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I think it's worth bearing in mind in any comparison of Hobbes and Hume
that Hume had more than practical reasons for not emphasizing a debt to
Hobbes. They were opponents on the key political-philosophical point of
natural rights. For Hobbes, government was a way of "granting" rights and
protecting naturally brutish humans from each other. For Hume, rights
predate government and government's job is to guarantee and protect them;
and, human nature is not so brutish, as humans are God's creatures with a
moral nature.
Buchanan et al. have a Hobbsian view of human nature. Jim Buchanan is
quite
forthcoming in that regard.
Sam Bostaph
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