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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Imam Khomeini, Ethics and Politics Man in the State of Nature One of the questions that preoccupy the thinkers’ mind is this: In essence, what is man—angelic or devilish? Assuming that there had been no powerful institution to administer and control human beings, in such a case what would have been the people’s behaviour toward one another?

Would they have mutually respected and observed their rights, or would they, like wolves, have fallen on and torn one another apart? Any sort of answer to this question necessitates the existence of a specific political and educational system. If we say that the human being is intrinsically wicked, in that case we will inevitably need to perpetually control individuals.

If we declare that man is innately angelic, it follows that we have to remove all restrictions and limitations, and set him free. In this context, in order to comprehend the Imām’s viewpoint well, we cannot help but embark on the subject by touching on the views of other thinkers as well, and to study their historical circumstances.

Hence, we will deal initially on the viewpoint of Thomas Hobbes[56] on this issue as well as his famous statement, “Man is the wolf of other man.” Subsequently, we will explore the view of Jean-Jacques Rousseau,[57] and then examine the Imām’s point of view. As such, we will approach the discussion from the following three (3) angles: • Hobbes’ view; • Rousseau’s view; and • Imām Khomeinī’s view. Hobbes’ view Thomas Hobbes was one the greatest English political thinkers.

He was a skeptic philosopher. As he failed to present exact and fixed foundations for ethics, he resorted to cynicism and accepted relativism in ethics. With the denial of the exact foundations of ethics, he had no alternative but to present a principle for it in society. It is owing to this that he arrived at the conclusion that for the appearance of morality in society, we are in need of a centralized and resolute authority that would maintain and promote public morality.

In the political realm, he was anti-democracy and a partisan of absolute monarchy. He believed that only in the presence of a centralized authority could the morals of society be preserved. His beliefs were greatly influenced by the events of those days in England as well as the civil wars there. One of the key concepts of Hobbes is the expression, ‘man in the state of nature’.