Hobbes Leviathan Introduction PHIL 2345 2008 09 Thomas

Hobbes, Leviathan Introduction PHIL 2345 2008 -09

Thomas Hobbes

Who was Thomas Hobbes (1588 -1679)? • Tutor in noble family • English political theorist • Translator of Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 1628 • Author of De Cive, 1642, and revision: Leviathan, 1651 • Controversy surrounded this work

Who Rules? • • 17 th cent. theories of Gov't Date back to Middle Ages Divine Right of Kings King is responsible to God alone – Anointing in coronation ceremony • God will punish him if he is a bad ruler • People must accept whatever he does as if it were God’s will • They may not overthrow the king!

Mayflower Compact, 1620 • Compact, covenant, contract = syns. • Social compact model in separatist churches (Reformation, 16 th cent. ) • Also joint-stock Companies • Mutual agreement (‘covenant’)—all adult males signed • ‘Civill body politick’ • For ‘generall good’ (like ‘general will’— Rousseau).

Influence of English Civil War (1642 -1651) '. . . the estate of Man can never be without some incommodity or other; and. . . the greatest. . . in respect of the miseries, and horrible calamities, [is] that [which] accompan[ies] a Civill Warre’. . . (ch. 18).

State of Nature = State of War • So. N = War of all against all (ch. 13): – ‘every man is Enemy to every man’; – No economy or trade b/c no industry, no farming is possible; – No shelter – No arts, letters or science – ‘continuall feare and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short’.

Right and Laws of Nature • Right of Nature: – permissive liberty to preserve oneself (not obligatory, however) • Laws of Nature: prudential, eternal rules derived by reason (rational choice): – 1 st: endeavour Peace, but in its absence, use 'helps of. . . Warre'; – 2 nd: surrender right to all things if others do so as well (mutual cooperation, Prisoner’s Dilemma); – 3 d: 'performe Covenants made'--foundation of Justice/Compact.

Laws of Nature • Science of Laws of Nature based on • Science of Good/Evil • Good/Evil = Appetites/Aversions – Epicurus (ancient Greece) bases his philosophy of pleasure/pain • Passions are no Sin (ch. 13) • No ref. to Christian morality in this stage

Exit from So. N/So. W (ch. 13) • equality of hope & ability (everyone can hurt everyone else; see also ch. 15) • fear, danger of violent death • own judge/executioner • rt. to each other's bodies • material deprivations • no sociability w/out a power to awe

Why do we exit? • Our Passions = key to choice to exit: • fear of death; – Is this a true Prisoner’s Dilemma? – Death is the consequence of remaining in the So. N; • desire for comfort; • hope to obtain them.

Conditions of Compact: • Unconditional covenant of every one w/ every one; no exceptions/free riders: – 'This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a reall Unitie of them all, in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with every man. . . ' • Duress allowed? – Yes: 'Covenants entred into by fear, in the condition of meer Nature, are obligatory' and enforced by Fear of reprisal (ch. 14; also ch. 18) • Use of force to enforce the compact: – 'Covenants without the Sword, are but Words‘.