HOBBES AND THE
LEVIATHAN
1651
HOBBES’ QUESTION
 How is social order possible?
 Foundation of Western political philosophy, social contract
theory, right of the individual.
 Materialism: human beings composed of matter and motion,
obeying physical law.
HOBBES’ ASSUMPTIONS
 People have the capacity to reason
 They weigh the costs and benefits
 They consider the consequences of their actions
HOBBES’ ASSUMPTIONS, CONT’D
 People are self-interested
 They seek to attain what they desire
 Security (avoid death and injury)
 Reputation (status)
 Gain (possessions)
ASSUMPTIONS, CONT’D
 Their ability to attain what they desire depends on their power
 Because men want a happy life, they seek sufficient power to ensure that
life
 All men have a “restless desire for power”
HOBBES: NEW APPROACHES TO
AN OLD PROBLEM
 Hobbes’ approach: a theory of political obligation grounded in
human rationality
 When is it rational for us as self-interested individuals to obey a
ruler?
 When are we obliged to do so?
HOBBES: NEW APPROACHES TO
AN OLD PROBLEM
 Hobbes’ solution: we must learn to recognize that our
obligations to obey the sovereign are rationally justified, and
hence to respect the sovereign power
 “Internal” focus
 Assumes people are not educable
 Assumes a certain amount of rationality and self -interest
THE STATE OF NATURE
 What is our natural condition? Are people naturally equal?
 Aristotle: No, some are masters and some are slaves according to the
degree of rationality
 Christian philosophy: yes, they are all equal in that all have an
immortal soul
 Hobbes: yes, they are all equal in one important respect: equality to
kill
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ‘STATE OF
NATURE’
 People are insecure, and live in a constant fear of injury and
death
 There is no place for industry, because the fruit of it is
uncertain
 Hence, no agriculture, navigation, building, culture, science
 Life is short and unpleasant
EQUALIT Y
 Everyone is strong enough to kill the strongest
 Everyone thinks him/herself above average in practical
intellectual ability (prudence)
 But prudence is merely experience
 Ergo, there are no natural distinctions distinguishing masters
from slaves, or rulers from ruled
THE STATE OF NATURE
 What is our most important natural desire?
 Aristotle: the desire to have a good life
 Hobbes: the desire to avoid violent death
THE STATE OF NATURE
 Do our most important natural desires lead to social
integration or disintegration?
 Aristotle: our important natural desires lead to the creation of small
communities and then to larger communities. We need and desire to
be with others.
 Hobbes: our important natural desires lead to social disintegration,
given our natural equality in the ability to kill or be killed.
THE STATE OF NATURE
 Are our most important desires naturally integrative or
disintegrative?
THE STATE OF NATURE
 Natural causes of conflict:
 Distrust: I do not trust you not to kill me, so I try to kill you first
 Love of gain (a natural desire): I know myself equal to you, and I want
your things
 Love of glory (a natural desire): I think myself (erroneously) better
than you are, and think I deserve reparation
THE STATE OF NATURE
Trust and
cooperate
Do not trust,
attack
Trust and
cooperate
Do not trust,
attack
We gain from
cooperating:
arts, sciences,
etc.
One of us gets
killed, the other
lives and takes
your property
One of us gets
killed, the other
lives and takes
your property
One or both of
us may get
killed
THE STATE OF NATURE
“In such condition there is no place for
industry, because the fruit thereof is
uncertain: and consequently no culture of the
earth; no navigation, nor use of the
commodities that may be imported by sea; no
commodious building; no instruments of
moving and removing such things as require
much force; no knowledge of the face of the
earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters;
no society; and which is worst of all, continual
fear, and danger of violent death; and the life
of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short.” (Chapter 13)
RIGHTS
 Is there a right to self -preservation? How far does it extend?
 “even to one another’s bodies” in the state of nature
 The justification of this right comes from the universal
interest in preserving yourself
RIGHTS AND JUSTICE
 Because ever yone has the same right to ever ything, there can
be no justice or injustice in the state of nature
 Justice is a human construction that we have to make
possible
RIGHTS AND JUSTICE
 Is Hobbes right?
 Are there any places in the state of nature today?
ESCAPING THE STATE OF NATURE:
THE PROBLEM
 There is an empirical problem: states actually exist
 The problem is not only empirical but also normative: are we
obligated to obey existing states?
 We can only appeal to what is rational for us to do, not to God
or some other agency
HOW DO WE ESCAPE THE STATE
OF NATURE?
 Could the problem be solved through the prospect of future
cooperation?
 The stakes are always too high; death prevents future cooperation
 Repeated cooperation does not solve the problem of how we come to
have obligations to the state
THE SOVEREIGN
 Hobbes’ solution: we all together transfer (most of) our right
to ever ything to a specific person to act in our name to
preserve ourselves
 This person is then authorized (we are its “authors”) to use all
means necessary to preserve the peace (to use “us”)
THE SOVEREIGN
THE SOVEREIGN
 Why is this a solution?
 The sovereign has enough power (all of us) to prevent attacks by any
of us individually
THE SOVEREIGN
 Why is this a solution?
 With the sovereign in place, what can be reasonably expected of
others shifts: we can now expect that they will not attack us, so we
can now speak of justice and injustice
THE SOVEREIGN
 Why is this a solution?
 The act of transferring our right to everything to the sovereign creates
a presumptive obligation to obey the sovereign
THE SOVEREIGN
 The Sovereign is an artificial person
 It can be a single natural person (a monarch)
 Or a collection of people that can act in a unified way (an assembly)
SOVEREIGNTY AND POLITICAL
REGIMES
 For Hobbes, the most important thing is that there be a
sovereign, not so much the form it takes
 For Aristotle, the more important question is the form of
government
POLITICS
 For Aristotle, the purpose of politics is to realize man’s
highest good
 The best regime most fully realizes the highest good, but other
regimes also realize it to a smaller extent
 For Hobbes, the purpose of politics is to avoid the worst of
evils
 Any regime avoids the worst of evils (war)
HOBBES’ APPROACH TO THE
PROBLEM OF CONFLICT
 Hobbes wants to remind us that our obligations
to obey the state are rationally justified
 They are obligations (i.e., they apply generally)
 They are in accord with our self-interest, and in particular
with our interest in avoiding violent death
 Conflict arises ultimately from error and
irrationality, but it does not require extensive
education to solve it
 Focuses on the internal problem of conflict,
leaving the external problem unresolved