind of a person or group of persons who determines these rights and freedom and who is entitled to enforce the rights and. The main concern here is the person or a sovereign body of individuals who are allowed to be empowered to exclusively wield the most significant political authority when the fundamental assumption is that everybody has the same prerogative (Matthews, p. 40).

The ideas of Hobbes are rooted on certain personal normative and empirical assumptions without which the ideas would be impracticable. He makes an assumption that members of the society are adequately comparable in their cognitive and physical characteristics, and that no one is not vulnerable and cannot expect to be capable of exerting domination over other members of the society. He also makes an assumption that people naturally avoid death and the need to protect their own lives is incredibly strong in the majority of the people. It is important to realize that while individuals possess local liking, their generosity is limited and generally the people have the tendency to embrace partiality; this is due to suspicion and lack of confidence in others; and it is a tendency that is most likely to be extremely strong in the case of the state of nature.

The most crucial point is that in the case of civil society, every person surrenders all his or her rights of nature to the established sovereign authority, but they retain their retain the right to preserve personal lives in situations of immediate death threats. This is in contravention of the aforementioned assumptions because once everybody surrenders his or her rights to the established sovereign authority a distinction is created between those who determine the rights and those whose rights have been limited by such a social contract. It means that the sovereign authority may misuse the powers and threaten the lives of the subjects. Consequently, the subjects are most likely to use the remaining right to defend their lives to rise against the established sovereign authority and hence still destabilize the social order.

Conclusion

It can be argued that Thomas Hobbes partially succeeded in his intention to the establishment of civil peace and disposition of mankind towards fulfilling their civil duty. The fact is that without the established social contract in which the members of the society regards an established sovereign authority as the sole decision maker in terms of political matters, people would live in the state of nature where everybody has the right to everything. In this case, everybody would make judgments according what is good or bad for him and as a result other members in the society, due to fear of possible attacks, would tend to strike first against their possible enemies; in the process, civil strife would be perpetuated. However, the tendency of the established sovereign body to violate the right of the members still leads to rebellion by the subjects and hence the perpetuation of a destabilized society. The social disorder is further facilitated by the inequalities amongst the people and the fact that only few people support the established sovereign authority; in other words, in the process of establishing the sovereign authority individuals with divergent opinions compete to exercise the powers and the losers are always against and mistrust the established authority and hence rally their supporters to incline towards rebellion. This consequently results into civil conflict.

Works Cited

Finn, J. Stephen. “Thomas Hobbes and the politics of natural philosophy.” Continuum studies in British philosophy. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006.
Matthews, R. Michael. The Scientific background to modern philosophy: selected readings. New York: Hackett Publishing, 1989.

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Civil Peace as Absence of War or Physical Conflict

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