Hobbes IV
PHIL 2345
2008-09
News alert!
texts in modern translation:
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com:80/
Men vs Social animals
(ch. 17, 94-5)
Men
• Competitive individualists
• seek ‘Power’ for now and
for future—includes
‘conjugal’ care
• Contentious
• Can speak
• Distinguish b/w injury and
damage
• Artificial agreement:
covenant.
Bees, Ants
• work for common good
• Common good = private
good
• Cannot dispute/speak
• Cannot distinguish b/w
injury and damage
• Natural agreement
Conditions of Compact:
• Unconditional covenant of every one w/
every one:
– '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 ...‘ (ch. 17).
– no free riders —what is a free rider?
• citizens who do not want to pay taxes, yet want
benefits of public spending;
• wannabe free riders remain in SoW (ch. 18, 98).
Formula of authorisation
• ‘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’
(ch. 17; 96).
• This authorisation is unconditional:
– you do not have the option of consenting to
some actions of the Sovereign and not others.
Agency
• Sovereign acts as agent of all:
– ‘every one to ... acknowledge himselfe to be
Author of whatsoever he that so beareth their
Person, shall Act’
– Majority = voice of multitude (ch. 16).
• Sovereign acts for ‘the Common Peace
and Safetie’.
Common-wealth
• ‘…the Multitude so united is called a COMMONWEALTH…This is the generation of that great
LEVIATHAN, or rather…of that Mortall God, to
which we owe…our peace and defence’ (ch. 17;
96)
• One will (intention, strategy, programme) forged
out of many;
– the common good—internal peace and defense
against external enemies--can now be secured;
• The will of the sovereign is a key political
concept for Hobbes and Rousseau.
What is Leviathan?
• A sea monster representing evil and the
forces of chaos (The Bible, Job, 13-29):
– Many-headed, scaly, fire-breathing;
– Why would Hobbes select this for the title?
• ‘that great Leviathan, called a
commonwealth or state (in Latin civitas)
which is but an artificial man…and in
which the sovereignty is an artificial soul’.
• ‘a real unitie of them all’ (ch. 17, 96).
Hobbes’s Sovereign,
or ‘Leviathan’
Duress
• Duress allowed? Yes!
– natural law permits covenants concluded on the basis of fear:
'Covenants entred into by fear, in the condition of meer Nature,
are obligatory' and enforced by fear of reprisal (ch. 14; also ch.
18)
– E.g. agreeing to pay a ransom—it is a ‘Contract’, life in exchange
for money; ‘bound to pay it until Civill Law discharge me’;
• Sovereign may use force to enforce the compact:
– 'Covenants without the Sword, are but Words (93)‘;
– men require ‘a Common Power, to keep them in awe, and to
direct their actions to the Common Benefit’ (ch. 17)
– Tacit agreement signalled by entering the Assembly (ch. 18).
Character of the Sovereign
• Sovereign = Artificial Man (see ch. 16)
– ‘A Multitude of men are made One Person, when they
are by one man, or one Person, Represented
– Can also authorise an assemby of men as sovereign
(see below)
– Multitude = multiple authors of what representative
does
• Sovereign = reduction of multiple wills to
– ‘one Man, or ... one Assembly of men, that may
reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one
Will...to appoint one man, or Assembly of men, to
beare their Person’ (ch. 17);
Sovereign power (ch. 18)
• Each subject is author of what Sovereign does
(Rousseau shares this doctrine)
• Hence Sovereign cannot breach the Covenant (97);
• No subject may be freed from obligation to obey;
• No man who has Sovereign power may be put to death
(against regicide of Charles I, 1649)
• Agreement of each with each other, not of each with
Sovereign—
– no conditional Kingship or Sovereignty—the Sovereign may do
whatever is necessary to keep the peace and provide defense;
• Free riders not allowed; tacit consent (98).
• New covenant not allowed (97).
Sovereign’s ‘essential and inseparable’
rights (ch. 18):
• conduct censorship, inhibit free speech as necessary:
– no right to free speech as in U.S. Constitution, HK Basic Law;
•
•
•
•
Establishes ‘propriety’—i.e. civil laws;
Power of purse, coining money;
Monopoly of force
Assigns honors, rewards
– e.g. medals, knighthoods, titles of nobility)
– why important?
• Imposes punishments
• Inseparably b/c otherwise civil war may break out.
Hobbes’ condemnation of
division of powers (ch. 18, 101)
• Roman republic: Consuls, tribunes, Senate
• British constitution in Hobbes’ time:
– King, Lords, Commons
• U.S. Constitution:
–
–
–
–
‘Power of purse’ belongs to House of Reps.
Ratification of treaties, approval of Cabinet posts—Senate
Conduct of foreign policy—President
In practice, there is some blurring of these powers, but even this
would not satisfy Hobbes
• Hobbes:
– no division of powers;
– Sovereign—one man or assembly--must hold them all.
Absolute power—does it corrupt?
• Any regime is going to be faulted
• The alternative—War—is far worse:
– ‘..the estate of Man can never be without
some incommodity or other; and that the
greatest, that…can possibly happen…that
accompany a Civill Warre; or that dissolute
condition of masterlesse men, without
subjection to Lawes, and a coercive Power to
tye their hands from rapine, and revenge…’
(ch. 18, 102).