Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are just two examples of social contract moralists

by | May 24, 2023 | philosophy

 

Rather than living in chaos, danger, and the hostility of our neighbors, we find ways to live together. It isn’t easy, but can we avoid doing so?

If everybody has self-interest in their own welfare and safety, then everybody also has self-interest in the welfare and safety of others. Self-interest involves community interest, and we must think about what we are willing to give up in order to get that safety and stability for ourselves, our families, our community, our nation, and even the world.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are just two examples of social contract moralists. Locke’s philosophy helped Thomas Jefferson formulate the United States Declaration of Independence. We are interested in what it means to live together in an orderly way under a social contract.

For the initial post, address one of the following sets of questions:

What is a time when you or someone you know of experienced a conflict between duty to self and loyalty to the community? What would logical reasoning say should be done in that case? Why that? What would an Ethical Egoist say to do? Why would they say to do that? Note what you feel is the best course of action.
What is a time when you or someone you know experienced a clash between professional duties and familial duties? Reference a professional code such as that of the American Nurses Association or American Bar Association in explaining the clash. What moral values should have been used in that case? Why those values? What would social contract ethics have said to have done? Why would social contract ethics say that? Note what you feel is the best course of action.
Articulate and evaluate a time when you or someone you know saw personal obligations collide with national obligations. How did that tension involve differing positions on a moral debate? Did those positions rely on any key moral theories? If so, how so? If not, why not? Note what you feel is the best course of action.

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

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