THOMAS HOBBS (PHILOSOPHY TEST)

Politics Before Hobbs

• Pre-Modern political philosophers believed that the political community was “natural.”

• The purpose of the political community was thus to promote a specific sort of life for human beings

Rights of Kings Before Hobbs

• many believed that subjects should obey political authority b/c the ruler is appointed by God to rule over the political community.

• Hobbes freed politics from religion.

  • Politics is a human creation designed to serve human purposes.

Old Assumptions in Question

1. he claims the state is not natural.

   • It is an artificial construction.

2. he argues that the task of the state is to bring peace and security.

   •  Its goal is not the moral improvement of its citizens or the salvation of their souls.

What did the royalists and Parliamentarians believe?

• The royalists (including Hobbes) believed that the monarch should have power

  • least subject to division and factionalism

• the parliamentarians argued that legitimate authority resided with an elected parliament.

Curius regio, eius religio

• Which meant that the head of each state had a right to determine the religion of the state.

how is Hobbes Modern Political Thinker?

• • He writes of the “sovereign” (more like a political office) rather than the prince.

  • His method is formal, scientific, and analytical (rather than historical).

  • He emphasizes the rule of law, and places emphasis on the natural right of individuals to self-preservation (instead of outlining the duties and obligations of the citizen).

  • He undermines christian authority by subordinating religion to the interests of the state.

Hobbs Argument

• governments should not be in the business of promoting a good or best life for their citizens

  •   we cannot know with any certainty what a person’s ultimate purpose is.

• re-direct our interests away from contentious questions of salvation

• to questions of what sort of government could guarantee the basic peace and security of its citizens.

Paradox of Hobbs

1)  Hobbes believed the sovereign should be invested with absolute power over civilian and ecclesiastical life.

BUT AT THE SAME TIME

2) argued for the basic equality of all people, and claimed that the legitimate sovereign derived its authority from its citizens.

• This is the language of modern liberal democracy.

Descartes vs Hobbs

• Descartes believed that only our bodies were material (and can be altered to scientific understanding).

  • He was a substance Dualist

• Hobbes’ view of human nature is more consistent with modern science.

  • He argued that all of human nature was part of nature not outside of it and consequently it is possible to have a science of human nature.

Hobbes Method / why he made it

2 step Method → Resolution and Composition

• The best way to understand a process, a system or an event is to resolve it into its parts.

  • We can then analyze the parts and recompose them, with the help of a theory, to explain their interactions and inter-relationships.

Steps of Hobbe Method in Politics

1. resolve” society down to its parts.

2. If the basic parts of any society are human beings, that means we have to begin by analyzing human nature.

3. once we understand human nature, then we can see what sort of government is appropriate.

Sensation

• Hobbes claims that external bodies act on our senses, and this produces the sensations and images of external objects

• New sensations bombard us all the time.

  •  The old sensations “decay,” preserved in the imagination and memory. (This explains dreams)

Does Hobbed believe in Innate Ideas

• Hobbes denied that we have innate ideas. All ideas have a material cause.

• When we think, our thoughts are either “regulated” or “unregulated.”

Regulated Thoughts

• When our thoughts precisely mirror the cause-effect relations governing the material world

Unregulated Thoughts

• When we daydream, free-associate, or just make our way through the world

Are we guided by Reasoning?

• Hobbes denies that we are guided by reason

  •  that reason is in control of the soul.

• Hobbes doesn’t deny that we are rational

  • Ultimately it is just competing desires that motivate you but reason can help choose which desire

Vital Motion

• Motions in a living thing essential to its life—e.g., breathing, digestion, the circulation of the blood.

Voluntary Motions

• moving a limb or something

Appetite

• When the vital motions increase (salivating, stomach
  growling) we experience pleasure, and this initiates a
  voluntary motion toward the object (food).

Aversion

• When the vital motions decrease (cold sweat, lump in
  stomach), we experience pain, and this initiates a
  voluntary motion away from the thing (wild animal).

2 types of Aversion/definition

Intrinsic  (like the desire for food and sex)

Interactive (Acquired through experience)
- We claim and get rid of things through trial and error

State of Nature

• A hypothetical device

• Hobbes uses this device as a “thought experiment” that enables us to see what life, hypothetically speaking, would be like in the absence of government.

Problems in the State of Nature

• Competition is a problem in the state of nature

  • In a world with limited resources, if 2 or more people desire the same object then conflict will come

First Law of Nature

• Seek Peace

• we desire self-preservation

• the causal relationship between what we desire (life) and how it can be achieved (through peaceful
  cooperation).

Second Law of Nature

• We should lay down the right to all things

• we must give up certain rights to guarantee no war

• mutual surrender of natural liberty for everyones self-interest

The right of Nature

• We can do whatever is required to protect ourselves

• If everyone acted based on natural right, then the war of all against all would occur

Leviathon

• The artificial man whose power and authority lead us from the state of nature into the political community

• the sovereign is a reflection of our will as it is established by contract.
  - we cannot rebel against it once in place

Rights and Freedom (Silence of the laws)

• Hobbes argued that we have no natural right of free speech, association, etc.

• We must give them all up to create the government that will offer the most basic protection

• However, if an activity is not strictly forbidden, then it is permitted.

  • Freedom consists “in the silence of the laws.”

The Sovereigns job

• Sovereign acts on its behalf the civil society

• The Sovereign is granted absolute power to maintain control and do what needs to be done to preserve order.

how does he distinguish living from non-living things in the leviathan?

living things move and grow
- the source of motion is within the organism

Biggest aversion?

• VIOLENT DEATH only thing all individual can agree on

• in the state of nature, this is a strong possibility

Social Contract/ Problems with it

• that it is in everyone's interest to enforce rules that ensure safety and security for everyone, even the weakest.

PROBLEMS

• selfish people would break the contract if they could get away with it
  - SO there MUST be an enforcement mechanism
  - thus, we need a common power with right and force sufficient to compel performance

Basics of the soverign

• the Sovereign is established by contract, it is not part of the contract.

• Therefore, the Sovereign cannot be dismissed or
  overthrown.

• The Sovereign is not appointed by God; its power rests purely on the consent of the governed.