Hobbes’ Leviathan
Overview
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Biographical/Historical Background
Science vs. Prudence
Goods, Power, and Felicity
Natural Condition of Mankind
Prisoner’s Dilemma
I. Biographical/Historical Background
Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679)
Lifetime
that spanned the
reign of Charles I, The English
Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, and
the Restoration of the
Monarchy under Charles II
Entered
Oxford at 14, graduated when he was 19, got a job as a tutor
I. Biographical/Historical Background
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In 1629 he travels to Europe
and finds Euclid’s Elements of
Geometry, becomes
mathematics tutor to Charles II
He reads one of the proofs and
is astounded; has a “eureka”
experience
Recognizes the power of
deductive methodology
I. Biographical/Historical Background
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In 1636 he reads and meets Galileo and
becomes intrigued with Galileo’s law of inertia
and believes that the laws of motion apply to
the political world as well as the
physical/mechanical world
Begins to write a series of moral/political
books, including The Elements of Law
(1640), and De Cive (1642)
I. Biographical/Historical Background
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Leviathan was published in London in 1651
while he was in exile in Paris
Soon after publication he flees Paris (the
Catholics objected to its attack on the
papacy) and resettles back in England
Charles II is restored as king in 1660
Hobbes manages to live the rest of his life in
relative peace on a government pension
II. Science vs. Prudence
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How do we approach our study of politics?
Hobbes wants to develop a political science,
so we need to understand his understanding
of science
Draws a distinction between prudence and
science:
II. Science vs. Prudence
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Chapter 9:
“There are of KNOWLEDGE two kinds;
whereof one is Knowledge of Fact: the other
Knowledge of the Consequence of one
Affirmation to another…”
II. Science vs. Prudence
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“The former is nothing else, but Sense and
Memory, and is Absolute Knowledge; as
when we see a Fact doing, or remember it
done: And this is the Knowledge required in
a Witnesse…”
In what sense is it “absolute knowledge”
II. Science vs. Prudence
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Earlier, in Chapter 8 he refers to this as
prudence:
“When the thoughts of a man, that has a
designe in hand, running over a multitude of
things, observes how they conduce to that
designe; or what designe they may conduce
unto; if his observations be such as are not
easie, or usuall, This wit of his is called
PRUDENCE…”
II. Science vs. Prudence
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Or, as he defined it in Chapter 3:
“Prudence is a presumtion of the Future,
contracted from the Experience of time Past”
II. Science vs. Prudence
“The later is called Science; and is Conditionall;
as when we know, that, If the figure showne be a
circle, then any straight line through the Center
shall divide it into two equall parts. And this is the
Knowledge required in a Philosopher; that is to
say, of him the pretends to Reasoning.”
II. Science vs. Prudence
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“Whereas Sense and Memory are but knowledge of
Fact, which is a thing past, and irrevocable; Science
is the knowledge of Consequences, and depedance
of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we
can presently do, we know how to do something
else when we will, or the like, another time:
Because when we see how any thing comes about,
upon what causes, and by what manner; when the
like causes come into our power, wee see how to
make it produce the like effects” (Chapter 5).
What’s the advantage of science over prudence?
II. Science vs. Prudence
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Think of Machiavelli’s Prince and the problem
of fortune
Each incident may differ in subtle but
significant ways so that the lessons learned
from one event may not in fact be the proper
guide for another event
The problem may not be fortune but a flawed
methodology
II. Science vs. Prudence
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For Hobbes, science = sapience, which is
certain knowledge
The science which becomes our model is
geometry
Let’s look at Hobbes’ geometric politics
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
1. The world is in flux; i.e., things change
and move; two types of movement:
“There be in animals, two sorts of motions
peculiar to them: one called vital; begun in
generation, and continued without
interruption through their whole life; such as
are the course of the blood, the pulse, the
breathing, the concoction, nutrition,
excretion, etc., to which motions there
needs no help of imagination…” (p. 272)
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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“the other is animal motion, otherwise called
voluntary motion; as to go, to speak, to
move any of our limbs, in such manner as is
first fancied in our minds…” (p. 272)
If we look at voluntary motion, what
motivates us to move? In other words, why
do we engage in any of these voluntary
acts?
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
2. Some reason exists to explain voluntary
motion; something motivates us to
move:
“And because going, speaking, and the like
voluntary motions, depend always upon a
precedent thought of whither, which way,
and what; it is evident, that the imagination
is the first internal beginning of all voluntary
motion…” (p. 272)
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
3. Some reason exists to prompt the
imagination: DESIRE
“These small beginnings of motion, within the
body of man, before they appear in walking,
speaking, striking, and other visible actions,
are commonly called ENDEAVOR…”
“This endeavor, when it is toward something
which causes it, is called APPETITE, or
DESIRE…” (p. 273).
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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In other words, desire means some things
exist which are good:
“But whatsoever is the object of any man’s
appetite or desire, that is it which he for his
part calleth good; and the object of his hate
and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile
and inconsiderable.”
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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What is missing in his
definition here?
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He’s not specifying the things
which are good or evil (think of
the Greeks/Aquinas)
In other words, he’s not saying
that we all will or can agree on
what is good or evil
He is saying that every animal
and every person has some
conception of things it wants
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
In other words:
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Good: things that are desirable
Evil: things that are undesirable
Contemptible: indifferent
All of these are relational and selfishly (selfreferentially) defined
Each of us decides on our own what is
good, evil, and contemptible
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
4. If we have desires, then that which
allows us to reach those desires is what
we call Power.
 “The POWER of a man, to take it universally,
is his present means, to obtain some future
apparent good; and is either original or
instrumental” (p. 277).
 We can’t fulfill our desires simply by wishing
for them
 More power is better than less power
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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Felicity:
“Continual success in obtaining those things
which a man from time to time desireth, that is to
say, continual prospering, is that men call
FELICITY” (p. 276).
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Note it is continual success in fulfilling our
desires
Temporally extended (the desires exist
through time)
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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Means both that we will continue to desire
things and that we will continue to need the
means to achieve those desires
We keep desiring things because life exists
through time, but…
“[t]here is no such thing as perpetual
tranquillity of mind, while we live here;
because life is but motion, and can never be
without desire, nor without fear, no more than
without sense” (p. 276)
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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In other words happiness, felicity, once achieved is
not permanent, but an ongoing process:
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Felicity “consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisifed.
For there is no such finis ultimus, utmost aim, nor summum
bonum, greatest good, as is spoken of in the books of the
old moral philosophers. Nor can a man any more live,
whose desire are at an end, than he whose sense and
imaginations are at a stand.”
Need to secure means for future happiness and
fulfilling future desires
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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“[T]he object of man’s desire, is not to enjoy
once only, and for one instant of time; but to
assure for ever, the way of his future desire”
(p. 279).
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
“And therefore the voluntary actions, and
inclinations of all men, tend, not only to the
procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented
life; and differ only in the way: which ariseth partly
from the diversity of passions, in divers men; and
partly from the difference of the knowledge, or
opinion each one has of the causes, which
produce the effect desired” (p. 279).
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
5. Power is a universal drive:
“So that in the first place, I put for a general
inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and
restless desire for power after power, that
ceaseth only in death…” (p. 279).
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Why?
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
“And the cause of this, is not always that a
man hopes for a more intensive delight, than
he has already attained to; or that he cannot
be content with a moderate power: but
because he cannot assure the power and
means to live well, which he hath present,
without the acquisition of more” (p. 279)
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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In other words, because of the motion and
flux of the universe (Point 1) – things change
– we need to seek power continually, not
necessarily because we want to improve our
lot but rather simply to secure what we
already have
No one wants to regress
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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This is no major difficulty if we all lived a
Robinson Crusoe-esque solitary existence
What
happens if we take these features and
combine them in a social animal?
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
6. People live near each other such that
each of our activities influence those of
our neighbors
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
7. People are by nature equal
“Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of
the body, and mind; as that though there be found
one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or
of quicker mind than 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.”
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
“For as to strength of body, the weakest has
strength enough to kill the strongest, either by
secret machination, or by confederacy with others,
that are in the same danger with himself.”
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In other words, we are all equally a threat to
each other
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
8. We all regard continual preservation as a
good thing
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Not necessarily the greatest good, but
usually a good thing
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Suicide objection?
III. Goods, Power & Felicity
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What inferences, then, can we make from the
preceding?
Let’s take individuals constituted the way we
have described and imagine what sort of
social relations they would have if left to their
own devices (that is, in the absence of
political authority).