TY - JOUR T1 - An A–Z of medical philosophy JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 146 LP - 146 DO - 10.3399/bjgp13X664306 VL - 63 IS - 608 AU - David Misselbrook Y1 - 2013/03/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/63/608/146.abstract N2 - Imagine that you were living through a horrific civil war. Your previously stable society is being torn apart. Your traditional thoughts about morality, about obeying the authorities (which ones?), about working peacefully for the good of all, these are suddenly pulled from under your feet. In horror you stand back and think: how can I tell what is right? Is there any reality to morals or are they just a veneer of social convention?This was the challenge facing Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) as he observed the nation’s slide into the disastrous English civil war of 1642–1651. Hobbes’ great work Leviathan (1651) imagines the state of our life if there were never to be any stable society, any ruling authority. He states: ‘In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; … no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, … ER -