eople magnify their own. From this equality, Hobbes asserts that people have same chances in fulfilling their goals. Human nature is avarice such that all people try to get what they can. When any two men desire the same things, they start to compete with each other. This competition leads to enmity and distrust between them. For their own perseverance, people may go to such an extreme as to destroy each other. Moreover, as they are equally able to do so, none of them is thus safe. Therefore, Hobbes suggests that equality brings both competition and distrust among people.
             To free themselves from danger, people have to gain as much power over others as possible. As they are doing this only to ensure their own conservation, there is no right or wrong, justice or injustice. "The desires and other passions of man are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from them, till they know a law that forbids them (Hobbes, Chapter XIII, 10)." It is the right of the nature that allows people to do anything for their self-preservation.
             Moreover, people are so keen to gain recognitions from others that they can go so far as to use violence to force the others.
             Therefore, in the state of nature, competition, diffidence and glory lead to a "war of all against all". In such a condition, all human efforts are doomed to fail and people live in violence, danger, and fear. The life of man is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short (Hobbes, chapter XIII, 9)".
             For Hobbes, although in the state of nature, there is no right or wrong, no justice or injustice, there are still laws of nature. The first law of nature is to seek peace and to follow it. People are inclined to find a way to protect themselves. The second law of nature, as Hobbes declares, is that people can protect themselves best when they keep their rights of dealing with others to the same extent they feel fit for others to keep over them. A...