Thomas Hobbes, Sir Robert
Filmer and John Locke
Conceptions of Man, Nature and
Government
Thomas Hobbes 1588- 1679
 Born in 1588 with his twin
Fear
 Staunch Materialist,
Determinist, Rationalist,
and Secular thinker
 Lived in exile in Paris from
1640-51, where he tutored
Charles II
 1651 He makes enemies in
the Royalist camp when he
writes and publishes
Leviathan
Leviathan: A Mechanical,
Psychological Political
Theory
 Leviathan is an attempt to
describe the generation and
power of “the great
Leviathan, or rather . . . of
that mortal God.” I.e. the
ruling authority that keeps
men in check
 The Argument in Four Parts
–
–
–
–
Of Man
Of Commonwealth
Of a Christian Commonwealth
Of the Kingdom of Darkness
From External Mechanics to
Psychological Determinism
 Matter in motion: The external world exists as a
machine made up of matter and is devoid of spirit.
 Knowledge, then, is the sensory impressions that
the external world makes on the minds (also
matter) of mankind
 The self (once the idea of soul and spirit are
removed) exists as the complex nexus of its
sensory impressions
Hobbesian Political Theory: Absolute
Rule or Social Anarchy
 Men are Equal: Both in physical and mental capacity. But
this equality breeds “hope in attainting of our Ends” (7).
In short, it produces competition and enmity.
 Diffidence: The primary ends of man: Self-preservation
which causes men to “endeavor to destroy, or subdue one
another” because they mistrust those around them (7).
 War: The fear and mistrust of others coupled with the drive
of self-preservation creates Anticipation (or pre-emptive
strikes): the desire “to master the persons of all men he
can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to
endanger him” (7).
 This is the great natural state of mankind--“War of
everyone against everyone” not so much in the actual
fighting, “but in the known disposition thereto” (7).
Why the war of all against all
gives way to contract and law:
 Primarily because the natural state of war is inconvenient.
There is no Industry, cultivation, exploration, geography,
arts, letters, no society, and instead “continual fear, and
danger of violent death.
 In the state of war, “the life of man” is “solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short” (7).
 How does Hobbes confirm the truth of his doctrine? Well if
the logic of the argument is unsatisfactory (an ultimately it
is) then he asks for inquirers to search their own experience
to confirm Hobbes’s theory, but not condemn mankind.
 Is man naturally bad or evil? Of course not, “in
such a war nothing is unjust” (8). Because man
has not made any law that murder for selfpreservation violates, murder is not unlawful.
 The governing virtues in the war of every man are
Force and Fraud because there is no law but selfpreservation.
 Further, Hobbes argues that no law will every be
made until people get together and decide on a
ruler that will make laws for them. “Where there
is no common Power, there is no Law” (8).
From Social Anarchy to Absolute
Rule
 So why, according to Hobbes is there
absolute rule?
– One: The “fear of death”; “desire of such things
as are necessary to commodious living” and “a
Hope that by their industry to obtain them” are
the Passions that drive men to contract (8).
– Two: Reason suggests the rules of law and
order that will maintain peace and curb man’s
natural passions.
Sir Robert Filmer d. 1653
 Major work, Patiarcha, or
the Natural Power of Kings
Asserted, was posthumously
published in 1680
 It became a major focal
point in Locke’s argument
against the power structure
that supported the idea of
divine right of inheritance.
 It also had social
implications beyond the
overt defense of political
monarchy
My King, My Father
 The primary point here is that the King derives his
power not from the people, nor does the power
ever devolve to the people.
 Rather, kingly authority was originally derived
from God and was passed down from head of
household to head of household.
 “There is, and always shall be continued to the end
of the world, a natural right of a supreme Father
over every multitude, although, by the secret will
of God, many at first do most unjustly obtain the
exercise of it” (10).
My Father, My King
 “If obedience to parents be immediately due by
natural law, and the subjection to Princes by the
mediation of a human ordinance, what reason is
there that the law of nature should give place to
the laws of men?” (10).
 “As the father over one family, so the King, as
Father over many families, extends his care to
preserve, feed, clothe, instruct, and defend the
whole commonwealth” (10).
 And if you disagree expect a spanking or
execution as the father/king sees fit.
John Locke 1632-1704
 Born in Somersetshire
to a country Solicitor
and small landowner
 Elected to the Royal
Society in 1668
 Became a physician to
the First Earl of
Shaftesbury
 According to Locke, both
Hobbes and Filmer got it all
wrong.
 His philosophy of mind
argues for external ideas and
innate faculties. That is, the
mind is a tabula rasa
engineered to perceive,
remember, and combine
external ideas as well as
desire, will and deliberate
on those ideas to produce a
second class of ideas.
 Because only clear and
distinct ideas count as truth,
speculative theories of man
and God did not count and
should be thrown out.
Locke on Government and Political
Power
 Filmer is unacceptable because: (1) it is
impossible to trace authority to Adam, and (2)
Adam’s authority may have been suspect from the
very beginning
 Hobbes is to be rejected because: If men were as
nasty and brutish as Hobbes claims, its is
unreasonable to think that this war of natural men
would give rise to organized Government.
Political Power and Its Original:
The Natural State
 Political Power = “a Right of making Laws with Penalties
of Death, and consequently all less Penalties, for the
Regulating and Preserving of Property, and of employing
the force of the Community, in the Execution of such
Laws, and in the defense of the Common-wealth from
Foreign Injury, and all this is only for the Public Good”
(215).
 Political Power is predicated on a Natural State of Man,
which is:
– Perfect Freedom: the capacity to order his affairs and property as
he sees fit
– Perfect Equality: no one is born “having more than another”
Political Power and Its Original:
Natural Law
 Although man’s natural state may be one of perfect
Freedom and Equality, it is bounded by Natural Law
which is known through Reason
– Man must not destroy himself or any other creature he
possesses because it is reasonable and not simply expedient
for his self-preservation. Thus, “no one ought to harm
another in his Life, Health, Liberty or Possessions” (215).
– Natural law “willeth the Peace and Preservation of all
Mankind” (216).
 Why?
– Because man is the property of God and hence not his own
to dispose of as he sees fit (this will be the rub when it
comes to property).
Natural Law con’t
 Because natural law wills peace and preservation it
puts into everyman’s hands “the Execution of the Law
of the Law of Nature . . . whereby everyone has a right
to punish the transgressors of that Law to such a
Degree, as may hinder its Violation. . . . if any one in
the State of Nature may punish another, for any evil he
has done, every one may do so” (216).
 Thus civic authority comes not by “Absolute or
Arbitrary power” but by the authority of natural law
executed in equality
 Any transgression of the law is considered declaration
of the transgressor to “live by another Rule, than that
of reason and common equity” and as a result “he
becomes dangerous to Mankind” (216).
Labor, Freedom, and Property
 If in the natural state of mankind he has power to
dispose of his property, and the Earth was given to
all men in common
– God gave man the earth and he also gave him reason,
“to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and
convenience” (217).
 Then the question arises: how does one come to
own property?
– “The Labor of his Body, and the Work of his hands . . .
are properly his. . . .Whatsoever he removes out of the
State that Nature has provided . . . he hath mixed his
Labor with it, and joined to it something that is his own,
and thereby makes it his Property” (217).