Humanity’s New Natural Condition

• Author: Rebecca Aili Ploof
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221128898
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221128898

Political Theory

2023, Vol. 51(1) 217 –223

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917221128898

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Article

Humanity’s New

Natural Condition

Rebecca Aili Ploof1

Abstract

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The

ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective

but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were asked: What will

political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What

claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten,

twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those

claims in their future contexts? How will the consistent concerns of political

theorists evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries

from now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their

rough equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What

follows is one of the many confabulations published in response to these

queries.

Climate change exacerbates conflict, but also heightens our motivation to

resolve it. A new form of sovereignty is the key to doing just that.

Thomas Hobbes, April 30, 2051

The story of modernity is in many ways a story of triumph. Characterized by

never-ending interpersonal violence, our natural state is an ignoble and unim-

pressive one. Through the power of human reason and ingenuity, however,

we moderns have envisioned and engineered a form of sovereignty that

resolves the war of all against all. Politically wresting order out of chaos, and

1Leiden University, The Hague, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Rebecca Aili Ploof, Leiden University, Wijnhaven 6.11, Turfmarkt 99, The Hauge, 2511DP,

The Netherlands.

Email: r.a.ploof@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

1128898PTXXXX10.1177/00905917221128898Political TheoryPloof

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