Gandhi, Hobbes, and Locke on Natural Prescriptions for Peace: Unnecessary, Unrealistic, Dangerous?

Political philosophers often appeal to the idea of natural prescriptions for action conducive to peace. Mohandas Gandhi is no exception, appealing to Nature’s Great Law, its associated Duty, and Right to Live, underwriting his conception of Ramarajya. This establishes some complex relations to the ideas of the State of Nature, Natural Law and Right in the early modern Western philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. This article explores these relations and the plausibility of Hobbesian and Lockean objections that Gandhi’s natural prescriptions for peace are unnecessary, unrealistic, and dangerous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]