Welcome back. Good to be with you again and talk about Aristotle versus Hobbes on abuse of human nature and relatedly views of human society. I asked you to think about whether people were cooperative, competitive, trustworthy or not, and so forth. Based on the readings, what did you see Aristotle or Hobbes would think about that question. I think what you would have seen is that Aristotle tended to think of people as much more by nature, cooperative. Hobbes tended to think of people as much more by nature, competitive, it odds with each other. Prepared to fight each other all the time. Hobbes would have seen people as much more by nature, inherently selfish. Aristotle would have thought of them as concerned with others altruistic. Aristotle would have thought of people as little more honest, that's related to trustworthy. But Hobbes would have tended to doubt them a little more, thinking of them a little more dishonest there. What did they think human beings are naturally like? I asked you to think about, if you asked Aristotle or Hobbes, give me two or three adjectives that describe what human beings are like. What adjectives do you think that they would have used? Aristotle would have used words like cooperative and trustworthy and altruistic and self-worth. Hobbes would have used words like competitive and mischievous and untrustworthy and inclined to quarrelsome and all that kind of a thing. Pretty sharply divided views on that. Aristotle on human nature, remember the reading, you saw that he said that a social instinct is implanted in all human beings by nature, and that human beings are by nature political animals. What did they mean by political animal? The word political comes from the Greek polis, the city state back then. Political animal doesn't mean somebody heavily involved in party politics. In our case, with the Democrats or Republicans. Political animal means somebody meant for life within the polis, meant for life within society. If that is where the natural place is, that they should be there. That was Aristotle's view that by nature meant for life and society. Hobbes sought really quite the opposite. He said that human beings don't have any pleasure, but a lot of grief when they are together without a power to keep them all in all. That was Hobbes's view of the government, is that the natural state of human relationships is a state of strife where people are competing against one another, fighting war, sometimes killing each other, and for the sake of security, for the sake of self-preservation, they give up all their individual power to a central power to the state. The state basically keeps them from each other's throats. In Hobbes's view, the state has a negative function, police role, of keeping people from doing harm to each other. Aristotle sees the state as having a positive role, less like a police officer, more like a parent which has the police function in it. But then also the caring, nurturing, helping people grow to their fullness function as well. Hobbes is saying there are three causes of quarrel among human beings. The competition are always seeking glory, prideful, etc. Essentially negative view of human nature on the natural state of human relationships related to the views of human nature. Aristotle is saying the states creation of nature, human beings are by nature are political animals, and a human being who doesn't need light in society is basically either a god or a monster. God too high a form of life to need it or a monster too low a form of life to be capable of it there. Remember, Aristotle said that human beings naturally get together and form families. Families naturally get together and form villages. Villages naturally get together and form states. To him that was all society's organic development where we're all inherently social beings. All of that happens because we're following our human inclinations to come together and cooperate and accomplish great things together. Hobbes again, quite a different view. When human beings live together without that common power, Leviathan, he called it the monster the state to keep them from each other's throats. They're in a state of war. Every human being against every other human being there. The famous phrase from Hobbes or Leviathan, in the book where he wrote about all of this, is in the natural state of human relationships without that central power to keep people from each other's throats, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. That is Hobbes's cheery view of the natural state of human relationships. Those are the two main arguments. What do you think about that? Who do you think has the better of the argument based on your own experience, observations in life. Are people generally more trustworthy or not, competitive, cooperative, and so forth? Did you think that people would be at each other's throats if there weren't police forces to keep us from doing harm to each other or not? There's evidence to support both sides. On Aristotle's view, United States, for instance, is a very high level of volunteerism. People volunteer a lot of time to help out where the cause is, Aristotle would expect that. A lot of times it's unpaid, you don't get a lot of glory or recognition for it. It's just a good inclination. In the early history of our country, people coming together to help each other raise barns and things like that, that's the thing Aristotle would expect to see. Cooperation among nations and things like the UN and all that, that is something that Aristotle would expect to see together. There's also evidence to support Hobbes' point of view there. As Hobbes points out, he is anticipating that people will think his view is too negative. He said, well, look at what you do. When you're at home, you lock your doors, you lock your chest where you have your valuables and all of that, when you're traveling about, you make sure that you're armed and all of that. In the United States where there are more guns than there are human beings, that would tend to favor a Hobbesian view of nature to the extent that people have those guns, have them for purposes of protection. That felt need for protection indicates you see other people as a threat. That's a little more of a Hobbesian point of view there. Then Aristotle might look at the UN and Hobbes would look at wars that are going on throughout the country on a fairly regular basis. There's evidence to support both points of view. An interesting test case would be the terrorist attacks of 9/11. That occurrence, where those occurrence is, whose point of view does that support more? Again, you could probably argue it either way. In supportive of Hobbes, the attacks happening in the first place, that is something that Hobbes would expect to see. That would reflect deep and strong divisions and reinforce those divisions. But in support of Aristotle, there was tremendous outpouring of empathy and support nationwide and then also globally in support of that. Aristotle would look at that and that's what he would expect to see. One of my cousins was one of the firefighters in 9/11 and he says as part of the cleanup, there were folks who worked on Wall Street which was nearby and they would come up to the site during their lunch break and bring lunch for all the firefighters and the other people who were working there. That's the kind of thing Aristotle would expect to see, that coming together and support and all of that. Evidence on both sides. I'll leave it up to you to decide who do you think she get the better of the argument. We're talking about leading from within. What is the relevance of all of this for leadership? Well, think about how it would shape a leader's exercise of leadership if they had a Hobbesian rather than an Aristotelian point of view. How might that affect how they go about leading? I would suggest that somebody who has a Hobbesian point of view is going to favor a centralized structure, centralized control over decentralized management. They're going to be more inclined to keep power for themselves rather than to share power with others, which is something that's increasingly encouraged in leadership literature. There are going to be inclined to watch people like a hawk, a lot of surveillance and everything like that, very close surveillance, rather than to just trust people to do the right thing. Then they're probably going to be inclined to foster competition. There are five of you on this team. Only one of you is going to get the promotion. Here's the target. Let's see who's going to win the competition. That's a little more of a Hobbesian thing. A leader who has an Aristotelian point of view is going to be a lot more comfortable with a decentralized approach to management. They're going to be a lot more comfortable with sharing power. They're not going to have a strong need to keep it for themselves. It's going to be more inclined to trust people to do the right thing rather than surveil them. Once I was studying biblical Hebrew and came time for the final exam and I got a really badly messed up back and I couldn't sit down for more than a half hour. I told the professor that and she said, "Well, I'll just give you the exam, you go home, take it within a two-hour period. I'm going to take it under the honor code, not looking at notes or books, and I'll trust you to do that." That's a very Aristotelian point of view. A Hobbesian professor would want you to do it someplace where you were being monitored by somebody to make sure you're not opening your books and notes and all that kind of a thing. The same with leaders, are inclined to trust people to do the right thing on their own or you're inclined more to watch them like a hawk there. Then the Aristotelian leader is going to be more focused on fostering collaboration and cooperation among team members rather than competition among them. Leading from within is just having a thoughtful point of view about this. I introduced all this to get you to think about it. Think about what your natural view is and how that shapes the way that you're leading and is that the way that you want to continue to lead to something for you all to think about. Thank you.