For centuries, mankind has been consumed with the concepts of human nature and conflict in society. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, two British philosophers, have spent a great deal of their lives thinking and arguing extensively on this subject. It was their passion, contentions and philosophies about these particular subjects that remain a staple in current theories about humans. An example of a conflict that is related to their theories about human nature and human society is the situation that is going on between the United States and Iraq. The United States is claiming that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and wants them to disarm the weapons immediately. Iraq denies the claim. The United States has issued an ultimatum: Iraq must dismantle the weapons or else the United States will invade Iraq and disarm the weapons themselves. There is a stalemate between the two sides and unless a resolution can be reached quickly, war is inevitable and imminent.
When a specific action must be taken, a judgement must be made on whether the task is good or evil. Then, at the end of the deliberation, a conclusion is drawn whether or not the act will result in good or evil consequences. "Good. Evil. But whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable." (Hobbes, Leviathan 48) Hobbes believes that the deliberation process is purely subjective, depending on the person deliberating and this cannot be considered a proper solution without any empirical evidence and therefore it cannot be considered a science. The science is that definitions that have been established before hand and therefore the conclusions reached are the results of empirical knowledge. Definitions used to reach a conclusion that arent established through the scientific process are results of opinion based theories and, therefore, conditional.