Copyright © 2009 Bruce W. Hauptli
Selections from Part I of The Leviathan: Of Man:1
While I have not assigned the introductory selections from this Part, the following three remarks help us put Hobbes' theory into perspective:
519 …by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in Latin CIVITAS, which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it s intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body….
-Hobbes sees the civil society as nothing but a composite of the atomic individuals. For him the nature of the social (and its behavior) is a rational consequence of the nature of the "parts" (individuals).
The self-evident truth of egoism: "...whosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he doth when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc. and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon like occasions."529 Hobbes' view of good: "but whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good...these words of good, evil...are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so...."
Chapter 13. Of the Natural Condition of Mankind As Concerning Their Felicity and Misery:
In this Chapter Hobbes clarifies the nature of the atomic elements of civil and social entities--individual men (as they are outside any social or civil setting).
534 Men are equal in nature.This equality of ability yields an equality of hope and makes men enemies to one another.
535 State of war--the lives of individuals are nasty, brutish, and short.
536 In this state nothing is unjust.
Chapter 14. Of the First and Second Natural Laws, and of Contracts:
In this Chapter Hobbes clarifies the two fundamental laws of nature which he believes each rational egoist can come to recognize as applying to human behavior. It is important that we recognize that, for Hobbes, these natural laws are arise from our nature, that they are not "externally imposed upon us, and that they are "binding" upon us (obligatory) because, as we can rationally recognize, the behavior they recommend is in our self-interest.
536 In the state of nature "...every man has a right to everything; even to one another's body."
-In such a condition, there is no security!
First Law: "...and consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason, that every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all the helps and advantages of war."-Note that this passage clearly indicates that Hobbes is offering an ethical egoism (rather than a psychological egoism)—he speaks of how people ought to behave (what they should endeavor to obtain) rather than how they do, as a matter of fact, behave. He also indicates what people should do when they have no hope of obtaining the peace which they seek—we should accept, then, no constraints upon our actions as we aim to satisfy our desires (and should recognize that “the best defense is a good offence”)! Now I believe that any reasonable moral theory must provide an account of why people do not do what they “ought” to. Hobbes’ egoistic answer to this question has to do with what he takes to be our “thirst for power.” Given our egoistic nature, we are sorely tempted to take a “short run view” which assigns primacy to fulfilling the “desires of the moment,” but this sort of behavior, when generally pursued, leads go the condition of a “state of nature,” which is not conducive to the satisfaction of our egoistic desires. For this reason, as egoists, he contends, we should accept the constraints recommended by the laws of nature. Rational egoists will accept the constraints, where others do so also, in order to increase the possibilities of satisfying their egoistic desires. They do not do so as a matter of course (in the way that falling material bodies “obey the laws of gravity,” because of the strong and immediate pull of their desires and their “lust for power” (which is necessary for fulfillment of these egoistic desires).536-537 Second Law: "from this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavor peace, is derived this second law: that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself."
5537 On the renouncing and transferring rights.
-the mutual transferring is called contract. There are some rights one can not give away.539-541 Power and contracts.-"Whensoever a man transferreth his right or renounceth it, it is either in consideration of some right reciprocally transferred to himself of for some other good he hopeth for thereby. For it is a voluntary act, and of the voluntary acts of every man the object is some good to himself2...the motive, and end for which this renouncing, and transferring of right is introduced, is nothing else but the security of a man's person, in his life, and in the means of so preserving life....And therefore if a man by words, or other signs, seem to despoil himself of the end, for which those signs were intended; he is not to be understood as if he meant it, or that it was his will; but that he was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted."
-539 "...the bonds of words are too weak to bridle men's ambition, avarice, anger, and other passions, without the fear of some coercive power; which in the condition of mere nature, where all men are equal, and judges of the justness of their own fears, cannot possibly be supposed. And therefore, he which performeth first, does but betray himself to his enemy; contrary to right, he can never abandon, of defending his life, and means of living."
--Contrast his views here with Plato's!
Chapter 15. Of Other Laws of Nature:
In this Chapter Hobbes describes additional laws which rational egoists would all recognize.
541 Third Law: "...men perform their covenants made...."
-Justice and injustice arise in the social context: "...where there is no commonwealth, there is nothing unjust."
545 Tenth Law: "...at the entrance into conditions of peace, no man require to reserve to himself any right which he is not content should be reserved to every one of the rest."546 The upshot of these natural laws:
-Hobbes: "Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyself."--How does this differ from the Christian version of the "golden rule?" The latter says: "whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." The text leading up to this in the Revised Standard Version is reproduced in Appendix I below. The two maxims are radically different. The former implies an obligation to refrain from certain action because one wouldn't like to be on the receiving end. The latter requires positive action because one is to do things because one would like to be on the receiving end!
Selections from Part II: Of Commonwealth:
Chapter 17. Of the Causes, Generation, and Definition of a Commonwealth:
In this Chapter Hobbes explains why and how individuals join together in civil states (or commonwealths).
547 Men join together and restrain themselves for "preservation:""For the laws of nature, as justice, equality, modesty, mercy, and in sum, doing to others as we would have done to, of themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge, and the like. And covenants, without the swords, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all."
-Note that when he says that the “laws of nature” are contrary to our natural passions, he can’t mean this literally—both our love of power (unbridled and unbounded) and “laws of nature” (which lead us to civil society) are of our nature. It is here that we find both the “cure” to our afflictions in the state of nature, and the conflict which leads us to sometimes not do our (rationally egoistic) duty.
-Note how different a reason for the state this is from Plato's reason!-"For if we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent in the observation of justice, and other laws of nature, without a common power to keep them all in awe, we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be, nor need be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be peace without subjection."
--Why does this seem unlikely to him?548 "The only way to erect such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that, by their own industry, and by the fruits of the earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon some assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will...."
-Thus we have Hobbes' version of the "social contract:" "I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man...on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like manner."-Question: why not a restricted sovereignty? In his A History of Western Philosophy: Philosophy From the Renaissance to the Romantic Age, A. Robert Caponigri maintains that the sovereign's power is: "...in principle absolute and without intrinsic limit. To recognize any limit in principle, would be to reduce the state to one among the contestants whose interests it is supposed to mediate. At the same time, there is, due to the fact that the social compact by no means works a transformation of the constitutive egoism of men, a constant pattern of centrifugal forces, individuals seeking to evade the power of the state. To realize the absoluteness which is proper to it in principle, the state must constantly seek to bring that centrifugal pattern firmly within the orbit of its actual power. Similarly, the monarch, who stands at the center of the governmental structure of the state and embodies it must constantly seek the actual extension and insure the actual inclusiveness of his power. It must have the sole power to resolve all contests between subjects; it cannot tolerate any contest of interest between itself and its subjects, individually or in any pattern of collectivity. The state, in its idea, and the absolute monarch are completely and organically related and expressive of each other."3
Additional material as a class Handout:4
Chapter 20. Of Domination Paternal and Despotical:
In this Chapter Hobbes distinguishes sovereignty which is established by "acquisition by force" (conquest and force) from that established by "institution" (contracts and agreements), points out that the rights of the sovereign are not affected by the method by which sovereignty is established, and describes the rights of parents to rule their children.
193 ...God has ordained to man a helper, and there is always two that are equally parents...." Hobbes goes on to say that in civil states the civil laws determine which parent has authority, while in the state of nature it is up to what the egoists decide. Hobbes notes that in most societies patriarchy is the norm, but he mentions that the Amazonians would have a different rule.
-In her "Hobbes, Patriarchy and Conjugal Right," Carole Pateman maintains that: "his picture of natural, atomized individuals, who "spring up like mushrooms"--[Hobbes says:] "consider men as if even now [they] sprung up out of the earth, and suddenly, like mushrooms, come to full maturity, without all kind of engagement to each other" 5--denies any significance to the mother-child relationship and the dependence on the mother that provides the first intersubjective context for the development of human capacities. Di Stefano claims that there is no room for nurture within the family in Hobbes' state of nature; "men are not born of, much less nurtured by, women, or anyone else for that matter.""6
Chapter 21 Of The Liberty of Subjects:
In this Chapter Hobbes discusses the "liberty" which is to be allotted to the subjects of his civil states.
196 "Liberty, or freedom, signifieth, properly, the absence of opposition...."197 "But as men, for the attaining of peace and the conservation of themselves thereby, have made an artificial man...so also have they made artificial chains, called civil laws...by mutual convents....These bonds, in their own nature but weak, may nevertheless be made to hold, by the danger, though not the difficulty, of breaking them."
197 "...in all kinds of actions by the laws pretermitted,7 men have the liberty of doing what their own reason shall suggest, for the most profitable to themselves."
-197-198 "The liberty of a subject lieth therefore only in those things which in regulating their actions, the sovereign hath pretermitted."-198 The sovereign power over life and death is explicitly recognized however. The sovereign may put an innocent subject to death and yet do no wrong!
200 In the act of our submission lies both our obligation and our liberty.
-"Every subject has liberty in all those things, the right whereof cannot by covenant be transferred."
201 Subjects can't be forced to kill themselves or deprive themselves of life's necessities.
-"When, therefore our refusal to obey, frustrates the end for which the sovereignty was ordained, then there is no liberty to refuse; otherwise there is."
--Here a potentially serious problem emerges. The sovereign will require "henchmen" or enforcers, and these individuals will have to engage in dangerous duties. But can it be in one's self-interest to act in such a dangerous capacity?
We can't resist the commonwealth to aid another individual.Our other liberties depend upon the silence of the law.
202 "The obligation of subjects to the sovereign, is understood to last as long, and no longer than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them. For the right men have by nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no covenant be relinquished....the end of obedience is protection."
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Appendix I. The Revised Standard Version of Sermon on the Mount (abbreviated):
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who morn, for they shall be comforted.
....
Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven....
So if you are offering your gift at the alter, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the alter and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.....
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.
Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if an one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if an one forces you to go one mile go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father....
Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Thus when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do....
Lord's Prayer.
Therefore be not anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day....
So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law of the prophets.8
Appendix II: Morality and Prudence:
John Locke maintains that we give up power to the state to better ourselves. Will Hobbes' subjects better themselves? In his Moral Knowledge, Alan Goldman makes this point as follows:
the standard objection to his political philosophy at least since Locke is that his cure is worse than the disease of anarchy. Our problem here is that the self-interest of citizens would not be served by making the police powerful enough to threaten and impose punishments sufficient to render it never in a prospective criminal's interest to act wrongly, even were this possible. The costs in terms of resources, loss of privacy, and increased probability of wrongful conviction would outweigh any gain from crime reduction. This would make it imprudent, hence irrational, to try to solve the problem of the rationality of wrongful behavior in this way.
....We trade social order for privacy and liberty, reducing the costs of the former by tolerating some costs of the latter. But this reasonable compromise defeats the appeal to prospective punishment in the argument in support of the claim that the risk of wrongdoing can never be worth the projected benefit from the point of view of self-interest.9
Moreover, Goldman notes that:
there appear to be situations in which individuals can maximize their own benefits by free riding on or exploiting others, situations in which others are behaving properly, in which exploiters can violate the rights of these others and hence act wrongly, but can benefit themselves, can better satisfy their self-interested desires, by doing so. If it can be reasonable or prudential to break a valid covenant, then the third law of nature is not a rule of reason, or reason cannot be equated with prudence.10If one knows that a particular encounter will be the last, then one will not be deterred by the thought of future sanctions for present behavior, and it will not pay to co-operate. But then if one knows that co-operation cannot pay on the last encounter, and one knows that others know this, then one also knows that co-operation cannot pay on the next to last encounter....11
...the rationality of moral restraint according to the self-interest maximizing conception depends on the likelihood of retaliation in the future for present misconduct, or upon one's inability to predict escaping retaliation. The truth of the claim that one cannot reliably make this prediction in turn depends on a host of empirical factors. If further interaction with particular individuals or groups is unlikely, if your present behavior is unlikely to be recognized so as to affect your reputation or future opportunities, if the psychology of present potential victims renders them unlikely to retaliate, if you can profitably take advantage now without restraint and not being penalized for doing so, if you can be reasonably certain that any or all of these conditions obtain, then you can profit from wrongdoing.12
Goldman's overall rejection of Hobbes' moral theory (in Chapter I of his Moral Knowledge) hinges upon the idea that while there is much to recommend the equation of moral obligation and rational prudence (especially the idea that "moral rules exist to make peaceful social relations and co-operative interactions among individuals possible"), "what is implausible is that these reasons always override others that a self-interested agent may have, that it can never be profitable for her to break the rules that generally are to guide her behavior toward others if she is prudent....Where these exceptions exist, the reduction of rightness to rational prudence fails."13
In his "Hobbes on Obligation," Thomas Nagel maintains that:
moral obligation is something that plays a part in deliberations, and it has an influence in situations in which a person might not perform an action if he considered only his own benefit, whereas the consideration of a moral obligation, to help others, for example, leads him to do it anyway. Nothing could be called a moral obligation which in principle never conflicted with self-interest. But according to the theory of motivation...[of] Hobbes, the only thing by which men are ever motivated is the consideration of self-interest. So a genuine feeling of moral obligation can never play a part in their deliberations." 14
Appendix III. On The "Resolutive-Compositive" Methodology:"15
According to C.B. MacPherson,
...the resolutive-compositive method which he so admired in Galileo and which he took over, was to resolve existing society into its simplest elements and then recompose those elements into a logical whole. The resolving, therefore, was of existing society into existing individuals, and of them in turn into the primary elements of their motion. Hobbes does not take us through the resolutive part of his thought, but starts us with the result of that and takes us through only the compositive part.16
The Royal Society of Hobbes' day followed the inductive methodology championed by Bacon which held that knowledge was gleaned from experience (where experience is the remembrance of what antecedents have been followed by what consequents). Hobbes held little regard for such "knowledge." He does not completely exclude experience however. His model of reason is a complex one allowing for two methodologies:
the first beginnings, therefore, of knowledge, are the phantasms of sense and imagination, and that there be such phantasms we know well enough by nature; but to know why they be, or from what causes they proceed, is the work of division or resolution....It is easier known concerning singular than universal things, that they are; and contrarily it is easier known concerning universal than singular things, why they are, or what are their causes....in knowledge by sense, the whole object is more known, than any part thereof; as when we see a man, the conception or whole idea of that man is first or more known, than the particular ideas of his being figurate, animate, and rational; that is, we first see the whole man, and take notice of his being, before we observe in him those other particulars. And therefore in any knowledge...that any thing is, the beginning of our search is from the whole idea; and contrarily, in our knowledge...of the causes of anything, that is in the sciences, we have more knowledge of the causes of the parts than of the whole. For the cause of the whole is compounded of the causes of the parts; but it is necessary that we know the things that are to be compounded, before we can know the whole compound.17
According to him the resolutive (or analytical)18 method can discover principles:
...to those who search after science...it is necessary that they know the causes of universal things, or of such accidents are common to all bodies, that is, to all matter, before they can know the causes of singular things....seeing universal things are contained in the nature of singular things, the knowledge of them is to be acquired by reason, that is by resolution....by resolving continually, we may come to know what those things are, whose causes being known first severally, and afterwards compounded, bring us to knowledge of singular things. I conclude, therefore, that the method of attaining to the universal knowledge of things, is purely analytical.19
Once individuals have such knowledge of the laws governing the basic particles, they are to proceed by "composition" from the behavior of the simplest particles to the behavior of composite things:
by the knowledge therefore of universals, and of their causes (which are the first principles by which we know why/cause of things) we have in the first place their definitions (which are nothing but the explication of our simple conceptions....It remains, that we inquire what motion begets such and such effects....Now the method of this kind of inquiry, is compositive.20
A general picture of his view, then, has us first use the resolutive (or analytical) method to move from given effects to their causes (on the simplest and most general level), and then, second, use the compositive (or synthetical) method to move from our knowledge of causes to their effects. As R.S. Peters says:
in this method a typical phenomenon, such as the rolling of a stone down a slope was taken. Such properties as color and smell, which were regarded as scientifically irrelevant, were disregarded, and the situation was resolved into simple elements that could be quantified--the length and angle of the slope, the weight of the stone, the time the stone takes to fall. The mathematical relations disclosed were then manipulated until functional relations between the variables were established. The situation was then synthesized or "composed" in a rational structure of mathematical relations....In Galileo's hands this method was highly successful because he tested such deductions by observation. In Hobbes' hands the method was not so fruitful because it always remained an imaginary experiment."21
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Notes:
1 The Leviathan, or The Matter, Form, and Power of A Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil is composed of four parts: "Of Man," "Of Commonwealth," "Of A Christian Commonwealth," and "Of the Kingdom of Darkness." The third and fourth parts argue that attempts by papists and Presbyterians to challenge the rights of sovereigns undercut social peace and stability. The passages cited here are from the Selection from Parts I and II in Classics of Western Philosophy (seventh edition), ed. Steven M. Cahn (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006), pp. 519-550. Back
2 In this passage Hobbes seems committed to a view we can call "psychological egoism"--this view holds that the object of one's actions is always some good for oneself. Note that he initially speaks, however, of "some good" which one hopes for. It seems that individuals sometimes seek, hope for, or strive to attain goods which are not goods for themselves. The psychological egoist doesn't allow for this. Cf., Joel Feinberg, "Psychological Egoism" [1958], in Reason and Responsibility (ninth edition), ed. Joel Feinberg (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1996), pp. 497-508. Note, also, that Hobbes continues in this passage by offering a view we might call "ethical egoism"--a view which says that one should behave egoistically (he tells us that there are rights which we may not give up). On this view cf. James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy (N.Y.: Random House, 1986). Back
3 A. Robert Caponigri, A History of Western Philosophy: Philosophy From the Renaissance to the Romantic Age (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame, 1963), pp. 289-290, emphasis added to passage twice. Back
4 The selection, Chapters 20 and 21 of Hobbes' Leviathan, is taken from The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill, ed. Edwin Burtt (N.Y.: Modern Library, 1939), pp. 192-203. Back
5 The citation from Hobbes here is from his Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society [1651] (the English version of his De Cive [1642]), The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (London: John Bohn, 1841) v. 2, ch. 8, p. 109. Back
6 Carole Pateman, "Hobbes, Patriarchy and Conjugal Right," in Social and Political Philosophy: Classical Western Texts in Feminist and Multicultural Perspectives, ed. James Sterba (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1995), pp. 144-157, p. 144. The citation from Di Stefano is from Christine Di Stefano, "Masculinity As Ideology in Political Theory: Hobbesian Man Considered," Women's Studies International Forum v. 6 (1983), p. 638. Back
7 `Pretermit' means "to let pass." Back
8 The Bible (Revised Standard Version), Matthew 5 through 7.12. Back
9 Alan Goldman, Moral Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 36-37. Back
10 Ibid., p. 34. Back
11 Ibid., p. 43. Back
12 Ibid., p. 44. Back
13 Ibid., p. 52. Back
14 Thomas Nagel, "Hobbes on Obligation," the Philosophical Review v. 68 (1959), pp. 68-83, p. 74-75. Back
15 Cf., J.W.N. Watkins, "Philosophy and Politics in Hobbes," op. cit. Back
16 C.B. MacPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1962), p. 30. Back
17 Thomas Hobbes, De Corpore, in The Light of Reason, ed. Martin Hollis (London: Fontana/Collins, 1973), pp. 179. Back
18 Hobbes clearly draws the identification between the resolutive phase and the "analytical" method (and that of the compositive with the synthetical) in De Corpore Chapter 6, Section 1 (Cf., ibid.). Back
19 Ibid., pp. 180-181. Back
20 Ibid., pp. 181-182. Back
21 R.S. Peters, "Hobbes," in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy v. 4, ed. Paul Edwards (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 30-46, p. 35. Back
File revised on 07/06/2009.