1.Biography
2.Hobbes’ view of Nature and the Nature of Man
3.The Human Condition
4.The State of Nature (Warre)
5.Covenant
6.Rights of Nature, Laws of nature
7.Civil Society, and the Common-wealth
8.The Sovereign
1. Brief Biography of the Long Life of Thomas Hobbes
- Born 1588 died 1679, aged 91
- As a young man acted as amanuensis to Francis Bacon,
- 1628 tr. Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War
- 1634-7 Hobbes travelled to Italy, met Galileo
- 1640, exile to France
- 1650 met Descartes in Paris
Hobbes considered Aristotle "the worst Teacher that ever was, the worst Politician and Ethick" (Aubrey Brief Lives, Penguin, 237).
The Biblical Leviathan "I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame. Who can strip off his outer garment? Who can penetrate his double coat of mail? Who can open the doors of his face? Round about his teeth is terror. ... Upon earth there is not his like, a creature without fear. He beholds everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride." (Book of Job 41:12-34)
2. Hobbes’ mechanistic view of nature and human nature
i. ‘When a body is once in motion it moveth (unless something els hinder it) eternally.’ p.88’
ii. Sense:‘For there is no conception in a man's mind, which hath not at first ... been begotten upon the organs of sense" (85).
iii. Reason:When there is a controversy, "the parties must by their own accord, set up, for right reason, the reason of some arbitrator, or judge, to whose sentence they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right reason constituted by nature ...".
4. Good and Evil:
‘But whatsoever is the object of any man’s Appetite or Desire, that is what he for his part calleth Good: and the object of his Hate and Aversion, Evill …for these words of Good and Evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and Evill to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves: but from the person of the man (where there is no Common-wealth;) or, (in a Common-wealth) from the Person that representeth it; of from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up and make his sentence Rule thereof.’ ch 6
3.The Human Condition
Human beings share a common end: the desire to live a contented life.
Desires can never be satisfied. Hence contentment = securing means to future satisfactions
“I put for a general tendency of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death."
4. From Human nature to the state of warre
(a) Equality.
(b) Equality implies diffidence.
(c) Diffidence implies war.
(d) The sense of honour.
(e) Conclusion: War of All Against All.
i. Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a Warre, as is of every man, against every man. Leviathan, 13, 88
ii. "For WAR, consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known". (82) War is any time when there is no assurance of peace. And (of course!): "All other time is PEACE."
iii.…And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short. Leviathan, ch. 13, p. 89
iv. To this warre of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law: where no Law, no Injustice. Leviathan, ch. 13, p. 90
5.The Covenant
The solution is to be found in Passions + Reason
"The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary for commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement."
6. Rights and Laws,
Hobbes on the right of nature (i.e. basic fact of human nature). The right of nature “is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life."
Right = absence of external impediments to action : hence freedom to do whatever one decides is necessary to preserve one’s life.
Rights and Laws or “Jus Naturale" and "Lex Naturalis"
Jus Naturale = latin term for innate knowledge of moral duties. (But Hobbes denies innate knowledge.)
Hobbes defines a law of nature as "a precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same".
Laws of nature are acquired (by reason). But they are only theorems of political science concerning what is necessary for self-preservation. They are not State laws, which require political authority and the credible threat of force.
Laws of nature Lex naturalis ch.14
1."every man, ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war."
2."a man [must] be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth, as for peace, and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right [of nature] to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself."
2 a “covenants based on fear are valid”
2b“No covenant against oneself” One cannot transfer or lay down ones right to self defense.
3."that men perform their covenants made."
“These dictates of Reason, men use to call by the name of Lawes, but improperly: for they are but Conclusions, or Theoremes concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves; wheras Law, properly is the word of him, that by right hath command over others. But yet if consider the same Theoremes, as delivered in the word of God, that by right commandeth all things; then they are properly called Lawes. Leviathan, ch. 15, p. 111”
These laws are not as it were descriptive – sociological laws. Hobbes thinks of them as having normative authority – as prescriptions. In what sense do they oblige?
Generally Hobbes argues that there is no obligation without the legal mechanism to enforce law. Eg.
"covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all." (109)
Does not distinguish between legal and a moral obligation, nor between obligation to human and to divine law.
7.Civil Society and the Common-wealth
Laws of the State or Civil (positive) Laws
For the laws of nature of themselves and without terrour 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. Covenants without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all. Therefore notwithstanding the laws of nature…, if there be no power erected, or not great enough for our security; every man will, and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art, for caution against all other men. (17, 117-118)
The Law of Nature, and the Civill Law, contain each other, and are of equall extent. For the Lawes of Nature...in the condition of meer Nature (as I have said before in the end of the 15th Chapter) are not properly Lawes, but qualities that dispose men to peace, and to obedience. When a Common-wealth is once settled, then they are actually Lawes, and not before; as being then the commands of the Common-wealth; and therefore also Civill Lawes: For it is the Sovereign Power that obliges men to obey them. Leviathan ch. 26, p. 185
8.The Sovereign
The Sovereign
The only way to erect such a Common Power…is, to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will: which is as much to say, to appoint one Man, or Assembly of men, to beare their Person; and everyone to owne, and acknowledge himselfe to be Author of whatsoever he that so beareth their Person, shall Act, or cause to be Acted, in those things which concerne the Common Peace and Safetie; and therein to submit their Wills, everyone to his Will, and their Judgement, to his Judgement. This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a reall Unitie of them all, in one and the same Person, made by the Covenant of every man with every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man, I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner. Leviathan, ch. 17, p. 120