Copyright © 1996 R.J. Kilcullen
This week we read some of the work of Thomas Hobbes: part of his translation of Thucydides, and part of his Leviathan, a work written during the English civil war to advocate strong government. But first some historical background.
Catholics and Protestants fought wars and civil wars during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Gradually the idea of religious toleration gained support. See Lecler, Toleration and the Reformation (BR1610.L433)
Hobbes was born in 1588. His first work was a translation of Thucydides, published in 1628. His last work, written when he was in his 80s, was a complete translation of Homer. He began to write about politics in the 1640s, when the conflict was developing between king and parliament that resulted in the English civil war (1642-1651 - in 1649 king Charles I was executed). In 1640 Hobbes went into exile in France. When the king's side began to lose, many royalists went to France, and Hobbes associated with them. For a time he was tutor in mathematics to the Prince of Wales, later Charles II. He associated with French philosophers, Mersenne, Gassendi, Descartes and others. (He is the author of the third set of objections printed in the second volume of Descartes' Meditations). He conducted a controversy with Bishop Bramhall, another Royalist refugee, on the subject of freedom of the will, in which Hobbes maintained that choice is always determined by motives. He was interested in the whole range of philosophical and scientific ideas of the time, but especially (perhaps because of the civil war raging in England) in political philosophy. While in Paris he published De Cive, his first major treatment of politics, and wrote Leviathan, published in 1651. In 1652 Hobbes returned to England and made his peace with the government of Oliver Cromwell. In 1660 the monarchy in England was 'restored', which caused Hobbes some embarrassment, since he had made his peace with Cromwell. In the later part of his life, and after his death, he was constantly accused by Church of England writers of atheism (see J. Bowle, Hobbes and his Critics, and S.I. Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan). He died in 1679 at the age of ninety-one. After his death was published Behemoth, a political history of the period of the Long Parliament (1640-60), which Hobbes had written in 1668.
Examples: debate over Mitylene between Cleon and Diodotus (III.36-48), the Melian dialogue (V.85 ff), Thucydides' remarks on the moral effects of the plague (II.53), and on the moral effects of the war (occasioned by the revolution in Corcyra) (III.82 ff). Also the various frank accounts of the reasons for the growth of the Athenian empire, and of the attitude of the Athenians to it ('...it was not a very wonderful action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up, under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honour, and interest'; I.76). Thucydides' account of the motivation of various leading political figures highlights the predominant influence of self-interest - for example Themistocles and Alcibiades, who both betrayed their city when it was in their interest to do so (I.136-8, [VI.92]). The same idea is expressed many times in the maxims used in speeches (e.g. 'identity of interest is the surest of bonds, whether between states or individuals'; I.124).
A further example: The pretext for the Athenian invasion of Sicily was that they had been invited by certain Sicilians, notably the democratic party of Leontini, who needed help against the oppression of the most powerful city in Sicily, Syracuse. Soon after the Athenian forces arrived in Sicily a debate took place at Camarina, at which there was a speech by an ambassador from Syracuse, who was followed by the ambassador from Athens. The Sicilians were Dorians, as were the Peloponnesians; the Athenians were Ionians. (Ionians and Dorians spoke different dialects of Greek.) The Syracusan ambassador appealed to Sicilian and Dorian solidarity against the Athenians: do not trust these foreigners, even when they claim to have come to save you from us; they will eventually attack and try to enslave you, as they have done to Dorians in other places.
The Athenian ambassador believed, and what is more knew that his audience believed, that people act out of self-interest. So to win their trust he had to show that it was in the interest of the Athenians not to treat the Sicilians as they were treating Dorians elsewhere. He sets out to persuade them that it is in the Athenians' interest to do what it is in the Sicilians' interest to want them to do. He does not pretend to any altruism or principle. He is frankly an exponent of Athenian self-interest; but argues that the circumstances here in Sicily are different from the circumstances elsewhere in Greece, and for this reason the Sicilians can be sure that the Athenians will not find it to be in their interest to behave here as they behave yonder, elsewhere in Greece. He does make reference to various moral ideas, such as fairness, as speakers in Thucydides usually do; but as they also usually do, he does not rely much on these ideas: self-interest is the main topic, in particular fear, concern for physical safety.
Now Read VI.82, 87, in Hobbes's translation.
A reading of Thucydides, then, will raise this question about human nature: are human beings capable of subordinating self-interest to moral principle or to the interest of another? Is apparent sacrifice ever more than an investment - a minor or short-term interest sacrificed to improve the chances of realizing some more important interest? (The plague: 'Perseverance in what men called honour was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they would be spared to attain the object'; II.53). Or perhaps it is the weak who pretend to sacrifice interests they cannot hope to pursue successfully, so as to put the restriction of moral principle upon the strong. So perhaps apparently principled behaviour is self-interest in disguise.
The same question is raised from time to time in Plato: Callicles in Plato's Gorgias, Thrasymachus, the argument put by Glaucon and Adeimantus (recall Gyges' ring).
Hobbes assumes that a human being always acts in his own interest. 'Of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some Good to himselfe', Leviathan, p. 192. 'Every man is presumed to do all things to his own benefit'; ibid., p. 213. He also assumes that human beings are extremely competitive. Life is like a race: 'This race we must suppose to have no other goal... but being foremost.... Continually to be out-gone, is misery, continually to out-go the next before, is felicity. And to foresake the course, is to die'; Hobbes, Human Nature, in Raphael, British Moralists, (BJ601.R3) vol. 1, pp. 14-5.
Hobbes also holds that the laws of morality do not require anyone to incur a serious risk of death - in a very risky situation the normal requirements of morality are as it were suspended. In the 'state of nature', in which there is no government to protect those who wish to live peaceably, anyone has a moral right to do whatever he thinks will preserve his life. The question is, whether, on Hobbes's assumptions about human motivation and morality, it would be possible for mankind to escape from the state of nature. The answer must be No, unless moral obligation is not altogether suspended in the state of nature, and there is some strong reason of self-interest to carry out the relevant obligations.
Some of the main themes of Leviathan are well represented emblematically on the title page (see Readings, p. 262). At the top is a verse from the book of Job: 'There is no power upon the earth which is compared with him'. The king's body is made up of people - the sovereign represents all the people as one body. In one hand he has a sword, in the other a bishop's staff -- see the title of the book, '... a Commonwealth ecclesiastical and civil'. To the left of the title are emblems of civil government (castle, crown, cannon, pikes and muskets, a tournament), to the right corresponding emblems of ecclesiastical government (cathedral, bishop's mitre, the 'fulminations' (lightnings) of excommunication, the devils' pitchforks, and a university disputation). Hobbes believed that the sovereign was head not only of the civil government but also of the Church. According to Hobbes the sovereign has the right to establish a religion (in England he has luckily established the true religion, reformed Christianity), the right to determine the doctrines of that religion, and (if it is Christianity) the right to say which are the books of the bible and how they are to be interpreted. (Cf. the XXXIX Articles of the Church of England, published by Queen Elizabeth's authority, which list the books of the bible and determine various doctrines.) The sovereign is represented on the title page by a king, but Hobbes held that the sovereign could be a body of men, an oligarchy or democracy. The argument of the book is that the sovereign must have great power, like Leviathan, if peace is to be preserved. In developing the argument he uses two key ideas: the state of nature, and the law of nature. He asks the reader to imagine what life would be like if there were no sovereign (this is the 'State of Nature'), and argues that the sovereign must have enough power to enforce the Law of nature if this unhappy state is to be ended. The application to the English civil war is clear: some tried to deprive the sovereign of necessary powers, and as a result the country slipped back toward the state of nature. In referring to the book I will use the page numbers of the edition copied in the Readings book.
Read ch. 11, paras. 1 and 2 (pp. 160-1).
'Peace and Unity': these were important themes in Marsilius and Augustine.
Notice the word 'assure': men strive for security.
Read ch. 13, p. 183-188.
Because of natural equality of power, the striving for security results in the greatest insecurity. To get out of this state of war requires a peace treaty, the 'articles' (clauses) of which are the laws of nature. Notice the useful marginal summaries of the contents of paragraphs.
In Hobbes a semicolon often has no more force than a comma, and commas should often be ignored. Make those amendments to the first sentence on p. 183 and read it aloud. "Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind then another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he".
Vocabulary: 'Pretend': claim. 'Diffidence': mistrust. 'Anticipation': getting in first, a pre-emptive strike. 'Propriety', 'dominion': property. 'Warre' is simply another way of spelling 'war'.
'Is generally allowed', near the bottom of p. 184 - cf. the end of the paragraph, 'it ought to be allowed him': Hobbes held that the rules of morality never require anyone to take a serious risk of death. Every moral rule is to be understood with the qualification 'unless it is too dangerous', so that it is suspended in cases of extreme danger. Cf. the medieval doctrine that property rights are suspended in situations of extreme necessity. Contrast Socrates, Apology, 28b-e: "You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth any thing ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life or death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action--whether he is acting rightly or wrongly".
'Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre': Note the connection of ideas - the 'consequently' applies to the rest of the sentence. There is no account of time because there is no industry, no agriculture, no navigation, which require time-keeping. [Compare this paragraph with Thucydides, I.2.]
'Nothing can be unjust', p. 188, cf. p. 202. This passage is sometimes taken to mean that Hobbes holds that in the state of nature there are no rules of morality. In fact 'right and wrong, just and unjust' are not the whole of morality. 'Wrong' here means injustice, 'right' means something just; justice is only part of morality.
Read ch. 14, paras. 1-5 (to alteri ne feceris), pp. 189-90.
"The right of nature": notice that it is not a right to do whatever you like, but only to do what you think will preserve your life. (Again, Hobbes does not say that in the state of nature there are no moral rules at all.) The right of nature is not a right to be given anything by anyone else. If I have a right to eat to preserve my life, and you have the same right, and the food is scarce, we are competitors, and neither is obliged to give way to the other. The 'right' means simply that one cannot be condemned or criticised for doing what self-preservation requires.
'Destructive of his life': Not of human life generally, but of his own life. Self-preservation is the basic law of nature. This should be understood not as a biological 'law' but as a moral law: it is wrong to allow oneself to be killed.
'They ought to be distinguished': The right of nature permits a person to do what he thinks self-preservation requires; the law of nature requires him to do that. There does not seem to be any inconsistency in saying that someone must do some thing that he is allowed to do.
'As far as he has hope', 'as farre-forth', 'which no man is bound to': recall the earlier phrase, 'Is generally allowed', p. 184. Moral rules do not require us to risk death.
Read the next three paragraphs, to 'interpreted', pp. 190-2.
Notice how it is possible to give a right to another, even though by 'right of nature' everyone already has a right to everything (top of p. 190).
'Not all rights are alienable' (marginal summary): hence the expression 'inalienable rights', rights which cannot be sold or given to another (Latin alieno, to make a thing another's).
'Some Good to himselfe': Hobbes subscribed to the theory that all human voluntary acts are self-interested. In the 18th century this was called the selfish system (system or theory of human psychology). These days it is called egoism (from Latin ego, 'I'). Cf. 'Reason, which dictated to every man his own good', p. 203; 'every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit', p. 213.
Read next three paragraphs, to 'violation of faith', pp. 192-3.
Notice that the parties may perform both now, or one now and the other later, or both later.
Read pp. 196-7, 'If a Covenant... hindrance of performing.'
Does this mean that no covenant is valid in the state of nature? No -- the covenant is not voided if one party has already performed (cf. p. 204), or if the cause of suspicion already existed when the covenant was made; and the suspicion must be reasonable. Although each is judge of the justness of his own fears, he must (presumably) genuinely believe that there is reason to fear.
Read p. 198-9 'Covenants entered into by fear... which being force, a man is not obliged not to resist.'
In which cases might such a covenant be voided by reasonable suspicion?
'As I have shewed before': cf. p. 192.
Read first three paragraphs of chapter 15, pp. 201-3.
Notice that Justice relates to just one of the laws of nature.
'Commonwealth', 'Civil power': state, government.
Hobbes goes on in chapter 15 to present the other laws of nature. According to the marginal summaries, they are: (4) Gratitude; (5) Mutual accommodation; (6) Facility to pardon; (7) That in revenges men respect only the future good; (8) against Contumely; (9) against Pride; (10) against Arrogance; (11) Equity; (12) Equal use of things Common; (13) of Lot; (14) Primogeniture; (15) of Mediators; (16) of Submission to Arbitrement; (17) No man is his own Judge; (18) no man to be Judge, that has in him a natural cause of Partiality; (19) of Witnesses. At the end of the book, as an afterthought, he adds another law, That every man is bound by Nature, as much as in him lieth, to protect in Warre, the Authority, by which he is himself protected in time of Peace', p. 718-9. These laws are, remember, 'convenient Articles of Peace', which reason suggests as a way of putting an end to the original war of every man against every man, p. 188. If only men could be induced actually to behave in accordance with these rules, they would no longer be a mortal danger to one another.
Read p. 215, 'The laws of Nature oblige..., is Just'.
"In foro interno": In the internal court, Conscience (cf. marginal summary). 'In foro externo': In the court of law, which is concerned with outward acts. In situations of great danger the laws of nature do not oblige anyone to do any outward act, but they still oblige to 'an unfeigned and constant endeavour' to carry them out. It would seem, then, that they will oblige everyone, even in the state of nature, to be ready to cooperate with others in establishing a Commonwealth to make it safe to obey them also in outward act. Cf. the first and second laws of nature, p. 190. 'Every one hath then kept [the laws of nature] when he has the will to keep them, when he can do it safely'; p. 223.
'A prey to others': cf. p. 190: "But if other men will not lay down their right... then there is no reason for anyone to divest himself of his. For that were to expose himself to prey (which no man is bound to).
Read chapter 16, pp. 217-8, 220-1.
'Person' has a different meaning now. In 'impersonate' it has something like the earlier meaning.
Read p. 227-8.
'Upon one man, or upon one assembly of men': the sovereign can be a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy. 'Carrieth this person': plays this role.
'Act': do.
Read ch. 18.
'Representative': one authorized as an agent to act on another's behalf (not necessarily bound by the other's wishes).
'No breach of Covenant on the part of the Soveraigne': Contrast Thomas Aquinas: 'It is not unjust that the king be deposed... because he himself has deserved that the covenant with his subjects should not be kept'; On Kingship, p. 27. On Hobbes's view the sovereign has no covenant with his subjects.
'Injury', p. 232: not harm, but injustice. Injustice or injury is only one of the kinds of 'iniquity' or wickedness.
'Opinions and Doctrines': Censorship is thus an essential power of government.
Meum and tuum, p. 234: mine and thine.
Singulis majores, universis minores: Many medieval writers had said that the pope is greater than any individual Catholic, but less than the whole Church, and the same dictum had been applied to kings.
'The condition of subjects', p. 238: 'And though of so unlimited a Power, men may fancy many evill consequences, yet the consequences of the want of it, which is perpetuall warre of every man against his neigbour, are much worse';. p. 260.
Notice on pp. 236-7 the reference to 'this Civil War'. Review ch. 18, and consider the bearing of the points it makes on the controversies of the English civil war.
Chapter 19 is a discussion of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Hobbes acknowledges that sovereignty may take any of these forms, but argues that monarchy is best. Chapter 20 is about the sovereignty of conquerors and of parents.
Read pp. 253-4.
'Dominion is acquired two ways': besides by 'institution' or Covenant, discussed in chapter 18.
Chapter 21 is about liberty. 'Every Subject has Liberty in all those things, the right whereof cannot by Covenant be transferred'; p. 268, cf. pp. 192, 199.
Read pp. 269-71.
Notice that everyone has the right to defend himself against agents of the government, but not to defend another person.
'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'; p. 272.Chapters 22-27 we must pass over.
Read pp. 353-4.
Compare pp. 190-1.
'Excepting the limits set him by natural law': Notice that the Sovereign does not have a moral right to do anything he likes. If he is a tyrant he is not guilty of injustice, and cannot be brought to trial or punished by his subjects, but he is guilty of iniquity, and will be punished by God. Cf. pp. 232, 264-5.
Read ch. 29.
This chapter also relates closely to the civil war. The first three opinions are supposed to be those of ignorant puritans (divines: theologians). Those who set up 'a supremacy against the sovereignty' are the high Church of England divines, who wished the Church of England not to be too much under the supervision of the civil sovereign: Hobbes regards the Church as a department of state. Ch. 30 states the duties of the sovereign, again with an eye to the civil war.
'The Actions of men proceed from their Opinions; and in the wel governing of Opinions, consisteth the well governing of mens Actions, in order to their Peace, and Concord'; p. 233. Thus the sovereign will guard his own power by causing the people to be taught their duty - for example, in church and in the universities; Ch. 30. (Hobbes insinuates that Leviathan would be a suitable textbook, pp. 383-5.) 'For if men know not their duty, what is there that can force them to obey the laws? An army, you will say. But what shall force the army?... Were they not the janissaries, that not very long ago slew Osman in his own palace at Constantinople?'; Behemoth, E.W., vol. 6, p.237. The sovereign requires the support of opinion, then, and particularly of the opinion that those who violate covenant when they can keep it safely become liable to punishment by God.
Read pp. 397-8.
Compare God's answer to Job, 'Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?' (Job 40:2). Cf. Paul: (Rom. 9:14 ff):'Is there any injustice on God's part? By no means!... But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is moulded say to its moulder, 'Why have you made me thus'? Has the potter no right over the clay...?' The laws of nature are 'but Conclusions, or Theoremes concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence' of every man, 'whereas Law, properly is the word of him, that by right hath command over others. But yet if we consider the same Theoremes, as delivered in the word of God, that by right commandeth all things; then are they properly called Lawes'; p. 217. In other words: Anyone can see that if all men acted in accordance with the laws of nature life would be better; but this is merely an intellectual recognition of the truth of a hypothetical statement, there is not yet any law or obligation. What makes it an obligation to bring about a situation in which all can and do act that way (cf. p. 215) is that God commands it.
Notice that God's command balances the egoism that Hobbes attributes to individuals. Each is concerned with his own preservation; God commands the observance of rules which will preserve all; and it is in the interest of each to obey this command because of God's irresistible power.
Read the conclusion of the second part, pp. 407-8.
See Warrender, 'Hobbes's conception of Morality', vol. 3, Supplementary Readings, p. 160.
See also Warrender's book, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes.