The Naturall Condition of Mankind
| Author | Maeve McKeown |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1474885118809602 |
| Subject Matter | Review Article |
Review Article EJPT
The Naturall Condition
of Mankind
Maeve McKeown
St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, UK
Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall, Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy, Edinburgh
University Press: Edinburgh, 2017; ISBN 9780748678662 (hardback), 272 pages, £80
Abstract
Upon what empirical basis did Hobbes make his claims about the ‘state of nature’? He
looked to ‘the savage people in many places of America’ (Hobbes, 1976: 187). Most
people now recognize Hobbes’s assertions about Native Americans as racist. And yet,
as Widerquist and McCall argue in their book Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political
Philosophy, the myth that life outside the state is unbearable and that life under the
state is better remains the essential premise of two of the most influential Western
political philosophies in the modern world – social contract theory (contractarianism)
and property rights theory (propertarianism). Critiques of these philosophies are not
new. But what is new, and exciting, about this book is that a political philosopher (Karl
Widerquist) enlists an anthropologist (Grant S. McCall) to systematically debunk this
founding myth on the basis of empirical evidence. Despite some confusion about the
book’s aims, the lack of attention to women and the risk of epistemic injustice, the
results are fascinating and, I will argue, should prompt a methodological crisis for some
schools of political philosophy.
Keywords
Grant S. McCall, Hobbes, Karl Widerquist, Locke, property rights, social contract, state
of nature
Corresponding author:
Maeve McKeown, St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, Cowley Place, Oxford, OX4 1DY.
Email: maeve.mckeown@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk
European Journal of Political Theory
2019, Vol. 18(2) 281–292
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885118809602
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