Hobbes, Leviathan
Leaving the State of Nature
PHIL 2345
2008-09
Hobbes’s Leviathan:
full-size title page
Reasons to cooperate/leave
SoN/SoW (ch. 13)
• equality of hope & ability
– i.e. everyone can hurt everyone else
– We know there is relative equality b/c otherwise one
superior man or group would rule
– Civil laws introduce inequality; anti-Aristotelian, no
natural hierarchy (ch. 15)
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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—
– Caveat: even if one is not personally seeking
domination, the conditions of Son/SoW force him to
acts of aggression.
• Fear of death;
– Is this a true Prisoner’s Dilemma?
– Death is the consequence of remaining in the SoN;
• Desire for comfort, safety, security, a long life,
care for the family—’conjugal’ passion;
• Life otherwise nasty, brutish, short;
• Hope to obtain it (would we have hope?).
Transfer of Right (ch. 14)
• ‘Right is layd aside, either by simply Renouncing
it; or by Transferring it to another’;
• ‘in consideration of some Right reciprocally
transferred to himselfe; or for some other
good…’.
• Simply renouncing: does not care to whom
• Transferring: benefit intended to certain
person(s)
• Obliged not to hinder those to whom he has
transferred it.
A valid Covenant?
• Mere trust in future performance is not
enough—such a Covenant is void;
• Future fulfillment cannot be counted on;
• Force is required
– to reign in men’s passions (which can include
‘conjugal’ passion—care for one’s family)
• Cannot promise that which is impossible
• Can be freed from obligation: ‘Forgiven’.
Impossible Covenants
• With animals
• With God, except by mediation of his
spokespersons (but on what grounds do
we believe them?)
• Social animals (bees, ants) don’t need
Covenants; we do
• Aristotle was wrong.
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 ...‘ (ch. 17).
• Duress allowed?
– 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’;
– dissenters may be pressed into agreement on the grounds that
they signalled their acquiescence by entering the Assembly (ch.
18).
Motivation to comply
• Third Law of Nature:
– ‘That men performe their Covenants made’ (ch. 15);
• Yet ‘force of Words’ is too weak
• What are motivations to comply?
–
–
–
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active awareness of the consequences of our actions:
either fear of the consequences of breaking their word, or
pride “in appearing not to need to breake it” (ch. 15)
foresight: men restrain their passions out of ‘foresight of their
own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby’ (ch. 17)
• Duress may also be used—legitimately!
• But cannot be forced to accuse oneself, to not resist
arrest, punishment.
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
– 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 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’
Sovereign power (ch. 18)
• Each is obliged to others to be author of what
Sovereign does
• Hence no breach possible by Sovereign
• 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)
• Agreement of each w/ each, not of each w/
Sovereign—no Kingship on condition;
• Dissenters/free riders not allowed; must enter
Covenant w/ the rest.
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).
• Sovereign may use force to enforce the compact:
– 'Covenants without the Sword, are but Words‘;
– men require ‘a Common Power, to keep them in awe, and to
direct their actions to the Common Benefit’ (ch. 17)
Hobbes’s Sovereign,
or ‘Leviathan’
Question
• Hobbes claims that it is rationally in one's best
interests to keep one's covenants
/contracts/compacts, because those who don't
keep them must be cast out of society.
• However, is this true of everyone? Is it true of
every individual contract?
• Can Hobbes give other reasons for
keeping one's word and self-interest always
coinciding?