Lecture 8: Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan

Introduction: Context

  • Thirty Years War (1618-1648)

    • Began with the Protestant Revolt in Bohemia

    • Ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648

    • Massive religious war in Europe (Protestants vs Catholics)

    • Caused destruction, instability, and death

    • Showed what happens when authority collapses

  • English Civil War

    • Puritan War and Two Civil Wars

    • King vs Parliament

    • The English Civil Wars (1642–1651), often called the Puritan Revolution or Wars of the Three Kingdoms, were a series of conflicts between Parliamentarians (supported by Puritans) and Royalists (supporters of Charles I) over religious freedom, the King's divine right, and political power, resulting in the execution of Charles I, the rise of Oliver Cromwell, and the temporary creation of a Commonwealth

    • Issues:

      • Religious Liberty

      • Sovereign

      • Social and Economic Issues

    • Aftermath of the Civil War

      • Parliament won against the monarch

      • Provided the background for the Leviathan

      • Hobbes saw:

        • Violence

        • Political collapse

        • Fear and insecurity

        So his philosophy is basically:

        “Without strong authority, society falls into chaos.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

  • Son of a vicar who left his family

  • Learned Greek and Latin at the age of six

  • Went to Oxford at the age of 15

  • Worked for the Cavendish family

  • Fled to France in 1640

  • While in France, he taught Charles II (then a prince) from 1646 to 1648

  • Went back to England in 1651

  • Published De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651)

Leviathan

  • Considered as “the first general theory of politics in the English language”

  • Considered man as equal in terms of the mind and the body

  • Due to this equality, it is considered as “source of trouble and misery”

  • Social contract as “made between subjects and subjects, and not subjects and sovereign”

  • Leviathan as strengthening of the doctrine of absolute state

  • However, it is not a defense of totalitarianism

    • a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state

Nature of Man

  • Both appetite and aversion exist in man (also love and hate)

    • Good - object of man’s desire

    • Evil - object of hate and aversion

    • Vile - contempt

  • In terms of life, there is no finis ultimus (utmost aim) or summum bonum (greatest good), but its felicity “based on continual progress of desire”

  • Inclination of man to desire power which can only be distinguished by death

State of Nature

  • Nature made equal in terms of the faculties of the body and mind

  • Brawniest man can kill a weak person, but a smart person (weak) can kill the brawny through other means

  • Once two people have the same likes, they become enemies

  • As enemies, they might “destroy or subdue one another”

  • Three causes of quarrel:

    • Competition - for resources

    • Diffidence (fear) - for safety

    • Glory - for reputation

  • Life outside of society, due to conflictual nature, is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short

  • Fear as death as “passion that incline men to peace”

Social Contract

  • Right of Nature (jus naturale)

    • liberty of man to use power for his preservation

  • Liberty

    • no external impediments

  • Law of Nature (lex naturalis)

    • Based on reason that man should not harm his own life, or take away the means for another person to preserve his own life

    • “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 helps, and advantages of war.”

  • Contract

    • Mutual transferring of right (voluntary)

  • Covenant

    • Performance

Laws of Nature

  • If there is no covenant, there are no unjust actions as man has every right to do his own thing

  • If there is a covenant, breaking it means injustice

  • Injustice as non-performance of covenant

  • Laws of nature as eternal and immutable as injustice can never be made lawful

  • Good and evil signify a person’s appetite and aversion

  • In the state of nature, private appetite determines good and evil, but under a social contract, good and evil are defined based on the agreement by people entering it

Political Power

  • To erect a common power, man must give up power and strength to a man or an assembly of men that can rule over them

  • Commonwealth (Civitas)

    • Established for peace and common defense

  • Sovereign

    • The one who holds sovereign power

  • How to become sovereign?

    • Commonwealth by acquisition - natural force (i.e. parent to children)

    • Commonwealth by institution - agreement

Liberty and Law

  • Liberty as the absence of impediments to the exercise of freedom

  • Fear of law and liberty are consistent

  • In the same way that liberty and necessity are consistent

  • Creation of commonwealth made people wear artificial chains called civil law

  • Civil law as “rules, which the commonwealth hath commanded him, by word, writing, or other sufficient sign of the will, to make use of, for the distinction of right and wrong; that is to say, of what is contrary and what is not contrary to the rule”

  • While there are laws, there is a need to institutionalize a mechanism for its enforcement, hence the need for a sovereign not bound by these rules

  • Nevertheless, the sovereign must protect everyone

Sovereign Power

  • Sovereign

    • Absolute powers not subjected to civil law

  • In commonwealths, there are different types of sovereign

    • Monarchy - one man

    • Aristocracy or Democracy - assembly

  • Diseases of commonwealth (seditious doctrines)

    • Private man as judge of good and evil

    • Whatever a man does against his conscience is sin

  • What makes a law good?

    • No unjust laws

    • Needful, for the good of people, perspicuous (lucid)

  • People depend on the sovereign “the soul of the commonwealth”