Thomas Hobbes (Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers, Vol. 1)

Thomas Hobbes

Series Introduction The Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series aims to show that there is a rigorous, scholarly tradition of social and political thought that may be broadly described as ‘conservative’, ‘libertarian’ or some combination of the two. The series aims to show that conservatism is not simply a reaction against contemporary events, nor a privileging of intuitive thought over deductive reasoning; libertarianism is not simply an apology for unfettered capitalism or an attempt to justify a misguided atomistic concept of the individual. Rather, the thinkers in this series have developed coherent intellectual positions that are grounded in empirical reality and also founded upon serious philosophical reflection on the relationship between the individual and society, how the social institutions necessary for a free society are to be established and maintained, and the implications of the limits to human knowledge and certainty. Each volume in the series presents a thinker’s ideas in an accessible and cogent manner to provide an indispensable work for both students with varying degrees of familiarity with the topic as well as more advanced scholars. The following twenty volumes that make up the entire Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series are written by international scholars and experts. The Salamanca School by Andre Azevedo Alves (LSE, UK) & Professor José Manuel Moreira (Porto, Portugal) Thomas Hobbes by Dr R. E. R. Bunce (Cambridge, UK) John Locke by Professor Eric Mack (Tulane, US) David Hume by Professor Christopher J. Berry (Glasgow, UK) Adam Smith by Professor James Otteson (Yeshiva, US) Edmund Burke by Professor Dennis O’Keeffe (Buckingham, UK) Alexis de Tocqueville by Dr Alan S Kahan (Paris, France) Herbert Spencer by Alberto Mingardi (Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy) Ludwig von Mises by Richard Ebeling (Trinity College) Joseph A. Schumpeter by Professor John Medearis (Riverside, California, US) F. A. Hayek by Dr Adam Tebble (UCL, UK) Michael Oakeshott by Dr Edmund Neill (Oxford, UK) Karl Popper by Dr Phil Parvin (Cambridge, UK) Ayn Rand by Professor Mimi Gladstein (Texas, US) Milton Friedman by Dr William Ruger (Texas State, US) James M. Buchanan by Dr John Meadowcroft (King’s College London, UK)

The Modern Papacy by Dr Samuel Gregg (Acton Institute, US) Robert Nozick by Ralf Bader (St Andrews, UK) Russell Kirk by Jon Pafford Murray Rothbard by Gerard Casey

Of course, in any series of this nature, choices have to be made as to which thinkers to include and which to leave out. Two of the thinkers in the series – F. A. Hayek and James M. Buchanan – have written explicit statements rejecting the label ‘conservative’. Similarly, other thinkers, such as David Hume and Karl Popper, may be more accurately described as classical liberals than either conservatives or libertarians. But these thinkers have been included because a full appreciation of this particular tradition of thought would be impossible without their inclusion; conservative and libertarian thought cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of the intellectual contributions of Hume, Hayek, Popper and Buchanan, among others. While no list of conservative and libertarian thinkers can be perfect, then, it is hoped that the volumes in this series come as close as possible to providing a comprehensive account of the key contributors to this particular tradition. John Meadowcroft King’s College London

This page intentionally left blank

Thomas Hobbes R. E. R. Bunce

Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers Series Editor: John Meadowcroft Volume 1

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London New York SE1 7NX NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com Copyright © R. E. R. Bunce, 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers.

ISBN 9780826429797

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bunce, R. E. R. Thomas Hobbes / R.E.R. Bunce. p. cm. -- (Major conservative and libertarian thinkers ; v. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-2979-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8264-2979-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679. 2. Political science--Great Britain--History--17th century. 3. Philosophers--Great Britain--Biography. 4. Political scientists--Great Britain--Biography. I. Title. II. Series. JC153.H66B86 2009 192--dc22 [B]

2009001646

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Series Editor’s Preface Acknowledgments

ix xi

1 Hobbes’s Life Early Life Employment as a Humanist Hobbes and the New Science Philosopher in Exile Return to England Last Years Conclusion: Life and Philosophy

1 1 2 5 9 12 14 16

2 Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy Introduction The Nature of Hobbes’s Political Thought Hobbes’s Works Human Nature: Reason, Knowledge, Imagination, and Passion Man, Born Unfit for Society The Condition of Mere Nature The Laws of Nature Persons, Authors, Representation, and the State The Creation of the State through Mutual Covenants Types of Sovereignty The Rights and Duties of the Sovereign Liberty under the Sovereign The Life of the Commonwealth The Fool The Death of the Commonwealth Conclusion: The Science of Natural Justice

17 17 20 24 24 32 35 37 41 44 45 46 52 58 61 62 66

Contents

viii

3 Reception and Interpretation Introduction Hobbism and Atheism Hobbes’s Disciples Human Nature and the State of Nature Social Contract and the State Obligation and Law Hobbes as a Theorist of Bourgeois Society Hobbes and the Prisoner’s Dilemma Hobbes the Skeptic Hobbes and Rhetoric Conclusion: Understanding Hobbes

68 68 68 73 74 79 83 86 88 91 95 99

4 Hobbes Today New Leviathan and Totalitarianism Back to Nature Hobbes and Contemporary Conservatism Liberal before Liberalism Conclusion

100 101 108 113 119 124

Notes Suggested Further Reading Hobbes’s Life Hobbes’s Works Natural Philosophy, Mathematics, and Language Theology Ethics and Political Thought Reception

127 133 133 134 136 137 138 139

Bibliography Index

141 157

Series Editor’s Preface

Thomas Hobbes was one of the great philosophers. His name and the title of his most famous work, Leviathan, have come to be synonymous with the idea that the natural state of humankind is ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ and only the intervention of a munificent overlord may spare men and women from this unenviable fate by imposing order where there would otherwise be chaos. For Hobbes, order cannot arise spontaneously from the bottom-up because in the absence of an over-arching power any individual stands to gain from plundering the possessions of their neighbors; although most people want to live in peace, they must nevertheless arm themselves against potential aggressors and this dynamic causes civil society to degenerate into a ‘war of every man against every man’. In the terminology of contemporary political science, then, Hobbes presents the state of nature as a collective action dilemma where the optimal outcome is unattainable by individual actors without external intercession. The problem that Hobbes formulated resonates through the centuries as the enduring dilemma of political organization and social cooperation. It can be seen today in fields as diverse as theoretical game theory and international relations. In this outstanding work Dr R. E. R. Bunce of the University of Cambridge places Hobbes in his historical context and sets out Hobbes’ ambitious philosophical project to discover the principles that govern the social world in the same way that Sir Isaac Newton had discovered the principles that govern the physical world. While we may dispute Hobbes’ immodest assessment that he successfully attained this goal, Bunce nevertheless captures the extraordinary enduring value of Hobbes’ work for the contemporary reader. This volume makes a crucial contribution to the Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series by setting out the thought of one of

x

Preface

the most important contributors to this tradition. Certainly no account of conservative thought would be complete without a thorough treatment of the contribution made by Hobbes. In presenting Hobbes’ ideas in such an accessible and cogent form the author has produced an outstanding volume that will prove indispensable to those relatively unfamiliar with Hobbes’ work as well as more advanced scholars. John Meadowcroft King’s College London

Acknowledgments

I have been studying Hobbes longer than I care to remember. This book arises primarily from my graduate work at Downing College, Cambridge and subsequent undergraduate teaching. I have received a great deal of help from friends, family and colleagues whilst writing this book. I owe a very great debt to Scott Mandelbrote and Alan Cromartie who supervised my MPhil and PhD and who helped my greatly in my efforts to get to grips with early modern philosophy. Both have been extremely generous with advice and help ever since. I must also express my gratitude to Elena Dobson who encouraged my interest in political philosophy for many years and who have been more than hospitable in the course of numerous research trips to the British Library. George Wright and Hannah Dawson very kindly read through a great deal of this book at an early stage in its development and provided great encouragement as well as some very learned criticism, both of which were extremely welcome. Brandon High has been an unfailing source of ideas and help, particularly in the context of Hobbes’ influence in recent years. Bethan Bowett-Jones, Jeremy Andrews have also given their time very generously in reading and commenting on my drafts. Alex Jenner and Barry Hart have done sterling work as indefatigable proof readers. I must also thank Quentin Skinner. I was lucky enough to be part of his seminar series on Hobbes’ Leviathan during my first year as a post graduate at Cambridge. The seminar was inspiring to say the least and much of the interpretation that I develop in Chapter 2 comes from those evenings. I have also learned a great deal from his recent lectures on the state and liberty, and I am extremely grateful for his advice on various aspects of Hobbes’ work, particularly understanding Hobbes’ pictures. John Meadowcroft has been extremely helpful during the preparation of this book. His encouragement and criticism have been

xii

Acknowledgments

equally valuable. His comments on draft versions of the text have undoubtedly improved the end result no end. I must also thank the staff at Cambridge University Library, the British Library, the Royal Society’s Library in London and the Bodleian Library in Oxford for their help during my research. Sami Savonius-Wroth has been a fantastic sounding board for many of the ideas that I have developed in this book, particularly for help with understanding John Locke. I must also thank Chris Mills, Nick Gracey, Daniel and Anna Goodman, George Wilkes and Laura Williams for their encouragement and many discussions of writing and the process of writing. I owe my greatest debt to my family, my Mum and Dad whose love and support I have always been able to count on; and to Lucy and India for their love, kindness and patience and for the joy they have always brought me. Robin Bunce University of Cambridge

1

Hobbes’s Life

In life, as in death, Thomas Hobbes was a controversial figure. A number of Hobbes’s nicknames indicate significantly different perspectives on his character. Charles II reportedly referred to his one time tutor affectionately as “a Bear” (Sorbière 1709, 40). Others dubbed him, with considerably less warmth, “THE Monster of Malmesbury” (Cowley 1680, title page). The intellectual merits of Hobbes’s work occasioned similar disagreement. On the continent Hobbes enjoyed a reputation as a leading figure in the new philosophy. Samuel Sorbière, his friend and collaborator accorded Hobbes a place among the leading spirits of the age, comparing him to Galileo Galilei, René Descartes and Francis Bacon. (Sorbière 1660, 167–8) In England, however, Hobbes’s work was certainly well known but not as highly regarded. Thomas Sprat, Fellow of the Royal Society, argued that Hobbes’s thought was barren and dogmatic; and likened him to St George’s fabled foe “the Waggoner” (Sprat 1958, 223). More hostile still was the view of some in Parliament who saw Hobbes’s ideas as so dangerous that they demanded to have him burned as a heretic (Aubrey 1898, I 339). Paradoxically, the man who championed civil peace and recognized the divisive nature of dispute was one of the most controversial thinkers of his age.

Early Life The date and place of Hobbes’s birth are, at least, uncontroversial. Hobbes was born in Westport outside Malmesbury in Wiltshire on April 15, 1588. Hobbes dramatized the timing of his birth with the claim that the event was precipitated by his mother’s fear of the Spanish fleet which was preparing for an assault upon England. Little is know of his mother. His father, also Thomas Hobbes, was by all

2

Thomas Hobbes

accounts a poorly educated and poorly paid clergyman. His dereliction of duty, drunken, slanderous and violent behavior landed him in trouble with the church authorities on several occasions. In 1604 he was excommunicated for attacking the vicar of the local parish and fled to London never to return. Two other significant figures are worthy of note in Hobbes’s early life. The first, Robert Latimer taught Hobbes Latin, Greek and other aspects of the humanist curriculum; the second is his uncle Francis who paid for him to attend Oxford. Latimer was undoubtedly a gifted teacher and Hobbes was to follow in his footsteps first to Magdalen Hall and then as tutor in his own right. Hobbes wrote disparagingly about Oxford. His later writings were critical of the university curriculum, and of the culture of student life. Leviathan complained that Oxford was still dominated by the works of Aristotle, and Behemoth criticized the decadence of the young scholars (Hobbes 1990, 146). It is difficult to judge how accurate these observations were. Certainly, John Locke who gained his MA some 50 years later still complained about the importance of Aristotle within the university curriculum (Feingold 1984–99, IV 359). Turning to the accusation of decadence it is worth noting that Magdalen Hall had been an outpost of Puritanism since the 1560s, but it is difficult to gauge how far this impinged on Hobbes’s undergraduate life. Hobbes does tell us that he preferred reading maps, watching the stars and trapping jackdaws to attending lectures on scholastic logic1 (Aubrey 1898, I 329).

Employment as a Humanist Hobbes entered the employment of the Cavendish family after graduating from Oxford. William Cavendish, Baron Hardwick (who was created the first Earl of Devonshire in 1618), wanted his son to be instructed by someone of a similar age, someone who would be a companion as well as a tutor to his son. Hobbes certainly viewed the relationship as a friendship (Skinner 1996, 218–9), and perhaps because of this he seems to have become involved with his pupil’s preoccupations and pursuits, which included politics, travel and writing. The young William Cavendish’s literary interests were undoubtedly influenced by Bacon, whom he admired greatly. Bacon, who held a number of important government posts under Elizabeth I and James

Hobbes’s Life

3

I and also a well-known philosopher, became a friend of Cavendish. In 1611 Cavendish published, albeit anonymously, A Discourse on Flattery; by 1615 he presented a copy of further ten Essayes to his father. Both works show a considerable stylistic debt to Bacon. During 1617 Cavendish, with Hobbes’s assistance, translated Bacon’s Essays into Italian. (Malcolm 1984, 50–1) It was through Cavendish that Hobbes met Bacon. Apparently, Hobbes served as Bacon’s amanuensis, that is to say, his secretary, assistant and confidant, following his fall in 1621; and there is evidence that they met as early as 1619. This early association with Bacon seems to have led to a lifelong interest in his works. Indeed, it seems that Hobbes read Bacon’s natural and civil histories as well as his philosophical work from the 1610s through to the end of his life (Bunce 2003, 41–83). The translation of Bacon had come about during one of Cavendish’s European tours. Hobbes accompanied Cavendish on a Grand European Tour between 1610 and 1614, when Cavendish returned to England to stand, successfully, for parliament. However, it was on a later tour that the translation of Bacon took place. This later tour is also noteworthy as it marked the beginning of a correspondence between Cavendish and Fulgenzio Micanzio, aide, confidant and biographer of Paulo Sarpi a Venetian scholar who defended Venice’s independence from the growing power of the Pope. The correspondence began on Cavendish’s return and continued until 1625. Hobbes’s translations of the 76 letters that Micanzio sent to Cavendish after his return to England have been preserved. Sadly Cavendish’s side of the correspondence is lost. It appears from the correspondence that part of Hobbes’s role was to source the latest publications on a variety of subjects for his master and on occasion for his correspondent too. For example in 1617 Hobbes appears to have sent Micanzio a copy of William Gilbert’s De Magnete (The Seventy-Six Letters, 25). Gilbert was a physician and a natural philosopher who was greatly interested in the properties of magnetism. Hobbes would later suggest that De Magnete was the first scientific study of the subject (Hobbes 1839–1845h, VII 57). Hobbes also assisted Cavendish in his commercial activities with the Virginia Company, which had been established by James I in order to create settlements on the coast of North America, and the Somer Islands Company, which oversaw the settlement of the Bermudas. Hobbes’s involvement with the company brought him into contact with some of the leading political figures of

4

Thomas Hobbes

the day such as statesman and founder of the Virginia Company Sir Edwin Sandys, loyal Royalist and Governor of Bermuda Sir Edward Sackville, and English jurist and scholar John Selden (Malcolm 2002, 53–79). Setting aside speculation that Hobbes was the author of three discourses published anonymously as part of the Horae subsecivae, observations and discourses in 1620, Hobbes’s first published work was a translation of Thucydides’s Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre that appeared in 1629. Hobbes’s interest in history was reawakened during his continental tours. The tours made him aware of the diminution of his linguistic skills. Consequently, he turned to Caesar’s Commentaries along with other classical histories in order to reverse this decline (Aubrey 1898, I 361). Additionally, during the tours he became aware that the traditional logic and philosophy that he had studied at Oxford were scorned while histories were venerated. It is possible that Hobbes’s attention was turned to Thucydides whilst he was in Italy given the large number of Italian scholars who had discussed the history as part of the debate on Venice’s status as an independent republic.2 Thucydides’s history chronicles the war between Athens and Sparta which took place in the fifth century BC. Hobbes certainly seems to have shared an interest in classical histories and contemporary humanist readings of Greek and Roman literature. Between 1616 and 1640 Hobbes read many histories ancient and modern, exploring part of the humanist curriculum known as scientia civilis. His translation of Thucydides contains references to “Strabo, Pausanias, Herodotus, and some other good authors . . .” (Thucydides (1989), xxiv, ed. Green 1989,); Plutarch’s Lives and De glora Atheniensium (Ibid. 569, 577); and the maps that he produced to accompany the translation were indebted to Herodotus, Strabo, Polybus, Livy, Pliny, Xenophon, and Ptolomie, among others. Of more recent works in the genre it appears that Hobbes had read Jean Bodin’s Les six livres de la république, Thomas More’s Utopia, Bacon’s Essays (Skinner 1996, 236) and History of the Reign of Henry VII (Bunce 2003, 62–3). Clearly, Hobbes’s interests and concerns prior to 1630 were those of a humanist, that is to say one who studied the languages, literature and histories of ancient Greece and Rome.3 The exact date of the translation of Thucydides is difficult to gage. Certainly, Hobbes stated that it was completed some while before it was published. Indeed, it has been suggested that the translation was

Hobbes’s Life

5

conceived and at least partially complete while Hobbes was working for Bacon (Rogow 1986, 66–7). The translation also contains three original essays that defend Thucydides’s importance and set out Hobbes’s reasons for making the translation. Essentially, Hobbes argues that artfully written histories are the best source of “profitable instruction for noblemen, and such as may come to have the managing of great and weighty actions” (Hobbes 1989, xx). History was especially good at moral and civil instruction due to the fact that it taught through example rather than through precept. There is nothing novel about these positions. Indeed, the belief that history taught moral and political wisdom better than philosophy can also be found in many humanist works of the period such as Henry Savile’s edition of Tacitus; Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives; John Hayward’s The Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII; and Bacon’s History of the reign of Henry VII. Hobbes’s verse autobiography claims that he chose Thucydides because “[h]e pointed out how inadequate democracy is, and how much wiser one man is than the multitude” (Hobbes 1981, 2); that is to say that Hobbes’s first publication was implicitly pro-Royalist. Nevertheless, more generally, Hobbes’s reasons for reading and translating Thucydides indicate the depth of Hobbes’s commitment to and interest in humanist culture and learning. However, following the publication of Thucydides Hobbes’s interests changed dramatically.

Hobbes and the New Science Cavendish, who had become the second Earl of Devonshire in 1626, died soon before the publication of Thucydides. Subsequently, Hobbes found employment in the household of Sir Gervase Clifton, the Royalist politician. Once again Hobbes acted as tutor and once again he toured the continent. In 1630, while in Geneva, Hobbes encountered a copy of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry. Aubrey later described this event as an intellectual turning point: Being in a gentleman’s library . . . Euclid’s Elements lay open, and ‘twas the 47 [proposition]. He read the proposition. “By G ---,” sayd he, “this is impossible”. So he reads the demonstration of it, which referred him back to such a proposition; which proposition he read.

6

Thomas Hobbes . . . Et sic deinceps, that at last he was demonstratively convinced of that truth. This made him in love with geometry. (Aubrey 1898, I 332)

Hobbes biographer A. P. Martinich has gone so far as to describe the event as a Hobbes’s “geometrical epiphany” (Martinich 1999, 84). Certainly, there was a change of direction in Hobbes’s concerns. Following 1630 he became increasingly interested in the new sciences of nature and, for a time at least, critical of the kind of history and rhetoric that he praised in his introduction to Thucydides. Nonetheless, the notion of an immediate conversion experience from humanism to the new sciences is to misunderstand Hobbes’s intellectual trajectory. First, Hobbes clearly had some knowledge of and sympathy with the new sciences prior to 1630. Hobbes’s translation of Thucydides, for example, contains information that was taken from Bacon’s natural history the Sylva sylvarum (Bunce 2006, 80–4). Moreover, there were many in the early modern period who were learned humanists as well as being exponents of the new sciences. Bacon, for example, published works in both genres and saw no discontinuity between the two; Micanzio too praised Bacon’s natural philosophy and civil histories with equal vigor. Consequently, there is no necessary contradiction between Hobbes’s humanist orientation and his interest in the emerging sciences of nature. Furthermore, Hobbes did not experience a conversion experience in another sense, that is to say, he did not assimilate Euclid’s geometry uncritically. Hobbes reshaped geometry; he attempted to make it compatible with materialism by redefining many of its most fundamental terms. Consequently, while Hobbes’s encounter with Euclid was important it would be wrong to view it as a simple conversion experience. Hobbes’s interest in the natural sciences, like his humanist studies in the previous decade, was encouraged by his employers and by further trips to the continent. Sir William Cavendish, the Earl of Newcastle and Hobbes’s new patron and the Earl’s brother Sir Charles Cavendish were interested in mathematics, optics, ballistics, and the application of these disciplines to horsemanship, swordsmanship, and other aspects of modern warfare. Gathered around them was the so-called Welbeck academy, which included the natural philosophers Robert Payne and Walter Warner both of whom experimented with optics and corresponded with Hobbes. The phrase “Welbeck

Hobbes’s Life

7

academy” should not be taken too literally. It is best understood as a group with similar interests all of who were connected with the Cavendishes (Malcolm 2002, 10). Aubrey records that Hobbes also met Galileo during one of his continental trips. Apparently, Hobbes was impressed by Galileo’s “prodigious witt” as well as “his sweetnes of nature and manners” (Aubrey 1898, I 366). Hobbes also made contact with those thinking and writing about geometry, optics, and epistemology in Paris. Perhaps the most significant was Minim Friar, writer and natural philosopher Marin Mersenne. It was through Mersenne that Hobbes’s De cive was first published and it was Mersenne who established a correspondence between Hobbes and Descartes. Hobbes’s and Descartes had similar philosophical concerns. Both thinkers were keen to establish the correct philosophical method for the new sciences and they were both preoccupied with mathematics and optics. It was during the 1630s that Hobbes made, what he considered to be, one of his most profound discoveries. Put simply, Hobbes argued that the qualities we perceive, such as red, green, blue, hard, soft, hot, and cold, are not properties of the bodies themselves. Rather they are the product of our sense organs. There is no red, or heat, for example, outside of our perceptions; all that truly exists is matter in motion. Hobbes later described his view in these terms: “Fancies are the offspring of our brain: they are not outside us, and there is nothing within us except motion” (Hobbes 1981, 3). The originality of this discovery is contested. Descartes, for example, accused Hobbes of stealing his idea and, prior to either Hobbes or Descartes, Galileo had published very much the same conception in The Assayer (1623). Nevertheless, this may well be an instance in the history of ideas where several thinkers lighted upon the same idea independently (Tuck 1989, 16). The 1630s was also the period in which the form of Hobbes’s philosophy took shape. Hobbes believed that “body, man and citizen comprise the whole class of philosophy,” and based on this conception he “resolved to write three books on these subjects” (Hobbes 1981, 3). Hobbes first outlined the scope of his philosophy in the preface to the second edition of De cive, ‘I took up Philosophy for intellectual enjoyment, and in every branch of it I was assembling the first Elements. I arranged them into three Sections . . . the first Section would discuss body and its general properties; the second,

8

Thomas Hobbes

Man and his particular faculties and passions; the third, the Commonwealth and the duties of citizens” (Hobbes 1999, 13). This in short was Hobbes’s plan for The Elements of Philosophy in three sections: De corpore, De homine and De cive. The advent of the Civil War meant that Hobbes was to publish the third section first in 1642. The final sections, which were greatly delayed, did not appear until 1655 and 1658 respectively. By 1640 Hobbes had made considerable progress toward his three volume philosophy. The best-known evidence for this is his manuscript The Elements of Law that was circulated in 1640. The first part discussed sensation, imagination, the human passions, pleasure, and pain–subjects that would later be discussed in De homine. The majority of the manuscript, which would be reworked in De cive discussed the natural estate of man; the laws of nature; and the formation of the commonwealth. It is worth noting the debt to Euclid implied in The Elements of Law. First the title is clearly reminiscent of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry. Secondly, the book deploys a demonstrative method, that is to say it proceeds logically from axioms to conclusions. In this sense Hobbes was trying to create civil science using the method he had found in Euclid. The composition and circulation of The Elements of Law was one of a number of pro-Royalist activities in which Hobbes was engaged during this period. In the late 1630s Hobbes was involved with the collection of Ship Money, a tax to the production of naval vessels. The tax had been traditionally levied on coastal towns in times of emergency; however in 1634 Charles I extended the tax to inland counties. Charles’s move was highly controversial. Radicals argued that he was in affect creating a new tax without the approval of Parliament. Additionally, on the Earl of Devonshire’s instructions Hobbes stood, unsuccessfully as it turned out, as a candidate for Derby in the 1640 parliamentary election. The 1640 election was a turning point in the reign of Charles I. It led to the creation of the Short Parliament, the first meeting of Parliament to be convened in 11 years. The Short Parliament effectively ended Charles’s personal rule. Charles was forced to summon Parliament in order to obtain the money necessary to pursue his military campaigns with the Scottish Covenanters who demanded a new type of government of the Church in Scotland. It also gave Charles’s opponents a formal platform from which to challenge the King’s unpopular domestic policies. The Elements of Law was circulated following the dissolution of

Hobbes’s Life

9

the Short Parliament and quickly became the focus of some controversy. Later in the year Charles was forced to summon Parliament again. The Long Parliament, as it became known, was keen to assert its authority and to hold Charles and his supporters to account. Fearing for his safety at home Hobbes fled to France where he stayed from the beginning of the Civil War until the first years of the English Commonwealth.

Philosopher in Exile In Paris Hobbes was soon embroiled in another controversy. Mersenne initiated a correspondence between Hobbes and Descartes, initially concerning the nature of light. In a letter that is now lost Hobbes set out his own mechanistic account of light along with a critique of Descartes’s position. In a series of letters Descartes at first dismissed Hobbes’s ideas and later accused Hobbes of plagiarism (Hobbes 1994b, letters 29, 30, 32–4, 36). Whatever Descartes’s feelings about Hobbes, Mersenne was certainly impressed. Indeed, Mersenne asked Hobbes to write a critical essay in response to Descartes’s Meditationes that would be published as part of a new edition of the work in 1641. Mersenne also invited Hobbes to write an essay on sensation to be included as a preface to a collection of works on ballistics which appeared in 1642. Mersenne was also instrumental in the publication of Hobbes’s two most significant works from the early 1640s, his Tractatus opticus and De cive. Hobbes also wrote pieces for Mersenne that were never published. The most significant of Hobbes’s manuscripts from the early 1640s is Hobbes’s critique of Thomas White’s De mundo, Antiwhite as the work is often called. White was a Roman Catholic priest and theologian who wrote extensively on questions of natural philosophy. Hobbes was highly critical of White’s attempt to make an alliance between the physics of Aristotle and Galileo. Antiwhite also contains Hobbes’s comprehensive discussion of theology, physics, and metaphysics that survives from this period. In addition to Mersenne Hobbes struck up a close friendship with Pierre Gassendi. Gassendi’s interests included natural philosophy, astronomy and mathematics; indeed, in 1645 he became chair of mathematics at the Collège Royal in Paris. Hobbes and Gassendi had

10

Thomas Hobbes

a similar philosophical outlook. They both were highly critical of Aristotelian physics while at the same time having reservations about Descartes’s new philosophy. Hobbes’s English optical manuscript, written in 1645–1646, is evidently indebted to Gassendi’s brand of atomism and refers to Gassendi’s excellence as a philosopher and virtues as an individual on numerous occasions, for example, in the context of astronomical observations Hobbes wrote “. . . And this Experiment hath beene made in divers stars at diverse times and registered by the Observer himselfe Mons:r Gassendj, who is so exact both in his skill and in his manners, as neither to bee deceived nor to deceyve” (Harl. MS 3360, f. 165 r.). The English optical manuscript also bears the mark of fellow exile and later member of the Royal Society William Petty who drew the detailed illustrations that accompany the text. Indeed, Hobbes and Petty collaborated on optical and anatomic experiments during this period (Figure 1) (Aubrey 1898, I 336). Petty also, it appears, introduced Hobbes to Versalius’s celebrated Fabrica that informed the anatomical aspects of Hobbes’s writings at the time (Bunce 2006, 98–9). No doubt, Hobbes’s study of Versalius, like his study of optics and anatomy more generally, was conceived to aid the composition of De homine which was supposed to deal with the human body. Samuel Sorbière should also be mentioned in this context. In 1646 he organized the publication of a revised and extended second edition of De cive. He also translated and published the first French translations of De cive and The Elements of Law in the late 1640s and early 1650s. Hobbes had planned to leave Paris in 1646 to complete the remaining sections of his Elements of Philosophy. Indeed, those close to Hobbes, such as Charles Cavendish and James Pell, had high hopes of the imminent completion of De corpore. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s plans changed following the arrival of Prince Charles, later Charles II. Hobbes acted as Charles’s tutor in mathematics. This appointment strengthened Hobbes’s ties to the Royalists in exile, such as Sir William Davenant, whose epic poem Gondibert, published in 1650, included a preface by Hobbes. However, this employment meant that Hobbes was distracted from the preparation of De corpore and De homine. Hobbes’s philosophical project was further delayed by serious illness in the summer of 1647. By the winter it looked as if he would never recover. Gassendi, apparently believing Hobbes was on his deathbed

Hobbes’s Life

11

Figure 1 Picture of brain, optic nerve, and eye, from the first chapter of the first part of *A minute of first draft of the optiques in two parts* (1646) (B.L. MS. Harl. 3360) f. 6 r. (Reprinted with permission of the British Library.)

12

Thomas Hobbes

offered Hobbes the last rights. With Hobbes’s recovery there was renewed speculation that he would soon publish his physics. In spite of the high hopes of those around him Hobbes left optics and physics to one side and began another project.

Return to England At the end of the 1650s Hobbes made the decision to return to England. On a personal level Hobbes had less to keep him in Paris following Mersenne’s death in 1648 and Gassendi’s departure to Toulon. Moreover, following the execution of Charles I and the Oath of Engagement, which required all adult males to pledge their loyalty to the new government, the Civil War in England was finally over. Leviathan, published in 1651 for the princely sum of 8s, was directed explicitly at the English. While deploring the destruction of the Civil War Leviathan urged submission to the new Commonwealth on the grounds that it had the power to protect its citizens. While Leviathan’s advocacy of peace with the new regime made it easier to return home, its attack on Roman Catholicism made his position in France more precarious. Indeed, Hobbes claims that it was opposition from the French clergy that finally forced him to leave for home (Hobbes 1994b, 249). Once in England Hobbes went immediately to London to make his peace with the new Council of State. He then rejoined the Earl of Devonshire who had returned to England submitting to the new regime in return for his old estates. In spite of this Hobbes stayed in London in the company of the physician William Harvey, whose work on the circulation of the blood Hobbes praised in De corpore; his old adversary Catholic philosopher Thomas White; and lawyers John Selden and John Vaughn. Hobbes returned to the long awaited De Corpore and De Homine. The first published in Latin in 1655; De homine followed in 1658. Controversy dogged Hobbes’s scientific speculations. Hobbes’s attacks on the universities earned him the displeasure of Seth Ward, Oxford University’s professor of astronomy who soon exposed the flaws in De corpore’s attempt to square the circle. John Wallis, Oxford’s professor of geometry, joined the battle against Hobbes showing the futility of Hobbes’s supposed proof. Hobbes responded in a revised English edition of De corpore, but his new

Hobbes’s Life

13

mathematical demonstrations also failed to persuade his critics. The controversy was not restricted to mathematics, and Hobbes’s loyalty to the King, his theology, and even his West Country accent were used as ammunition against him. Following the Restoration in 1660 Ward and Wallis became founding members of the Royal Society, along with Robert Boyle and Samuel Petty. Charles II seems to have put pressure on the Society to accept Hobbes as a Fellow but personal, theological, and epistemological differences meant that Hobbes remained an outsider (Malcolm 2002, 317–35; Skinner 2002, 324–45). Hobbes began a new controversy against Robert Boyle, a leading member of the Royal Society who gained a great international reputation due to his experimental work on pneumatics. Boyle argued that his air pump had created an artificial vacuum. To Hobbes’s mind evidence of the existence of a vacuum was theologically dangerous. Hobbes’s system denied the existence of anything that was not a body therefore undercutting priestly power that was based on the supposed existence of a spiritual realm that they alone understood. Hobbes feared that a vacuum in nature opened up the possibility of a space in which spirits could be said to exist. This would give spiritual leaders a renewed authority. Consequently, Hobbes rejected Boyle’s experimental method; arguing that he misunderstood the phenomena that he observed; and that the air pump leaked (Shapin and Schaffer 1985, 19). Leading members of the Royal society responded by branding Hobbes a dogmatist; that is to say someone whose speculation was based on abstract theorizing rather than on experimental evidence. In the Problemata physica (1662) Hobbes broadened his attack on the Royal Society’s research offering alternative explanations for the cause of the tides, magnetism, heat as well as Boyle’s experimental findings. Hobbes’s manifold controversies and his heterodox reputation did not stand in the way of his reconciliation with the newly restored monarch. Charles II granted a pension of £100 a year to his former tutor and allowed him to attend the Royal court whenever he wished. Hobbes also had many admirers abroad. He continued to correspond with his friends on the continent some of whom were busy producing translations of his work. François Du Verdus, for example, published a second French translation of De cive and corresponded with Hobbes concerning a French edition of Bacon’s Wisdom of the Ancients.

14

Thomas Hobbes

More active still was Sorbière who arranged further continental publications of Hobbes’s works and traveled to England to visit Hobbes in 1663. On Sorbière’s account Hobbes was much the same man as I had seen him 14 Years before, and ever in the same Posture in his chamber as he was wont to be every Afternoon . . . I found very little Alteration in his Face, and none at all in the Vigour of his Mind, Strength of Memory, and Cheerfulness of Spirit; all which he perfectly retain’d. (Sorbière 1709, 27)

Last Years Hobbes continued his attacks on the Royal Society as well as his theological controversies into the 1660s. A notable change occurred in his work during this decade. First, Hobbes started to use dialogue as a stylistic device in his writings. Secondly, he began to write histories. Behemoth, completed around 1666 but not published until 1679, exemplifies both of these trends. Whereas The Elements of Law and De cive had set out the Royalist case scientifically, demonstrating their conclusions in a manner akin to geometry, Behemoth presents the injustice of the parliamentary attack on the King through an examination of the history of the period which is presented in the course of four dialogues. Similarly, Hobbes’s later works on natural philosophy Problemata physica (1662) and the Decameron physiologicum (1678), both dialogues, also include historical information from the natural histories and the experimental findings of his contemporaries. Accusations of atheism, and the threat of investigation and prosecution for heresy led to further historical work examining the history of heresy. During the 1660s Hobbes completed manuscripts which were later published as a Dialogue Between a Philosopher and Student of the Common Laws of England, which contains Hobbes’s only analysis of the English constitution (Cromartie 2005, xxiv); a Historical Narration Concerning Heresy and the Punishment Thereof; and finally a series of appendixes, also in dialogue form, to the Latin Leviathan. The Latin Leviathan was published in Amsterdam, which had one of the most liberal publishing cultures in Europe at the time (Collins 2007, 480).

Hobbes’s Life

15

For this reason, it escaped the censorship which prevented further editions of Leviathan or a first edition of Behemoth being published in England at the time. The Latin Leviathan offered a systematic defense of Hobbes’s controversial theology and attests to the fact that at the age of 80 Hobbes was still willing to defend his position in spite of intimidation and the threat of prosecution. (Wright 2006, 110). In spite of this, the 1660s were an extremely fruitful period, but Hobbes’s productivity was not without its consequences. In 1668 Hobbes became seriously ill, and many around him anticipated his imminent demise. Nonetheless, Hobbes returned to health and continued to attack his old opponents; Rosetum geometricum and Lux mathematica continued to take issue with Wallis’s mathematics, and the Decameron physiologicum like the earlier Problemata physica offered a series of explanations for natural phenomena that challenged the views of the Royal Society. At the same time as he explored the new philosophy he returned to the humanist literature that he had first encounter under Robert Latimer, producing translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey in English verse. Aubrey records that even in later life Hobbes’s mind was never at rest (Aubrey 1898, I 390–1). Hobbes believed that his unusual old age and vigor were due to his regimen, which included a moderate diet, copious sweating, occasional vomiting, regular massaging and napping as well as daily walking and singing (Ibid. 350–1). Sorbière records that at the age of 78 Hobbes played tennis once a week (Sorbière 1709, 27). Whatever the secret of his extraordinary longevity his health finally failed in October 1679. He died at the age of 91 on December 4, and was buried near Hardwick Hall, home of the Devonshire family, at the parish church of Hault Hucknall. His tomb stone bears the inscription, still visible to this day “He was a virtuous man, and for his reputation for learning he was well known at home and abroad.” Whatever his virtues and learning, Hobbes continued to be associated with impiety in the popular mind. It was this perspective that was captured in an alternative epitaph that appeared shortly after Hobbes’s death: Here lies Tom Hobbs, the Bug—bear of the Nation Whose Death hath frightened Atheism out of Fashion (Mintz 1970, 21)

16

Thomas Hobbes

Conclusion: Life and Philosophy Hobbes’s intellectual life was extraordinarily rich. He corresponded and conversed with some of the greatest philosophers of the age, men such as Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. Personally, he enjoyed the respect, loyalty, and great affection of many friends. His philosophy was both admired and vilified. Indeed, on several occasions Hobbes feared that his writings would cost him his life. Following the Restoration, however, Hobbes enjoyed Royal favor and the continuing patronage of one of England’s most powerful families. Hobbes’s friends were unable to shield him from the attacks of members of the Royal Society, who were keen to distance themselves and their experimental philosophy from Hobbes’s heretical physics. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s enemies never succeeded in putting him on trial or burning him as a heretic. The concerns of Hobbes’s political philosophy were bound up with his life. It is no surprise that Hobbes, who lived through an extraordinary period of unrest, upheaval, and civil war should become the philosopher of civil peace. It is also fitting that the philosopher who fled Roman Catholic divines in Paris only to be harassed by Protestant clergy in London should defend freedom of conscience and the subordination of church to state.

2

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

Introduction A great deal about the general outlines of Hobbes’s political thought can be gleaned from studying the frontispieces of De cive and Leviathan. The frontispiece of the first edition of De cive (Figure 2) is divided in two by a horizontal line. The bottom section contains two landscapes each with a figure in the foreground. On the right hand a figure, who stands on a plinth marked “LIBERTAS,” carries a spear and a long bow. She is dressed in little more than a skirt and some simple jewelery. In the background similar figures, some of which are entirely naked, chase each other carrying clubs and bows. The landscape is that of an uncultivated woodland, with some primitive huts in the distance. In contrast to these wild men of the woods, the left-hand side is dominated by a figure carrying a sword, but also the scales of justice; she wears a crown and stands on a plinth inscribed with the word “IMPERIUM.” Below her, the countryside is cultivated, and a team of figures carrying scythes reap a plentiful harvest. In the distance is a town or city that is plainly much more sophisticated than that of the rude huts on the opposite side. The contrast could not be plainer: on the one side justice, civilization, and plenty; on the other warfare and scarcity. This is the contrast between humanity in its natural condition where there is a continual war of all against all, and consequently no science, culture, or industry; and humanity in the state where cooperation, security, and justice lead to increasing knowledge and therefore increasing control of the material world for the benefit of humanity. The contrast is reenforced by the top section of the picture which is titled “RELIGIO.” The scene depicted is the last judgment where Christ comes on the clouds and the dead rise from their graves.1 On the left-hand side saints guided by angels ascend into heaven. On the

18

Thomas Hobbes

Figure 2 Frontispiece from the first edition of *De cive* (1642) (Reprinted with permission of the Bodleian Library.)

right-hand side, above the natural condition of human liberty, figures tormented by demons descend into a fiery pit. Clearly, while life under the state is akin to heaven on earth, the state of nature is a place of perpetual torment. Leviathan’s frontispiece (Figure 3) compliments De cive’s picture of life under the state.2 The city in the foreground with its statues, squares and spires, and the towns and harbor

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

19

Figure 3 Frontispiece from the first edition of *Leviathan* (1651) (Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.)

20

Thomas Hobbes

scattered throughout the landscape are clearly those of civilized people. This picture is also useful as it illustrates Hobbes’s thoughts on the state. The figure that towers over its surroundings holds a sword and a crosier, symbolizing his temporal and spiritual authority. Additionally, he presents the face of his otherwise faceless people, undoubtedly a visual metaphor for the way in which the sovereign, literally the head of the people in this picture, represents the people.

The Nature of Hobbes’s Political Thought In 1646 Hobbes, relatively early in his philosophical career, made the astounding claim that he was “ye first to lay the ground of two sciences.” The first was “Optiques, ye most curious, and ye other of Natural Justice” (Hobbes 1839–1845f, VII 471). The claim to be the first to write scientifically about politics may seem extraordinary in the light of the work of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, Francisco Suárez, and Hugo Grotius, to name but a few.3 What is more, he went so far as to say that his contribution to science was more significant than that of any other thinker. To understand this daring claim it is important to grasp Hobbes’s view of the history of human learning, for this history underlined the novelty of his own achievement and justified his rejection of earlier authorities. Moreover, Hobbes’s history of knowledge also contains valuable information about the character of true philosophy. Hobbes’s first treatment of the history of knowledge, outside his writings on Thucydides, can be found in De cive. Here Hobbes argues that the most ancient wisdom was all but lost except for what remained in ‘in the pretty forms of poetry and in the shadowy outlines of Allegory’ (Hobbes 1999, 7). There followed a period, prior to Socrates where the ancient atomists considered ‘the motions and shapes of things to mankind’s great benefit, others in contemplating the nature and causes of things, which do man no harm’ (Ibid. 7–8). During this period advances were made in mathematics. However, when the Greeks and then the Romans turned to civil philosophy, the branch of knowledge that deals with the state and the duties of the citizen, they ‘generated the ambivalent dogmas of the moral philosophers, partly correct and attractive, partly brutal and irrational . . .’ (Ibid., 9). Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and those that followed them Hobbes claims, made

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

21

the terrible mistake of believing that political and moral knowledge were easily accessible (Ibid., 7–8). Hobbes wrote at greater length on the history of knowledge in the 1650s and 60s, and in so doing gave more detail about the nature of true philosophy. The English edition of Leviathan began its history of knowledge with the suggestion that the first philosophers were contemporaneous with the first cities. Cities, Hobbes argued, provided the possibility of leisure, and leisure was the mother of philosophy (Hobbes 1994a, 454). Prior to cities, “men lived upon gross experience; there was no method - that is to say, no sowing nor planting of knowledge . . .” (Ibid.). Borrowing from the classical historian Diodorus Siculus, Hobbes argues that the first philosophers came from Ethiopia, Egypt, India, Persia, and Chaldea. Once again Hobbes argued that most ancient philosophers were gifted natural scientists. Indeed, he argued that the pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient Greece made such progress because they followed “the learning of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, which was astronomy and geometry” (Ibid., 455). Nonetheless, the later Greeks and Romans were diverted from the study of natural philosophy by their love of ethics: “both Greeks and Romans were more addicted to moral than to natural philosophy . . .” (Hobbes 1839–45b, VII 75). The interest in ethical problems was initiated by Socrates, who taught men “to subject public laws to their own judgements.”4 Their ethical speculation was based on their own passions and the examples of their own states rather than on reason (Ibid.). The moderns had done little better than the ancients. Hobbes was highly critical of the philosophy of the scholastics. Scholastic philosophy, according to Hobbes, was rooted in pious attempts to defend Christianity. At first, Hobbes argued, Christians defended their faith by appealing directly to natural reason, but as time went by they began using texts of Greek philosophers. When the apologists mixed theology with the philosophy of Aristotle, they corrupted true religion with vain philosophy. This alliance between Christianity and Aristotelian philosophy laid the foundation for scholastic philosophy. However, the reliance on Aristotle proved unsuitable for the advancement of the sciences. For example, Hobbes claimed that the predominance of Aristotle left no room for the study of other arts or philosophies, such as geometry (Hobbes 1994a, 458). Indeed, Hobbes argued that Aristotle’s philosophy was itself unpromising as it tended to

22

Thomas Hobbes

disputation and to the study of words rather than things. Consequently, the Schoolmen produced many books, but no truth. The end result of the Schools was not a flourishing of science but a tradition that endlessly repeated empty words, which deceived the ignorant and the Schoolmen alike (Hobbes 1972, 42). The achievements of geometry stood in stark contrast to the barren philosophy that followed the ancient moralist Socrates. Geometers started from clear definitions, used a rigorous method, and based their work on reason rather than the passions. For these reasons the study of geometry had flourished. But the success of geometry had not simply furthered abstract mathematics. Indeed, Hobbes’s defense of geometry was rooted in the benefits it had brought to human life: . . . those men who have taken in hand to consider nothing else but the comparison of magnitudes, numbers, times and motions, and their proportions one to another, have thereby been the authors of all those excellences, wherein we differ from such savage people as are now inhabitants of divers places in America; and as have been the inhabitants heretofore of those countries where at this day arts and sciences do most flourish. For from the studies of these men hath proceeded, whatsoever cometh to us for ornament by navigation; and whatsoever we have beneficial to human society by the division, distinction, and portraying of the face of the earth; whatsoever also we have by the account of times, and foresight of the course of heaven; whatsoever by measuring distances, planes, and solids of all sorts; and whatsoever either elegant or defensible in building: all which supposed away, what do we differ from the wildest of the Indians? (Hobbes 1994c, 74) Geometry, unlike the philosophy of Aristotle and his followers the scholastics, was useful. Indeed, usefulness was the mark of true philosophy, for, as Hobbes wrote in De corpore “The end of Knowledge is Power” (Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 7). In spite of the impoverished state of philosophy Hobbes argued that there were signs of a revival in human knowledge. Modern natural philosophy had enjoyed much development in the hands of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, from whence it was further “advanced by Joannes Keplerus, Petrus Gassendus, and Marinus Mersennus” (Ibid., ix).5 The science of the human body had been

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

23

similarly improved, first in the hands of William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, and latterly under the “College of Physicians in London” (Ibid.). William Gilbert had also written the first rational work on the magnet (Hobbes 1839–1845b, VII 57). Nonetheless, the revival of natural philosophy was still fragile (Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 1). Indeed, some of the most celebrated of Hobbes’s contemporaries, such as René Descartes, had adopted the wrong method. In optics, for example, Hobbes’s Tractatus opticus noted that, despite the fact that “there is nothing more easy in all philosophy, nothing more ready for demonstration and agreeing more with the abilities of men,”6 the nature of light had eluded the ancients and had “racked the ingenuity of the neoteric [modern] philosophers.”7 Hobbes’s history of philosophy is significant because it gives an insight into Hobbes’s view of his own achievement. First, it is against this background that Hobbes’s claim that he was the first to establish a science of politics becomes intelligible. Plato and Aristotle had certainly written about the state and justice, but their writings were not scientific since they were not based on a clear method and since they failed to create any benefit for mankind. Secondly, Hobbes’s history of knowledge indicates that he believed that his contribution to the science of politics was analogous to that of Harvey and Galileo. Harvey had been the first to demonstrate that the heart pumped blood around the body and Galileo had established “the Doctrine of the Motion of the Earth” (Hobbes 1839–1846c, I ix) based on his study of motion in general. Galileo and Harvey had both revolutionized the sciences and Hobbes believed that his doctrine of natural justice was no less groundbreaking. Thirdly, Hobbes’s assessment of classical and scholastic philosophy on the one hand and geometry on the other provides a negative and a positive model for philosophy. Ancient and Scholastic philosophy lacked method, dissolved the meaning of words, produced disputation, appealed to the fickle passions of men, did nothing to improve human life, and tended to undermine civil peace. Conversely, geometry had a clear method, was based on unambiguous definitions, it settled disputes; it was based on reason, and it produced technologies that benefited humanity. Hobbes’s philosophy took its lead from geometry. There is one sense, though, in which it is highly misleading to suggest that Hobbes viewed his achievement as similar to that of other philosophers. Indeed, Hobbes argued that his science, the science of

24

Thomas Hobbes

natural justice, was the most beneficial of the sciences. Geometry, anatomy, and medicine and the sciences of motion all benefited human life, but the advance of these sciences was dependent on civil peace. Hobbes’s doctrine, for the first time, contained a scientific description of how to create and sustain peace. In this sense Hobbes’s doctrine was essential to the advance of all other sciences and consequently, he could claim with conviction that his science was “ye most profitable of all other” (Hobbes 1839–1845f, VII 471).

Hobbes’s Works Hobbes’s science of natural justice went through considerably less modification than his science of optics. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to view it as unchanging. Indeed, Hobbes composed four different versions of his doctrine over a period of more than 20 years. The first, The Elements of Law was circulated in manuscript form in 1640. De cive, the second, was published in 1642, and again in an extended edition in 1647. It was followed by the English edition of Leviathan in 1651 and finally, a Latin edition, which contained three new appendices, published in 1668. While the outlines of Hobbes’s political thought remained consistent, there were important revisions in his theory. For this reason I have used The Elements of Law, De cive and Leviathan in the account that follows. Moreover, I have not attempted to give a single definitive account of Hobbes’s doctrine, but rather to point to areas in which Hobbes’s texts concur as well as noting differences between the various accounts. I will also discuss De homine (1658) and Behemoth, which was written around 1666, both of which shed light on Hobbes’s political thought. The former deals with the human passions but deliberately stops short of addressing civil philosophy. The latter presents a history of the English Civil War and is certainly informed by Hobbes’s political thought, but it does not contain a systematic formulation of Hobbes’s ideas.

Human Nature: Reason, Knowledge, Imagination, and Passion Hobbes’s political thought is quite unlike that of his contemporaries as each of its formulations followed an account of the physical and

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

25

psychological nature of man. The Elements of Law illustrates this point as its opens with a consideration of human sensation, memory, reason, pleasure, pain and the passions. In so doing it incorporates information from scientific works by Bacon and Galileo (Hobbes 1994c, 47). Although there is no comparable discussion of these topics in De cive it should be remembered that De cive was the third section of Hobbes’s Elements of Philosophy and the second section, De homine, considered the heart and the blood, in a discussion that is obviously indebted to the natural philosophy of Harvey and Descartes, human reproduction, the human eye and sensation, as well as the passions. Indeed, the first edition of De cive acknowledged this by starting with the assertion that ‘[i]n the previous section the whole of human nature has been described, comprising the faculties of body and mind; . . . Physical force, Experience Reason and Passion’(Hobbes 1999, 21 n. 1). The inclusion of this natural philosophical and natural historical material in Hobbes’s writings on civil philosophy sets it apart from other early modern works of civil philosophy, such as Bodin’s Six livres de la République, Justus Lipsius’s De doctrina civili, and Grotius’s De jure belli ac pacis, all of which Hobbes had encountered prior to writing The Elements of Law 8 (Skinner 1996, 236). Before turning to Hobbes’s civil philosophy, it is worth considering some parts of Hobbes’s account of human nature that informed it. The Elements of Law, for example, contains an account of sensation that is foundational to Hobbes’s later description of pleasure, pain and the passions. The account given in The Elements of Law is similar to many contained in Hobbes’s works of the early 1640s. Antiwhite’s description, for example, is essentially the same: . . . at the same instant where any part of the shining object is moved towards the eye . . . the motion will impinge on the eye, i.e. the shining body will act on it. Similarly the action is also communicated to the inner regions of the skull, where the brain and the animal spirits, the organs of sight are; so vision is affected at the same instant as the shining object begins to dilate . . . (Hobbes 1976, 101) Sensation, for Hobbes, was a motion communicated from an object of sense, via a medium, to the spirits in the sense organs, and the spirits in the brain; and a reciprocal motion of reaction from the brain back, via the organ and the medium, to the object of sense. Put

26

Thomas Hobbes

simply, when we see the light of a fire, for example, the motion of the object that is burning is communicated to through the air to the eye and then to the brain. Hobbes called the microscopic parts of the eyes and brain that carry this motion spirits. This term is somewhat misleading as it could be taken to imply the presence of something spiritual in the sense of something ghost-like and immaterial. Instead, Hobbes conceived these spirits as material things that are imperceptible due to their smallness. Hobbes began his description of pleasure and pain, in chapter 7 of The Elements of Law, by restating his description of sensation. The motion of the spirits caused by sensation was not, however, restricted to the brain. Indeed it continued to the heart. These motions of spirits around the heart were either pleasures or pains. The distinction between pleasure and pain was simple. If the continued sensory motion aided the vital motion of the heart, the result was “DELIGHT, or pleasure, which is nothing really but motion about the heart” (Hobbes 1994c, 43). Conversely, when the motion “weakened or hindereth the vital motion, then it is called PAIN” (Ibid.). The passions were a species of pleasure and pain, but they were related to the opinions of men. Hobbes described them as “the pleasure men have, or displeasure from the signs of honour or dishonour done unto them” (Ibid., 50). To understand this, it is important to understand Hobbes’s conception of honor. Honor was a sign of “the acknowledgment of power”(Ibid., 48). Power, according to Hobbes, was the ability to procure some perceived good. Powers included bodily strength, wit, and knowledge. They also included “riches, place of authority, friendship or favour, and good fortune; which last is really nothing else but the favour of God Almighty” (Ibid.). In short, the passions were pleasures and pains that arose from signs of honor and dishonor. So glory, for example, was an “imagination or conception of our own power, above the power of him that contendeth with us” grounded either in our own estimation of our past actions, or on the opinions of others (Ibid., 50). Nonetheless, Hobbes’s formal definition of the passions does not seem to be wholly applicable to all of the passions he discussed. Lust, for example, was not characterized as a type of pleasure, or as a response to either honor or dishonor (Ibid., 55). Indeed Hobbes’s description of the passions outside The Elements of Law did not link the passions to honor. Hobbes’s

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

27

manuscript Of Passions, for example, equated the passions with pleasure and pain with no further qualification. Hobbes wrote, [t]hey are in generall the beginnings or endevours to animal motion, for all most [allmost deleted] all objects that are presented to the senses or remayne in the imagination, do so affect a man, as either to be pleas’ed, or displeased. (Ibid., 55) Equally, De homine simply described the passions in terms of motions of spirits around the heart (Hobbes 1972, 55). Turning to memory and imagination, which Hobbes took to be the same process, he argued that they were essentially a continuation of the motion caused by an object that had been perceived once the original object was no longer present. Hobbes used the analogy of water that was blown by the wind to illustrate his point. The surface of a pond, for example, struck by a gust of wind will begin to ripple (Hobbes 1994c, 27). However, once the wind has stopped the pond continues, for a time, to move in the same way. Similarly, when we see a light the spirits in our eyes, optic nerves and brain begin to move in a particular way. If we close our eyes this motion will continue, even though the initial stimulus is gone. This residual motion of the spirits is memory. Imagination is the same process, but it combines or compares numerous objects, for example, the memory of gold and the memory of a mountain can be combined to create an imaginary mountain of gold (Ibid., 28). Hobbes’s view of reason was at odd with that of the scholastics. Traditionally, reason was seen as a faculty of the mind which was linked with natural law and thus to morality. The ancient Athenian philosophers the Stoics, for example, equated reason with the law of nature (Schofield 1991, 66). Christian thinkers also believed that there was a moral aspect to reason. Suárez, for instance, following Aquinas, argued that God’s laws were, by divine providence, accessible to humans through reason, and that if humans reasoned correctly they could uncover divine wisdom (Suárez 1944, II 167). Hobbes, however, denied that reason was a faculty and also that it had any special moral quality. Hobbes tends to discuss “ratiocination” that is to say reasoning as an activity rather than reason as a faculty of mind. Ratiocination, for Hobbes, is simply the act of calculation with words, or “names” as Hobbes described them. De corpore gives the example of adding together

28

Thomas Hobbes

a series of names to create a definition of man: “these three single names, body, animated, rational, are in speech compounded into this one name, body-animated-rational, or man” (Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 4). Memory and reasoning are related to prudence or history and philosophy or science. Hobbes contrasts the two in the English Leviathan by distinguishing between “KNOWLEDGE of two kinds . . . one is the knowledge of fact, the other knowledge of the consequences of one affirmation to another” (Hobbes 1994a, 47). The former is either prudence or history and is “nothing else but sense and memory” (Ibid.). Prudence, Hobbes argues, “is nothing else but conjecture from experience” (Hobbes 1994c, p.33). Prudence is linked to memory as “experience is but remembrance” (Ibid.). Prudence is useful as, for example, it teaches that heavy clouds are often followed by rain. Nonetheless, the maxims of prudence can never be wholly certain as “[e]xperience concludeth nothing universally” (Ibid.). Indeed, while heavy cloud is often followed by rain it does not necessarily entail rain. History, like prudence, is based on the remembrance of fact. Once these facts are recorded they can be described as histories (Hobbes 1994a, 47). While Hobbes’s view of prudence was consistent throughout his writings he seems to have changed his mind over the exact nature of science. Broadly speaking, Hobbes’s earliest works equate science with logical deduction very much like geometry, whereas his later writings identify it with the analytic-synthetic method. The Elements of Law, to take an example, describes philosophy as sound reasoning from true definitions in such a way that indubitable conclusions are reached. This view was also evident in Hobbes’s other writings of the early 1640s.9 Finally, Hobbes’s Praefatio to Mersenne’s Balistica gives the same essential definition of philosophy. The significant novelty in the Praefatio’s account was Hobbes’s treatment of the method of composition and resolution, or analysis and synthesis. The Praefatio explicitly stated that this method was just another form of memory and consequently a form of prudence rather than philosophy. If we proceed from imagined causes to imagined effects towards a goal which is always the final effect, this is called συνθεσις or. composition; if [we work] from effects to causes and thus in a regular order towards the previous causes this is αναλυσις or resolution. Each however is but memory.10

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

29

Hobbes illustrated the working of the analytic-synthetic method with the example of a man building a house. In this example the man works from the desired effect back to the material and structure needed to create a house. Hobbes underlined the unscientific nature of the method by comparing analysis and synthesis to the approach of a bird (a nonrational animal): “[a]n example of this in a man is when he imagines a building starting from the material in order to bring about the form of the house; for then his imagination proceeds from the materials to their bringing together, and from there to the foundation, walls, roof, etc.: these resemble the building of a bird’s nest.”11 Clearly then in Hobbes’s early work science could not be equated with analysis or synthesis. Nonetheless, from 1645 Hobbes described science in the very terms that his Praefatio so clearly dismissed. A manuscript version of Hobbes’s De corpore described philosophical method thus: Philosophy is the knowledge, acquired by right reasoning, of the qualities of bodies known by means of a conception of their generation, and conversely of possible generations from correct reasoning from their known properties.12 Hobbes’s analytic-synthetic method comprises two parts. Either it can proceed from known effects to possible causes, or from known causes to effects. The first part is analysis. Hobbes gives the example of trying to understand the nature of gold. Gold is known by its effects by the senses. Hobbes argues that gold is a composite idea and must be broken down, or analyzed. Therefore an analytical approach to gold would be to break it down into more basic or universal ideas such as ‘solid, visible, heavy . . .’ (Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 69). These concepts too should be analyzed until the most universal notions are reached, and by studying the most universal concepts it is possible at last to account for the causes of the effects that the senses detect, such as color and weight. Analysis is the method suitable for natural philosophy as humans know natural bodies through the effects they have on their senses. Synthesis is the method appropriate to civil and moral philosophy. Synthesis works from causes to effects. Crucially, humans know the causes of civil bodies, such as the state, for these causes are located in the human mind, consequently, it is possible to work from

30

Thomas Hobbes

these causes: ratiocination and the passions, to their effects the state and justice (Ibid., 73–4). Similar definitions occurred in both English and Latin editions of De corpore and Leviathan as well as De homine (Ibid. 3 and 65–66; Hobbes 1972, 41–2; Hobbes 1994a, 453–4 and 469). This change in the mid-1640s was also reflected in the revised editions of De cive published after 1647.13 While the general distinction between an early definition of science in terms of a Euclidean deductive method and a later definition of science in terms of analysis and synthesis is generally true, it is worth noting that chapter nine of the English Leviathan retains the earlier definition. Either way, science is the result of the human passion of curiosity and the human ability to reason, and because of this science is peculiar to humans. In spite of Hobbes’s changing view of philosophy and philosophical method it is possible to identify seven common and interrelated themes that characterize his approach. Hobbes believed that science or philosophy was concerned with cause and effect, with bodies in motion, that it was an activity based on computation with names, that it was conjectural, that it was modeled on geometry, that its goal was human utility, and that it was distinct from history and prudence and theology. Science is peculiar to man and so is religion. Hobbes discusses religion in various ways throughout his work. However, in the context of human nature, Hobbes restricts his discussion to what can be described as natural religion. Natural religion is a theological concept that is distinct from revelation. Essentially, natural religion was believed to be the knowledge of God that could be gleaned without revelation. Broadly speaking, it was believed that people in regions of the world that had not been exposed to Christianity could still reach theological conclusions, such as the fact that there was only one God, based purely on their reason and the study of nature. Hobbes’s most extended discussion of natural religion is found in the English Leviathan and therefore it is this discussion that I examine below.14 Religion, unlike the state, arises naturally. Similar to science, religion is distinctively human. Indeed, Hobbes argues that there are no sign, nor fruits of religion, but in man only; [thus] there is no doubt, but that the seed of religion, is also only in man, and consisteth in some peculiar quality, or at least in some eminent degree thereof, not found in other creatures. (Hobbes 1994a, 63)

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

31

The two major seeds of religion are anxiety and curiosity. Animals, Hobbes claims, have “little or no foresight of the time to come” so they are not anxious about their future well being (Ibid.). Additionally, they lack “observation and memory of the order, consequence, and dependence of the things they see” (Ibid.). Animals are endowed with sense, memory, and prudence (Ibid., 454). Nonetheless, the crucial distinction between man and other animals in this context is that animals have no understanding of “order, consequence and dependence” (Ibid., 63). The absence of this understanding means that humans alone can perceive systematic cause and effect relationships and therefore can access philosophy—the knowledge of causes. The second seed of religion is curiosity. Hobbes describes curiosity as a passion peculiar to human nature: “Desire to know why, and how, Curiosity, such as in no living creature but man, so that man is distinguished, not by his reason, but also by his singular passion from other animals . . .” (Ibid., 31). The peculiarity of curiosity to man is also emphasized later in Leviathan, where curiosity is defined as “the love of the knowledge of causes” which links curiosity to science (Ibid., 62). Leviathan’s account of the relationship between anxiety and curiosity is somewhat confused. Chapter XI indicates that curiosity is the result of anxiety: “Anxiety for the future time, disposeth men to enquire into the causes of things . . .” (Ibid., 62) whereas, chapter XII suggests that “The two first [curiosity and the association of cause with the beginnings of things] make Anxiety” (Ibid., 63). Either way, Hobbes links the impartial search for the cause of natural bodies with monotheism and anxiety about the future with polytheism. In the first case, curiosity leads to the selfless pursuit of the knowledge of natural causes. In turn, studying natural causes leads to a belief in one God, for if we “seek the cause and again, the cause . . . till of necessity he must come to this thought at last, that there is some cause, whereof there is no former cause . . . which men call God” (Ibid., 62). Clearly, this chain of thought is disinterested and inspired by curiosity: love of the knowledge of causes. Natural polytheism, conversely, is the result of “perpetual fear,” which leads humanity to postulate a different deity that controls each of the goods on which life depends (Ibid., 64). This fear is rooted in man’s lack of understanding of causes, and anxiety about the future, for “they that make little or no inquiry into natural causes of things, yet from the fear that proceeds from the ignorance itself of what it is that hath the power to

32

Thomas Hobbes

do them much good or harm are inclined to suppose and feign unto themselves several kinds of powers invisible . . .” (Ibid.). In spite of the difference between natural polytheism and natural monotheism, Hobbes is clear that neither the polytheist nor the monotheist has certain knowledge of their belief. The significant difference, then, is the motivation behind the belief. The polytheist is motivated by fear, the monotheist by the search for the knowledge of causes. The similarity between science and monotheism, both of which are rooted in the study of natural causes, may strike the modern reader as strange, given the view that science has tended toward secularization. However, in the seventeenth century science was not necessarily seen as irreligious (Tuck 1989, 50). Bacon is a case in point, for he argued that science posed no threat to true religion, as “there is no such enmity between God’s word and his works” (Briggs 1996, 175). Similarly, Descartes’s Mediations on First Philosophy articulated a defense of the new sciences that was rooted in a proof of the existence of God. Finally, Robert Boyle, a leading member of the Royal Society, cultivated the image of the “Christian virtuoso”; dedicating his work to the glory of God and the charity of mankind (Mintz 1970, 82). Hobbes’s understanding of the faculties of the human body and mind, religion and science form the backdrop to Hobbes’s civil philosophy, as they provide the sources of conflict and insecurity that bedevil humanity in its natural condition.

Man, Born Unfit for Society Aristotle famously claimed that man is a political animal. By this he meant that men, like bees, naturally congregate and live together in a community. Consequently, the state is a phenomenon that arises naturally from human activity (Aristotle 1.2 1253a3). Hobbes vigorously contested this view, “[t]his Axiom” he argued, “though very widely accepted, is nevertheless false” and based on an inadequate view of human nature(Hobbes 1999, 22). Rather, “man is not born fit for society” (Ibid., 24). Indeed, Hobbes argues that humans seek each other’s company to gain some advantage rather than out of natural fellow feeling. De cive supports this with reference to empirical evidence. People meet to do business, to form political alliances, to establish their reputation, or to mock and condemn. In none of these

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

33

cases can the relationship that is established legitimately be described as friendship, for every voluntary encounter is a product either of mutual need or of the pursuit of glory . . . All society, therefore exists for the sake of advantage or glory, i.e. it is a product of love of self, not love of friends. (Ibid., 23–4) Nonetheless, the natural desire for advantage and glory are not sufficient to sustain a society in the long term. Indeed, naturally, humans live in a state of war due to natural equality; aspects of human nature, specifically, the passions, imagination and reason; and competition for the goods of life. The Elements of Law begins its discussion of the natural state of mankind by stating that humans are naturally equal. By this Hobbes means that differences in the physical strength and knowledge of individuals are of marginal significance. Mature humans are all equal in the crucial sense that anyone can kill anyone else “since there needeth but little force to the taking away of a man’s life” (Hobbes 1994c, 78). Leviathan qualifies this slightly by noting that men are not equally proficient in the sciences (Hobbes 1994a, 74). At the same time humans have different passions. Passions, in The Elements of Law at least, are the specific sorts of pleasure and pain that humans feel when their power is either acknowledged or ignored. For some the desire for honor leads to a desire for mastery over others or at least the desire to be respected as a superior. Others desire mutual respect and therefore refuse to submit to the vainglorious desires of those who desire mastery. Consequently, this difference in passions creates a situation in which there is conflict and “mutual fear one of another” (Hobbes 1994c, 78). The ability to compare, which is a property of human imagination, heightens the natural state of tension. Each person thinks well of themselves, but objects to others who behave in the same way. De cive considers a further impetus to conflict, which remains largely implicit in The Elements of Law. “Intellectual dissention” causes strife for failure to agree with someone “on an issue is tacitly to accuse him of error . . . just as dissent from him in a large number of points is tantamount to calling him a fool” (Hobbes 1999, 26). Conflict emerges, initially through “words, and other signs of contempt and hatred,” but as this proves indecisive it will escalate

34

Thomas Hobbes

“till at last they must determine the pre-eminence by strength and force . . .” (Hobbes 1994c, 78). Scarcity of the goods that humans naturally desire also leads to an escalation of human conflict. Thus, the majority, due to vanity, envy, desire for scarce resources, antagonize those who would be happy with equal shares and equal honor and everyone becomes embroiled in conflict. Leviathan offers a more compressed account of the sources of conflict than the earlier works. Here Hobbes specified three ‘principle causes of quarrel’: competition, which inspires conflict in pursuit of material gain; diffidence (which in early modern England signified distrust), where conflict is the result of the pursuit of safety; and glory where conflict follows from the desire to protect or advance reputation (Hobbes 1994a, 76). The passions are not the only enemy of peace, reason too has its part to play in creating conflict between men in “mere nature” (Ibid.). Humans naturally desire what is good and avoid what is harmful. The worst thing of all, Hobbes claims, is physical death. Accordingly, it is not unreasonable for humans to use what power they have to avoid pain and above all to avoid death. Indeed, De cive states that the impetus to avoid death is “a real necessity of nature as powerful as that by which a stone falls downwards” (Hobbes 1999, 27). Hobbes describes this as the “right of nature: that every man may preserve his own life and limbs, with all the power he hath” (Hobbes 1994c, 79). At first sight the right of nature seems to justify a rather narrow range of actions. Nonetheless, this conclusion would be to misunderstand Hobbes’s position. Indeed, for Hobbes the right of nature justifies an almost limitless range of actions. First, Hobbes argues that the right to self-defense necessitates the right to any means necessary to achieve that end. What is more, the individual alone has the right to judge what means are necessary to ensure that death and pain are averted. Additionally, each individual has the right to anything that they judge to be good, that is to say that might aid their self-preservation. This includes the right to exercise power over the bodies of other people. Indeed, Hobbes argues that reason suggests mastering others as a method of circumventing the insecurity of the natural state. Additionally, each individual will seek to conquer all others: as to overlook even one person is to allow them the opportunity to seek dominance themselves. Nonetheless, ruling by force can only be a short-term solution as eventually an individual’s strength will

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

35

fail. Therefore, in this natural state of war there can be no ultimate victory through physical force alone. Finally, the right of nature does nothing to resolve the conflict between humans in their natural state, for, as Hobbes notes, “that right of all men to all things, is in effect no better than if no man had right to anything.” (Ibid.). Consequently, “the estate of men in natural liberty is the estate of war” (Ibid.).

The Condition of Mere Nature Before considering Hobbes’s escape route from this state of war, it is worth considering what exactly Hobbes meant by the state of war; what the condition of human life was in the natural state; and whether he believed that such a state had ever really existed. First, Hobbes’s conception of war encompasses much more than physical fighting. The Elements of Law describes war as, “nothing else but that time wherein the will and intention of contending forces is either by words or actions sufficiently declared” (Ibid., 80). This definition certainly includes times when “men kill one another” (Ibid.). Nevertheless, the defining feature of war is a situation of mutual fear without a common authority, whether they are actually fighting is immaterial. Secondly, The Elements of Law and De cive say relatively little about life without civil society. Clearly, it is a place of great conflict. It also lacks any civil laws. This is clear from a marginal note added in the second edition of De cive, which asserts that injustice is impossible in the state of nature as “injustice against men presupposes Human Laws, and there are none in the natural state”(Hobbes 1999, 28). In such a state “we find the people few and short lived, and without the ornaments and comforts of life” (Hobbes 1994c, 80). Indeed, “it must be regarded as a miracle if even the strongest survives to die of years and old age” (Hobbes 1999, 30). Finally, in the natural state power gives men right over others, but even the strongest is continually insecure and is unlikely to remain preeminent for long. Hobbes’s most extended treatment of the state of nature occurs in Leviathan: . . . every man is enemy to every man . . . In such a 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 navigation, nor

36

Thomas Hobbes

building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of 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. (Hobbes 1994a, 76) Leviathan clearly makes much more of the absence of the ornaments of life which are mentioned briefly in the earlier texts. Leviathan emphasizes the extent to which the sciences are dependent on civil peace. Moreover, Leviathan stresses the link between security and industry, arguing that individuals will only sow when they are certain to reap. Finally, Hobbes points to historical instances of the state of nature. The Elements of Law supports the description of the natural state with reference to contemporary “savage nations” as well as histories of “the old inhabitants of Germany and other now civilized countries” (Hobbes 1994c, 80). De cive and Leviathan concur in noting the example of the natural condition of men among the original inhabitants of America (Hobbes 1994a, 77). The similarity of Leviathan’s description of the natural condition of mankind and passages in Hobbes’s translation of Thucydides’s history of the Peloponnesian war also points to the most ancient Greeks as another historical example of humans living in mere nature. These earliest Greeks experienced no “mutuall entercourse, but with feare” moreover, “every man so husbanded the ground, as but barely to live upon it, without any Note stocke of Riches; and planted nothing, (because it was uncertaine when another should invade them, and carry all away . . .” (Thucydides 1629, 2). Civil war, a further example of the state of nature, is also implied in De cive. During his discussion of the conflict that is caused by intellectual disagreements Hobbes notes that “the bitterest wars are those between different sects of the same religion and different factions in the same country, when they clash over doctrines or public policy” (Hobbes 1999, 26). The final example of the state of nature that Hobbes discusses is the relationship between “sovereign and sovereign” (Hobbes 1994c, 182). There is no common international power to enforce contracts or the law of nations; consequently, what is true of relations between individuals in the state of nature is also true of “relations between commonwealths” (Hobbes 1999, 40). Leviathan makes the same point with considerably more emphasis arguing that “in all

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

37

times kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies and in the state and posture of gladiators, having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on one another . . .” (Hobbes 1994a, 78).

The Laws of Nature While human nature leads to the turmoil of the natural state it also provides a way out, for human reason and the fear of death lead to natural law. Hobbes describes natural law variously: it is “a precept or general rule, found out by reason” (Ibid., 79), “Divine law[,]” (Hobbes 1999, 58) and moral law (Hobbes 1994c, 99). Hobbes’s view of natural law was no less iconoclastic than his view of human nature. Hobbes stresses the novelty of his position at the beginning of his discussion of natural law in De cive by dismissing two alternative views. First, Hobbes rejects the notion that an act is contrary to natural law if it is condemned by all of the “wisest and most civilized nations” for the simple reason that there is no way of judging which nations meet this criterion (Hobbes 1999, 32). Secondly, he dismisses the view that something is against natural law if it is abhorrent to all people due to the fact that people “condemn in others what they approve in themselves, [and] publically praise what they privately reject” (Ibid., 33). Natural law should not be confused with natural right, and Hobbes specified the distinction between the two explicitly in Leviathan. Law entails obligation, right on the other hand, permits the possibility of action, but does not necessarily require it (Hobbes 1994a, 79). Hobbes’s own definition of natural law is linked to his belief that all humans will their own preservation: “Natural law therefore (to define it) is the Dictate of right reason about what should be done or not done for the longest possible preservation of life and limb” (Hobbes 1999, 33). Hobbes’s characterization of natural law as the dictate of reason is a traditional formulation. Thinkers such as Aquinas, the Elizabethan Anglican theologian Richard Hooker, Suárez, and Grotius all argued that natural law was the result of the action of reason.15 The first dictate of right reason is “to seek peace when it can be had; when it cannot, to look for aid in war” (Ibid., 34). From this foundation Hobbes deduces the following natural law, which The Elements of Law

38

Thomas Hobbes

and De cive describe thus: “the right of all men to all things must not be held onto; certain rights must be transferred or abandoned” for if this right is retained there can be no escape from the natural state of war (Ibid.). Leviathan’s version of the first law is significantly different: “that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things, and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself ” (Hobbes 1994a, 80). Leviathan’s version explicitly states that men in the state of nature are only required to lay down their right when all others are of the same mind; the earlier versions concur, but this stipulation does not occur in their formulations of the law. Hobbes also had a specific conception of what it meant to transfer the right to everything. If an individual or a group transfer their right to another they can no longer offer any opposition when the recipient acts in a way that could have been legitimately resisted prior to the transfer. Notably, the recipient does not gain any new rights as he already had the right to all things. However, following the transfer he can enjoy this right without interference. Transferring, Hobbes claims, can only take place under certain conditions. First, the people who make the transfer must declare who they are transferring their rights too. Secondly, the recipient or recipients must declare that they accept the transfer. This excludes God or animals from receiving a transfer of rights as they are unable to declare that they accept the gift. The transfer has to be a free gift, and the gift implies no obligation on the recipient, other than those stipulated in natural law. The act of several people transferring their rights to another is called a contract. Significantly, it is only those who give up their rights, and not the recipient, who are party to the contract. Finally, in order for the agreement to be considered a contract, all parties must fulfill their obligations immediately. If one party promises to perform some act at a later date this agreement is described as a “COVENANT” (Hobbes 1994c, 84). Hobbes contends that covenants in the state of nature can be legitimately broken if one party has cause to fear that fulfilling his promise will lead to harm or death. Consequently, in the state of nature, covenants are insecure. Nonetheless, there appears to be some ambiguity over this point. Hobbes argues that it is legitimate to break a covenant if one party had grounds to fear for his life or safety. Hobbes clarified this point by arguing that breaking the covenant is only legitimate on the grounds of some new information

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

39

as “a cause which was unable to impede the making of an agreement out not to impede its performance” (Hobbes 1999, 37). This seems to introduce some limit on an individual’s right to judge the means by which self-preservation can best be achieved, or at the very least, it seems to require that individuals act consistently, which again places a limit on what an individual can do to protect themselves. Either way Hobbes appears to be backing away from his assertion that in the state of nature individuals have the right to judge how best to conduct themselves to ensure their survival. In sum, Hobbes argued that reason dictates that individuals in the state of nature seek peace. In order to achieve this he states that it is necessary to transfer the right to all things by means of an agreement. This contract must encompass everyone in the state of nature with the exception of the recipient who retains their right to all things but gains the ability to enjoy this right without resistance. From this, Hobbes goes on to argue that reason dictates that ‘men perform their covenants” (Hobbes 1994a, 89, cf. Hobbes 1999 43 and Hobbes 1994c 88).16 With the establishment of a covenant and the acknowledgment that covenants must be honored it is possible to talk, for the first time, of justice and injustice. In the state of nature as everyone has the right to everything nothing can be unjust. However, once a contract has been agreed whereby everyone, excepting the recipient, agrees to lay down their right to everything it becomes unjust to break this agreement, for individuals no longer have the right to act in this way. However, justice only comes about when the contract is valid, that is to say when it can be enforced by a coercive authority which can meet out punishment that is “greater than the benefit they expect by breach of their covenant” (Hobbes 1994a, 89). Leviathan describes the next law of nature as “GRATITUDE.” Hobbes likens it to the previous law by arguing that as justice depends on a prior contract, so gratitude depends on prior grace. The law states “that a man which receiveth benefit from another of mere grace endeavour that he which giveth it have no reasonable cause to repent him of his good will” (Hobbes 1994c, 89). By this Hobbes means that the recipient of the transfer must, out of gratitude for the free-gift, ensure that those who gave away their rights do not regret their action. Hobbes justifies this by appealing again to his first law: to strive for peace. Gratitude rather than ingratitude tends to peace. Moreover, ingratitude on the part of the recipient will fail to foster “benevolence or trust; . . . mutual

40

Thomas Hobbes

help, . . . [or] reconciliation of one man with another; and therefore they are to remain still in the condition of war” (Ibid.). This law of nature is instructive because it sets up a sharp distinction between life in the state of nature and life under a single power. The former, as noted above, is a situation of suspicion, insecurity, and war. In the latter, however, good will, confidence in the promises of others, and even generosity is expected to flourish. Some commentators have mistaken Hobbes, suggesting that he believed that order was only possible due to fear (Rogow 1986). The law of gratitude, however, indicates that Hobbes envisaged a society where peace was sustained by virtue rather than by fear. This picture of a benevolent society based on trust is further strengthened by the remaining laws. Hobbes stipulates “that every man strive to accommodate himself to the rest[;]” (Hobbes 1994c, 89) that those who are sincerely sorry should be pardoned; that the desire for revenge be replaced by the desire for future good; that citizens should not show contempt for one another; that citizens acknowledge that ‘everyone be considered equal to everyone[;]’(Hobbes 1999, 50) that no one demand a right which they would not allow others; and that judges act fairly. In total chapters 14 and 15 of Leviathan enumerate 19 laws of nature, all of which, Hobbes claims, can be summarized by the injunction “Do not that to one another, which thou would not have done to thyself ” (Hobbes 1994c, 99). Nonetheless, Leviathan’s final chapter introduces a twentieth law of nature, which is not found in the De cive or The Elements of Law. Namely, Hobbes states that it is a law of nature “that every man is bound by nature, as much as in him lieth, to protect in war the authority by which he is himself protected in time of peace” (Ibid., 40). This natural law is a useful corrective to some readings of Hobbes’s position. It has been argued that subjects only owe allegiance to their sovereign while he can guarantee to protect them. Consequently, once a sovereign’s power is in question due to a civil war or a war with another state the subject’s obligation is at an end. This final law of nature however, indicates that Hobbes believed that subjects are obligated to their sovereign even if he appears to be loosing a war, and that this obligation is rooted in the benefits they received from a sovereign’s rule in peacetime. Once again, gratitude, as well as the desire for self-preservation ties the subject to the sovereign.

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

41

Finally, the term natural law is, as Hobbes acknowledges, misleading. Hobbes argues that law properly defined is “an utterance by one who by right commands others” (Hobbes 1999, 56). Therefore, insofar as natural law is merely the dictates of reason it cannot properly be called law. Nonetheless, natural law has a double character being the dictates of reason and also being divine law. It is in this second sense that natural law can properly be considered law because God has the supreme right to command (Ibid., 56–7).

Persons, Authors, Representation, and the State Having discussed the state of nature and the laws of nature, The Elements of Law and De cive turn immediately to the social contract. Leviathan, however, introduces a new element in Hobbes’s account: the related notion of persons, authors and representation.17 These concepts, which Hobbes was to return to with greater clarity in De homine and the Latin Leviathan, are rooted in Roman law and early modern theater and should not be confused with more recent concept of representation or theories of persons (Skinner 2002, III 179–80). Hobbes’s aim was to consider how the state, an artificial entity, could be said to act, and who can justly be said to speak and act on the state’s behalf. Hobbes begins his account with a series of definitions: A person is he whose words or actions are considered either as his own, or as representing the words or actions of another man or of any other thing to whom they are attributed, whether truly or by fiction. (Hobbes 1994c, 101) Leviathan goes on to distinguish between two different types of person: the “natural person” and the “artificial person” (Ibid.). A person is said to be a natural person when their actions represent no one other than themselves. That is to say, the natural person speaks and acts for himself. Conversely, an artificial person acts on behalf of another, of a group or of another entity; or is represented by another. Consequently, a natural person becomes an artificial person by agreeing to be represented or by representing others. Hobbes takes his conception of a person from the theater (Ibid.). Indeed, Hobbes

42

Thomas Hobbes

argues that a person, as he uses the term, is the same as a mask, a disguise or an actor. Consequently, it is possible to act as different persons at different times (Ibid.). The analogy of the theater is instructive as it implies that the artificial person is acting out a public role. The public nature of these roles is further supported by Hobbes’s use of the phrase “public persons” to describe ministers who publicly represent the state, and the “king of any country” who he describes as “the public person or representative of his own subjects” (Ibid., 158). Having introduced the concept of an actor, Hobbes contrasts it with that of an author. An actor performs actions but the author is their owner. Hobbes compares the actor to a deputy, a representative or a lieutenant who acts on the authority of another (Ibid., 102). For example, an actor can be authorized to make a contract on behalf of an author, in which case the author is bound by the contract as if he had made it himself. Nonetheless, Hobbes warns that it is possible for an actor to exceed their authority, in which case, to use the same example, the contract would be invalid. What then gives an actor or a representative the right to act on behalf of another? The answer is simple, in order to act legitimately on another’s behalf the actor must be properly authorized by the author. Proper authorization is nothing less than the transfer of a right. Consequently, once an author has authorized an actor to act on his behalf not only is the author bound to accept the actor’s actions, the author is also obliged not to interfere in those actions. Artificial persons fall into two categories: those who are also natural persons and therefore can be described as authors; and those who are not natural persons and therefore can be represented, but cannot be authors of the actions done in their name. It is this second group, which Skinner describes as ‘purely artificial persons’ which are of great significance for Hobbes’s theory of the state (Skinner 2002, III 192). Again this category can be subdivided into two: the first are those whose actions can be truly attributed to them, the second whose actions are attributed to them fictitiously—Hobbes says little about this second category outside De homine, and as they are incidental to Hobbes’s general theory I have omitted any discussion of them.18 Hobbes gives a number of examples of purely artificial persons who can have actions and words attributed to them in a way that is more than merely fictitious. For example Hobbes discusses “a church, an hospital, [or] a bridge.” These may be represented or “personated by

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

43

a rector, a master, or an overseer” (Hobbes 1994c, 102). In each case the representative has the legal right to act and speak on behalf of the church, hospital, or bridge that they represent. Crucially, it seems that Hobbes was willing, at least by the time he wrote De homine and the Latin Leviathan to argue that a bridge or a hospital was a person (Skinner 2002, III 195). This may seem strange, but nonetheless, Hobbes justifies this position as “a temple, or a bridge” or any other institution can own property, dispose of assets, make public statements and act in law; moreover they are capable of being represented (Hobbes 1972, 85). In these cases the representative should be the owner of the institution or at least should be appointed by the owner; notably, the right to own property is at the discretion of the sovereign; consequently, the sovereign retains the right to appoint representatives. The state is undoubtedly the most significant artificial person that Hobbes considers. Hobbes’s theory of persons, authors, and representatives explains how the state, which is not a natural person, can be said to hold sovereign power; as well as the relationship between the multitude, the state and the monarch, or ruling assembly. First, Leviathan describes the process by which people in the condition of mere nature establish a commonwealth in terms of the language of representation. Essentially, the multitude of natural persons authorize one natural person or a group of natural persons to represent them. The multitude which is naturally many becomes one because they are now represented by a single will. The representative then takes on or bears the person of the people, and the people can act as one through their representative. When the people come together by authorizing a representative they create the artificial person that is known as the state, or “COMMONWEALLTH, in Latin CIVITAS” (Hobbes 1994c, 109). Furthermore, the state is represented, for being a purely artificial person it cannot act or speak on its own account. This representative, who bears the person of the state or “carrieth this person is called SOVEREIGN, and said to have Sovereign Power” (Ibid.). While this is a very useful way of understanding the process that occurs when a state is created from a social contract, Skinner has pointed out that this account is not explicitly linked to states that are created as a result of conquest (Ibid., 197). This theory of representation was clearly partisan in terms of the debates on sovereignty that took place during the English Civil War. First, if sovereignty is something that is created with the state it cannot

44

Thomas Hobbes

follow that “the people” held sovereign power prior to the creation of the state. Consequently, Hobbes’s account denies the sovereignty of the people both before and after the creation of the state. Secondly, Hobbes argues that when a representative is authorized to act on another’s behalf a right has been transferred. Consequently, it is impossible for an author to choose to change his representative or to choose a second representative. Clearly, if the King is viewed as the representative of the people the people must necessarily acknowledge his actions as their own and have no right to interfere in what he does in their name, let alone dismiss him or choose another representative.

The Creation of the State through Mutual Covenants If reason dictates peace and even specifies those types of behavior that are conducive to peace why then is a social contract, a sovereign and civil laws necessary? Hobbes’s answer is that men will willingly break the laws of nature, or any other laws, if breaking the laws seems the most beneficial course of action (Hobbes 1999, 70). The crucial problem is the fact that the good of the individual and the common good do not naturally coincide, and when the two conflict the individual will pursue the former in preference to the latter (Ibid., 71). Natural law will only be obeyed in circumstances where there is security from attack. Hobbes considers a number of ways in which to generate this security and in so doing ensure that natural law is observed. First, he suggests that individuals band together for mutual defense. This strategy, however, is flawed. Should the need arise for a common defense the effort is likely to be ineffective as it is impossible to guarantee agreement on how it is to be achieved. The only solution is to create a single will. The commonwealth comes into being when every man covenants with every man in the following way: I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on the condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in a like manner. (Hobbes 1994c, 109) Crucially, there is not a single social contract to which everyone is a party. Rather, there are multiple contracts between each individual

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

45

and all others. The new sovereign is not a party to the contract. Giving up the right to self-government is nothing other than giving up the right of nature. Notably, Leviathan’s formulation of the covenant uses the term “authorize,” which indicates that those who have made covenants have instructed another to act on their behalf. Consequently, they now own the actions of the person or assembly they have authorized and are bound by their decisions. The formulation is different in the earlier versions of the theory, which were published before Hobbes had systematized his definitions of persons, authors, and representation. In De cive for example Hobbes writes: This submission of all their wills to the will of one man or of one Assembly comes about when each of them obligates himself, by an Agreement with each of the rest, not to resist the will of the man or Assembly to which he has submitted himself . . . (Hobbes 1999, 72) In spite of the different vocabulary De cive concurs, the agreement is between each individual and every other individual. Additionally, De cive and Leviathan agree that the new sovereign makes no covenant. Consequently, the sovereign alone remains in the state of nature.

Types of Sovereignty Before enumerating the rights and duties of the sovereign it is worth considering the types of sovereignty that Hobbes discusses. First, Hobbes argues that the sovereign can either be a single person or an assembly. In the latter case the sovereign’s will rests with the majority. In both cases the sovereign has the same rights. Secondly, Hobbes suggests that a sovereign can be created in two different ways. A sovereign can come into being as the result of mutual covenanting. De cive described commonwealths that originate in this way as “natural” (Hobbes 1999, 74) whereas Leviathan uses the phrase “commonwealth by institution” (Hobbes 1994a, 110). Alternatively, an existing sovereign can be overthrown and replaced, or several existing states can be united, in which case several sovereigns are supplanted by one. Hobbes describes this second type of commonwealth as “a commonwealth by acquisition” (Ibid.) or a “commonwealth by design” (Hobbes 1999, 74). Both types are created due to fear. The former comes about due to mutual fear, the latter due to fear of the conqueror.

46

Thomas Hobbes

The Rights and Duties of the Sovereign Hobbes’s various texts all suggest that the rights of the sovereign are rooted in the goals of the commonwealth. The Latin Leviathan, puts this clearly, arguing that: “[f]rom the form of the institution are derived all powers and rights of the one having supreme power . . .” (Hobbes 1994a, 110). Security is the prime object of all of those who come together to create the commonwealth (Hobbes 1994c, 111). Broadly, Hobbes’s texts argue that sovereigns require the following rights in order to guarantee the safety of their subjects: the right to judge, punish, and reward; the right to muster an army, declare war, and make peace; the right to make laws; the right to determine official religious and scientific doctrines; the right to seize and distribute property; the right to appoint and dismiss ministers and other officials; and the right to judge what is essential for the subject’s peace and defense. There is also a great deal of common ground between Hobbes’s texts about the duties of the sovereign. The duties of the sovereign are also rooted in the subjects’ need for security. Significantly, Hobbes states that the security of the people encompasses much more than mere preservation. Indeed, Hobbes goes so far as to say that the sovereign ought to ensure “liberty and wealth” (Ibid., 173) for the subjects of the commonwealth. The Elements of Law and De cive both indicate that the sovereign has a duty to ensure domestic peace and protect against external threats; to allow the subjects as much liberty as possible, without endangering the commonwealth; and to provide for those who are in dire need. Leviathan, however, places greater weight on the duties of the sovereign to educate the people regarding the benefits of the commonwealth and to eradicate seditious doctrines. The security of the subjects necessitates the right of the subject to act as judge and to meet out punishment. Punishment is essential as security cannot be ensured by an agreement alone. Any agreement that cannot be enforced by coercive power is essentially worthless, or as De cive puts it “security is to be assured not by agreements but by penalties” (Hobbes 1999, 78). Consequently, if subjects are to live in peace and respect the laws of nature and civil laws the sovereign must have the right to enforce these laws. The Elements of Law and De cive describe this judicial right as “the Sword of justice” (Hobbes 1999, 78 cf. Hobbes, 1994c, 112). Leviathan indicates that the sovereign can

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

47

use any form of punishment legitimately, including “corporal or pecuniary punishment” or punishment by dishonor (Ibid., 115). De cive also states that while the right to punish belongs to the sovereign, the sovereign can instruct others to carry out the punishment on his or their behalf. The right of the Sword of justice also entails that subjects refrain from helping those who are to be punished (Hobbes 1999, 78). If the sovereign can punish, the sovereign can also reward (Hobbes 1994c, 115). Judicial duties accompany the sovereign’s judicial rights. Indeed, The Elements of Law and De cive argue that corrupt judges are a great threat to civil peace. For this reason, the sovereign’s judicial supremacy also implies the duty to ensure that subordinate judges act justly. Hobbes recommends that the sovereign keeps lower judges in awe of his power and removes magistrates that abuse their power. In this way the sovereign will prevent the people taking the law into their own hands and in so doing reverting to their natural state (Hobbes 1994c, 175). Both the English and the Latin Leviathan discuss the sovereign’s legal duties. The English Leviathan, for example, argues that the sovereign should ensure that laws are good in the sense that they are “needful for the good of the people, and withal perspicuous” (Hobbes 1994a, 229). The Latin Leviathan, like De cive, also argues that criminals should be punished in accordance with published standards (Hobbes 1999, 151 cf. Hobbes, 1994a, 277 n. 9). The sovereign also holds “the Sword of war” (Hobbes 1999, 79 cf. Hobbes, 1994c, 112). This encompasses the right to maintain an army; declare war; negotiate peace; to require subjects to serve; and also entails the right to raise the money, by whatever means the sovereign deems appropriate, and to support the army during peace and war (Hobbes 1994a, 114). Hobbes presents the Sword of war as essentially defensive. He argues that war can be rightfully declared “on each occasion of danger or opportunity” indicating that the sovereign can go to war pre-emptively, or in order to gain resources necessary to the maintenance of peace (Hobbes 1999, 78). Nonetheless, The Elements of Law contains the warning that war, which is prosecuted “out of ambition, or of vain glory” (Hobbes 1994c, 177) is likely to ruin the commonwealth. Therefore, it is the duty of the sovereign not to start a war that does not tend to the public good. The right to make laws is also a mark of sovereignty, civil law being, as Hobbes describes it, “nothing other than commands about citizens’ future actions from the one who is endowed with sovereign authority ”

48

Thomas Hobbes

(Hobbes 1999, 79). The sovereign defines which acts are punishable and in so doing establishes defensible property rights (Ibid.). The absence of these standards prior to the commonwealth is a continual source of conflict; consequently, establishing and publishing these rules is essential to civil peace. Leviathan’s discussion of the sovereign’s law making powers also accords the sovereign “the right of judicature” that is, the right to interpret the law of nature and civil law, and in cases of controversy the right to act as the final judge. This is essential lest conflict over the interpretation of the laws cause strife within the commonwealth (Hobbes 1994a, 114). The sovereign’s duty to make good laws has already been noted, but Leviathan charges the sovereign with a duty that is not mentioned in earlier accounts, namely that the sovereign sets aside special days during which the subjects learn their duties (Ibid., 223). The sovereign is also the final authority on extrajudicial matters, including scientific and religious doctrines. The Elements of Law gives several examples of the kind of beliefs that the sovereign has a duty to root out such as “that a man can do nothing lawfully against his private conscience” and that it is lawful to resist a tyrant (Hobbes 1994c, 176). This right is essential as scientific and religious disputes have the potential to destroy civil peace. Moreover, as human actions are a result of their opinions it is vital that the sovereign has the power to quash any doctrine that might lead to unjust actions. This right includes the right to establish which doctrines should be taught in universities and in public places, who has the right to speak and teach publicly, and which books should not be published (Hobbes 1994a, 225). Leviathan puts the case with greater force by describing the sovereign’s doctrinal authority in terms of a duty, and therefore something the sovereign is obliged to do, rather than a right which is something the sovereign can either do or forbear from doing. Nonetheless, the sovereign’s right or duty (for it is presented as both) to establish the correct doctrines and root out the sources of dangerous opinions is described primarily in terms of education rather than coercion (Ibid.). Leviathan, unlike Hobbes’s other texts states that privileges such as “titles of honour” and the “place of dignity each man shall hold” are also in the sovereign’s gift (Hobbes 1994a, 115). The public show of respect and esteem is a potential source of unrest and jealousy, even in the commonwealth. Thus, the sovereign has the right to distribute

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

49

these honors and to define how people of different rank should address each other in order to defuse rivalry. The sovereign’s rights are indivisible. Again, Hobbes appeals to civil peace in order to justify this. A commonwealth, he argues, in which one sovereign held the command of the army and another so-called sovereign was the head of the judiciary would have no sovereign at all. Indeed, in such a situation the commonwealth could divide into two camps and war would ensue. The Elements of Law summarizes the rights of the sovereign thus: The sum of these rights of sovereignty, namely the absolute use of the sword in peace and war, the making and abrogating of laws, supreme judicature and decision in all debates judicial and deliberative, the nomination of all magistrates and ministers, with other rights contained in the same, make the sovereign power no less absolute in the commonwealth, than before commonwealth everyman was absolute in himself to do, or not do, what he thought good . . . (Hobbes 1994c, 114) This passage also points to the final source of the sovereign’s rights, for while Hobbes tends to justify them in terms of their tendency to promote the good of the subjects, their true origin is elsewhere. In essence, the sovereign’s right is the right of nature. The sovereign is not part of the initial process of covenanting and therefore never transfers the right of nature. Consequently, the sovereign’s right to all things remains intact and this is the foundation of the sovereign’s right. However, the sovereign’s ability to exercise the right of nature unimpeded by others comes from the process of mutual covenanting and the transferral of rights that it allows. The sovereign’s duties, the obligation to ensure internal peace, justice and the people’s defense have already been touched upon. However, the sovereign also has the duty to foster wealth and freedom. When considering the wealth of the people Hobbes notes, time and again, that taxation is a source of great concern to all subjects. As a result, Hobbes recommends that tax should be equitable and that the sovereign should take steps to disguise the scale of the burden placed on the people. Tax is equitable when it is in proportion to the benefit each receives from the commonwealth, rather than in proportion to the ability to pay (Hobbes 1994c, 174–5, cf. Hobbes 1999, 148

50

Thomas Hobbes

and Hobbes 1994a, 226). Secondly, Hobbes suggests taxes on consumption rather than income, as it is far less visible and will therefore cause less resentment. De cive’s discussion of the sovereign’s responsibility to advance the wealth of the people goes far beyond the creation of an equitable tax system. The sovereign, according to De cive, has the duty to pass laws discouraging idleness, forbidding extravagant expenditure, promoting the sciences and the productivity of the earth (Hobbes 1999, 149–50). These sciences include: “the mechanical arts . . . and the mathematical sciences” (Ibid., 150). These were the very sciences that Hobbes and other members of the Mersenne circle were investigating at the time that De cive was being written. The Elements of Law also charges the sovereign with safeguarding the wealth of the people through “the well ordering of trade, procuring of labour and forbidding the superfluous consuming of food and apparel” (Hobbes 1994c, 174). Finally, the sovereign has the duty to allow the subjects a certain degree of liberty. Hobbes uses the simile of the banks of a river or hedges by the side of the road to describe the relationship between the civil laws and the liberty of the subjects. The Latin Leviathan, for example, argues that “the end of laws is not to restrain people from a harmless liberty, but to prevent them from rushing into dangers or harm to themselves or to the commonwealth, from impetuous passion, rashness, or foolishness, as roads are hedged not as an obstacle to travellers, but to prevent them from wandering off, with injury to their fellow citizens” (Hobbes 1994a, 229 n. 11). Consequently, while the subjects should not be exempt from necessary laws the sovereign should not seek to obstruct “the liberty which is harmless to the commonwealth and essential to happy lives for the citizens” (Hobbes 1999, 151). Clearly, the sovereign’s duties are extensive. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s conception of these duties should not be misunderstood. Crucially, subjects have no legal right to compel their sovereign to fulfill his duties. Hobbes’s texts all agree on this point. Nonetheless, there is a significant difference in tone between The Elements of Law and Leviathan when it comes to the question of the sovereign’s accountability. The earlier text stresses the fact that the sovereign is answerable to God and therefore bound by natural law. Leviathan, on the other hand, focuses on the absence of any judicial or popular checks on the sovereign’s action. While both themes occur in both texts there is undoubtedly a difference of emphasis. The Elements of Law sums up the sovereign’s duty in these words: “the duty of a sovereign consisteth

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

51

in the good government of the people. . .” (Hobbes 1994c, 173). Hobbes also argues that when a sovereign’s actions “tend to hurt the people in general” they are breaching natural law (Ibid.). Sovereigns who neglect their duty in this way risk God’s wrath and “eternal death” (Ibid.). Leviathan on the other hand opens its discussion of the sovereign’s rights by arguing that the subjects “authorize all the actions and judgements of that man or assembly of men” that exercise sovereign power (Hobbes 1994a, 110). From this starting point Hobbes argues that no subject can legitimately object to the actions of the sovereign. Hobbes’s argument is simple, as each subject has authorized the sovereign to represent himself, every subject is “author of all the actions and judgements of the sovereign” (Ibid., 112). Consequently, a subject who accuses the sovereign of injustice is in fact accusing himself. What is more, as it is impossible for a person to injure themselves it is impossible for the sovereign to injure his subjects (Ibid.). Leviathan states that the subjects cannot punish the sovereign for the same reason (Ibid., 113). Leviathan does note that the sovereign can break natural law; the Latin Leviathan states that “he who has the supreme power can act inequitably, I have not denied. For what is done contrary to the law of nature is called inequitable . . .” but there is no mention of divine punishment. Similarly, The Elements of Law does mention that “the acts of sovereign power be no injuries to the subjects” but here the stress is on the duty to conform to natural law (Hobbes 1994c, 172). Consequently, while the tone of the two treatments is different, and while Leviathan makes use of the terminology of “authorization” where The Elements of Law does not, Hobbes’s general stance on the rights of the sovereign is consistent. Finally, Hobbes argues that it is in the sovereign’s own interest to observe these duties as “governing to the profit of the subjects, is governing to the profit of the sovereign” (Ibid.). The wise sovereign will therefore fulfill his obligations in order to preserve his power even in the absence of any legal obligation. The source of these duties is more obscure than the source of the sovereign’s rights. Hobbes acknowledges that they are based in natural law, but he never specifies which of his various laws obliges the sovereign to act in the ways he describes. It is certainly clear that the sovereign’s obligation does not arise from any covenant. The source would seem to be the law of gratitude, which obliges the recipient of a free gift to act in such a way that the giver never regrets the gift.

52

Thomas Hobbes

Moreover, gratitude like all of the laws of nature can be deduced from the original natural law to seek peace. So fundamentally the sovereign’s duties are all conducive to continued civil peace and therefore rooted in the original law of nature. In general terms the rights and duties of the sovereign are the same whether the commonwealth was formed by mutual covenant or whether it is acquired by conquest (Hobbes 1994a, 128). There is however, one exception to this. A sovereign who has taken a commonwealth by force can choose to enter into a covenant with those he once fought. On the one hand the vanquished promise to serve the conqueror and on the other hand the victor agrees to spare the lives of those who promise to submit. In this case the sovereign has the duty not to kill his new subjects; however, once this duty is discharged the relationship between sovereign and subject is the same as in the commonwealth that is created by design. Crucially, the victor is under no obligation to enter into a covenant with those who were once his foe, nor does the offer to submit oblige him to spare their lives. Equally, the victor does not become the sovereign over the vanquished simply by military victory, a covenant is necessary; nonetheless, those who have been beaten in war have no duty to submit and can choose to die rather than acquiesce. While the initial act of mutual covenanting creates the commonwealth it is the rights and duties of the sovereign that sustain it. By acting dutifully, that is to say by displaying gratitude for the gift he or they have received and by persistently pursuing peace the sovereign fosters an atmosphere of reconciliation, benevolence, trust, and mutual good will between the subjects and the subjects and their sovereign. So while it is the covenant that creates the state it is the dutiful sovereign who makes it virtuous.

Liberty under the Sovereign Given the sovereign’s continuing right to all things, even the bodies of other people; the commitment on the part of the subjects not to resist; and the fact that the sovereign’s duties cannot be legally enforced, it may well be questioned whether subjects have any liberty at all. The question is complicated by Hobbes’s understanding of liberty, for he distinguishes between the liberty of nature and the liberty of subjects.

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

53

Consequently, it will be necessary to begin with a discussion of Hobbes’s account of liberty and then go on to examine what natural liberty subjects retain as well as the extent of their artificial liberty. Hobbes’s famous statement that freedom depends on “the silence of the laws” should not be taken as a summary of his position. As Skinner has shown, Hobbes’s view of freedom is far more complex. Notably, Hobbes makes no attempt to define freedom in The Elements of Law. De cive contains Hobbes’s first attempt to define natural liberty (Skinner 2002, III 209). De cive makes the striking claim that no one has previously explained the nature of either freedom or servitude. Clearly, Hobbes cannot mean that no such definition has been attempted, for he immediately criticizes an understanding of liberty that he describes as the common view. Traditionally, liberty was understood as a legal status and it was opposed to the status of the slave. This is the understanding of liberty that was embodied in both the Roman Law and the English Common Law. However, Hobbes claims that this view is unscientific due to the fact that it is incompatible with civil peace. Hobbes believed that his definition was the first to make liberty and civil peace compatible. It is in this sense that De cive offers, what Hobbes believed to be, the first secure definition of liberty. De cive defined liberty thus: “the absence of obstacles to motion; as water contained in a vessel is not free, because the vessel is an obstacle to its flowing away, and it is freed by breaking the vessel” (Hobbes 1999, 111, cf. Hobbes 1994a, 136). Before exploring the implications of Hobbes’s definition it is worth considering the novelty of Hobbes’s position. First, by defining liberty in such a way that it encompasses human beings and inanimate objects Hobbes makes liberty compatible with necessity. Water, for example, when freed by the breaking of a vessel, runs downwards due to gravity. While Hobbes and his contemporaries had no agreed understanding of what gravity was, they did agree that in these circumstances water was compelled by nature to fall. Contained in a jar or flowing in a river, the motion of water was the product of nature. Human freedom was generally taken to reside in the will. Scholastics, for example, argued that the human rational soul was unlike anything else in nature as it was reflexive. Water had no will and nonhuman animals were instinctive. Therefore, the motion of inanimate objects and animals was unfree. Humans, of course, were subject to natural forces, and had instincts; but the will allowed humans to choose to act

54

Thomas Hobbes

against their instincts. Therefore, for scholastic thinkers free will was the essence of human freedom. Clearly, Hobbes’s view of liberty is quite different from the scholastic view and for this reason it is no surprise that the nature of liberty was one of the central points of conflict between Hobbes and Brahmall. Second, following classical authors, many of Hobbes’s contemporaries believed that freedom was far more than the lack of bodily restriction. This is the view that Hobbes critiques, the view he describes as the “common” understanding of liberty. Skinner has done much to recover this perspective and describes it as the neo-Roman concept of liberty, or more recently as “republican liberty.”19 For writers working in the classical tradition, true liberty was only possible in a “free state”; that is to say, a state in which the citizens governed themselves (Skinner 1997, 23–6). In such a state the ruler’s power can go no further than the citizens allow. Indeed, laws can only be passed with the consent of the people (Ibid., 49–59). In this sense, citizens are only free if rulers have no arbitrary prerogative powers. Indeed, freedom entails the absence of dependence on the good will of others. This independence is the bedrock of the citizens’ freedom to speak and act as they choose. Slaves and courtiers, on the other hand, are compelled to flatter their masters for fear of falling from favor (Ibid., 95–7). On this account slaves and courtiers are not free even when they are out of prison and enjoying their master’s favor. They are unfree because at any moment their masters can treat them in any way they chose, and they have no power to defend themselves. Hobbes’s view of liberty is novel in this context as well. His view of liberty is far slighter than that of writers such as Milton or Harrington who appealed to this classical neo-Roman view (Ibid., 1). What is more, Hobbes’s concept of liberty is a deliberate attack on the classical republican view.20 Returning to Hobbes’s view of liberty there are essentially two components to natural freedom. The first, is having the power to act, the second is that this power of action is unimpeded. These two aspects can be seen clearly in Leviathan’s definition of a free-man, “a FREEMAN is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is not hindered to do what he has a will to” (Hobbes 1994a, 136). To further elucidate his meaning Hobbes considers two examples where motion is impossible and yet the bodies in question are not unfree. First, “when a stone lieth still” (Ibid.) the stone’s lack of motion is not an

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

55

example of the lack of freedom, for it lacks the power to move. Similarly, Hobbes’s second example is of a man “fastened to his bed by sickness” (Ibid.). Again, motion is impossible due to a lack of power rather than a lack of freedom as the sickness is not an external constraint and therefore does not curtail his liberty. Hobbes’s example of unfreedom is a living creature “imprisoned or restrained with walls or chains” for here the obstacle to motion is external. In short, liberty consists in the unimpeded exercise of one or more of our powers. This view of liberty is, however, only part of the picture, for as Hobbes asserts this is his account of “natural liberty” and he has more to say concerning “the liberty of subjects” (Ibid., 137–8). The English Leviathan is the first of Hobbes’s texts to devote a chapter to the liberty of subjects (Skinner 2002, III 219). Hobbes’s account of the liberty of subjects concerns the freedom that can be rightly exercised by those living under a sovereign. The subject is, of course, obliged to obey the civil laws and the law of nature by their mutual covenants. However, the laws are “Artificial Bonds” or “artificial chains” (Hobbes 1994a, 138). Thus, they are not, in the proper sense, restrictions to natural liberty. Indeed, Hobbes claims that obeying the law is a free act. This can be true in three ways. First, rational subjects will obey the law because they recognize that in so doing they are protecting their own security. Therefore, in obeying the law rational subjects are merely acting in accordance with their own reason, and in so doing they are acting freely. Secondly, the majority of subjects who are motivated more by passion than reason will obey the law in order to avoid punishment. Nonetheless, they are still acting according to their own will when choosing to obey the law. In both cases the subject acts freely in the proper, natural, sense of the word.21 Finally, Hobbes’s theory of representation indicates that the sovereign’s will is identical with the will of the people. Consequently, when the subjects obey the law they are merely following their own will. However, Hobbes’s distinction between the natural and artificial state of man allows him to argue that laws are artificial constraints, and it is in this artificial sense that the liberty of subjects depends on the laws’ silence. Having described Hobbes’s account of natural and artificial liberty it is now possible to consider the extent to which subjects are free in a commonwealth. First, subjects retain some of their natural liberty as there are some natural rights that the sovereign cannot justly require the subjects to

56

Thomas Hobbes

renounce. Hobbes’s most significant example is perhaps the right to self-defense. Hobbes argues that subjects retain their right to resist the immediate threat of death, whether at the hand of another subject, the sovereign, or one of the sovereign’s agents. Consequently, Hobbes argues that it is not unjust for a subject to resist the death penalty. De cive puts Hobbes’s case very strongly: No one is obligated by any agreement he may have made not to resist someone who is threatening him with death, wounds or other bodily harm. For there is in every man a kind of supreme stage of fearfulness, by which he sees the harm threatening him as the worst possible, and by natural necessity does his best to avoid it . . . Since no one is bound to do the impossible, no one is obliged to accept the death with which he is threatened . . . (Hobbes 1999, 39) Hobbes’s statement that the desire to avoid death is a kind of “natural necessity” could lead to the view that Hobbes believes it is literally impossible for an individual to surrender their life or to will their own death. Certainly, this passage from De cive and would seem to support this view. Nonetheless, in other passages Hobbes acknowledges that there are other human motives that trump the fear of death. For example, The Elements of Law describes the passion of courage as “contempt of wounds and death, when they oppose a man in the way to his end” (Hobbes 1994c, 52). Equally, Behemoth acknowledges that “eternal torture is more terrible than death” a point which troubles Hobbes greatly as it allowed the church to undermine the power of kings (Hobbes 1990, 14–15). Behemoth also states that Charles I showed ‘courage, patience, wisdom, and goodness’ in the face of impending death, again indicating that it is possible to face death without attempting to fight or escape (Ibid., 154). For this reason it would be wrong to take Hobbes’s remarks about the “impossibility” of submitting to death too literally. Indeed, given Hobbes’s knowledge of classical and church history it would seem difficult to believe that Hobbes sincerely thought that humans were unable to choose death over life. Secondly, subjects are not obliged to testify against themselves. This too is a natural freedom that cannot be transferred by covenant. This point is closely related to his argument that subjects can resist death without injustice. Hobbes claims that self-accusation is understood to be followed by punishment and as no one is expected to submit to

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

57

punishment no one should be expected to bring punishment upon themselves by incriminating themselves (Hobbes 1999, 39 cf. Hobbes 1994a, 87). De cive and Leviathan take this line of argument further and argue that subjects are not obliged to testify against their spouses, parents, or children (Hobbes 1999, 40 cf. Hobbes 1994a, 87). However, this position is not without its problems. Hobbes appears to justify this by stating that the individuals in question are dependant on each other for their survival and therefore to testify against them would be to endanger their own lives. Clearly, if this was true in every case Hobbes would be correct within the terms of his own argument. Nonetheless, it seems intuitively wrong to suggest that outside some exceptional cases the dependence of one family member upon another is a matter of life and death. Consequently, in this case Hobbes seems to be allowing a degree of flexibility in his system he does not explicitly acknowledge. Conscience is a final area in which subjects retain their natural liberty.22 This may seem surprising given the sovereign’s extensive rights and duties to determine the content of religious doctrines, as well as which doctrines are to be taught in churches and universities. Nonetheless, while the sovereign has a right and a duty to police the sources of opinion and people’s actions his role does not extend to policing beliefs themselves. Hobbes puts this clearly in Behemoth where he argues that “[a] state can constrain obedience, but convince no error, nor alter the minds of them that believe they have the better reason” (Hobbes 1990, 62). This may well seem like a very limited form of freedom, but it is significant nonetheless. First, it shows that the scope of the sovereign’s action was limited to behavior. Religious enthusiasts of various theological persuasions had attempted, and would continue to advocate, using the power of the state to compel belief. Hobbes’s view of state action is far more limited, for he argued that it is impossible and unnecessary to control opinion. Finally, Hobbes argued it was counterproductive to try and enforce belief. Again, Behemoth, states that “[s]uppression of doctrine does but unite and exasperate, that is, increase both the malice and power of them that have already believed them” (Ibid.). This, Hobbes argued, was Archbishop Laud’s mistake. In trying to impose the Book of Common Prayer on the Scots he had created powerful opposition to Charles I, provoked war with the Scottish Covenanters, and in so doing endangered civil peace.

58

Thomas Hobbes

Turning to the liberty of subjects, Hobbes argues that they retain all the natural liberty that is not explicitly taken away from them by the terms of their covenant or by civil laws. A subject’s freedom is in this sense is “the silence of the law” (Hobbes 1994a, 143). Hobbes gives the example of polygamy, arguing that unless the law explicitly forbids it a man may have as many wives as he pleases (Ibid.). Moreover, in The Elements of Law at least, Hobbes envisages subjects with significant residual liberty as there should be “no prohibition without necessity of any thing to any man, which was lawful to him in the law of nature; that is to say, that there be no restraint of natural liberty, but what is necessary for the good of the commonwealth” (Hobbes 1994c, 173). Subjects also gain legally defensible rights against one another. For example, Hobbes charges the sovereign with the defense of property rights. It also seems that there is scope for seeking to challenge the rulings of corrupt judges, as the sovereign is supposed to ensure that those who administer the law do so fairly. Nonetheless, these rights are not absolute, in the sense that subjects have no property rights against the sovereign, and there is no appeal against the sovereign’s verdict. Again, Hobbes does not describe these rights in terms of positive freedom.

The Life of the Commonwealth The metaphor of the body politic was common among classical, medieval, and early modern writers on the state.23 Hobbes used it in a variety of contexts in his different works. In Leviathan Hobbes used the metaphor most extensively, arguing that the state, like a human body, has an artificial life and therefore could succumb to an artificial death either by rebellion, which he likened to a disease eating away at the body from within, or by foreign invasion, which he compared to violent death at the hands of another. The artificial life of the commonwealth Hobbes argued should be sustained by a wise sovereign who fulfilled the duties specified by natural law. Consequently, it would be wrong to suggest that order under a Hobbesian sovereign would be sustained predominantly by continual fear. Hobbes makes this point at the outset of The Elements of Law: . . . for the doctrine, it is not slightly proved; and the conclusions thereof, are of such nature, as for the want of them, government

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

59

and peace have been nothing else, to this day, but mutual fear. And it would be an incomparable benefit to commonwealth, that every man held the opinions concerning law and policy, here delivered. (Hobbes 1994c, 19–20) This is a striking assertion. If we contrast this passage to Bacon’s more conventional view Hobbes’s novelty will become more apparent. Bacon wrote that God had given humanity “two exemplar states . . . the states of Graece, and the state of Rome” (Bacon 1973, 74–5). Hobbes on the other hand apparently dismisses all prior states and looks forward to a new type of state. Indeed, the historian Richard Tuck argues that Hobbes’s vision of life under a properly constituted sovereign was nothing short of utopian. He argues: . . . we have every reason to suppose that Hobbes did believe that a proper understanding of these political principles would lead to something very different from the government of a Louis XIV or a Charles II; any recognizable modern state would be little better than a state of nature unless it succeeded in effecting a much more thoroughgoing transformation of its citizens than had been witnessed by any recorded society. (Tuck 2004, 129) So if Hobbes did not envisage a regime sustained by fear, or a state like those in which he lived what was his vision of life under the sovereign? Annabel Brett argues that “Hobbes insists that no commonwealth can ever be fixed against the return to nature if force is the only thing driving people to keep the laws” (Brett 1997, 233). Rather it is education that will turn men in to subjects. Indeed, in the context of the rights of the sovereign Hobbes wrote: And the grounds of these rights have the rather need to be diligently and truly taught, because they cannot be maintained by any civil laws or terror of legal punishment. For civil law that shall forbid rebellion (and such is all resistance to the essential rights of sovereignty) is not civil law (as a civil law) any obligation but by virtue only of the law of nature that forbiddeth violation of faith; which natural obligation, if men know not, they cannot know the right of any law the sovereign maketh. And for the punishment, they take it but for an act of hostility, which when they think they have strength

60

Thomas Hobbes

enough they will endeavour, by acts of hostility to avoid. (Hobbes 1994a, 220) The essential difference between humans in nature and subjects is their right to judge good and evil for themselves. In order to be a true subject an individual must renounce this right where natural law or the sovereign have already settled the matter (Brett 1997, 233). Finally, then, a commonwealth is sustained by virtuous subjects rather than the fear of death. It is a commonwealth of virtuous subjects that Hobbes envisaged. Tuck goes further to argue that Hobbes’s utopianism encompasses the desire to transform the nature of man. Tuck argues that central to Hobbes’s project was the desire to tame the human passions. The laws of nature, he argues, are an attempt to undo the pride, revengefulness, and the continual search for personal honor that characterizes human nature. Additionally, a commonwealth that endured would oversee a tremendous advance in science and therefore the goods of life. Hobbes likens the potential achievements of civil science to the actual achievements of natural sciences. Natural sciences had, even in what he suggested was a relatively rudimentary state, produced enormous benefits for human kind: But what the utility of philosophy is, especially of natural philosophy and geometry, will be best understood by reckoning up the chief commodities of which mankind is capable, and by comparing the manner of life of such as enjoy them, with that of others which want the same. Now, the greatest Commodities of mankind are the arts; namely, of measuring matter and motion; of moving Ponderous bodies; of architecture; of navigation; of making instruments for all uses; of calculating the celestial motions, the aspects of the stars, and the parts of time; of geography, &c. By which sciences, how great benefits men receive is more easily understood than expressed. (Hobbes 1839–1845c, I 7) Civil science, by ensuring peace would allow the sciences to flourish. De cive, it should be remembered specified that the sovereign had a duty to ensure the advancement of the sciences. While Hobbes never speculated on what types of commodities a reformed science might

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

61

produce it is worth recalling Bacon’s utopian description of island of Bensalem. Bensalem had enjoyed 1,900 years of peace, since its law giver Salomana had set up its fundamental laws. Salomana, like a Hobbesian sovereign “was wholly bent to make his kingdom and people happy” (Bacon 1996, 469). Also, like the sovereign described in De cive Salomana was concerned with safeguarding and extending the fertility of his country’s soil; and as a patron of the sciences he established “Saloman’s House, the noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the earth, and the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God” (Ibid., 471). The mission of Saloman’s house was “the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible” (Ibid., p. 480). This sustained period of peace and sponsorship of science leads, in Bacon’s account, to marvelous technologies such as engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds to set also on divers motions . . . certain chambers, which we call chambers of health, where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the cure of divers diseases and preservation of health . . . [and] sound-houses, where [they] practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. (Ibid., 481–5) The scientists on Bensalem even “have all means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances” (Ibid., 485). While the description of these possible technologies is Bacon’s the vision of a just society, governed by a wise sovereign where the arts and sciences flourished for the benefit of the commonwealth was also Hobbes’s goal.

The Fool Subjects have much to gain from the commonwealth. Yet, the commonwealth imposes duties that some subjects find burdensome. Hobbes therefore anticipates that some will consider acting unjustly in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the drawbacks of civil society. Hobbes discusses these issues by invoking the figure of the fool. “The fool” Hobbes writes “hath said in his heart: ‘there is no such thing as justice’” (Hobbes 1994a, 90). The prime characteristic

62

Thomas Hobbes

of the fool is the fact that he considers it reasonable to break the law when he stands to benefit. Hobbes’s response to the fool has provoked much debate, which I will discuss more fully in the next chapter. Nonetheless, in general terms Hobbes is not prepared to suffer the fool or his argument. The fool is still thinking in terms of the state of nature where it is legitimate to break a promise in order to maximize personal benefit. However, the logic of the commonwealth is very different. Hobbes argues that the fool’s reasoning endangers civil peace and threatens to throw the fool back into the state of nature. In so doing the fool would lose all of the benefits of civil society. Indeed, once the fool has revealed his true colors why should the rest of society tolerate him? He is after all a threat to the peace and security of all and therefore deserves to be thrown out of the commonwealth (Ibid., 92). Hobbes does not accept that the fool’s argument is reasonable. Surely, Hobbes argues, there are few goods that are so valuable that it is worth reentering the state of nature in order to posses. Hobbes does admit that some men might consider destroying civil society in order to gain sovereignty itself. However, he does not concede that this is a reasonable course of action. Here Hobbes appeals to probability. First, Hobbes argues that a rebellion is much more likely to fail than to succeed. Secondly, Hobbes suggests that even if a fool should succeed, his success will inspire others to follow his example and take sovereignty from him by force (Ibid.). Consequently, the fool will only ever gain a tenuous hold on power. Even in the best-case scenario then, the fool can never gain the security that he once knew. Therefore it is always better to obey the law and enjoy security than it is to break the law, whatever the potential inducement.

The Death of the Commonwealth The commonwealth, like any other body, can be subject to decay and even destruction. Hobbes’s accounts of the causes for the decay of the commonwealth differ from text to text, but broadly it is possible to divide the cause Hobbes discusses into four categories: an unsustainable constitution, seditious opinions, organized opposition, and finally the mistakes of the sovereign. First, some states are unstable because they have constitutions that cannot sustain peace. Essentially, Hobbes views any constitutional

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

63

check on the sovereign’s power as a danger to the commonwealth. Leviathan, using the metaphor of the body politic, likens this to “the diseases of a natural body which proceed from a defectuous procreation” that is to say where sick parents pass their diseases on to their children (Hobbes 1994a, 210). Rome and Greece, for example, were unstable, Hobbes argues, because their states were not powerful enough. In Rome, no part of the constitution “pretended to the whole power” and consequently the state was beset by sedition (Ibid., 211). Equally, Hobbes argued that Solon, the lawgiver or architect of the Athenian constitution, had made a mistake when commanded that there should be no war against the neighbouring state of Salamis. In so doing he denied the Athenian state the power it needed to deter an enemy “even at the gates of their city” (Ibid.). Other constitutional problems include the so-called “mixed government’ In such a state, the different functions of government are divided so one part has the right to raise revenue, another has the executive power and yet another has the right to make laws. Here Hobbes claims that there is essentially no commonwealth; rather there are several factions. The potential for civil strife under such a regime is obvious if the heads of the various factions disagree. Again, Leviathan uses the language of the body politic to describe the danger of this kind of government although on this occasion the imagery seems to run away with itself: To what disease in the natural body of man I may exactly compare this irregularity of a commonwealth, I know not. But I have seen a man that had another man growing out of his side, with an head, arms breast, and stomach of his own; if he had another man growing out of his other side, the comparison might have been exact. (Hobbes 1994a, 217) Hobbes also discusses the opinions that undermine the security of the commonwealth. First, people object to paying tax. People who feel as if they are bearing the whole cost of the state, Hobbes observes, “are prone to sedition . . . [and] glad for revolution” (Hobbes 1999, 138). A government that has insufficient funds, Hobbes argues, cannot protect its people (Hobbes 1994a, 217). The reluctance to pay tax is linked with the view that subjects have an absolute right to their own property (Hobbes 1994c, 168). Hobbes, however, argues that while subjects have defensible property rights in relation to other subjects

64

Thomas Hobbes

they cannot justly withhold their possessions from the sovereign who retains the right of nature to everything (Ibid.). Other seditious opinions mentioned in De cive include the following: the view that subjects are bound to follow their conscience rather than the law, the opinion that it is virtuous to resist and kill a tyrant, that the sovereign is bound by civil laws, that an entity called “the people” exist apart from the sovereign, and that preachers who claim direct inspiration from God should be obeyed (Hobbes 1999, 131–6, cf. Hobbes 1994a, 212–3 and Hobbes 1994c, 168–9). Hobbes also discusses the sources for many seditious opinions such as the universities (Hobbes 1994c, 165), books by ancient authorities; the doctrines of the scholastics; and the example of neighboring states (Hobbes 1994a, 214–6). Behemoth mentions many of these as causes of the English Civil War. The fourth cause of Charles’s fall that Hobbes discusses is the education of great men which was rooted in the “books written by famous men of the ancient Grecian and Roman commonwealths” (Hobbes 1990, 3). Equally, Hobbes’s dislike of the universities was rooted in his understanding of history. Behemoth also extended Hobbes’s critique of the universities, arguing that “[t]he Universities have been to this nation, as the wooden horse was to the Trojans” (Ibid., 40) for they undermined the prince’s power as they were established and “armed” by the prince himself as an act of piety. Moreover, they generated an artificial foolishness in their students (Hobbes 1994a, p.46). Thus, they occupied and stupefied brains that could otherwise have defended their rightful sovereign. Organized resistance is another threat to the life of a commonwealth. The Elements of Law and De cive agree that eloquent orators can provoke ignorant people to oppose their rightful sovereign. Gifted orators schooled in rhetoric can persuade by appealing to the passions. Nonetheless, The Elements of Law and De cive state that they have no wisdom and therefore undermine civil peace as they are unable to distinguish between justice and injustice (Hobbes 1994c, 171–2; cf. Hobbes 1999, 138–40). Popular and ambitious men are also a threat to the sovereign. Hobbes claims they flatter and woo the people in order to unseat the rightful sovereign (Hobbes 1994a, p.218). Finally, these men are all the more dangerous when they have a realistic hope of success (Hobbes 1999, 138–49). Finally, a sovereign can also precipitate the downfall of the commonwealth through poorly considered action or even inaction. A warlike

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

65

sovereign who embarks on ill-conceived military adventures may well bring about the end of the commonwealth (Hobbes 1994a, p.218). Equally, a sovereign who allows other groups or individuals to grow in power and authority may well be forced to surrender power. These dangers include powerful towns and cities, private individuals or guilds. If any of these develop independent authority, or riches they may be able to undermine or even challenge a sovereign (Ibid., 218–9). Again, these are not merely conceptual musings based on the nature of sovereignty. Rather, they are rooted in the history of the English Civil War. Behemoth, Hobbes’s history of the troubles of 1640 to 1660, specifies that one of the reasons that parliamentary forces were able to prevail against their sovereign was because they could count on the resources of “the city of London, and other corporation towns” (Hobbes 1990, 110). Clearly, the commonwealth is a fragile thing and, in the wrong circumstances, the role of the sovereign is fraught with difficulties. England’s experience in the period that Hobbes chronicles in Behemoth, showed this all too well. Indeed, in a passage towards the end of Behemoth’s final dialogue Hobbes outlined the history of sovereignty during the troubles: First, from 1640 to 1648, when the King was murdered, the sovereignty was disputed between King Charles I. and the Presbyterian Parliament. Secondly, from 1648 to 1653, the power was in that part of the Parliament which voted the trial of the King, and declared themselves, without King or House of Lords, to have the first and supreme authority of England and Ireland. For there were in the Long Parliament two factions, the Presbyterian and Independent; the former whereof sought only subjection of the King, nor his destruction directly; the latter sought directly his destruction: and this part is it, which was called the Rump. Thirdly, from April the 20th to July the 4th, the supreme power was in the hands of a council of state constituted by Cromwell. Fourthly, From July the 4th to December the 12th of the same year it was in the hands of men called unto it by Cromwell, whom he termed men of Fidelity and Integrity, and made them a Parliament, which was called in contempt one of the members, Barebone’s Parliament. Fifthly, from December the 12th 1653 to September the 3rd 1658. it was in the hands of Oliver Cromwell, with the title of Protector. Sixthly, from

66

Thomas Hobbes

September 3rd 1658 to April the 25th 1659, Richard Cromwell had it as Successor to his Father. Seventhly, from April the 25th 1659 to May the seventh of the same year it was no where. Eighthly, from May the 7th 1659 the Rump, which was turned out of door in 1653, recovered it again; and shall lose it again to the committee of safety, and again recover it, and again lose it to the right Owner. (Ibid., 195–6) This passage illustrates the vulnerability of state power. From 1640 to 1648 there was affectively no sovereign power. From 1648 until 1660 sovereign power found no stable form, with the exception of the five year rule of Oliver Cromwell. The fragility of sovereign power is, perhaps, the final check on an unwise sovereign. While subjects have no legally defensible rights before the sovereign there is always the possibility of rebellion. Rebellion is undoubtedly unjust, but it remains a risk that the shrewd sovereign must not overlook. Dereliction of duty on the part of the sovereign may well be met with resistance. Moreover, given the potential fragility of sovereign power it is a foolish sovereign who would ignore the well-being of the people which natural law has made his duty (Ryan 1996, 237–41).

Conclusion: The Science of Natural Justice Hobbes believed that his civil science was a watershed. No one before him had established an indubitable science of politics and therefore his works were the first to set out the general rules of civil peace. Hobbes argued that man was not a political animal and therefore there was nothing natural or inevitable about the creation of civil peace. Naturally, men lived in a state of war. Fear and reason led them to create a commonwealth through a social contract. Even in the artificial world of the state, civil peace could not be taken for granted. Poorly thought through doctrines about the nature of God, freedom, the state, and property could threaten civil peace and plunge men back into the state of nature. For this reason, the sovereign, whether an assembly or an individual, should enjoy all the power necessary to ensure peace. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s sovereign does not rule primarily through fear. Fear is certainly important in driving men to establish a common power. But the commonwealth is created by one force and

Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy

67

sustained by another. The sovereign rules primarily through law and education. Evidently, those who break the law must learn to fear the sovereign, but rational citizens act justly because they recognize that it is for the best. Consequently, Leviathan still claimed subjects could enjoy a considerable degree of freedom under the sovereign; if, that is, freedom was understood correctly. Indeed, citizens should recognize that the sovereign was their representative. In this sense in obeying the sovereign, subjects are also acting in accordance with their own will. Moreover, while sovereignty was extremely fragile in the wrong circumstances, a wise sovereign could ensure the protection of a virtuous land where the advance of knowledge led to the increase of the good of life. Hobbes offered no institutional checks on sovereign power, but he did acknowledge that there was a limit to what the people would bear. Consequently, while the people had no right to resistance the wise sovereign would recognize that his position was not invulnerable.

3

Reception and Interpretation

Introduction None of Hobbes’s contemporaries criticized him for excessive piety. With this one exception Hobbes was attacked for almost every conceivable vice. Atheism, dogmatism, disloyalty, licentiousness, heresy, undermining the authority of princes, there was practically no end to the list of Hobbes’s crimes; he was even held responsible of causing the great fire of London (Harrison 2003, 49). Following the publication of Leviathan it was Hobbes’s apparent religious heterodoxy that provoked his critics. Therefore, this chapter begins with a discussion of contemporary reaction to Hobbes and focuses predominantly on Hobbes’s alleged irreligion. Following his death, Hobbes was criticized for other reasons, often by writers no less heterodox. These criticisms are discussed thematically, rather than chronologically in sections dealing with the reception of Hobbes’s account of human nature, the state of nature, the social contract, and the state. Finally, I turn to recent debates over the interpretation of Hobbes’s work. Specifically, I will consider in what sense the laws of nature are said to oblige; the use of insights from game theory and Marxism in Hobbes scholarship; as well as considering the extent to which Hobbes was concerned with the skeptical crisis and rhetorical culture of the early modern period.

Hobbism and Atheism In July 1669 Daniel Scargill publicly recanted his Hobbism and atheism. Scargill had been a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge or Bene’t College as it was better known at the time, but was expelled from the University and stripped of his fellowship for his

Reception and Interpretation

69

impiety and Hobbism. Scargill’s offending doctrines may well have owed more to Gassendi and ancient atomism than they did to Hobbes (Parkin 1999, 89–90). Nonetheless, Scargill publicly acknowledged his former Hobbism and repented for it before the congregation of St Mary’s the Great, the University Church, hoping to be reinstated. Scargill’s humiliating oration, which apparently expressed his sincere contrition, failed to sway the University authorities. Scargill was never readmitted to the university, his supporters deserted him, and he was forced to live out the rest of his days in poverty.1 The case of Daniel Scargill illustrates the enormous opposition to Hobbes’s doctrine and influence expressed by the churches and the universities of the time. It is also illustrative of the kind of ideas and practices that were associated with Hobbism during this period. Scargill’s speech recants both heretical beliefs and impious actions: he repents his “Blasphemous, and Atheistical positions” and his “great licentiousness; swearing rashly; drinking intemperately; boasting myself insolently” and in so doing corrupting others (Mintz 1970, 50–1). Both were considered to be aspects of Hobbism. Indeed, Jon Parkin has argued that Scargill’s recantation became a “semi-official definition” of Hobbism. Parkin sums up the central aspects of Hobbism thus: . . . first, that all right of dominion is founded only in power; secondly, that all moral righteousness is founded only in the law of the civil magistrate; thirdly, that the holy scriptures are “made law onely by the civil authority”, and fourthly, “that whatsoever the magistrate commands is to be obeyed notwithstanding contrary to divine moral laws”. (Parkin 1999, 95) More concerning still, Scargill’s oration also suggests that his Hobbism was initially inspired by the Devil (Mintz 1970, 50). For all of these reasons, copies of Leviathan and De cive were publicly burnt at Oxford University in 1683, and in earlier decades voices in the House of Commons called for Hobbes himself to be burnt (Robertson 1887, 193–4). Significantly, Hobbes did not gain this reputation for impiety until the publication of Leviathan for the theology contained in his earlier works was not as obviously controversial.2 This section focuses primarily on two critiques of Hobbes. The first Alexander Ross’s Leviathan Drawn out with a Hook, or, Animadversions

70

Thomas Hobbes

upon Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan (1653) was the first attack on Leviathan to be published and, as Samuel I. Mintz has pointed out, it set the tone of much of what was to follow. Ross was an arch Royalist; he had been Chaplain to Charles I during the Civil War and had been close to Charles’s ill-fated Archbishop, William Laud. In spite of this he was clearly an implacable opponent of Leviathan and everything it contained. The second is rooted in discussions that took place between Hobbes and another Anglican and defender of the crown, Bishop John Brahmal prior to 1651. Their debate shows that to the astute observer Hobbes’s heterodoxy was evident even before Leviathan. Finally, I will consider the more recent debate over his personal faith. Ross’s critique began by redeploying Hobbes’s famous imagery. Ross claimed that Hobbes’s leviathan is none other than the “beast in the Revelation, [which opened his mouth into blasphemy against God, and his Tabernacle, and against them that dwell in heaven.]” (Ross 1653, [xvi–xvii]). Hobbes, Ross asserted, was guilty of manifold heresies: . . . in holding life eternal to be onely on earth, he is a Cerinthian and Mahumetan: in giving to God corporiety he is an Anthropomorphit, Manichean, Tertullianist and Audaean: in holding the three Persons to be distinct names and essences represented by Moses, Christ’s, and the Apostles, he is a Sabellian, Montanist, Aetian, and Priscillianist: in saying, that Christ personated God the Son, he is a Nestorian giving him two personalities, for no person can personate himself: id [sic] denying spirits he is a Saducean: in making the soul to rest with the body till the resurrection, he is an Arabian: in making the soul of man corporeal he is a Luciferian: by putting a period to hell torments he is an Originist: by teaching dissimulation in religion he is a Tacian or Encratit: in making God the cause of injustice or sin, he is a Manichee: in slighting Christ’s miracles, he is a Jew: and in making our natural reason the word of God, he is Socinian . . . (Ibid., [xxi–xxii]) Essentially, Hobbes’s work denied God and the church their rightful place as well as offering heretical alternatives to many accepted doctrines. First, Ross attacked Hobbes’s materialism. To take an example, Ross objected to Hobbes’s claim that sensation was a material process. This denied the role of the human soul by elevating the importance

Reception and Interpretation

71

of the body. Moreover, Hobbes’s physics, he claimed, left no room for God. Hobbes asserted that motion was the case of motion. This, Ross claimed was heresy, motion was not originally produced by moving bodies “but by the mover: the motion of heaven was produced by God, not by any antecedent motion” (Ross 1653, 5). The view that matter was incapable of perception was a common theme in the work of Hobbes’s critics. Henry More, Bishop William Lucy, and Joseph Glanvill would all advance proofs that perception could not be a material process and accuse Hobbes of atheism for suggesting otherwise. Secondly, Ross argued that Hobbes’s understanding of scripture was unorthodox. For example, Hobbes had equated the “Demoniacks” mentioned in the gospels with mad men (Ibid., 10). This apparently innocuous interpretation was in fact highly dangerous for the following reasons: first it was counter to the official teaching of the church and therefore undermined ecclesiastical authority. Secondly, and more heretical still, it showed lack of respect of Jesus. Ross argued that curing mad men was less impressive than casting out demons, and by suggesting that Christ did the former rather than the latter Hobbes was refusing to give him the honor which he was due (Ibid., 10–12). Ross viewed Hobbes’s accounts of the trinity, prophesy, angels, heaven and hell, the kingdom of God, the status of Muslims living outside Christian commonwealths, exorcism, and a variety of other subjects as equally misleading. In theological terms, then, Ross argued that Hobbes was guilty of rejecting the firm foundation that the Church defended and attempting to rebuild Christianity on a foundation of sand. Not only was Hobbes’s doctrine unholy in theory it also tended towards impiety in practice. Hobbes’s account of the human passions made pity a vice and ambition a virtue, contrary to Christian teaching. What is more, Hobbes’s account of sovereignty failed to distinguish between power and right. In so doing Hobbes turned every King into a tyrant (Ibid., 15). Hobbes went further down the road to tyranny by arguing that a sovereign could never act unjustly towards his people. In so doing Ross claimed that Hobbes was unable to see the “difference between the Father and Butcher of his Countrey, between the Shepherd and the woolf, . . .” (Ibid, 22). Finally, in arguing that a sovereign was not bound by civil law Hobbes was again supporting tyranny as well as contradicting the established wisdom of classical authors. Hobbes’s final error in the construction of the state was to

72

Thomas Hobbes

subordinate church power to civil power. In so doing, Hobbes denied the reality of Christ’s Kingdom on earth (Ibid., 95). John Bramhall launched an equally important attack on Hobbes’s theology. Brahmall’s critique of Hobbes’s theological position is unusual because it predated the publication of Leviathan. The debate between Hobbes and John Bramhall began while both were exiles in Paris. Central to the controversy was Hobbes’s position on free will. Again, Hobbes’s materialism was at the heart of the problem. Material processes could be explained in terms of laws of cause and effect. Material bodies could not be free because their motion was determined by physical laws. If, as Hobbes claimed, human psychology was simply the product of matter in motion it follows that the human will is also determined by physical laws and human freedom is an illusion. Hobbes was aware of the implications of his materialist psychology and in his manuscript against John Bramhall he defended the thesis that there can be no freedom of the will. John Bramhall, on the other hand, asserted that human reason did not obey physical laws. Rather, following the scholastics, John Bramhall argued that it was a self-moving part of an immaterial soul. Ross and John Bramhall were not alone in accusing Hobbes of heresy. Hobbes’s opponents included Seth Ward, John Bramhall, Bishop William Lucy, Richard Baxter and Ralph Cudworth. Notably, these figures were very much part of the establishment. Cudworth was Master of Christ’s College Cambridge; John Bramhall and Lucy Anglican Bishops, and Ward a Fellow of the Royal Society, Master of Trinity College Cambridge and Bishop of Exeter. For an apparently conservative thinker Hobbes was considered very dangerous by many within the English establishment. The debate over Hobbes’s religious faith continues to rage, and rightly so for, as George Wright has argued, “Hobbes’ formulations of religious themes . . . are intrinsic to his theoretical project” (Wright 2006, 15). A. P. Martinich’s Two Gods of Leviathan argues that although Hobbes’s theology was undoubtedly “nonstandard” (Martinich 1992, 3) little of what Hobbes maintained in Leviathan was completely beyond the scope of prior Christian teaching. Indeed, he argues that “most of his views were standard sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformation views” (Ibid.). For example, Martinich argues that Hobbes’s determinism, which so enraged John Bramhall, was in fact very similar to the doctrine of predestination advocated by contemporary Calvinists. Rather, than

Reception and Interpretation

73

being an atheist, Martinich suggests that Hobbes’s project was to safeguard Christianity. Martinich claims that Hobbes recognized the threat the new science posed to Christianity and in order to protect religion Hobbes attempted to reconcile it with a materialistic and mechanistic worldview. Martinich also argues that Hobbes attempted to safeguard Christianity from those who would manipulate it by showing that Christians did not have a Biblical warrant to resist their sovereigns (Ibid., 5). His critics’ accusations of atheism reflect the fact that Hobbes’s project was doomed to failure, and Hobbes’s materialism unwittingly undermined Christianity (Ibid., 6). Martinich’s thesis, as Jeffrey R. Collins has argued, can only be sustained by ignoring some of Hobbes’s writings, “including his all but explicitly anti-Trinitarian Historia ecclesiastica” (Collins 2005, 27). Moreover, Martinich also assumes the complete sincerity of Hobbes’s religious writing, in spite of the body of scholarship that has demonstrated the highly rhetorical nature of his theological remarks (Ibid.). Finally, Edwin Curley argues that Hobbes’s view of determinism is significantly different from that held by seventeenth-century Calvinists.3 Curley and Martinich do, however, agree on one thing: that the content of Hobbes’s personal beliefs is essentially unrecoverable (Martinich 1992, 339.). For this reason alone the debate over Hobbes’s personal faith is unlikely to die away.

Hobbes’s Disciples Hobbes’s reputation as a heretic is undoubtedly one reason why few early, modern English writers were prepared to acknowledge his influence. John Rogers has suggested that fear of being mistaken for a Hobbist may explain John Locke’s reticence to engage with Hobbes and his doctrines (Rogers 1988, 194). That said there were some who were prepared to acknowledge their respect for Hobbes publicly. Invariably these were people such as Sir William Petty, Peter Gassendi, and Samuel Sorbière who had known Hobbes prior to the publications of Leviathan. In France, for example, Hobbes enjoyed a reputation akin to that of Galileo or Descartes. Former members of the Mersenne Circle who, on Mersenne’s death, clustered around the scholar and advocate of the new sciences Henri de Montmor, continued to correspond

74

Thomas Hobbes

with Hobbes and visit him in England. Hobbes’s correspondence with Sorbière and François du Verdus reveals continuing warmth and intellectual deference. Older members of the group who had know Hobbes personally arranged introductions for younger members when they traveled to England. Sorbière and du Verdus both produced French translations of Hobbes’s De cive; Du Verdus even learned English in order to make a French translation of Leviathan (Hobbes 1994b, Letter 93). On several occasions Sorbière likened Hobbes to the other great thinkers of his age “the Galileos, the Descarteses, the Hobbeses, the Bacons, and the Gassendis.” (Sorbière 1660, 167–8). Indeed, as Skinner has observed, “Hobbes” vaunted “demonstration” of the need for absolute sovereignty so troubling to his English contemporaries, seems to have struck his admirers in France as his finest achievement” (Skinner 2002, 317). Admiration for Hobbes was not entirely restricted to France. Sir William Petty, who like Hobbes’s opponents Ward and Robert Boyle, was a member of the Royal Society was prepared to place Hobbes alongside Bacon as one of the greatest natural philosophers of the age (Petty 1928, 158–9). John Aubrey, Hobbes’s friend and biographer, Charles and William Cavendish, and Charles II remained loyal to Hobbes following the controversies of the 1650s and 1660s. Finally, there were other thinkers on the continent who had never met him who professed admiration for Hobbes. Johann Christoph Beckmann’s Meditationes politicæ, for example, included a lengthy quotation from Sorbière’s Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre regarding Hobbes’s virtues as part of his praise of De cive (Beckmann 1679, 419).

Human Nature and the State of Nature In the century after the publication of Leviathan there were many alternative descriptions of the natural condition of mankind. Perhaps the best-known alternatives are contained in Samuel Pufendorf’s On the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law (1673), Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1689) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality among Men (1755). The extent to which Locke’s work was a response to Hobbes is contested. Turning to Pufendorf and Rousseau, the case is quite different. Both, in their own way, engage with Hobbes’s view of human nature as well as the natural condition of mankind.

Reception and Interpretation

75

Pufendorf’s description of the state of nature owes much to Hobbes. Nonetheless, Pufendorf introduces a degree of sociability into human nature that is absent from Hobbes’s account. Pufendorf emphasizes a number of clearly Hobbesian aspects of the natural state. In man’s natural state humans are equal; indeed Pufendorf supports this assertion with an appeal to Hobbes’s argument that anyone could kill or be killed by anyone else (Pufendorf 1991, 61). Men in their natural state are free and have no obligation to submit to one another; they are subject to the laws of nature and enjoy “natural liberty”; and they, like all other living things, seek to preserve themselves. Nevertheless, there are significant differences. First, there is a “simple common kinship” which motivates men to come together in families and small societies. This kinship also precedes the formation of the state and obligation (Ibid., 115–17). This kinship is not enough, however, to produce obligation. Consequently, these small societies have difficulty dealing with disputes and therefore security from conflict cannot be assured. This is a departure from Hobbes, especially from De cive, which argues that men come together in pursuit of their own advantage rather than out of fellow feeling. Regardless of this kinship, Pufendorf’s account of life in the state of nature is recognizably Hobbesian. Following Hobbes Pufendorf argues that this insecurity is the source of the “multitude of disadvantages” (Ibid., 117) experienced in the natural state. For example, insecurity means that “no one may be sure of the fruit of his industry” and therefore life is impoverished compared with life in civil society (Ibid.). Before considering Locke’s thought on the state of nature it is worth considering his interest in and knowledge of Hobbes. Some writers have assumed that Locke’s work was a response to Hobbes (Macpherson 1962, 270). However, as Peter Laslett has shown Locke had no access to Leviathan from 1674 to 1691 (Laslett 1960, 71). Moreover, Locke had no first-hand knowledge of Hobbes’s other political works and “his notes his diaries, his letters, his book lists and purchases show no sign of such an interest” (Ibid.). For Laslett the Two Treatises was primarily a response to Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha or The Natural Power of Kings (1680). Laslett is undoubtedly correct, yet, this does not rule out an interest in Hobbes, and it does not preclude the possibility that some aspects of the Two Treatises were written in response to Hobbes. This may well be true of Locke’s thought on the state of nature.

76

Thomas Hobbes

Locke’s description of the state of nature is much more civilized than Hobbes’s portrayal of the condition of nature in Leviathan. This is due to Locke’s conception of the law of nature and his emphasis on human sociability. Hobbes and Locke both agreed that man in the state of nature is governed by natural law. But Locke’s law of nature is rooted in a much broader understanding of human sociability. Indeed, he argues that God gave the law of nature to underpin social life. Consequently, Locke argues that the state of nature is “a State of Liberty, yet it is not a State of Licence” as reason teaches all those who will learn that “‘being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty or Possessions” (Locke 1960, 288–9). Moreover, Locke’s state of nature is a political condition. For Hobbes there is no property, government, law, or justice in the state of nature. Locke, on the other hand, assumes that men have political rights and duties prior to the emergence of civil society. For example, all men have judicial rights in the state of nature. In fact, Locke argues that prior to the formal legal processes that characterize the state men have the right and duty to judge and punish each other according to the strictures of natural law (Ibid., 290). Property is also a feature of Locke’s state of nature. Men create property by mixing their labor with the natural world. Once this is done natural law gives men the right to defend their property against the encroachment of others. Clearly, justice is not as reliable as it is in civil society, nor is property as secure; but natural law prevents the state of nature descending into a state of war. Man, on Locke’s account is far more sociable than Hobbes is prepared to allow, this is reflected in God’s law and in the natural order that emerges among men prior to civil society. Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes’s view of human nature and the natural condition of mankind goes much further than that of Locke or Pufendorf. Rousseau discussed Hobbes’s works time and again in letters, published works, and unpublished manuscripts. Rousseau’s most extended treatment of human nature and state of nature can be found in his Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Men which is some times referred to as his Second Discourse (Rousseau 1997b, 151 ff). However, the critique of Hobbes is not the focus of the text. The unpublished State of War, which was composed in 1758 and originally intended to be part of a treatise on peace and war, however, deals with Hobbes directly. Central to Rousseau’s critique in the

Reception and Interpretation

77

State of war is the belief that Hobbes mistook seventeenth-century man for natural man. The state of nature, Rousseau argues, is not a state of war; indeed, war is only possible once a civil state has been created. The State of war’s first attempt to support this view is to show that Hobbes’s version of human nature is unthinkable. Human nature cannot be as depraved as Hobbes describes for the simple reason that such a destructive creature would be unable to survive “even two generations” (Rousseau 1997b, 164). Such a human would be unable to rejoice at the birth of his own child but would take great pleasure at the destruction of a brother. Indeed, if Hobbes’s description of human nature was correct it would be impossible to construct a civilized society as this “mutual and destructive enmity” (Ibid.) would be more powerful than human laws. Secondly, the State of war offers an alternative description of human nature, which, unlike that of Hobbes, emphasizes compassion and fellow feeling. Rousseau argues that the laws of nature are not merely rational, they are written on the heart. Consequently, they are far more compelling and hold much greater sway within man’s nature than Hobbes’s dictates of reason. Additionally, Rousseau describes man as “naturally peaceable and timorous, at the slightest danger his first movement is to flee; he becomes warlike only by dint of habit and experience” (Ibid., 166). The fact that mankind becomes aggressive due to habit is crucial to Rousseau’s argument as it allows him to postulate an alternative source for human conflict. Thirdly then, Rousseau argues that Hobbes has misunderstood the source of discord. Rousseau agrees with Hobbes that primarily humans strive for their own protection and their own well-being. However, in nature human wants are limited to the desire to be healthy and free from pain. Consequently, these desires that characterized natural man do not lead to widespread conflict. Moreover, Hobbes’s right of nature, the right of everyman to everything, is in fact learned from society and not natural at all. Similarly, greed and lust for power are artificial. The desire to command, for example, comes from witnessing others do the same, which is impossible in the state of nature. Rousseau’s fourth line of attack is based on an analysis of greed. Here Rousseau argues that even if Hobbes is correct and humans are naturally greedy this greed would not lead to war. Greed cannot be satisfied by destruction and therefore it provides no impetus for war. Rousseau’s final attempt to undermine Hobbes concerns what is understood by the term war.

78

Thomas Hobbes

Rousseau agrees that there would be occasions of conflict and even murder in the state of nature. Nonetheless, a war is a situation of continuous and generalized conflict. There is no cause for this in nature as, given man’s limited natural desires, there are few instances where the good of one man would require the destruction of another. Clearly, occasional quarrels do not justify Hobbes’s description of a war, let alone a war of all against all. Properly speaking, and paradoxically from Hobbes’s perspective, war is only possible once men have left the state of nature. For Rousseau man is a citizen first; only then can he become a warrior. Despite the tone of assurance that he adopts Rousseau’s critique is based on a misunderstanding. Hobbes did not claim that man was naturally wicked, rather, he claimed that it is impossible for man to be naturally secure. Clearly, Hobbes could not respond to Rousseau’s criticisms, but he did address a similar objection. Leviathan defends Hobbes’s characterization of man in the state of nature by appealing to everyday experience. When we sleep, he argues, we lock our doors; when we travel we arm ourselves; even when we are at home we lock our valuables away. Clearly, in each case we demonstrate distrust of strangers and, in the last case, even the other members of our own household (Hobbes 1994, 77). Moreover, if these are our actions under a civil sovereign, where injustice is deterred by punishment, how much further would we go to protect ourselves in the state of nature where there is no common power? Hobbes does not view man as utterly wicked. He merely assumes that we cannot be naturally secure and that in the absence of security it is necessary to take reasonable precautions. In the state of nature radical insecurity leads to war. Rousseau’s suggestion that Hobbes’s theory cannot account for fellow feeling also seems to overstate the case. Leviathan, for example, acknowledges that families in the state of nature are held together by “natural lust” (Ibid., 77) by which Hobbes means “Love of Persons for Pleasing the sense only” (Ibid., 30). Hobbes also recognizes the passion of kindness, which he describes as “Love of Persons for society” (Ibid.) Hobbes’s point is that kindness cannot be the basis for society as expressions of emotion can be insincere and eloquence and flattery can be mistaken for kindness (Ibid., 60). At its heart, the disagreement between Hobbes and Rousseau concerns what a good description of the state of nature should look like. For Rousseau it would be anthropological in character. This is

Reception and Interpretation

79

evident from Rousseau’s discussion of the state of nature in the Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality among Men, which is clearly informed by contemporary anthropologies and travel literature. For Hobbes, however, the state of nature is a description of man abstracted from civil society. So while Hobbes’s account of the state of nature, particularly in Leviathan, is informed by histories of the earliest times it is also an abstraction. This is particularly evident in De cive where Hobbes considers men in their natural state “as if they had just emerged from the earth like mushrooms” (Hobbes 1999, 102).

Social Contract and the State Hobbes’s view of the social contract and particularly the state were highly influential. In continental Europe, for example, Hobbes’s conception that the state was an “artificial man” was taken up by thinkers such as Benedict de Spinoza, and the brothers Johan and Pieter de la Court (van Gelderen 2003, 91). Pufendorf is another good example. In Of the Law of Nature and Nations (1672) Pufendorf explicitly acknowledges Hobbes as the source of the central tenets of his account of the state. Of the Law of Nature and Nations was soon translated into English. Indeed, the three English editions published by 1717 provided the Anglophone audience with another source of Hobbes’s account of the state. Hobbes’s state was also taken as the epitome of despotism, and it is this sense that Rousseau appealed to when he wrote to Victor Riquetti, Marquis de Mirabeau of “the most perfect Hobbism” (Rousseau 1997b, 270). For Hobbes, the social contract was a one-stage process that established an absolute sovereign. Locke presents a different account of social contract, which allows men to have a greater say in the political institutions that govern them. Hobbes and Locke both conceived of the social contract as the consensual event that took men out of the state of nature by establishing a political community. Locke, however, presents this as a two-stage process. In the first stage men agree to leave their natural state and enter an artificial community in which their natural judicial and executive powers are ceded to the community (Locke 1960, 341–2). Secondly, this new community, which can now be considered “a people,” agree upon a specific form of government (Ibid., 348–50). Moreover, according to Locke the social contract sets

80

Thomas Hobbes

up a limited rather than an absolute state. Locke’s argument is based on the relationship between legitimate government, consent, and natural law. First, while Locke viewed consent as a necessary condition of legitimate government he did not regard it as sufficient grounds for political legitimacy. Indeed, governments that break the laws of nature act illegitimately irrespective of popular consent. Consequently, for Locke natural law limits the scope of government action. Secondly, Locke argued that there are some actions, such as suicide, that men can never be obliged to perform even if they are foolish enough to promise to do so. This is due to the fact that for Locke individuals can only legitimately consent to actions that they already have the right perform. Men have no right to take their own lives for their lives belong to God. Therefore any such agreement has no force. For Locke then consent is not merely a psychological state. Properly understood, Locke argues that consent is a legal fact which describes the act of taking on political obligations (Dunn 1967, 156). The limits of consent, and the superiority of natural law establish the proper scope of government for Locke in ways that Hobbes’s theory does not allow. Locke’s position is clearly more radical than Hobbes, but it still relies on the notion that the state is created through a social contract and through consent. These notions were heavily criticized following the publication of The Two Treatises. William Godwin, the radical novelist, philosopher, and intellectual, and forebear of modern anarchism developed one of the most thorough going critiques of the social contract tradition. Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) offers an important critique of social contract theories. While Godwin does not mention Hobbes in his text there is reason to believe he was aware of and responding to Hobbes’s general theory. First, as Mark Philp has argued, Godwin’s knew Hobbes’s social contract theory through the work of Paul d’Holbach (Philp 1986, 110). F. E. L. Priestly also suggests that Godwin encountered Hobbesian arguments through the work of Claude Helvetius (Priestly 1946, 47). Part of the scope of Political justice is to consider the way in which government is to be constituted in a period where humans are still in need of it. In this context Godwin discusses three views of the origins of government: the first, “that government is based on superior strength”; the second that it is based on divine right and finally, that it is based on a “the social contract” (Godwin 1946, 183). The first and

Reception and Interpretation

81

the last of these options have some bearing on Hobbes’s argument so I will discuss each in turn. Godwin’s first hypothesis, that power constitutes right, has been linked to Hobbes’s concept of a commonwealth by acquisition (Priestly 1946, 30). This seems to be a misunderstanding of Hobbes’s position, for Hobbes maintained that military victory created no right for the victor and no obligation for the vanquished; both remained in the state of nature until a contract was made. Nonetheless, Godwin’s treatment of the third hypothesis is of greater relevance to Hobbes’s argument. Godwin considers two forms of the social contract argument: first ‘the system according to which the individuals of any society, as supposed to have entered into a contract with their governors;’ and secondly, where the people contract “with each other” (Godwin 1946, 186). The second is clearly closer to Hobbes’s view. Systems, to use Godwin’s word, that suppose a social contract face a variety of problems: Who are the parties to this contract? For whom did they consent, for themselves only or for others? For how long a time is this contract to be considered as binding? If the consent of every individual be necessary, in what manner is that consent to be given? (Ibid., 188) By posing these questions Godwin shows that the social contract cannot be considered a just foundation for government. To take the first question, for example, Godwin argues that even if our ancestors consented to a social contract it should not be considered binding on future generations. Indeed, he argues that there can be no obligation to obey a contract “into which my father entered before I was born” (Ibid., 189). Furthermore, even if each individual was given the opportunity of assenting to the contract when they came of age why should that assent bind them indefinitely, particularly if new information becomes available? Secondly, Godwin considers consent. Here he argues that tacit consent, that is living under a government without rebelling, cannot be enough to establish a governor’s right to rule. If it was he argues, “every government that is quietly submitted to, is a lawful government, whether it be the usurpation of Cromwell, or the tyranny of Caligula” (Ibid.). Godwin also considers what an individual is required to consent to, “[w]hat can be more absurd,’ he asks, ‘than

82

Thomas Hobbes

to present to me the laws of England in fifty volumes folio, and call upon me to give an honest and uninfluenced vote on its contents” (Ibid.). While Godwin’s discussion of the social contract was primarily concerned with the arguments of Locke and Rousseau his argument poses serious problems for Hobbes’s account particularly in terms of the longevity of the agreement and the nature of consent. An alternative understanding of the social contract, which owed much to Pufendorf’s work, and thus to Hobbes, can be found in William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769) (Lucas 1963, 142–58). The Commentaries acknowledge that there may have been no “original contract of society” (Blackstone 1765–1769, 47). In spite of this, Blackstone argues that the concept is a useful rational and legal fiction, for without it there would be no reason for submission to laws or for upholding the rights of the people (Ibid.). In this sense whether or not a historical contract was ever actually agreed is irrelevant as the argument’s value lies in the fact that it is a useful fiction. Jeremy Bentham, a pupil of William Blackstone, vigorously contested Blackstone’s position. Essentially, Bentham acknowledged that the whole account of an initial state of nature followed by a social contract was fictitious (Bentham 1988, 39). What is more, he went on to challenge the usefulness of the fiction. The fictitious nature of the social contract is enormously problematic, Bentham claims, for although real contracts entail real obligations fictitious contracts do not. Consequently, fictitious contracts cannot be a firm basis for a just human government. Crucially, Bentham claimed that even if there was an original contract the only reason for abiding by its terms would be to extend human happiness. For this reason, Bentham proposes starting from the reality of human happiness (which he also describes as felicity or utility) rather than from a fictitious social contract. In sum, the greatest happiness principle, not social contract theory, provides a firm foundation for government and a compelling reason for just action. A similar story unfolds regarding the reception of Hobbes’s view of the state. The state, like the social contract, was one of the fictions on which Blackstone based his account of English law. Again, Blackstone emphasizes the way in which the state is a fictitious person that generates a unity of wills. In so doing he was following Pufendorf’s description

Reception and Interpretation

83

of the state as “a composite moral person, whose will blended and combined from the agreement of many is taken as the will of all” (Pufendorf 1991, 137). Once again, Bentham argues that this fiction is counterproductive. The state for Bentham is not a fictional person, it is the real person who wields state power. A just society, Bentham claimed, could only be brought about when these fallacious fictions were replaced by rational argument that started from the real purpose of government: the extension of human happiness. Part of Hobbes’s project was to provide a firm foundation for obedience. However, Bentham argues that any attempt to persuade people of their obligations that is based on a fiction is inherently less compelling than rational argument that appeals to real human desires. The story of the reception of Hobbes’s view of the state of nature and the state does not end with Bentham. Nor would it be correct to view it as a linear progression from a rationalist fiction to an empirical and utilitarian doctrine. Indeed, within the tradition of utilitarianism Henry Sidgwick’s Elements of Politics (1891) described the state in terms familiar from Leviathan. Sidgwick claims that state denotes “the community considered exclusively in its corporate capacity.” In this sense the state has an existence independent of its members considered as individuals or groups and can own property, and incur debt (Sidgwick 1969, 220). The state is formed when the people of an area oblige themselves to obey the government. Here Sidgwick’s argument, like that of Hobbes and Blackstone, assumes an original agreement. From this perspective the state “represents the society in any transactions that it may carry on as a body.” This language, particularly regarding representation rehearses the conception Hobbes outlined in Leviathan and underlines Hobbes’s continuing importance in terms of state theory.

Obligation and Law Hobbes’s writings on God and religion continue to provoke debate. Hobbes scholars have disagreed not only on Hobbes personal religious commitments but also on God’s role in Hobbes’s political thought. Writers such as F. T. Hood, A. E. Taylor and Howard Warrender see God as essential to Hobbes’s politics, as without divine power the

84

Thomas Hobbes

laws of nature lack obligatory force. On the other hand writers following Leo Strauss claim that fear of God fundamentally undermines the commonwealth and therefore that Hobbes’s writings implicitly advocate a society of atheists. Hood’s The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes, quite unlike the writings of Hobbes’s contemporaries, argues that God plays a crucial role in Hobbes’s thought. Hood’s claim rests on the assumption that while the English Leviathan was Hobbes’s definitive statement on politics it is the Latin version of the text that represents his final word on theology (Hood 1964, viii and 54–7). Hood argues that the source of obligation in Hobbes’s system is God, as the laws of nature, which oblige men to keep their covenants, are God’s laws (Ibid., 213). Thus, while there are prudential reasons for obeying the sovereign, which induce unjust men to follow the law, the just subject obeys out of fear of God. Moreover, Hood also claims that it is the appeal to the divine origin of natural law that is the central thrust of Hobbes’s argument. Hood’s position is not dissimilar to the so-called Taylor-Warrender thesis. In spite of this similarity while Hood takes Leviathan as Hobbes’s definitive statement Taylor argues that the focus on Leviathan at the expense of Hobbes’s earlier works has obscured the core of Hobbes’s teaching (Taylor 1965, 35). Taylor argues that commentators on Hobbes have been confused because Hobbes poses two questions. The first is: why ought a subject be good; the second: how can a subject be induced to be good. Taylor argues that Hobbes’s answer to the second question has hidden his answer to the first. Crucially, Taylor suggests that Hobbes’s appeal to self-interest only pertains to inducing good behavior. Indeed, Hobbes’s true theory of obligation is independent of any appeal to self-interest: Hobbes’ ethical doctrine proper, disengaged from an egoistic psychology with which it has no logically necessary connection, is a very strict deontology, curiously suggestive, though with interesting differences, of some of the characteristic themes of Kant. (Taylor 1965, 37) Obligation in Hobbes’s system comes from the fact that natural laws are also God’s commandments. As Warrender puts it: Thus, if the laws of nature in the State of Nature are considered as the commands of God, they may properly be regarded as laws, and

Reception and Interpretation

85

it is this factor which is responsible for constituting their obligatory character. (Warrender 1957, 98) Where Hobbes’s contemporaries believed that Hobbes was an atheist Taylor and Warrender suggest without God Hobbes’s theory lacks obligatory force. Taylor’s thesis has served to highlight certain deontological aspects of Hobbes’s thought (Brett 1997, 234). Nonetheless, there are significant problems with this interpretation. First, as Collins has noted there is little textual evidence to support their view (Collins 2005, 27). Furthermore, as Skinner has show, particularly in relation to Hood, textual analysis of the kind deployed by Warrender, Taylor, and Hood is irredeemably problematic. Hood’s attempt to uncover Hobbes’s meaning by reading Hobbes’s work as a whole allows him to produce an account of Hobbes’s doctrine, which is independent of any of Hobbes’s actual texts. Consequently, Hood can produce an “ideal” description of Hobbes’s system which cannot be reconstructed by any one of Hobbes’s works. Moreover, this technique allows Hood to dismiss inconsistencies in the texts as irrelevant to Hobbes’s “real account” (Skinner 1964, 332). Opposed to the Taylor-Warrender thesis is Strauss’s contention that Hobbes’s philosophy “points to a thoroughly ‘enlightened’ i.e., a-religious or atheistic society” (Strauss 1965, 27). For Strauss, Hobbes’s system is based on the fear of death. Subjects will only obey the laws, natural or civil, if they are compelled to in this way. If the fear of death can be trumped by fear of eternal damnation, then subjects no longer have a good reason to obey the laws, and civil peace cannot be assured. Consequently, Hobbes’s solution was to “enlighten” subjects, that is to say to persuade them that there was no God to damn them. If this was Hobbes’s solution it cannot be found explicitly in his works. Certainly, Hobbes’s materialist theology does a great deal to weaken the threat of hell. Nonetheless, Hobbes seems to have wanted to reform theology rather than to destroy it. Rather than atheism Richard Tuck has suggested that Hobbes envisaged a new civil religion, which fused elements of Christianity with the new philosophy (Tuck 2004, 130). His aim was not, as Martinich has alleged, to safeguard Christianity but rather to safeguard civil peace. Hobbes’s civil religion stripped the afterlife of its threat and stripped the church of its seditious potential by subjugating it to the sovereign. In so doing

86

Thomas Hobbes

he turned religion to the service of the commonwealth, rather than turning the commonwealth into a society of atheists.

Hobbes as a Theorist of Bourgeois Society Hobbes has been portrayed as one of the central theorists of the modern bourgeois world. This analysis can be found in the work of writers such as Hannah Arendt, Strauss, C. B. Macpherson, and more recent commentators such as Peter Hayes. Macpherson is perhaps the most famous exponent of this view. Macpherson’s analysis of Hobbes is set out in ‘Hobbes today’ (1945) and The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: From Hobbes to Locke (1962). Macpherson argues that Hobbes’s political thought is rooted in “the supposed or observed facts of man’s nature” (Macpherson 1962, 15). Once this is understood, Macpherson argues, the true character of Hobbes’s thought becomes clear for, “Hobbes’s analysis of human nature . . . is really an analysis of bourgeois man . . .” (Macpherson 1945, 525). Macpherson supports this view with reference to two of Hobbes’s arguments. First, he quotes Hobbes’s remarks in De cive that people come together in pursuit of their own benefit rather than for reasons of love or friendship (Ibid.). Secondly, the pursuit of benefit is highly competitive as Hobbes assumes that the goods of life are in relatively short supply (Ibid., 527). Macpherson cites Hobbes’s identification of this fundamental competitive drive as a clear indication that Hobbes derived his understanding of human nature from “the behaviour of man in bourgeois society” for competitiveness “is the mark of bourgeois society, in contrast to pre-capitalist societies” (Ibid., 527). Indeed, he argues that Hobbes’s analysis of human interaction is in effect an analysis of “the relations of the market” (Ibid.). From this point of view Hobbes’s theory of the state is a theory of the capitalist state. Indeed, Hobbes’s state enforces contracts and property rights in such a way that guarantees the rights of the bourgeoisie and therefore provides social stability in what would otherwise be the anarchy of the market. Moreover, Hobbesian morality, Macpherson argues, is bourgeois morality. For example, Hobbes expects the poor to be thrifty and the rich to avoid extravagance; he argues that the sovereign should guarantee the rights to buy and sell; that “The value, or WORTH of a man, is as of all things, his price” (Hobbes 1994a, 51) and that “Riches are honourable, for they are power” (Ibid. 53).

Reception and Interpretation

87

Nonetheless, Macpherson argues that it would be wrong to see Hobbes as a fully fledged laissez-faire thinker. Hobbes did not, for example, have any conception that the market was self-regulating. This, Macpherson acknowledges, was an innovation of eighteenthcentury philosophy (Macpherson 1945, 532). The difference between Hobbes’s philosophy and the philosophy of later writers corresponds to the difference between different stages of economic development: The concept of a natural order in society could not become dominant until capitalism had so far broken the restrictions of feudal society that the possibility of a self-regulating market became apparent, or until the usefulness of science to capitalist development had been manifested on such a scale that the philosophy of a scientific order could be automatically accepted by the bourgeois mind. (Ibid., 532) Macpherson supports this view with a reference to Karl Marx’s Capital and to the work of Marxist Paul Sweezy on capitalist development (Ibid., n. 38). This, then, is Macpherson’s justification for Hobbes’s enduring importance. Hobbes was the first thinker to understand the nature of bourgeois man (Macpherson 1962, 88). Consequently, he grasped the fact that market relations are unable to generate social solidarity and therefore that a capitalist society necessitates a strong state. (Macpherson 1945, 534) Macpherson’s starting point seems to be Karl Marx and Friedrick Engels’s famous adage that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas” (Marx 1977, 176). His analysis is useful not least for critiquing the work of Taylor and Warrender, but also other late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century commentators such as G. C. Robertson, John Laird, and Leo Strauss who, in their different ways, sought to detach Hobbes’s politics from Macpherson’s metaphysical materialism. However, there are important flaws in his work. Fundamentally, his historicist analysis cannot be falsified. The stage of economic development explains both the “capitalist” and the “pre-capitalist” aspects of Hobbes’s work. Consequently, nothing in Hobbes’s work can ever be evidence against Macpherson’s thesis. Passages in Hobbes’s work that chime with the ideas of later capitalists are clearly evidence in favor of Macpherson’s interpretation but so too are aspects of Hobbes that are clearly at odds with later capitalist

88

Thomas Hobbes

writers because they are evidently due to the early stage of capitalism with which Hobbes was familiar. Macpherson’s interpretation of Hobbes’s specific doctrines are also flawed. Hobbes’s remarks on friendship in De cive, for example, should not be read as a commentary on bourgeois social relationships despite Macpherson’s claims. Rather, Hobbes explicitly stated that he had another agenda. Hobbes prefaced his remarks on friendship by arguing that “[t]he majority of previous writers on public Affairs either assume or seek to prove or simply assert that Man is an animal born fit for Society” (Hobbes 1999, 22). Clearly, Hobbes was reflecting on traditional accounts of human nature rather than anticipating the emergence of capitalism. Hobbes’s intention seems to have been to critique the classical view of friendship or, more specifically, Aristotle’s view that a political society arises from and is sustained by mutual affection (Konstan 1997, 70). Indeed, much of Hobbes’s description of human nature, particularly in The Elements of Law came from classical sources, not least Aristotle’s Rhetoric, again indicating that Hobbes’s view of human nature was rooted in the tradition of classical humanism rather than in some prophetic vision of eighteenth-century market relations. Finally, De cive does not contain Hobbes’s only discussion of friendship. In other texts and his correspondence Hobbes does express the view that true friendship is possible. Many of Hobbes’s dedicatory epistles, for example, are written in far more conventional terms. While it would be wrong to claim that these passages are more authentically Hobbesian or in some way trump chapter 1 of De cive they do indicate that Hobbes’s view of friendship was more complex and less obviously bourgeois than Macpherson alleges. Macpherson’s mistake is methodological. In attempting to explain Hobbes though in terms of the economic forces at work in the early modern period, he ignores Hobbes’s intentions. At best, Macpherson’s argument reminds scholars that Hobbes was writing at a particular moment in economic history, but beyond this it does not uncover the meaning of Hobbes’s texts.

Hobbes and the Prisoner’s Dilemma A number of recent commentators have used game theory, particularly the concept of the prisoner’s dilemma, to examine the behavior

Reception and Interpretation

89

of rational agents in the state of nature; or to discuss Hobbes’s account of “the fool.” The first writer to use game theory in this context was David Gauthier in his The Logic of Leviathan (1970). This approach has been extended in works such as Gregory S. Kavka’s Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory (1986) and Jean Hampton’s Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (1986). In general terms, game theory is a branch of mathematics that was developed in the mid-1940s by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. It was used during the Cold War by the RAND Corporation in order to help devise strategies for nuclear conflict. Indeed, Gauthier and Kavka, as well as publishing on Hobbes, have written on the subject of nuclear deterrence.4 Patrick Neal argues that game theory makes it possible to investigate social and political situations and institutions as the products of “mutually disinterested and rationally selfinterested agents in the attempt to maximize the degree to which they can successfully pursue their particular ends and satisfy their particular preferences” (Neal 1988, 637). The prisoner’s dilemma (which is central to Gauthier, Kavka, and Hamilton’s discussion of Hobbes) was one of the games created by Merrill M. Flood, Melvin Dresher, and Albert W. Tucker for the RAND Corporation around 1950. Tucker formulated the dilemma thus: Two men, charged with a joint violation of law, are held separately by the police. Each is told that: (1) if one confesses and the other does not, the former will be given a reward of one unit and the latter will be fined two units, (2) if both confess, each will be fined one unit. (3) At the same time each has good reason to believe that if neither confesses, both will go clear. (Tucker 1983, 228) Tucker demonstrated the “pay offs” of the various options in the form of a table where the two men are denoted as I and II: II Confess

Not confess

confess

(–1, –1)

(1, –2)

not confess

(–2, 1)

(0, 0)

I Source : Tucker (1983, 228)

Thomas Hobbes

90

In this situation the rational course of action is to confess, as this is the strategy that leads to the greatest potential reward. The fact that game theory makes it possible to investigate decision making in conflict situations has led some scholars to apply it to Hobbes’s state of nature. Gauthier’s reason for using the terminology of game theory springs from his desire to formulate Hobbes’s ideas with greater consistently and clarity than Hobbes’s original texts (Gauthier 1969, v). Hamilton makes a similar claim stating that at one point in Hobbes’s argument “it appears that Hobbes did not see his way clearly” and therefore Hamilton uses “certain concepts and techniques of modern game theory” in order to clarify Hobbes’s reasoning (Hampton 1986, 137). Gauthier introduces the terminology of game theory during his discussion of Hobbes’s attempt to generate security within the commonwealth. Here he argues that Hobbes faces the crucial problem of ensuring “that men actually perform their covenants” (Gauthier 1969, 76). The problem, as Gauthier sees it, is that although there are good reasons for entering into a contract there may not be good reasons for adhering to it. Indeed, Gauthier suggests that there may be occasions on which it is rational to violate the contract. Gauthier shows this by considering a contract between person A and person B in a matrix where the subjective reasonableness of their actions is ranked from 1 to 4 (1 being the most reasonable and 4 being the least): II Confess

Not confess

confess

(–1, –1)

(1, –2)

not confess

(–2, 1)

(0, 0)

I Source : Gauthier (1969, 79)

As this table indicates, the best outcome for either party is to violate the contract while the other party acts in accordance with the original agreement. The similarity with the prisoner’s dilemma is obvious. Moreover, Gauthier claims that the table reconstructs the problem of Hobbes’s “fool” who is prepared to break the contract whenever it is in his interest to do so. Hamilton and Kavka use similar matrixes to reconstruct behavior in the state of nature (Hampton 1986, 62; Kavka 1986, 111). However, Hamilton acknowledges that “[i]f instituting a sovereign were itself a prisoner’s dilemma . . . then Hobbes’ argument would seem to be in

Reception and Interpretation

91

trouble” (Hampton 1986, 134). This is clearly the case, because the logic of the prisoner’s dilemma is that it is always rational to betray others, whereas Hobbes’s system is founded on the notion that it is never rational, unless a subject is facing imminent death, to violate his contract. Certainly, simple tables of the type reproduced above do demonstrate quickly and fairly clearly the ways in which certain types of dangerous action are rational in the state of nature, or in the case of the fool under the sovereign. Nonetheless, this approach is highly problematic. First, Hampton’s more sophisticated three-dimensional tables and Gauthier’s logical notation lack the immediacy of Hobbes’s prose. Therefore, unless the reader is a skilled mathematician, the claim that these treatments clarify Hobbes’s position is highly questionable. Secondly, as Hampton has shown, game theory cannot account for the lasting agreement that Hobbes insists is necessary for civil peace. The central problem, as Alan Ryan argues, is that game theory assumes that humans are utility maximizes. Hobbes, on the other hand, assumes that men are “disaster-avoiders” (Ryan 1996, 224). Accordingly, Hobbesian man is willing to sacrifice the possibility of maximizing his utility in order to avoid death. In this light Hamilton and Kavka’s use of game theory to reconstruct choices in the state of nature seems misplaced. The final problem with this approach is methodological. Ingenious though these mathematical reconstructions are, do they really tell us anything about Hobbes? Hamilton explicitly states that he is presenting an account of Hobbes’s argument that cannot be found in Hobbes’s work and that he is using mathematical tools that were not available to early modern writers. Moreover, as his work shows this approach creates new problems. Hamilton sets out to solve these with the application of yet more modern mathematics, recasting the problems of the state of nature as a coordination game or a series of coordination games. Again, he solves a problem that Hobbes did not address using a method that Hobbes could not have used. These idealized accounts of Hobbes’s position tell us more about the limits of game theory than they do about Hobbes’s argument.

Hobbes the Skeptic Many of the problems with the interpretations considered in the previous sections of this chapter are methodological in nature. With this

92

Thomas Hobbes

in mind I now turn to two interpretations that are based on a contextual methodology specifically formulated to overcome the shortcomings discussed above and in so doing to recover the intensions of the author. Contextualists assert that texts are not complete in and of themselves and therefore that their meaning will not be immediately available to the reader. Rather, a text must be situated in the intellectual context in which it was written in order for its meaning to become intelligible. Indeed, it is only through studying the context of texts that it is possible to discover what “they were intended to mean, and how this meaning was intended to be taken” (Skinner, 1969, 48). Tuck sets out a contextual account of Hobbes’s writings in a number of important works, such as “Optics and Sceptics” and Philosophy and Government. According to Tuck Hobbes’s work is best understood as a response to the skeptical crisis that characterized European thought in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth centuries. From this perspective Hobbes’s work is similar to that of Mersenne, Gassendi and Descartes in the sense that it accepts the skeptical critique of classical learning, particularly of Aristotle, but attempts to build a new science that is impervious to skeptical attack. The skeptical crisis to which Tuck refers was rooted in two ancient schools of thought that are usually referred to as Academic and Pyrrhonian skepticism. Simply put, the former school taught that “nothing can be known, not even this” whereas the latter argued that it was impossible to be sure of anything and therefore judgment should be suspended perpetually. Pyrrhonism was chiefly known through the writings of the ancient skeptic Sextus Empiricus which became widely available toward the end of the sixteenth-century thanks to the publisher Henri Estienne. The influence of skepticism in the early modern period is best exemplified by the work of Pierre Charron and Michel de Montaigne. Both thinkers deployed skeptical arguments against contemporary learning, particularly Aristotelian philosophy. Moral philosophy, they argued, was insecure because there was no agreement on right and wrong among the nations. Natural philosophy was flawed because human perception could not be trusted as the senses were easily misled by illusions. Countering Pyrrhonism, Tuck asserts, was central to Mersenne’s project. It was this ambition that led to Mersenne’s collaboration with Gassendi and Descartes, both of whom were trying to create a new science that could not be defeated by the skeptics. Descartes’s work is

Reception and Interpretation

93

an excellent example of the attempt to forge this type of science. Descartes’s Meditations began by tearing down all certainty by subjecting sense and reason to a rigorous skeptical attack. Descartes cast doubt on the veracity of his experience, his rational faculties, and even the existence of his body using a mixture of ancient and novel skeptical arguments. Having considered the possibility that everything he remembers is just a dream he asserts that he is still certain of his own existence. Cogito ergo sum—I think therefore I am, became his new foundational certainty because no skeptic, however radical, could ever doubt his own existence. From this basis and an ingenious proof of God’s existence Descartes reasserts that certainty is possible. Tuck argues that Hobbes, like Mersenne and Descartes, wanted to build a post-skeptical science, that is to say a science that accepted the skeptical critique of ancient wisdom and therefore began afresh on a firm foundation that was impervious to skeptical attack. There is considerable contextual evidence for this position. First, Hobbes, like Mersenne, Gassendi, and Descartes, devoted a great deal of attention to the study of optics. Optical illusions were crucial to skeptical arguments about the varsity of human senses. Consequently, the study and explanation of optics was essential to any refutation of this aspect of skepticism. Secondly, Tuck claims that Hobbes’s philosophy took shape in the late 1630s and early 1640s at the very time when he was collaborating with Mersenne. Indeed, many of Hobbes’s works from this period, such as the Tractatus optics, Hobbes’s critique of Descartes’s Meditations, and Hobbes’s preface to Mersenne’s Balistica, were written at Mersenne’s request. Finally, Hobbes’s writings also contain passages which echo skeptical arguments. The Elements of Law, for example, acknowledges that it is possible to believe that a dream is real; and Hobbes repeatedly acknowledges every man defines good and evil in his own way. Hobbes’s solution to the skeptical crisis, Tuck argues, was a method modeled on geometry, which built a new science on simple maxims that could not be doubted. Tuck’s argument has not escaped criticism. There is significant doubt concerning the extent to which Hobbes’s work can legitimately be considered a response to skepticism. Importantly, Hobbes’s works barely discuss skepticism. Richard H. Popkin has shown that whereas Mersenne devotes over 200 pages of his Scientific Truth: Against the Sceptics or Pyrrhonians (1625) to a refutation of the skeptics, Hobbes refers to the skeptics only twice in his entire English works

94

Thomas Hobbes

(Popkin 1982, 134). Turning to Hobbes’s Latin works the picture is similar. Hobbes’s reference to skepticism in his critique of Descartes’s Meditations is fleeting and his attitude to the skeptics dismissive. Of more concern still, for Tuck’s argument, is manuscript evidence that Hobbes’s approach to optics, and methodology predates his meeting with Mersenne. If this is true these important aspects of Hobbes’s thought developed prior to his involvement with Mersenne and there is no reason to suppose they were influenced by Mersenne’s project. The manuscript in question is usually referred to as the A Short Tract on First Principles and was preserved in the collections of Charles Cavendish. The manuscript is untitled, undated, and does not bear Hobbes’s signature. The manuscript was first discovered and published by Hobbes scholar Ferdinand Tönnies. Tönnies attributed the text to Hobbes on the grounds that it was written in his hand and because of the similarities to Hobbes’s later work. Tönnies argued that the Short Tract marked a transitional stage in Hobbes’s work as it advances a modern mechanistic account of light but retains some of the terminology of Aristotelian physics. Consequently, Tönnies speculated that it was written at a time when Hobbes had not yet fully abandoned Aristotelian philosophy. If this is true it would have to date from the early 1630s. Tuck claims that the manuscript is not in Hobbes’s hand and therefore that Tönnies attribution is incorrect. Much recent scholarship has suggested that the manuscript does contain an expression of Hobbes’s early optical ideas. Karl Schuhmann, for example, argues that there are strong links between the style and argument of the Short Tract and Hobbes’s later works on optics (Schuhmann 1995, 3–36). Furthermore, while Timothy Raylor accepts that the manuscript was penned by Hobbes’s friend Robert Payne, he suggests that the manuscript embodies Hobbes’s early conception of light and optics. Raylor argues that Payne’s role in the Cavendish household was that of an assistant or a secretary. He would have been expected to write up the conclusions of discussions between his patrons and other members of their circle. Moreover, Hobbes is known to have presented his conception of light to the Cavendish brothers around 1630 (Raylor 2001, 42–51). Noel Malcolm, whose work represents the final word on the subject, at least to date, tends to the view that the manuscript represents Payne’s theory and not that of Hobbes (Malcolm 2002, 104–39). Nonetheless, Raylor and Malcolm both agree that the Short Tract is important for Hobbes scholars due to

Reception and Interpretation

95

the fact that it is indicative of the intellectual environment that Hobbes encountered in the mid–1630s. Consequently, it indicates that Hobbes’s interest in light, vision, and perception had sources independent of Mersenne and skepticism. Given the lack of textual evidence that Hobbes was concerned with skepticism and the existence of the Short Tract there are to be compelling reasons to question Tuck’s interpretation. Nonetheless, Tuck’s work is extremely useful in the sense that it uncovers one of the ways in which Hobbes was read during his own lifetime. Hobbes may not have been greatly concerned by the early modern skeptical crisis, but his works appealed to Mersenne, Gassendi, and others who were pursuing a post-skeptical science.

Hobbes and Rhetoric Quentin Skinner has suggested an alternative contextual reading of Hobbes’s thought. Skinner’s Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes argues that Hobbes’s primary concern was to turn the study of morality and politics into a science (Skinner 1996, 1). Hobbes’s understanding of civil science, he argues, was rooted in ancient Greek and Roman texts on rhetoric, particularly Cicero’s De inventione (Ibid., 2). However, Skinner reveals that Hobbes’s attitude to the classical understanding of rhetoric underwent considerable change, from an early position that clearly rejected eloquence to a later position that reaffirmed a more traditional conception of the relationship between reason and rhetoric. Skinner argues that Hobbes’s earliest works on civil science, The Elements of Law and De cive, embody a wholesale rejection of the classical ideal of civil science. Classical authors had argued that reason was not inherently compelling. Consequently, in order to be persuasive rational arguments had to be allied with rhetoric. Eloquent speech and artful writing could stir the passions and therefore motivate the reader or listener to action. For this reason, humanists since antiquity had argued for an alliance between science and rhetoric in order to persuade men to act rationally. Hobbes explicitly rejects this approach to civil science in both The Elements of Law and De cive. For example, the opening of The Elements of Law asserts, “For the style, it is therefore the worse, because whilst writing I consulted more with logic, than

96

Thomas Hobbes

with rhetoric” (Hobbes 1994c, 19). Hobbes also contrasts the usefulness of his own doctrine with the “false and rhetorical semblance” of wisdom contained in earlier doctrines (Ibid.). Skinner’s analysis of the style of these two works suggests that Hobbes had adopted, what Skinner describes as, a “scientific style” similar to that of Frances Bacon’s natural history the Sylva sylvarum or William Gilbert’s De magnete (Skinner 1996, 303). Crucially, Skinner shows that Hobbes took this style in a new direction. Bacon used a style devoid of rhetorical techniques when dealing with natural philosophy, but his writings on ethics and politics still employed the traditional alliance of reason and eloquence. Hobbes’s radical move was to extend the scientific style to ethical and political subjects. Rhetorical writings on civil science deploy a series of techniques to engage the reader and stir him to action. For example, arguments would be supported by illustrations from classical history, or an appeal to commonplace maxims. The Elements of Law and De cive, unlike other works on civil science, are almost entirely devoid of such rhetorical embellishment. Moreover, Hobbes’s attack on the classical understanding of civil science was not simply stylistic. Rather, Hobbes rejected the humanist notion of citizenship that underpinned the classical conception of eloquence’s role in the commonwealth. Traditionally, the good orator was equated with the good citizen. Eloquence was one of the fundamental skills for the active citizen who would take part in the judicial and political life of the commonwealth. This conception of the active citizen had been revived in the rhetorical handbooks of early modern England. Skinner argues that Hobbes felt the danger of this view of citizenship keenly. Consequently, Hobbes emphasized the seditious nature of rhetoric in his work of the early 1640s. Hobbes advanced the notion that the citizen is in fact nothing more than a subject, who should play an extremely limited role in the political life of the commonwealth. Nonetheless, Skinner argues that Hobbes’s approach in his later works is very different. While Hobbes was still concerned about the seditious potential of eloquence he was prepared to use rhetorical techniques in order to add greater weight to his arguments. The scientific style of the earlier works gave way to greater embellishment, the use of examples from classical histories and the appeal to popular

Reception and Interpretation

97

commonplaces. The use of rhetorical techniques is even more pronounced in Hobbes’s later works, which often take the form of dialogues and histories, forms that were recommended by classical writers due to their persuasive power. Skinner suggests that Hobbes changed his mind about the alliance between science and rhetoric for a number of reasons. First, Leviathan, which was written in English, addressed a less educated audience than the Latin De cive. However, this can only be part of the story as Hobbes’s later Latin works extend Hobbes’s use of rhetorical techniques rather than reverting to the scientific style. Hobbes’s continued use of these techniques, Skinner asserts, points to a fundamental shift in Hobbes’s approach to civil science. Skinner suggests that interest is the key to Hobbes’s change of heart. Hobbes’s early faith in the persuasiveness of demonstrative reasoning seems to have diminished due to the reception of his scientific works. Hobbes’s doctrines threatened the power and status of many important figures, and where reason and interest were opposed Hobbes came to believe that reason failed to compel. Consequently, Hobbes returned to rhetoric in an attempt to ally reason and passion against interest. This analysis, Skinner argues, was common to a number of thinkers known to Hobbes in Paris in the 1640s. Skinner’s interpretation of the development of Hobbes’s civil science is not without its critics. A common theme among his critiques is that Skinner’s work, and the contextual method more generally, is that the contextual history of ideas is essentially an exercise in obscurantism. The real focus for Hobbes scholarship, according to this view, should be examining and critiquing Hobbes’s ideas rather than exhaustive historical investigation. Gabriela Slomp’s Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory puts forward this very view arguing that “Hobbes wanted his theory to be analysed philosophically and logically, rather than historically” (Slomp 2000, 1). Slomp’s critique extends beyond her concern about Skinner’s method. She takes issue with Skinner’s argument that there was a significant shift in Hobbes views between De cive and Leviathan. Finally, she argues that the contextual method has done much to obscure Hobbes’s originality: Whereas Skinner belongs to the camp that is elated by the discovery of traditional concepts in Hobbes’ work, I belong to the larger crowd

98

Thomas Hobbes

overwhelmed by Hobbes’ originality, by the subversive way in which he uses customary concepts such as “natural right”, “natural law”, “state of nature” and “social contract”, and “by the thoroughness with which he scrutinises and re-thinks his cultural inheritance” (Ibid., 3). Slomp’s criticisms seem to be misplaced. First, Skinner never argues that Hobbes disowned De cive. Secondly, Slomp’s distinction between tradition and originality is somewhat confusing. On the one hand she expressed enthusiasm for Hobbes’s originality, only to construe it in terms of Hobbes’s dialogue with traditional concepts. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Slomp’s thoughts on methodology are highly problematic. Slomp focuses on ideas rather than history. Consequently, she assumes that Hobbes’s ideas are immediately intelligible by simply reading his texts. But is methodological credulity of this kind really tenable following Roland Barthes’s The Death of the Author (1977) and the general post-structuralist assertion that any literary text has multiple meanings? Secondly, the obsession with ahistorical ideas leads her to consider issues that, to the historian, seem incredibly anachronistic. For example, she discusses Winston Smith’s dilemmas in Room 101 in order to cast light on Hobbes’s argument in Leviathan (Ibid., 166–7). But, is it plausible that Leviathan and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) share the same basic understanding of government? Indeed, could Hobbes’s political imagination comprehend the kind of system that George Orwell satirized centuries later? Clearly, Hobbes was not addressing Orwell, nor did he intend to describe Orwell’s distopia. But these historical niceties are irrelevant for Slomp for whom the discussion of ideas is primary. Nonetheless, ignoring history does a disservice to the ideas of Hobbes and Orwell alike. Moreover, if ideas are all that matter why discuss Hobbes at all? Indeed, Slomp has no methodological warrant for believing that the ideas she discusses ever belonged to Hobbes. But, perhaps this is not a problem from Slomp’s point of view, for having divorced Hobbes’s ideas from their context the next move would logically be to divorce them from Hobbes himself. By contrast, the great advantage of Skinner’s approach is that it offers the possibility of recovering Hobbes’s intensions, while overcoming the problems apparently raised by post-structuralism. Only then is it possible to understand the meaning of Hobbes’s texts and engage with his ideas.

Reception and Interpretation

99

Conclusion: Understanding Hobbes Interpretations of Hobbes are legion. Initially, Hobbes was best known for his alleged atheism and heresy. However, as the religious controversies of the seventeenth century have faded from view critics focused on Hobbes’s understanding of human nature, the state and the social contract. More recently, even Hobbes’s class allegiance has come under scrutiny. These changes in our understanding of Hobbes, however, often tell us more about Hobbes’s critics than they do about Hobbes. The best way to approach Hobbes is to allow him to speak to us, rather than approaching him with a set preexisting conviction about what he must be saying. As soon as we assume that Hobbes must be part of a grand narrative, such as the fall of the aristocracy and the rise of the bourgeoisie, Hobbes’s voice is drowned out by our own concerns. Equally, when we try and solve Hobbesian problems with modern tools such as game theory rather than trying to understand Hobbes in his own terms we learn more about the limits of our tools, the limits of modern mathematics to use the same example, than we do about what Hobbes was trying to do when he wrote his now famous passage on the fool. The most illuminating and subtle readings of Hobbes are those that take us back to his culture, for they give a much better understanding of what Hobbes was actually trying to achieve. Additionally, they provide a new and alien vantage point from which to critique our own political and intellectual assumptions.

4

Hobbes Today

Some thinkers have a relatively limited shelf life; others live on, continuing to inspire the contemporary imagination. The same is true of historical figures more generally. Jesus and Adolf Hitler still top the charts in terms of the number of words devoted to them. Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, too, have left an indelible mark on the modern consciousness. Others have fared less well. There has not been a single biography of Joseph Pierre Proudhon, the father of Anarchism, in over ten years—at least in English. Similarly, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, creator of Russian populism, only really survives as a footnote to V. I. Lenin and Soviet Communism. Hobbes is neither as famous as Darwin nor as obscure as Chernyshevsky. Certainly, his hope that he would be recognized as the father of optics and the science of natural justice has yet to be realized. But Hobbes’s name is not forgotten. Indeed, his ideas are still discussed in a number of niches within contemporary culture. To borrow an analogy from the natural sciences, Hobbes’s thought is like an organism that survives due to the fact that it has adapted to a specific ecological niche.1 The most obvious niche in which Hobbes’s ideas live on is the academic world. Rightly or wrongly, Hobbes has become part of a semiofficial canon of important philosophers, political thinkers, theorists of international relations, and historical figures that are kept alive by the university curriculum.2 Secondly, Hobbes’s influence is still felt in the deliberations and publications of institutions concerned with the formulation of public policy. These include think tanks such as the British CIVITAS, and Institute of Economic Affairs; India’s Centre for Civil Society and the American Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; and, to a lesser extent, national legislatures.3 Finally, Hobbes also survives in contemporary pop culture.

Hobbes Today

101

His name features from time to time in current affairs journalism, in online blogs and in discussions hosted by online communities. Notably, “Thomas Hobbes” is a member of both Facebook and Myspace. Hobbes also provides the inspiration for the toy tiger in Bill Watterson’s famous comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Who knows, he may yet join John Locke, Edmund Burke, Mikhail Bakunin, and other philosophical luminaries as a character in ABC’s television series Lost. Significantly, to return to the ecological analogy, Hobbes’s ideas survive in these niches due to a process of adaptation. This chapter considers three senses in which Hobbes’s thought survives today. Essentially, Hobbes has provided two powerful political images that continue to resonate with the anxieties of political theorists, policy makers, and journalists. The first is Hobbes’s image of the state as leviathan, particularly as it was adapted in the late 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s to describe the threat of totalitarianism. Secondly, Hobbes’s image of the state of nature has become an accepted metaphor for the horrors of civil war in the former Yugoslavia, the genocide in Rwanda, and the disintegration of order in Iraq following Operation Iraqi Freedom. Finally, Hobbes himself has become something of a political symbol. I mean this in two ways. One, his work has an authoritative status for a number of contemporary conservatives. Two, Hobbes’s name has become shorthand for the melancholy face of liberalism, an alternative to the symbols of liberal optimism such as Locke, Kant, and Hegel.

New Leviathan and Totalitarianism Hobbes’s image of the state as an all-powerful biblical beast has endured and has in many ways taken on a life of its own. The metaphor of the state as leviathan has had particular resonance in the twentieth century, the century of total war and holocaust. Given the monstrous extension of government power in the last century it is no surprise that Hobbes’s metaphor should occur to writers grappling with totalitarian regimes, or so-called modern Leviathans (Gurian 1978, 519). In the 1940s commentators invoked the image of the “totalitarian Leviathan” (Cook 1943, 109; Gurian 1940, 127) and particularly the terrifying Nazi species of the beast (Lengyel 1944, 187; Robinson 1945, 23; Loewenstein 1946, 444). Following World

102

Thomas Hobbes

War II attention turned to the specter of the Communist or “Soviet Leviathan” and later still Mao’s “Chinese Leviathan” struck fear into the hearts of political commentators (Possony 1954, 90; Spencer 1955, 156; Maritain 1947, 61; Vevier 1959, 316). Fritz Morstein Marx’ ‘Totalitarian Politics’ (1940), R. M. MacIver’s Leviathan and the People (1941), and R. G. Collingwood’s “New Leviathan” all used Hobbes’s image to describe modern totalitarian despotisms. For Collingwood, leviathan was the perfect metaphor for “the new absolutism of the twentieth century” (Collingwood 1999, lix). This reinvention of Hobbes’s imagery was accompanied by the investigation of the philosophical origins of the so called total state. Melvin Rader’s No Compromise. The Conflict Between Two Worlds (1939) listed Hobbes, along with Hegel and Pareto, as one of the intellectual forefathers of totalitarianism. William Montgomery McGovern went further identifying Hobbes as “the prophet of a system which was to be carried out nearly three centuries later by Mussolini and Hitler” (McGovern 1941, 69). These diverse descriptions of totalitarianism and its origins do not present a coherent or homogeneous argument, far less an agreed view of Hobbes’s relationship to totalitarianism. But they are indicative of a general perspective that claims some continuity between Hobbes and contemporary totalitarianism. These claims, however, should be treated with extreme caution. At the very least they represent the rather free use of a powerful political image, and at worst they demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of Hobbes’s political thought and twentieth-century history. Few attempts to link Hobbes with Nazism have been as thoroughgoing as Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. For Arendt, Hobbes is the true, if unacknowledged, philosopher of capitalism, imperialism, and totalitarianism. Essentially, Arendt argues that the continual acquisition of property, the foundation of capitalism, necessitates a strong state which itself must invade other states in order to sustain the process of accumulation. Hobbes’s work, according to Arendt, described this very process and anticipated the kind of total state necessary for imperialism. Hobbes also foresaw the type of human being that would be required in a society dedicated to the acquisition of ever-greater power: For a commonwealth based on accumulated and monopolised power of all individual members necessarily leaves each person powerless, deprived of his natural and human capacities. It leaves him degraded

Hobbes Today

103

into a cog in the power accumulation machine, free to console himself with sublime thoughts about the ultimate destiny of this machine, which itself is constructed in such a way that it can devour the globe by following its own inherent law. (Arendt 1958, 146) Hobbes’s philosophical crimes do not end here. Indeed, Arendt argues that Hobbes also furnished humanity with a theoretical justification for racism. Hobbes’s notion that the relationship between states is analogous to the relationship between individuals in the state of nature essentially breaks humanity into a series of nations or tribes “separated from each other by nature, without any connection whatever, unconscious of the solidarity of mankind” (Ibid., 157). Consequently, Arendt claims that Hobbes’s doctrines are an essential source of Nazi totalitarianism. In a rather different way Hobbes’s imagery has also been linked to Soviet Communism. Notably, in the case of Bolshevism Hobbes’s monster was first invoked some years before the Russian Revolution. Nikolai Bukharin, one time co-leader of the Soviet Union and ultimately victim of Stalin’s Terror, raised the prospect of a “New Leviathan” in his theoretical work on several occasions. His basic insight came from an analysis of, in his terms, imperialism—the final phase of capitalism. His works Imperialism and World Economy and “Towards a theory of the imperialist state” of 1916 raise the specter of a new form of postcapitalist society dominated by a monster state, a conception that he would later link to totalitarianism. Essentially, Bukharin argued that the Great War was the result of a new imperialist stage of capitalism. Imperialism was distinct from the classic form of capitalism in a number of ways. First, whereas capitalism had initially been characterized by a dynamic free market with a minimal state, imperialist societies had become dominated by the state apparatus. According to Bukharin, the state in imperialist societies becomes increasingly interventionist particularly in the organization of the economy. In 1916 Bukharin argued that the most extreme example of this trend was the German war economy. In spite of this change Bukharin asserted that the essential exploitative relationships that characterize capitalism were retained. Indeed, the state became an all-powerful instrument for exploiting the proletariat: The state power thus sucks in almost all branches of production; it not only maintains the general conditions of the exploitative

104

Thomas Hobbes

process, the state maintains the general conditions of the exploitative process, the state more and more becomes a direct exploiter, organizing and directing production as a collective capitalist. (Cohen 1973, 29) In these circumstances the pluralism of early capitalism gave way to an ordered, mechanized, and militarized society in which the state absorbed all areas of social life. Thus arises the final type of contemporary imperialist robber state, an iron organisation which envelops the living body of society in its tenacious, grasping paws. It is a New Leviathan, before which the fantasy of Thomas Hobbes seems a child’s play. (Ibid., 30) The language that Bukharin uses to describe the ‘New Leviathan’ owes something to Jack London’s fictional dystopia The Iron Heel (1908). London’s novel describes a futuristic military state in which humanity is brutally repressed by a statist oligarchy. London too describes his fictional state using that language of monsters, “. . . that monster of the ages, the Oligarchy. With iron hand and iron heel it mastered the surging millions, out of confusion brought order, out of the very chaos wrought its own foundation and structure” (London 2006, 115). Significantly, Bukharin’s analysis of the modern state, like Jack London’s fantasy, pointed to a possible future that Marx had not anticipated. For Marx, capitalism would give way to socialism, that is an era of true equality and liberty. London and Bukharin, however, began to imagine that the overthrow of capitalism might lead to a new form of despotism rather than the emancipation of humanity. This insight served as the basis of Bukharin’s later critiques of Nazism and Stalinism. Bukharin’s speculations became increasingly relevant following the October Revolution of 1917 as the new Bolshevik regime had to acknowledge that while it had destroyed capitalism it had not, for the time being at least, created socialism. However, it was the late 1920s and early 30s that led Bukharin to develop his theory further. Following his fall from power Bukharin applied his insight to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Both seemed to provide examples of a society in which capitalism had been abolished but where exploitation had been perpetuated. According to Bukharin, fascism led to the dehumanization of the people, the abolition of private morality and

Hobbes Today

105

total submission to the leader. What is more, Bukharin’s biographer Stephen F. Cohen has suggested that his discussion of fascism was, in part, a covert attack on Stalinism. This is entirely plausible given Bukharin’s repeated concerns, under Lenin and Stalin, that Soviet Communism was degenerating into a statist totalitarian regime (Cohen 1973, 366–7). The link between the leviathan image and totalitarianism is also present in recent Hobbes scholarship. John Orbell and Brent Rutherford, for example, discuss the quality of “Leviathanness” and classify totalitarian states such as the USSR and China as “high Leviathan” where as democracies such as the United States and Trinidad are ranked as “low Leviathan” (Orbell and Rutherford 1973, 402).4 The link between Hobbes and totalitarianism has also been explored in relation to the fictional regime described in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Judith N. Shklar and Kenneth Minogue, for example, argue that there are parallels between Orwell’s fictional Newspeak and Hobbes’s view that language must be subject to the sovereign (Shklar 1985, 11; Minogue 1989, 13–14). Indeed, it is only natural that Hobbes and Orwell have become linked as Leviathan and Big Brother two of the most powerful political images in the English language. Before presenting a critique of the association between Hobbes and totalitarianism it is worth reiterating the point that the authors who tend to this perspective do so in a variety of ways. In some cases they are merely using a potent piece of political imagery, whereas in others there is an attempt to present a philosophical lineage in which Hobbes is identified as one of a number of “totalitarian and authoritarian precursors” (Sondrol 1991, 602). Finally, there are writers such as Arendt who present a much more extreme claim that there is an inescapable logic in Hobbes’s work that leads inexorably to the Nazi death camps. There are, however, good reasons to reject all shades of the association between Hobbes’s image and twentieth-century totalitarianism. Franz Neumann makes this point, at least in so far as it applies to Nazism, in Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism 1933-44 (1944). For Neumann, Nazism is closer to Hobbes’s Behemoth than his Leviathan: His Leviathan is the analysis of a state, that is a political system of coercion in which vestiges of the rule of law and of individual rights

106

Thomas Hobbes

are still preserved. His Behemoth, or the Long Parliament, however, discussing the English civil war of the seventeenth century, depicts a non-state, a chaos, a situation of lawlessness, disorder and anarchy. Since we believe National Socialism is—or tending to become—a non-state, a chaos, a rule of lawlessness and anarchy . . . we find it apt to call the National Socialist system The Behemoth. (Neumann 1944, vii) Neumann’s striking point highlights the central paradox at the heart of totalitarianism: rather than making the state all-powerful the state dissolves within the totalitarian regime. This tendency within Nazi Germany has been well documented.5 Rather than a single authoritative body Nazi rule was characterized by competing, yet apparently all-powerful agencies such as the Nazi Party, the Schutzstaffel, the Four-Year Plan Organization, and the remnants of the Weimar state. Moreover, in this “system” there were no formal defined hierarchies. Hitler deliberately gave different agencies very similar remits and overlapping powers. A similar arrangement emerged under Stalin. The Communist Party, the Party’s secretariat, the Soviet State, and the NKVD were all, in different senses, sovereign bodies who interacted in ways which bore no relation to the 1936 “Stalin Constitution”. Significantly, Stalin’s power was independent from the Soviet state and between 1929 and 1941 he was the most powerful figure in Russia but not the Head of State. Leonard Schapiro has commented that a state is in effect incompatible with a totalitarian regime. State action is governed by rules and norms. However, if power is to be absolute it must be arbitrary and unconstrained. Consequently, “to speak of ‘the totalitarian state’ is to use a contradiction in terms” (Schapiro 1972, 71). Leaving institutions to one side, Hobbes’s thought is quite unlike Nazism or Marxist-Leninism. Hobbes’s thought emphasizes the importance of a sovereign state for civil peace. This is wholly different to Nazism and Stalinism. In terms of Nazi ideology the state is considered secondary to the race. It is the creative potential of the race that guarantees the advance of the good life, not the state. Hitler spelled this out in terms of an apocalyptic parable in his infamous autobiography Mein Kampf (1925–1926): If today, for example, the surface of the earth were upset by some tectonic event and a new Himalaya rose from the ocean floods, by

Hobbes Today

107

one single cruel catastrophe the culture of humanity would be destroyed. No state would exist any longer, the bands of all order would be dissolved, the documents of millennial development would be shattered—a single great field of corpses covered by water and mud. But if from this chaos of horror even a few men of a certain race capable of culture had been preserved, the earth, upon settling, if only after thousands of years, would again get proofs of human creative power. . . . Conversely, we can see even by examples from the present that state formations in their tribal beginnings can, if their racial supporters lack sufficient genius, not preserve them from destruction. (Hitler 2004, 356) Hitler’s convoluted message, which studiously avoids the JudeoChristian image of the flood, boils down to this: if every state was destroyed civilization would be reborn as long as elements of the master race survived; whereas, if the state persists and yet the master race died out then civilization is doomed. Evidently, Hitler believed that civilization emerged naturally from the activities of the master race. This position is diametrically opposed to Hobbes’s view that civilization is an artifact of the state. Similarly, the Marxist-Leninist view of the state is very different to that of Hobbes. From the Revolution until Stalin’s death orthodox Communists looked forward to the withering away and eventual abolition of the state. In theory, the state was an instrument of class rule, and therefore it was only necessary in a postrevolutionary society during the period of transition during which the workers, led by the Communist Party, would use the state to suppress class enemies. Hobbes’s account is altogether different. For Hobbes the state would always be necessary to ensure civil peace. Moreover, whereas Hobbes advocated peace, Stalinism and Nazism are ideologies of conflict; the former stresses class war, the latter a fight to the death between opposing races. Consequently, it seems legitimate to say that Hobbes’s thought is neither obviously like Nazism or Marxism-Leninism. Nor did the Nazis and Communists look to Hobbes for inspiration. Each of these movements had other guiding philosophical lights. On an ideological level there is little common ground between Hobbes and the twentieth-century totalitarians.6 As the threat of totalitarianism has receded the metaphor of the state as leviathan has taken new forms. Robert Higgs’s Crisis and Leviathan

108

Thomas Hobbes

(1987) uses the image to describe the government of the United States. Indeed, according to Republican Senator Tom Coburn the US “federal leviathan” has apparently become a new species of the monster that has evolved “tentacles” (Senate Bill 2179 (2007) amend. 3966). The US legislature itself has met with similar criticism in Gary Cox and Mathew McCubbins’s Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House (1993). The term has even been applied to institutions that are not states such as the IMF, the FBI, and ZANU PF. Perhaps the most interesting of the post-totalitarian leviathans is Sayyed Vali Reza Nasr’s Islamic Leviathan (2001). Nasr’s study analyses the way in which the states of Pakistan and Malaysia adopted a policy of Islamicization to increase their support and therefore to extend their power. The story of weak states seeking to increase their power by appealing to the authority of religion is recognizably Hobbesian unlike the totalitarian leviathans of the mid-twentieth century. Consequently, Islamic Leviathan unlike the earlier treatments of the new leviathan genuinely seems to owe a genuine intellectual debt to Hobbes.

Back to Nature Leviathan is not the only lasting image that we owe to Hobbes. His vision of the state of nature in which life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short has also endured. Indeed, this image has colored the description of civil war, genocide, and lawlessness in the contemporary world. This perspective was aptly summed up by former Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan: . . . the people of Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, Afghanistan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian territory, and many other war-stricken places around the world has been and, in some cases still is, more akin to the anarchic state of nature depicted by Thomas Hobbes than to the noble aspirations embodied in the Charter and the Millennium Declaration. (Annan 2002, 6) Although Annan was discussing the condition of people in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East the origins of this perspective can be traced to New York, specifically The New York Review of Books,

Hobbes Today

109

which is based less than three miles from the buildings of the UN in which Annan made his speech. The article in question is Michael Ignatieff’s “The Balkan Tragedy” which appeared in 1993 and attempts to give a “comprehensible explanation” of the destruction precipitated by the disintegration of Yugoslavia (Ignatieff 1993, 3). To this end Ignatieff turns to Hobbes: . . . Hobbes understood, no emotion is more likely to generate ethnic and religious hatred than fear. By 1990, post-Titoist Yugoslavia had become a Hobbesian world, a state of nature in which the means of violence were too widely distributed to afford anyone safety . . . Interethnic accommodation depended on the existence of a multi-ethnic state. When this disintegrated, society rapidly decomposed into its primary national elements, since these alone appeared to promise the Hobbesian minimum of security. (Ibid) On this account, the degeneration of Yugoslavia into bloodshed and anarchy follows a Hobbesian pattern. Initially, the state guaranteed peace. Under the sovereign different groups were able to live a civilized life in apparent harmony. However, following the death of the Josip Tito, Yugoslavia’s dictator, and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, the collapse of state authority led to mutual fear and violence. Cohesive society ended and insecurity led to the formation of warring factions. Hobbes is important to Ignatieff in a number of ways. First, Ignatieff follows Hobbes’s view that the state alone can guarantee civil peace. Secondly, he appeals to a Hobbesian psychology that emphasizes the potency of fear in situations of insecurity. Finally, Ignatieff follows Hobbes’s view that in the absence of state power former citizens become enemies. Ignatieff’s Hobbesian account of the breakup of Yugoslavia, which was restated in Blood and Belonging (1993) and The Warrior’s Honor (1998) has been highly influential. Damir Mirkovic´, for example, argued that in the “former Yugoslavia . . . society is reaching its lowest possible stage—a complete chaos and lawlessness, a war of all against all . . . and life truly is becoming ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’” (Mirkovic´ 1996, 192). Other recent examples of social dislocation, impoverishment, normlessness, and lawlessness have often been explored in Hobbesian terms. Indeed, journalist Timothy Garton Ash has invoked Hobbes’s metaphor to describe the plight of

110

Thomas Hobbes

post-Saddam Iraq, “[c]laiming to move Iraq forward towards Lockean liberty, we hurled it back to a Hobbesian state of nature. Iraqis—those who have not been killed—increasingly say things are worse than they were before” (Ash 2006, 31). Deborah Avant’s “Conserving Nature in the State of Nature: The Politics of INGO Policy Implementation” (2004) applies Hobbes’s description more widely to situations in Somalia, Bosnia, Burundi, Liberia, and Rwanda. John Gray’s False Dawn, repeatedly appeals to Hobbes’s notion of the state of nature and the role of the state as part of a stinging critique of Western policy in the developing and post-Soviet world. Gray’s argument focuses on the effects of global laissez-faire capitalism. Essentially, he claims that policies that have sought to extend the free market have weakened state authority thus preventing economic and social regeneration. Indeed, Gray claims that the scale of the problem is such that “at the start of the twenty-first century, the modern state has ceased to exist in much of the world” (Gray 2002, xiii). The rise of globalization, and the accompanying demise of the nation state, has affected politics on a domestic and a global level. Locally, the absence of a state has meant that people in the postcolonial and postcommunist world have reverted to “[t]he Hobbesian state of nature” and therefore “the rudiments of security are unavailable” to the people in many parts of the world (Ibid.). Globally, it has led to the rise of new types of irregular warfare. Contemporary Russia is a particularly good example of a situation in which attempts at market reform has lead to social and economic chaos. Gray spells this out with reference to “shock therapy,” the rapid introduction of a free market into an economic system that had previously been characterized by high levels of state control. The “shock therapy” of the early 1990s severely weakened the mechanisms of political control creating an “enfeebled, corrupt and, in some regions and contexts, virtually non-existent state” (Ibid., 152). Market reform increased the economic chaos that had emerged in the final years of Communist rule. Overnight price inflation rose 250 percent, while wages stayed pitifully low (Ibid., 145). Additionally, privatization led to the emergence of mafia style capitalism as former state assets fell into the hands of corrupt Party bosses and criminal gangs. According to Gray, “organised crime is ubiquitous” in modern Russia and in the late 1990s the income of the mafia accounted for as much as 40 percent of Russian GDP (Ibid., 155). Finally, “shock therapy” has

Hobbes Today

111

also destabilized global security. Slashing government spending, a central part of the reform program, caused the partial disintegration of the Russian military production. As the state’s ability to fund and control Russia’s military industrial complex withered, military equipment produced and stockpiled by the Soviet Union found its way onto the global black market. Consequently, “the resources of the vast Soviet war machine were sold to the highest bidder, becoming available to not only to states but to non-state forces waging unconventional war throughout the world” (Ibid., xiii). In the face of poverty, rising mortality and criminality, it is no surprise that Gray views Russia’s problem as “a Hobbesian problem of order” (Ibid., 159). The Global effects of the laissez-faire experiment have been equally anarchic. Nonetheless, some types of organization have flourished in the “semi-anarchic conditions fostered by global laissez-faire” (Ibid., xiv.). Al Qaeda is Gray’s prime example. The communication technologies that have made modern globalization possible have also facilitated the growth of terrorist cells, the absence of effective economic regulation has resulted in the expansion of the international drugs trade from which Al Qaeda derives much of its revenue, and weak states have proved unwilling or unable to stamp out terrorist bases within their territories. For these reasons Gray argues that the 9/11 attacks are “a by-product of the weakness of the state that was actively promoted by the West during the neo-liberal period” (Ibid., xv). Gray also turns to Hobbes for a solution to these woes. The creation of a powerful and effective state in Russia is the answer to organized crime. What is more, the state is also the solution to economic instabilities. The state, for Gray, is not the enemy of the market, rather “[t]he free market is an artefact of state power” (Ibid., xiii). A strong state can enforce contacts, regulate the production and distribution of dangerous commodities, provide an economic safety net, and in so doing contain the free market’s inherent tendency to self-destruct. Hobbes’s thought is undoubtedly useful in the context of modern war not least because it is an important corrective to the view that contemporary troubles are based on ancient tribal hatreds. Such an account, which predominates in journalistic treatments of Kosovo and Rwanda and seems to have originated in Robert Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (1993), suggests that there are natural and irreconcilable differences between groups of people, which will inevitably lead to conflict (Simons and Mueller 2001, 190 n. 1).

112

Thomas Hobbes

On this view there can be no long-term solution to racial conflict because the causes are too deep-seated to be overcome. Hobbes, on the other hand, suggests that all identities beyond our essential humanity are artificial. There are natural causes for conflict to be sure, but these are based on insecurity, the absence of agreed standards, and the lack of a common power not on racial or tribal identities. What is more, such problems are eminently solvable. The establishment of a modern state, the rule of law, and an education system that stresses the benefits of civil peace can turn enemies into friends. Hobbes’s insight about the importance of state guaranteed order may go some way to explain the perplexing popularity of Vladimir Putin and revival nostalgia for Communist despotism—in 1991 70 percent of Russians supported democratic reform, whereas in 2006 71 percent lamented the breakup of the Soviet Union (Shevtsova 2007, 13–16). According to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s Kremlin Rising, Putin is popular with ordinary Russians primarily because he offers order; and people speak wistfully of the USSR because of its apparent strength (Baker and Glasser 2005, 5–6). The unexpected conclusion, for Western liberals, is that the majority of Russian people preferred life under the stagnant despotism of Leonid Brezhnev to pluralism under Boris Yeltsin. Under Brezhnev there was no rule of law in the proper sense, but there was order and regularity. Citizens understood how the system worked and how to avoid falling foul of the authorities. Consequently, there was security. Under Gorbachev this disappeared and Yeltsin proved unable to restore it. Putin’s popularity, it seems, is based on his image of strength and even harshness. His background in Brezhnev’s KGB, his ability to bring the media under state control, and to clamp down on opposition are welcomed by the majority of Russians because they see it as a return to order and security. The Hobbesian need for security, it appears, trumps the desire for liberty. Hobbes’s solution to conflict and instability has informed the work of researchers working for intergovernmental organizations concerned with international development. Raghuram Rajan, the IMF’s Economic Counsellor and Director of Research, argues that laissezfaire economic models are not the best solution for international development. Rather, he claims that international bodies must focus on institution building. Moreover, researchers should recognize that the “enforcement apparatus for every contract must be derived from first principles—as in the world that Hobbes so vividly depicted”

Hobbes Today

113

(Rajan 2004, 57). Similarly, Douglass North argues that the failure to develop a successful state with the power to enforce contracts is “the most important source of both historical stagnation and contemporary underdevelopment in the Third World” (North 1990, 54). Oliver Williamson’s 1995 paper for the World Bank approaches the issue of development from a different angle, focusing on the factors that have made Western economies successful. In this context, he argues that a powerful state that can enforce stable contractual relationships has been essential to economic success in the developed world. Consequently, he recommends that this model should be replicated in developing economies. This position is explicitly linked to Hobbes in Richard E. Messick’s 1999 paper, again for the World Bank, on Judicial Reform and Economic Development (Messick 1999, 120). Hobbes’s understanding of social disintegration has undoubtedly been influential. Nonetheless, the desire to find a conceptual framework that explains modern conflict may blind commentators to the specific historical causes of contemporary troubles. John Mueller makes this very point in the context of the conflict in the Balkans and Rwanda, arguing that neither situation degenerated into a war of all against all. Rather, he argues, the war in the Balkans was prosecuted by small groups of combatants. The same, he argues, was true in Rwanda: There are doubtless instances . . . in which the Hobbesian vision comes closer to being realized. In 1994 genocide inflicted by ethnic Hutus against Tutsis in Rwanda may be a case in point. Closer examination, however, suggests a number of similarities with the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. (Mueller 2000, 59) Finally, modern researchers who advocate the creation of strong states to combat social and economic anarchy are not prepared to accept the final logic of Hobbes’s argument. No modern think tank or intergovernmental organization is prepared to advocate the kind of absolute sovereignty that Hobbes believed was essential for ongoing civil peace.

Hobbes and Contemporary Conservatism Conservatism, like liberalism and socialism is ever-changing. This reflects the fact that modern ideologies are living languages and is a testament to the vigor and creativity of contemporary political

114

Thomas Hobbes

thought. However, it makes it extremely difficult to pin down conservatism in terms of a conceptual definition. Nonetheless, it is relatively easy to identify individual conservative thinkers. With this in mind, I will focus on a number of leading contemporary right-wing thinkers, specifically Leo Strauss, Michael Oakeshott, and James M. Buchanan. Although all of these figures view Hobbes as important, there is significant disagreement over the nature of his thought and his relevance today. Strauss and Oakeshott have both developed ideas and positions during their work on Hobbes that have become highly influential—Buchanan’s work owes something to the works of both of these thinkers. Interestingly, in spite of this debt, Buchanan refers to neither Strauss nor Oakeshott. This is indicative of the fact that positions that originated in discussion of Hobbes’s work have now become commonplaces among conservative thinkers. Leo Strauss has been described as the “mentor” or “forefather” of neo-conservatism (Boot 2006, 26). There is some justice in this description as his influence is wide ranging (High 2009). Strauss’s understanding of modern politics and political theory was rooted in a specific view of intellectual history in which Hobbes played an important part. Strauss wrote extensively on the topic of intellectual history (Drury 1985). This ongoing study led him to the view that the seventeenth century marked a turning point in the history of Western political thought. Crucially, Strauss argued that social contract theories, which became dominant during this period, created enormous conceptual and political problems. For Strauss, the legacy of social contract theory was modern liberalism with its highly corrosive stress on individualism and moral relativism (High forthcoming 2008-9). Strauss’s antidote to the problems of liberalism was to focus on alterative intellectual traditions, such as classical republicanism that stressed civic duty rather than radical individualism. Strauss’s approach to the problems of modern politics has been highly influential. In general terms the desire to find alternative traditions of political thought has led to the reawakening of interest in figures such as Adam Smith and the tradition of classical economics. Strauss’s work on Hobbes should be understood in this context. The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and its Genesis (1963) and ‘On the Spirit of Hobbes’ Political Philosophy’ (1965) both attempt to situate Hobbes in the tradition of classical republicanism and in so doing to break the link between Hobbes and liberalism.

Hobbes Today

115

Oakeshott’s understanding of Hobbes was altogether different. Oakeshott looked to Hobbes as a model of how to write political philosophy. Political philosophy, according to Oakeshott, belonged to a higher realm than the murky world of day-to-day politics. As Oakeshott put it early in his career, every man, I suppose, has his political opinions. . . . But a political philosopher has something more: he has an analysis of political activity, a comprehensive view of the nature of political life, and it is this, and not his political opinions, which it is profitable for a later and different age to study. (Oakeshott 1935, 267) Hobbes was such a thinker who was able to “mediate between politics and eternity” in a way that lesser figures, such as Jeremy Bentham, could not (Ibid.). For Oakeshott Hobbes’s work had something of universal value, and in this sense his ideas transcended the context in which they were written and speak to all time. Oakeshott argues that the context for Hobbes’s work is not his time or ours, but the history of philosophy itself. Oakeshott provided two outlines of the history of philosophy. In the first, which appears in his ‘Introduction’ to Hobbes’s Leviathan, he distinguished between three historical phases (Tregenza 1997, 534). First, political philosophy focused on reason and nature, Plato being the prime example of this tradition. Then, in the work of Hobbes, it turned to will and artifice; and finally with Hegel political philosophy focused on the rational will. In later works Oakeshott introduced another metahistorical way of categorizing political philosophers. Broadly, he distinguished between individualists and anti-individualists. In terms of this distinction Oakeshott argued that Hobbes was the first philosopher to articulate a political and moral philosophy rooted in the individual and the individual’s desires. “The Masses in Representative Democracy” claims that the self-conscious individual had been a feature of European life since the fourteenth century (Oakeshott 1961, 370). However, the move toward individual self-determination had quite different consequences in terms of individual psychology and political philosophy. Some embraced autonomy and independence while others found freedom burdensome. This second type of person, the “individual manqué,” wished away their freedom and looked to the state to relieve them of their independence (Ibid., 372). In philosophical terms two

116

Thomas Hobbes

schools of thought emerged. Hobbes pioneered the philosophy of the individual, which deduced that state and civil society from the fact that individuals are naturally free. Aquinas, Calvin, Rousseau, and Marx, on the other hand, developed anti-individual philosophies that liberated men from having to define their own ends (Riley 1992, 510). Oakeshott clearly embraced Hobbes’s radical epistemological individualism. As early as 1935 Oakeshott argued that Hobbes’s “solphism,” his stress on the fact that each individual is naturally cut off from all others, was the bedrock of Hobbes’s epistemology and politics. Hobbes’s epistemology also led him to another conclusion that Oakeshott endorsed. For Hobbes, humanity is without a common purpose. From this Hobbes deduced that the state had no function beyond guaranteeing security. Oakeshott built this insight into his Rationalism in Politics, first published in 1962. Here Oakeshott set out a critique of “rationalism” as an approach to politics. Rationalists, he claims, discount tradition wisdom and practical knowledge in favor of reason (Oakeshott 1991, 5–7). Consequently, rationalists aim to redesign political institutions in the light of abstract truths about human nature. Michael Rushton argues that Oakeshott’s attack on rationalism was an attack on thinkers such as Plato who wanted to redesign society in order to achieve an abstract idea of justice; or Marx who aimed to remake society in pursuit of equality. Rationalists, Oakeshott argued, seek to impose a single goal on society and in so doing they ignore individual desires. On Oakeshott’s reading then, Plato argues that justice trumps individual goals and projects; and for Marx individual freedom must be subordinated to the pursuit of equality. Conservatism is Oakeshott’s response to rationalism. Where the rationalist is quick to embrace abstraction the conservative thinks practically, where the rationalist is eager for change the conservative is cautious; where the rationalist is prepared to sanction unconstrained state action the conservative favors limited government, and where the rationalist thinks in terms of the “public good” the conservative supports individual freedom (Ibid., 431). Like Hobbes, Oakeshott recognizes that humans have no transcendent destiny, at least in this life. Rather, individual desires are paramount. Consequently, “[i]n political activity . . . men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbor for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The

Hobbes Today

117

enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel . . .’ (Ibid., 60) This position is clearly reminiscent of Hobbes who believed there was no summum bonum (or highest good) other than staying alive. In spite of Oakeshott’s clear admiration for Hobbes there are tensions between the two positions. Oakeshott stressed individual freedom whereas Hobbes stressed individual security. Hobbes’s philosophy clearly acknowledged that individuals must contract away some of their freedom with the goal of self-preservation rather than self-determination. Secondly, many writers have described Hobbes much as Oakeshott described his philosophical enemies. Hobbes’s faith in abstraction and his lack of willingness to engage with the practical world of experience was a common theme among Hobbes’s critics in the 1660s. Moreover these aspects of Hobbes are all reminiscent of Oakeshott’s description of the rationalist. Oakeshott’s methodology is also problematic. On the one hand he deplores metanarratives which suggest that history has a direction, but on the other he proposes his own grand narratives to explain the development of political theory. His distinction between grubby politics and universal philosophy is also difficult to maintain. Hobbes’s contemporaries certainly thought that Hobbes’s works were a contribution to the politics of the time. What is more, Hobbes was undoubtedly enmeshed with politics of a very dirty kind. It should be remembered that in 1640 Hobbes stood for Parliament, that The Elements of Law was so clearly pro-Royalist that he felt compelled to flee from England to protect his life, and that Leviathan led some to call for his execution as a heretic. Oakeshott’s interpretation of Hobbes is clearly very different from that set out by Strauss. Oakeshott, explicitly describes Hobbes as social contract theorist. He also highlights the radical individualism in Hobbes’s philosophy that Strauss abhors. Buchanan’s reading of Hobbes is clearly closer to Oakeshott. Even so, he owes something to Strauss as well. Buchanan, like Oakeshott, sees Hobbes as one of the moderns, a social contract theorist, and an individualist. Indeed, in his article “The Matrix of Contractarian Justice” (1984) he seems to suggest that Hobbes and John Rawls are essentially engaged in the same project. Buchanan’s starting point in both “The Matrix of Contractarian Justice” and his far more extensive The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan (1975) is the maxim that there are no transcendent political or moral truths (Buchanan 1975, ix; Buchanan

118

Thomas Hobbes

and Lomasky 1984, 12). From this foundation, or perhaps absence of a foundation, Buchanan sets out to try and impose political order on social chaos by creating a contract that is acceptable to all individuals irrespective of their desires. This is all recognizably Hobbesian as is Buchanan’s description of the state of nature7 (Buchanan 1975, 24). However, while Buchanan owes much to Hobbes he is also a critic. Notably, he considers liberty to be much more important than Hobbes suggests. In this sense his understanding of the difference between his project and that of Hobbes is much sharper than Oakeshott was willing to admit. However, Buchanan’s work also introduces some anachronisms into his reading of Hobbes. For example, Buchanan’s suspicion of the leviathan state is bound up with his antipathy towards twentieth-century Communism. “Socialism” he argues “is the throughway to Leviathan” (Ibid., 180). Clearly, Buchanan is prepared to equate absolutism and Stalinism. Buchanan’s reasons for this equation are not set out in The Limits of Liberty. Nonetheless, there is a clue to his reasoning in “The Matrix of Contractarian Justice.” In this later work he points to a problem that he believes to be at the heart of Hobbes’s account of the social contract. In essence he argues that Leviathan contains two antithetical arguments about equality under the sovereign. First, Leviathan seems to justify a social contract that would allow the creation of a civil society in which there would be a significant degree of inequality. Yet, Hobbes complicates his position by a second argument: He demands that all citizens acknowledge their natural equality. This suggests a link between the absolutism of Leviathan and the socialist desire to use the state to impose equality. Buchanan attempts clarify Hobbes’s position by arguing that Hobbes’s egalitarianism is neither persuasive nor essential to his general argument (Buchanan and Lomasky 1984, 16). There is considerable common ground between Buchanan and Oakeshott. Both accept that there are no foundational political truths; both agree that humanity has no eternal destiny and therefore both stress the need for civil society to interfere as little as possible with individual desires and projects. Yet Buchanan’s The Limits of Liberty never mention’s Oakeshott. This is not entirely surprising, as Oakeshott’s themes have been taken up by a large number of liberal and conservative writers such as Bernard Crick and Kenneth Minogue. In this sense they have become commonplaces among conservative, libertarians and even some liberals. Similarly, The Limits of Liberty

Hobbes Today

119

contains no reference to Strauss. Buchanan’s debt to Strauss is more subtle, but it should not be overlooked. Buchanan is one of many contemporary conservatives who have returned to the work of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and the insights of classical economics. In a sense this reflects Strauss’s project, for Strauss was keen to find alternative political traditions to modern liberalism. More generally, this aspect of Strauss’s work, which is exemplified by his reading of Hobbes, has clearly influenced recent conservatives who have sought to distance the US Constitution from contemporary liberalism by recovering the original ideological sources that contributed to its creation.8 Again, while Strauss was an important intellectual spur to recovering forgotten intellectual traditions the interest in Smith and Ricardo has taken on a life of its own. Hobbes was significant to Strauss and Oakeshott for different reasons. What is more, these two great modern conservatives had very different projects and very different understandings of the problems of the modern world. Nonetheless, Hobbes’s work, his philosophy, and his place in the history of ideas were central to the renewal of conservative thought that began early in the twentieth century. Evidently, Hobbes still has an audience and still has an influence on conservatism.

Liberal before Liberalism The second-century Christian apologist Justin of Caesarea, finding common ground between the philosophy of Plato and the teachings of the Church, described Plato as a “Christian before Christ.” Today, it seems appropriate to use a similar description for the relationship between Hobbes and liberalism. Indeed, Hobbes who died before the advent of liberalism seems to have had a profound affect on the liberal tradition. Hobbes’s influence on liberalism is widely acknowledged. For D. J. Manning Hobbes’s stress on individualism was highly significant for later liberals (Manning 1976, 16); whereas, for Anthony Arblaster it was Hobbes’s empiricism and his theory of freedom that were important (Arblaster 1984, 137). Liberalism is, of course, a complex and protean phenomenon that encompasses a number of different philosophical positions. Nevertheless, Hobbes has become a symbol for the skeptical, pessimistic, and conservative tendencies

120

Thomas Hobbes

within liberalism, in contrast to a variety of other thinkers who have come to represent liberalism’s sunnier side. This version of Hobbes can be found in the publications of various think tanks and intergovernmental organizations as well as in the deliberations of state legislatures. During a British parliamentary debate Lord Holme of Cheltenham, for example, argued that Tony Blair’s government was torn between Locke and Hobbes’s on the issue of constitutional reform. The voice of the government, he stated, was ‘the voice of Locke, speaking noble words about reform, but the hands—and they seem to be rather hairy hands—are the hands of Hobbes, supporting sovereignty undiluted. (United Kingdom, House of Lords 2002, vol. 641, 665) The contrast between Hobbes and Locke recurs in the publications of groups sponsored by the European Commission. MICROCON, A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict, to take an example, argue that social contracts can be vertical if they are authoritarian in the sense of Thomas Hobbes, or they may be horizontal if fashioned with popular consent, as advocated by John Locke. The former may be described as dictatorial, and the latter as democratic. (MICROCON 2007, 26) Turning to human nature, again Hobbes is presented as the harbinger of doom. For example, in a paper presented at the IMF’s Conference on Second Generation Reforms in 1999 Deepak Lal argued that “human nature appears darker than Rousseau’s and brighter than Hobbes’s characterizations” (Lal 1999, Section III). Similarly, the Social Development Department, an office of the World Bank argue that “[i]n stark contrast to Rousseau’s optimist view of human nature stands the pessimist view of Hobbes” (Paldam and Svendsen 1999, 4). Hobbes and Kant are contrasted in a working document prepared by The Sustainable Project for Tomorrow’s Europe, a group formed on the initiative of the President of the European Commission which argues that following 9/11 “Europeans’ Kantian multilateralist vision” has come up against “the Hobbesian reality of the international order”

Hobbes Today

121

(Strauss-Kahn 2004, 16). This view of the European approach to international politics chimes with that of Robert Kagan who argues that Europe “is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realisation of Immanuel Kant’s ‘perpetual peace.’ Meanwhile, the United States remains mired in history, exercising power in an anarchic Hobbesian world . . .” (Kagan 2004, 3). In each of these cases the reference to Hobbes is fleeting, his pessimism is taken for granted and there is no attempt to develop a broader account of Hobbes’s position within an intellectual tradition. Nonetheless, there are accounts of liberalism that do just this, specifically in the work of Francis Fukuyama and John Gray. Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man (1992) contains a clear account of Hobbes’s significance within the liberal tradition. According to Fukuyama Hobbes’s philosophy “‘was the fountainhead from which modern liberalism sprang” (Fukuyama 1992, 154). This is no small accolade as The End of History presents a universal history of mankind which culminates in the triumph of liberal democracy (Ibid., xi–xii). Hobbes’s claim to being the source of modern liberalism is founded on two philosophical positions. First, Hobbes developed the notion of individual rights; secondly, he argued that legitimate government must be based on consent (Ibid., xviii, 154). These ideas found an institutional form in the British Constitution, just as the ideas of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton did in the Constitution of the United States (Ibid., 153). Fukuyama admits that Hobbes was no democrat. Nonetheless, he asserts that the “distance from Hobbes to the ‘sprit of 1776’ and to modern liberal democracy is a very short one” (Ibid., 157). But Hobbes’s vision falls short of Fukuyama’s liberal democratic ideal. Importantly, Hobbes’s ideas overstate humanity’s fear of death and selfishness as well as neglecting the human desire for recognition (Ibid., 144). Additionally, Hobbes’s system contains no institutional checks on sovereign power (Ibid., 157). For these reasons it was necessary for Locke to “modify Hobbes’ doctrine” by introducing the notion of parliamentary sovereignty (Ibid., 158). Finally, Hegel developed a form of liberalism, superior to the Anglo-Saxon model of Hobbes and Locke, which finally gave liberal democracy a moral purpose (Ibid., 160, 199, and 214). Hobbes is important for Fukuyama as he is part of a teleological story which begins with “primitive forms of rule” which are dogged by “grave defects and irrationalities” and ends with liberal

122

Thomas Hobbes

democracy which is “arguably free from such fundamental internal contradictions.” (Ibid, xi.) The End of History’s account of Hobbes’s place within the liberal tradition is not without its problems. Centrally, the notion that human history has a direction and a single destination is highly questionable. Moreover, human history cannot be read as a straight path from slavery to freedom. The pursuit of liberty has ebbed and flowed, and continues to do so. Turning to Fukuyama’s specific claims about Hobbes’s significance, his suggestion that Hobbes’s relationship to the British constitution is analogous to Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton’s relationship to the American constitution is highly questionable. Madison and Hamilton were the leading lights amongst the 55 delegates who drafted the American Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. That is to say, they were actually involved in writing the text of the American Constitution. Jefferson, although absent from the Philadelphia Convention, was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the United States of America. Unlike America, the British Constitution is not based on a single central text. Nonetheless, much of the British Constitution exists in the form of statutes and European treaties. Hobbes was not the author of any of the texts that make up the British Constitution, nor is he the source of any of the unwritten constitutional conventions. Consequently, the parallel between Hobbes, on the one hand, and Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton on the other is clearly erroneous. Gray’s Black Mass (2007) presents a vision of human history that differs significantly from The End of History. The book includes a discussion of a variety of different forms of liberalism. On the one hand, Gray argues that there is a contemporary form of utopian liberalism which aims at nothing less than a permanent transformation of human life by creating universal democracy and removing the state as far as possible from public life. This form of liberalism is part of the same tradition as the French Jacobins, the Russian Communists, and the German Nazis in the sense that it aims to create heaven on earth. Moreover, it is reflected in George W. Bush’s historic mission to “rid the world of evil” (quoted in Gray 2007, 34). On the other hand Gray identifies a more skeptical form of liberalism that has its origins in the work of Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza (Ibid., 186). Hobbes, according to Gray, was suspicious of utopian projects and religious millennialism of his day. Consequently, Hobbes was one of the first to recognize

Hobbes Today

123

that fundamentalism, rather than the state, was the chief enemy of human happiness. In spite of Gray’s claims Hobbes’s work has its own utopian flavor. Hobbes believed that any country that adopted his proposals would live at peace with itself. Hobbes also believed that the laws of nature were the laws of nations (Hobbes 1994c, 182). That is to say, the relationships between sovereigns should be characterized by the virtues of trust, gratitude, and humility. In this sense Hobbes, not unlike Fukuyama, holds out the possibility of a world in which every country is governed according to one set of precepts and as a result peace reigns. Moreover, Hobbes’s influence extends beyond conservatism and liberalism and can even be found in the work of the most utopian of thinkers. French utopians, socialists, and positivists Henri SaintSimon and Auguste Comte, for example, both looked to Hobbes for inspiration. Saint-Simon developed a notably Hobbesian solution to the problems created by the French Revolution. While Saint-Simon argued that the French Revolution served an important historical purpose he also believed that the period of revolutionary disorder must be brought to an end (Baker 1989, 323). In place of democracy Saint-Simon advocated an all powerful central authority which would guarantee social order. Saint-Simon, who seems to have believed that he was the reincarnation of Socrates, argued that he should lead the new society along with a Council of Newton, a body made up of scientists and industrialists. Society would be transformed: ethics and politics would be set on a scientific foundation; Christianity would be replaced by a universal religion of Newton—or New Christianity; and the government of people would be replaced by the administration of things. Saint-Simon’s desire for a strong state as the answer to anarchy, his belief that politics and ethics could be turned into sciences, his vision of a new scientific version of Christianity, and his view that science could lead to human progress can all be traced back to Hobbes. Comte, Saint-Simon’s one-time collaborator, who espoused a similar social vision, acknowledged that Hobbes was the only political philosopher of importance since Aristotle (Gordon 1991, 293). Rather than being the antidote to utopianism Hobbes’s thought contains much that is optimistic and inspired Comte and Saint-Simon, two writers who epitomize utopian optimism. What is more, there are better examples of pessimism in the liberal tradition. James Fitzjames Stephen’s Liberty, equality, fraternity (1873)

124

Thomas Hobbes

and Henry Maine’s Popular Government (1885) are excellent examples of conservative liberalism that owe little to Hobbes. Stephen and Maine are both pessimists in the sense that they are highly suspicious of arguments that suggest that humans should be granted greater freedom or more power in the form of an extended franchise. Clearly, both thinkers were aware of Hobbes. Stephen refers to Hobbes once, Maine mentions him on four occasions. What is more, Maine’s admiration of Hobbes is based on a misunderstanding. For Maine, Hobbes’s great insight was that “Freedom is ‘political power divided into small fragments’ . . .” (Maine 1885, 70). This is not a phrase that occurs in Hobbes’s works, although following Maine it is sometimes attributed to him. In general terms the work of these conservative liberals is not Hobbesian in character. Maine, for example, is impressed by the separation of powers enshrined in the American Constitution. Needless to say Hobbes believed that restricting or dividing sovereignty was highly dangerous. Both thinkers are very concerned with the power that enfranchisement would give to working people. This was not one of Hobbes’s concerns. Therefore it is little surprise that neither of these writers devoted much time to Hobbes. Many contemporary writers take Hobbes’s pessimism for granted. However, this is an artifact of thinking about the history of political thought in terms of a canon of great thinkers. Once the history of philosophy is pared down to Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel, it is possible to construct a teleological story that starts with the pessimism of Hobbes and ends with the optimism of Kant and Hegel. However, if our understanding of political thought is extended beyond these narrow and unhelpful boundaries it becomes apparent that Hobbes’s influence is not confined to liberalism; that he was read approvingly by utopians; that liberal optimism has ebbed and flowed and that liberal thinkers who are suspicious of personal freedom and democracy have found inspiration outside of the pages of Leviathan.

Conclusion In many ways the Hobbes of the early twenty-first century is a pale reflection of the original. Hobbes believed that he could explain the science of bodies in motion, the nature of man and the citizen’s relationship to the state. Yet, in a great deal of contemporary discussion

Hobbes Today

125

Hobbes has been reduced to few “sound bites” shorn of their original philosophical significance. In the early part of the twentieth century the apparent success of Nazism and Stalinism turned attention to Hobbes’s image of the state as leviathan. Humanity seemed to be facing the prospect of becoming a drone species living a wholly regimented existence under the perpetual gaze of a monster state—the modern leviathan.9 More recently, Hobbes’s metaphor of the state of nature has been invoked in discussion of the equal but opposite threat, the fear that civilized people will revert to barbarism; that neighbors will become enemies engulfed in a war of all against all. Treating Hobbes’s though in this way does it a significant in justice; it is like reducing the achievements of NASA’s Apollo program to the words “The Eagle has landed.” To some extent Hobbes has been a victim of his own success. His canonical status has led to the simplification of his message and the use of his name to add philosophical weight to the work of journalists and policy makers. Hobbes claimed that he was misrepresented and misunderstood in his own time—the same is true today but in different ways. Fortunately, this is not the whole story of Hobbes’s recent history. Hobbes continues to inspire innovative political thinkers. Indeed, it is interesting to note a continuity between Oakeshott and Gray. Both regard Hobbes as the forefather of a skeptical and individualistic approach to politics. Importantly, both thinkers use Hobbes against an alternative tradition: the tradition that supposes that history is a grand narrative, that humanity has a common destiny and that the heaven can be created on Earth. Sadly, both thinkers situate Hobbes in new grand narratives and in so doing lose sight of his subtleties. Strauss uses Hobbes in the opposite way; he looks to Hobbes to subvert current orthodoxies. In the final analysis neither approach will do. In order to understand Hobbes we must let him speak for himself, rather than enlisting him as an ally in the political battles of today or trying to squeeze him into a grand story of the history of political thought. Finally, although Hobbes has much that is of interest to say, we must be prepared to think for ourselves. Leviathan is not a blueprint for the politics of the twenty-first century.

This page intentionally left blank

Notes

Chapter 1: Hobbes’s Life 1

2

3

During this book I make reference to a number of different intellectual traditions with which Hobbes engaged, these include scholasticism, humanism, and the new sciences. All three traditions overlap, and a clear distinction between them is impossible. Nonetheless, in general terms scholasticism refers to the learning that predominated of the schools and universities. Scholastic philosophy was self-consciously rooted in the works of Aristotle as interpreted by Thomas Aquinas. Scholastic thinkers were often described by their detractors as being preoccupied with artificial and useless technical terms, lost in works of ancient authorities and therefore divorce from the real world. Humanists were also devoted to classical literature; however, they were more interested in the histories, rhetoric and poetry of the ancient world due to their interest in public life. Consequently, humanists focused either on the virtues of the active citizen or the policies of the wise prince. The new philosophies were many and various. Nonetheless, in general terms thinkers such as Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Gassendi, and Mersenne all claimed to privilege nature over ancient authorities. In this sense they were all attempting to forge a science that was independent of and superior to that of Aristotle. Generally speaking, philosophers who are associated with this endeavor attempted to describe the world in mechanical and mathematical terms. Needless to say there was less novelty in the new sciences than the name suggests and more innovation within scholasticism than the caricature admits. Skinner discusses the evidence for and the importance of Hobbes’s study of the scientis civils in Skinner (2002, III 38–65). Skinner discusses the evidence for and the importance of Hobbes’s study of the scientis civils in Skinner (2002, III 38–65).

Chapter 2: Hobbes’s Civil Philosophy 1

There are at least two figures in this picture that appear to be rising out of the earth. One appears to be emerging from behind a rock and is between

128

2

3

4

5

6

7

Notes

the two angels on the left-hand side of the image. The other appears as a skeletal figure immediately to his left. The fact that people are rising from the grave is even more evident on the frontispiece of the 1647 Bonne edition of De cive which features one skeleton appearing from a hole in the ground in the center of the top section of the image (Hobbes 1984b, Plate III – marked Title-page L2a). Quentin Skinner has recently established the sources for the figure of Liberty in the frontispiece of De cive (Skinner 2008, 102–3). Leviathan’s frontispiece was created by the Parisian engraver Abraham Bosse. It appears he collaborated with Hobbes on the design. For a discussion of the visual strategies in Hobbes’s work see Bredekamp (2007). There are many well-known theorists of politics who predate Hobbes. Plato and Aristotle are the best known of the ancient Greeks. Aristotle particularly had a powerful influence on Hobbes’s contemporaries. Thomas Aquinas is perhaps the best known medieval philosopher. Aquinas’s project was to unite the truths of Christian revelation with the rational truths that had been discovered by the ancients, particularly Aristotle. Aquinas’s encyclopedic Summa Theologica, composed between 1265 and 1274, did just this. Moreover, it set out distinctive and influential concepts of morals and politics. Niccolò Machiavelli is best known as the author of The Prince (1532) an advice book on how to maintain power and ensure the stability of the state. Francisco Suárez is usually considered to be a follower of Aquinas. Indeed, Suárez and Aquinas are probably the two best-known examples of the scholastics or school-men as they were known. Suárez wrote extensively on the law of nature and the rights of kings before God. Finally, Hugo Grotius De jure belli ac pacis (1625) sets out an account of moral and political obligation that has often been compared to that of Hobbes. Crucially, both have a minimalist understanding of natural law and are critical of scholastic accounts that assume that natural law can be known from principles other than self-preservation. “Namque ab eo multi didicerunt publica primo / Censuris, cives, subdere jura suis,” (Hobbes 1839–1845d, V, 359). Hobbes lists a number of eminent thinkers associated with the new sciences. Mersenne, Galileo, and Gassendi have already been discussed above. Nicolaus Copernicus is chiefly remembered for his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) which proposed that the Earth orbited the Sun. Galileo and Johannes Kepler both built on Copernicus’s work by providing mathematical and empirical data to support Copernicus’s general theory. Kepler is best known for his work as an astronomer and his observations of Saturn and Jupiter which helped to establish the fact that the Earth moved relative to the Sun. “. . . nil in tota philosophia facilius, nil ad demonstrationem accommodatius, et hominum ingenio congruentius esse fatebitur” (Hobbes 1839–1845l, V, 221). “ . . . neotericorum philosophorum ingenia torsit . . .” (Ibid., 221).

Notes 8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

129

The French jurist and civil philosopher Jean Bodin is perhaps known for the account of sovereignty that he developed in Les Six livres de la République (1576). Importantly, unlike Hobbes, he believed that the sovereign ought to be constrained by law. See: Hobbes (1994c, 41). De cive argued that “. . . Philosophy opens the way from observations of individual things to universal precepts” (Hobbes 1999, 4). Similarly, Antiwhite contained this definition: “Now, philosophy is the science of general theorems, or of all the universals (the truth of which can be demonstrated by natural reason) to do with material of any kind” (Hobbes 1976, 23). Similarly, although the Tractatus opticus, which was included in Mersenne’s Universae geometriae mixtaeque mathematicae synopsis, et bini refractionum demonstratarum tractatus, contains no general statement about philosophical method, its form is clearly deductive. “Si processus fiat ab imaginatione causae ad imaginationem effectus versus finem, qui semper est effectus ultimus, dicitur συνθεσις seu compositio: si ab effectu et ita deinceps versus priora, αναλυσις seu resolutio. Est autem utraque reminiscentia” (Hobbes 1839–1845g, V, 312). “Illius exemplum in homine, dum aedificationem imaginatur incipiens a materia ad formam domus introducendam: tunc enim imaginatio procedit a materia ad comportationem, inde ad fundamentum, muros, tectum etc.: quibus similis est avidum nidificatio.” (Ibid., 312–3). “Philosophia est corporum proprietatum ex conceptis eorum generationibus, et rursus generationum, quae esse possunt, ex cognitis proprietatibus, per rectam ratiocinationem acquisita cognitio” (Hobbes 1973c, 463). Although De cive was the only section of The elements of philosophy that did not define philosophy in terms of the analytic and synthetic method, the 1647 edition of De cive described Hobbes’s method in terms of analysis or resolution (Hobbes 1999, 10). I do not follow F. T Hood in taking the Latin Leviathan to be Hobbes’s definitive statement on theology. (Hood 1964, viii, 54–7.) The Latin Leviathan was published at a time when new editions of the English original were prohibited in England on religious grounds. For this reason it has been argued that the circumstances of the publication lead Hobbes to moderate the tone of the religious sections of the Latin edition. See for example: Grotius (1925, 38; Suarez 1944, II 184; Aquinas 1964-80, 1 a 2 q 90 a 1; Hooker 1989, 82. Notably, De cive describes this as the second law of nature, whereas Leviathan describes it as the third. Hobbes had considered the question of how collective entity could be said to perform actions The Elements of Law and De cive. These writings do not, however, address the question systematically. (Skinner 2002, III 179–80). The second class is discussed in De homine. See Hobbes (1972, 83). Skinner discusses this second class of purely artificial person in some detail. See Skinner (2002, III 193) For Skinner’s discussion of the merits of the two descriptions see Skinner (2008, ix).

130 20

21

22

23

Notes

This is evident from Hobbes’s comments on the city of Lucca. Traditionally, Lucca was considered to be a free state and its citizens had the status of free-men. It was a commonplace to contrast the freedom of citizens of Lucca to the slavery of subjects of living under Turkish monarchs (Skinner 2008, 162). Hobbes is clearly aware of this tradition, but undermines it in Leviathan in the following passage: “There is written on the turrets of the city of Lucca in great characters at this day the word LIBERTAS; yet no man can thence infer that a particular man has more liberty . . . there than in Constantinople” (Hobbes 1994a, 140). To the modern reader it may seem paradoxical that acting freely is consistent with obedience to the law. However, the view that freedom and law are compatible was not uncommon in the context in which Hobbes wrote. For example, Scholastic thinkers, following Aquinas, believed that human actions were only free when they were rational. That is to say actions that were triggered by the passions were not free. Moreover, as laws were the product of reason it was possible to be free and obey the laws as in obeying the law we were acting rationally. There has been a great deal written on Hobbes’s apparent defense of freedom of conscience and toleration. See, for example Ryan 1983 (197–218; Ryan 1988, 37–59; Tuck 1990, 153–171; and Curley 2007, 309–336). For discussion of the metaphor of the body politic see Hale (1971), Barkan (1975) and O’Neill (1985).

Chapter 3: Reception and Interpretation 1

2

3

4

The case of Daniel Scargill is discussed in greater detail in Parkin (1999), Linnel (1953), and Axtell (1965). George Wright argues that Hobbes may well have harbored heterodox beliefs at the time of his earlier publications but chose to conceal them for fear of persecution (Wright 2006, 309). For an overview of the debate between Martinich and Curely see Wright (2006). See for example, Kavka (1987) and Gauthier (1988).

Chapter 4: Hobbes Today 1

2

The notion of human culture as an eco-system or as a series of eco-systems can be found in the work of Mark S. Miller and K. Eric Drexler and has been popularized by Brian Eno, Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art. See Miller and Drexler (1988) Chapter 6. I use the notion more as an analogy than as a description of the functioning of culture. Hobbes is often cited as an intellectual source of the doctrine of “realism” in terms of international relations. Hobbes’s impact on the study of

Notes

3

4

5

6

131

international relations is clearly of relevance to the topic of Hobbes today. However, as the subject has been dealt with excellently by Noel Malcolm I have chosen not to discuss it in this chapter. See Malcolm (2002) 432–456. In terms of publications by think tanks that refer to Hobbes CIVITAS has recently published: Green, D. D., Grove, E. and Martin, N. A. (2005) Crime and Civil Society: Can we become a more law-abiding people? London. The Institute for the Study of Civil Society also mention Hobbes in Clark, J., Dennis, N., Hein, J. and Pryke, R. (2000) Welfare, Work and Poverty. D. Smith (ed.) London. Other reference’s to Hobbes include Smith, D. B. (2006) Living with Leviathan, Public Spending, Taxes and Economic Performance. London; India’s Centre for Civil Society publish Das, K. (2004) The Seven Sins of Highly Ineffective Government. (www.ccsindia.org/policy/philo/articles/ kdas_striketheroot_article.pdf); and The Manhattan Institute’s City Journal have published: Kekes, J. (2001) Dangerous Egalitarian Dreams. City Journal. Autumn Edition. I discuss examples of the use of Hobbes in publications by the UN, the World Bank, and the IMF later in the chapter along with examples of references to Hobbes and his imagery from members of American and British national legislatures. This idea has also been taken up by David Robertson who argues that Hobbes’ concept of the leviathan state is more subtle than Orbell and Rutherford imagine. For this reason he is critical of their assertion that modern dictatorships qualify as “high Leviathan” (Rutherford 1973, 402). Ian Kershaw discusses the literature concerning the structure of Nazi government in: Kershaw (1993, 59–80. For an excellent discussion of the intellectual tributaries that lead to Nazism, Fascism, and Marxism-Leninism see Gregor (1968). Carl Schmitt is one exception to the general rule that the Nazi elite were not interested in Hobbes. Schmidt, who under the patronage of Hermann Göring, became President of the Union of National-Socialist Jurists, was called upon by the Nazi regime to give legal opinions justifying acts such as the Nazi “blood purge” the “Night of the long knives.” He also attempted to provide a theoretical foundation of the Nazi legal system in terms of Hitler’s will. Schmidt is also a noted interpreter of Hobbes. Schmidt’s The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes:Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol (1938) provides a defence of a strong state. However, Schmidt’s Nazi credentials are disputed. Certainly, he joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and in the first years of Nazi rule was a high-profile supporter of the regime and advocate of anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, following 1936 Schmitt’s role in the regime was highly marginal. Members of Heinrich Himmler’s SS were highly suspicious of Schmitt and accused him of opportunism rather than genuine commitment to the Nazi cause. Following these attacks Schmidt resigned as President of the Union of NationalSocialist Jurists. George Schwab, translator of The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes takes the view that Schmidt was essentially a conservative who collaborated with the regime and hoped for the resurrection of

132

7

8

9

Notes

a strong state following the failure of the Weimar Republic. Moreover he claims that The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes was a veiled critique of Nazism and a return to Schmidt’s intellectual position of the late 1920s (Schwab 1996, xi). From a historical point of view there are good reasons for seeing Schmidt as a conservative rather than a Nazi. Between 1933 and the mid 1930s the Nazis worked closely with many conservative politicians, including Paul von Hindenburg, Franz von Papen, and Hjalmar Schacht. As the Nazis consolidated their position these figures were discarded, sometimes violently, and replaced with radical Nazis—the last being Schacht, who finally left Nazi government in 1939. Schmidt fits this pattern. Consequently, it would be wrong to suggest that Schmidt provides conclusive proof that Hobbes was an intellectual influence on Nazism. Buchanan’s understanding of the emergence of property is at odds with the description given in Leviathan. For Hobbes, property is only possible under a civil sovereign. Buchanan, on the other hand, argues that property emerges in the state of nature and that the emergence of property is an essential precondition of the social contract. In spite of this Buchanan, attributes this position to Jean Bodin, Hugo Grotius and Hobbes (Buchanan 1975, 25, 183). Nonetheless, Locke would seem to be a closer match to Buchanan’s understanding of the emergence of property. For Straussian readings the American Constitution, see Bloom (1987), Pangle (2006), and Zuckert and Zuckert (2006). I owe sincere thanks to Brandon High for pointing me in the direction of this material. For an extremely interesting discussion of the modern concern about human regimentation see Sleigh (2003).

Suggested Further Reading

Many of the articles discussed in this book can be found in a collection by John Dunn and Ian Harris. Indeed, Dunn and Harris’s Great Political Thinkers 8: Hobbes (1997) is an excellent place to start for some of the most important recent essays on Hobbes’ life and thought. The internet archive Early English books online is a superb source for facsimiles of the original editions of Hobbes’ works as well as the works of his contemporary critics. Dunn, J. and Harris, I. (eds.) (1997) Great Political Thinkers 8: Hobbes, 3 vols. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home

Hobbes’s Life There are a number of extremely useful treatments of Hobbes’ life. The classic contemporary biography is John Aubrey’s brief life of Hobbes. Hobbes also wrote autobiographies in prose and verse. The Latin texts are available in the first volume of William Molesworth’s Opera philosophica (1839–1845). J. E. Parsons Jr. and Whitney Blair have made a translation of the verse autobiography and the Oxford World Classics version of Hobbes’ Human Nature and De Corpore Political (1994) contains a modern translation of Hobbes’ prose autobiography. Of recent account of Hobbes’ life the best short biographies are those by Noel Malcolm, Quentin Skinner and Richard Tuck. The most extended modern biography is A. P. Martinich’s Hobbes: A Biography (1999). Martinich’s work is also the first biography of Hobbes to make use of Noel Malcolm’s edition of Hobbes’ correspondence. Indeed, The Correspondence (1994) is an excellent source of biographical information in its own right. Aubrey, J. (1898). “Brief Lives”, Chiefly of Contemporaries, Set Down by John Aubrey, Between the Years 1669 & 1696,. Andrew Clark (ed.)., 2 vols, Oxford: Clarendon. Hobbes, T. (1839–45) T. Hobbes malmesburiensis vita, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omni, 5 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. I, xii–xxi.

134

Suggested Further Reading

— (1839–45) Thomas Hobbes malmesburiensis vita carmine expressa, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia, 5 vols. London: J. Bohn, vol. I, lxxxi–xcix. — (1981) The Life of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. J. E. Parsons Jr. and W. Blair (trs.) Interpretation. 10. 1–7. Malcolm, N. (2002) A Summary Biography of Hobbes, in N. Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon, 1–27 Martinich, A. P. (1999) Hobbes: A Biography. Cambridge: CUP. Skinner, Q. (2002) Introduction: Hobbes’s Life in Philosophy, in Q. Skinner, Visions of politics. 3 vols., Cambridge: CUP, vol. III, 1–38. Tuck, R. (1989) Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon.

Hobbes’s Works Oxford University Press’ edition of Hobbes’ works is still incomplete. Thus far, only De cive (1984), a volume of Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right (2005) and The Correspondence (1994) have been published. Notably, there has been a shift in the consensus regarding the English version of De cive since the publication of the Oxford edition. It is now believed that the text that forms the basis of the Oxford edition was translated and printed without Hobbes’ involvement. This has cast doubt on the accuracy of the translation. In the absence of a complete modern edition of Hobbes’ works William Molesworth’s editions of the English and Latin Works are still the most complete collections of Hobbes’ writings that are currently available. They do not, however, contain the many works that have been discovered since their publication. There are many modern editions of Hobbes’ most popular works. Edwin Curley’s edition of Leviathan (1994) is extremely useful due to the fact that it contains excerpts from the Latin Leviathan which are missing from other modern editions of the work, as well as an index of Hobbes’ biblical references. George Wright is the first scholar to have provided a facing page translation of the Appendixes to the Latin Leviathan. This is available, along with an excellent commentary as part of Wright’s Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes (2006). Cambridge University Press has published a much-needed modern translation of Hobbes’ De cive, edited by Richard Tuck and translated by Michael Silverthorne. The most easily available edition of The Elements of Law appears as part of the Oxford World Classics series. It is edited by J. C. A. Gaskin under the title Human nature and De Corpore Politico (1994) and it contains excerpts from the English De corpore and Aurbrey’s Brief Lives. Ferdinand Tönnies’ edition of Behemoth; or, The Long Parliament (1898) has recently been republished in an edition by S. T. Holmes is widely available and has become the standard student edition. There is still no complete English edition of De homine but a translation of the second section edited by Charles T. Wood, T. S. K.

Suggested Further Reading

135

Scott-Craig, and Bernard Gert is available under the title Man and Citizen (1972). For students of Hobbes’ natural philosophy Hobbes’ manuscript discussion of Thomas White’s De mundo is available in an English translation by H. W. Jones. A modern translation of Hobbes’ Dialogus physicus de natura aeris is also available as an appendix to Stephen Shapin and Simon Schaffer’s Leviathan and the Air-Pump (1985). Schaffer’s ‘Wallifaction: Thomas Hobbes on School Divinity and Experimental Pneumatics’ (1988) is another extremely useful article concerning Hobbes’ relationship with the Royal Society, not least due to the fact it contains a transcription of a little studied but extremely important manuscript in which Hobbes set out a series of ‘Maximes Necessary for Those, yt From ye Sight of an Effect, Shall Endeavor to Assine its Natural Cause’ and a related manuscript ‘Concerning the Compression of ye Aire.’ Finally, Peter Beal’s Index of English Literary Manuscripts: 1625-1700 (1987) contains an extensive list of Hobbes’ manuscripts, many of which remain unpublished. Beal, P. (1987) Index of English Literary Manuscripts: 1625-1700. London: Clarendon. Hobbes, T. (1839–1845) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. W. Molesworth (ed.) 11 vols. London: J. Bohn. — (1839–1845) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omni. W. Molesworth (ed.) 5 vols. London: J. Bohn. — (1972) Man and citizen: De homine and De cive. C. T. Wood, B. Gert, and T. S. K. Scott-Craig (eds.) C. T. Wood and T. S. K. Scott-Craig (trs.) New York: Anchor Books. — (1976) Thomas White’s “De mundo” examined. H. W. Jones (tr.) London: Bradford University Press. — (1984) De cive: The English Version. H. Warrender (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (1985) Dialogus physicus de natura aeris S. Schaffer (tr.) in S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 345–91. — (1988) Maximes Necessary for Those, yt from ye Sight of an Effect, Shall Endeavor to Assine its Natural Cause and Concerning the Compression of ye Aire, in S. Schaffer, Wallifaction: Thomas Hobbes on School Divinity and Experimental Pneumatics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 19, 275–98. — (1990) Behemoth or, The Long Parliament. S. T. Holmes (ed.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press — (1994) The Correspondence. N. Malcolm (ed.) 2 volumes. Oxford: Clarendon. — (1994) Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668. E. M. Curley (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. — (1994) Human Nature and De Corpore Politico. J. C. A. Gaskin (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon.

136

Suggested Further Reading

— (1999) On the Citizen. R. Tuck (ed.) M. Silverthorne (tr.), Cambridge: CUP. — (2005) Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right. A. Cromartie and Q. Skinner (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (2006) Appendix to Leviathan. G. Wright (ed. and tr.), Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes. Dordrecht: Springer.

Natural Philosophy, Mathematics, and Language Frithiof Brandt’s Thomas Hobbes’ Mechanical Conception of Nature (1928) is still the most complete account of the development of Hobbes’ natural philosophy, although recent scholarship has improved on some aspects of Brandt’s interpretation. Shapin and Schaffer’s discussion of Hobbes’ battles with the Royal Society over pneumatics presents an engaging and groundbreaking study of the social context of Hobbes’ natural philosophical polemics. My own article on ‘Hobbes’ forgotten natural histories’ charts the development of Hobbes’ attitude to natural histories, and challenges the common perception that Hobbes dismissed all natural historical information; while my article on Hobbes’ relationship with Frances Bacon considers Hobbes’ attitude to contemporary natural scientists such as René Descartes, William Harvey, Galileo Galilei and Francis Bacon as well as discussing Hobbes’ account of the circulation of the blood. Hobbes’ optics remains an obscure subject, given the absence of an English translation of Hobbes’ Latin writings on optics; a published edition of the English Optical Manuscript and the ongoing debate over the The Short Tract. Nonetheless, A.E. Shapiro’s ‘Kinematic Optics’ (1973) is an excellent introduction to the subject. Richard Tuck’s ‘Optics and Sceptics’ (1988) also provides a detailed account of the context of Hobbes’ optical speculations. Douglas M. Jesseph’s Squaring the Circle (1999) is a superb treatment of Hobbes’ public mathematical failures and his dispute with the mathematician John Wallis. Jamie C. Kassler’s Inner Music, Hobbes, Hooke and North on Internal Character (1995) discusses musical metaphors for matter in Hobbes’ work. Finally, Hannah Dawson’s recent work on John Locke’s theory of language examines the classical and early modern context within which Locke’s thought is situated. Dawson’s work contains a clear statement of Hobbes’ understanding of language as well as providing a wealth of invaluable information on the contemporary intellectual context. Brandt, F. (1928) Thomas Hobbes’ Mechanical Conception of Nature. Copenhagen, Levin and Munksgaard. Bunce, R. E. R. (2003) Thomas Hobbes’ Relationship with Frances Bacon – an Introduction. Hobbes Studies. 16. 41–83. — (2006) Hobbes’ Forgotten Natural Histories. Hobbes Studies. 19. 77–104. Dawson, H. (2007) Locke, Language and Early-Modern Philosophy. Cambridge: CUP.

Suggested Further Reading

137

Jesseph, D. M. (1999) Squaring the Circle: The War between Hobbes and Wallis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kassler. J. C. (1995) Inner Music: Hobbes, Hooke and North on Internal Character. London: Athlone. Shapin, S. and Schaffer, S. (1985) Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Shapiro, A. E. (1973) Kinematic Optics: A Study of the Wave Theory of Light in the Seventeenth Century. Archives of the History of Exact Sciences. 11. 134–266. Tuck, R. (1988) Optics and Sceptics: The Philosophical Foundations of Hobbes’ Political Thought, in E. Leites (ed.) Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: CUP.

Theology The subject of Hobbes’ religious convictions continues to preoccupy Hobbes scholars. Wright’s Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes (2006) present a cogent and persuasive argument that Hobbes’ religious views are less heterodox than is often assumed. Indeed, Wright claims that Hobbes’ theology should be understood within the context of Protestantism. Martinch’s controversial Two God’s of ‘Leviathan’ (1992) also asserts Hobbes’ commitment to Christianity, but locates Hobbes within a broader theological tradition. Curley’s article ‘“I Durst Not Write so Boldly”: how to read Hobbes’s theological-political treatise’ (1992), puts the alternative point of view. Noel Malcolm has discussed Hobbes’ understanding of the Bible and biblical history in “Leviathan, the Pentateuch, and the origins of modern Biblical criticism” (2004). Patricia Springborg has written a series of articles on aspects of Hobbes’ theology such as heresy, epicurean religion and civil religion. Paul Johnson’s discussion of Hobbes’ view of salvation links his position to early modern Anglicanism. Nicholas D. Jackson presents a detailed analysis of Hobbes’ ongoing dispute with Brahmall in Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity (2007). Finally, students who are interested in Hobbes’ view of the world’s end should read J. G. A. Pocock’s ‘Time, history and eschatology in the thought of Thomas Hobbes’ (1972) and Paolo Pasqualucci’s “Hobbes and the myth of ‘final war’” (1990). Curley, E. (1988) “I Durst Not Write so Boldly”: how to Read Hobbes’s Theological-Political Treatise, in E. Giancotti, (ed.) Proceedings of the Conference on Hobbes and Spinoza. Urbino. Jackson, N. D. (2007) Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity : A Quarrel of the Civil Wars and Interregnum. Cambridge: CUP. Johnson, P. (1974) Hobbes’s Anglican Doctrine of Salvation, in R. Ross, H. W. Schneider, and T. Waldman (eds.) Thomas Hobbes in His Time. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 102–25.

138

Suggested Further Reading

Malcolm, N. (2004) Leviathan, the Pentateuch, and the Origins of Modern Biblical Criticism, in T. Sorell and L. Foisneau (eds.) Leviathan after 350 Years. Oxford: Clarendon, 241–64. Martinch, A. P. (1992) The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics. Cambridge: CUP. Pasqualucci, P. (1990) Hobbes and the Myth of “Final War.” Journal of the History of Ideas. 51. 647–57. Pocock, J. G. A. (1989) Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Springborg, P. (1975) Leviathan and the Problem of Ecclesiastical Authority. Political Theory. 3. 289–303. — (1976) Leviathan, the Christian Commonwealth Incorporated. Political Studies. 24. 171–83. — (1995a) Hobbes’ Biblical Beasts: Leviathan and Behemoth. Political Theory. 23. 353–75. — (1995b) Hobbes, Heresy and the Historia ecclesiastica. Journal of the History of Ideas. 55. 353–71 — (1996) Hobbes on Religion. in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 346–80. Wright, G. (2006) Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes. Dordrecht: Springer.

Ethics and Political Thought The third volume of Quentin Skinner’s Visions of Politics (2002) contains a series of essays on Hobbes’ political thought. Skinner’s Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (1996) offers an explanation of the changing nature and concerns of Hobbes’ political thought and situates this in the context of early modern debates over science and rhetoric. Skinner’s most recent book Hobbes and Republican Liberty (2008) extends his consideration of Hobbes’ concept of liberty and competing traditions of thought on individual freedom in the early modern period. Tuck’s Philosophy and Government 1572-1651 locates Hobbes’ political thought in terms of the changing traditions of humanism and finally the early modern skeptical crisis. The relationship between Hobbes’ conception of natural law and Scholastic political thought is discussed in Annabel Brett’s excellent Liberty, Right and Nature (1996). The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes (1996) contains excellent summary discussions of Hobbes’ ethics and his political thought by Tuck and Alan Ryan respectively. Hobbes’ theory of the passions and early modern theories of the passions more generally are considered in Susan James’ Passion and Action, the Emotions in Seventeenth-

Suggested Further Reading

139

Century Philosophy (1997). Finally, students concerned with Hobbes’ theory of international relations would do well to read Malcolm’s ‘Hobbes’s theory of international relations’ in his admirable Aspects of Hobbes (2002). Other important accounts of Hobbes’ political thought include, F. S. McNeilly’s The Anatomy of Leviathan (1968) and J. P. Sommerville’s Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context (1992). Brett, A. S. (1997) Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought. Cambridge: CUP. James, S. (1997) Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon. McNeilly, F. S. (1968) The Anatomy of Leviathan. London: Macmillan. Malcolm, N. (2002) Aspects of Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon. Ryan, A. (1996) Hobbes’ Political Philosophy, in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 208–45. Skinner, Q. (1996) Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP. — (2002) Visions of politics: Volume 3: Hobbes and Civil Science. Cambridge: CUP. — (2008) Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Cambridge: CUP. Sommerville, J. P. (1992) Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Tuck, R. (1993) Philosophy and Government, 1572-1651. Cambridge: CUP. — (1996) Hobbes’ Moral Philosophy, in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 175–207.

Reception There is a great deal of interesting work available on the reception of Hobbes’ though. The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’ Leviathan (2007) contains four essays on this topic by G. A. J. Rogers, Jon Parkin, Perez Zagorin, and Jeffrey R. Collins. Mark Goldie’s essay on Hobbes’ reception in The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700 (1991) helps clarify the theological commitments that influenced Hobbes’ reception in the early modern period. Other works that deal with the reception of Hobbes’ religious ideas include Samuel I. Mintz’s The Hunting of Leviathan (1970) and Parkin’s Taming the Leviathan (2007). Skinner’s ‘Hobbes and his disciples in France and England’ (2002) also considers the opinions of Hobbes’ contemporaries regarding the virtues of his work. Horst Dreitzel’s work on the reception of Hobbes among German thinkers discusses the extent to which Johann Christoph Becmann and Samuel Pufendorf learned from and modified Hobbes’ doctrines. Collin’s The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes (2005) also contains a great deal of information on this topic.

140

Suggested Further Reading

Collins, J. R. (2005) The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. — (2007) Silencing Thomas Hobbes: The Presbyterians and Leviathan, in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 478–500. Dreitzel, H. (2003) The Reception of Hobbes in the Political Philosophy of the Early German Enlightenment. History of European Ideas. 29. 255–89. Goldie, M (1991) The Reception of Hobbes, in J. H. Burns and M. Goldie (eds.) The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700. Cambridge: CUP, 589–615. Mintz, S. I. (1970) The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-Century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP. Parkin, J. (2007a) Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640-1700. Cambridge: CUP. (2007b) The Reception of Hobbes’s Leviathan, in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 441–59. Rogers, G. A. J. (2007) Hobbes and His Contemporaries, in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 413–40. Skinner, Q. (2002) Hobbes and His Disciples in France and England, in Q. Skinner (ed.) Visions of Politics, 3 vols. Cambridge: CUP, vol. III, 308–23. Zagorin, P. (2007) Clarendon against Leviathan, in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 460–77.

Bibliography

Manuscript Sources The British Library Add. 11390: The 76 letters Add. 72892: The papers of William Petty Harl. 3360: A minute or first draft of the optiques in two parts Harl. 4235: The elements of law, with annotations in Hobbes’ hand Harl. 6083: Charles Cavendish’s papers Harl. 6796: Charles Cavendish’s papers Harl. 6858: The elements of law Sloane. 2903: The papers of William Petty

Chatsworth Hobbes A. 5: Draft of De homine Hobbes E.1.a: Booklist Unclassified: The 76 letters Unclassified: Uncatalogued booklist [19cm × 24.5cm, 124 pages]

St John’s College Oxford MS 13: Behemoth or the Long Parliament. By Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury

The Royal Society, London Classified Papers IV (1) 30: Concerning the compression of ye aire

Sheffield University Library Hartlib 42/1: Benjamin Worsley to an unknown correspondent

142

Bibliography

Primary Sources Works by Hobbes (1839–1845a) Considerations on the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners and Religion of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. IV, 409–40. — (1839–1845b) Decameron Physiologicum, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. VII, 69–177. (1839–1845c) Elements of Philosophy the First Section Concerning Body, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. I. — (1839–1845d) Historia ecclesiastica, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia, 5 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. V, 341–408. — (1839–1845e) An Historical Narration Concerning Heresy and the Punishment Thereof, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. IV, 385–408. — (1839–1845f) Letters and Other Pieces, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. VII, 449–72. — (1839–1845g) Praefatio in Mersenni Balisticam, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia. 5 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. V, 308–18. — (1839–1845h) Seven Philosophical Problems and Two Propositions of Geometry, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. VII, 1–68. — (1839–1845i) Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics, One of Geometry the Other of Astronomy, in the Chairs Set Up by the Noble and Learned Sir Henry Savile in the University of Oxford, in W. Molesworth (ed.) The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. VII, 181–356. — (1839–1845j) T. Hobbes malmesburiensis vita, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omni, 5 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. I, xii–xxi. — (1839–1845k) Thomas Hobbes malmesburiensis vita carmine expressa, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia, 5 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. I, lxxxi–xcix. — (1839–1845l) Tractatus opticus, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomae Hobbes malmesburiensis opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia, 5 vols., London: J. Bohn, vol. V, 215–48. — (1972) Man and Citizen: De homine and De cive. C. T. Wood, B. Gert, T. S. K. ScottCraig (eds.) C. T. Wood, T. S. K. Scott-Craig (trs.). New York: Anchor Books.

Bibliography

143

— (1973a) Notes pour le De corpore, in J. Jacquot and H. W. Jones (eds.) Critique du De Mundo de Thomas White. Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 463–513. — (1973b) Notes sure une version ancienne du De corpore. in Jean Jacquot and Harold Whitemore Jones (eds.) Critique du De Mundo de Thomas White. Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 449–60. — (1973c) Notes pour le De corpore, in Jean Jacquot and Harold Whitemore Jones (eds.) Critique du De Mundo de Thomas White. Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 463–513. — (1976) Thomas White’s ‘De mundo’ Examined. H. W. Jones (tr.), London: Crosby Lockwood Staples. — (1981) The Life of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury J. E. Parsons Jr. and Whitney Blair (tr.) Interpretation. 10. 1–7. — (1984a) De cive: The English Version. H. Warrender (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (1984b) De cive: The Latin Version. H. Warrender (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (1985) Dialogus physicus de natura aeris S. Schaffer (tr.) in S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 345–91. — (1988) Maximes Necessary for those, yt from ye Sight of an Effect, Shall Endeavor to Assine its Natural Cause and Concerning the Compression of ye Aire, in S. Schaffer, Wallifaction: Thomas Hobbes on School Divinity and Experimental Pneumatics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 19. 275–98. — (1989) Introduction in Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, The Complete Hobbes Translation. D. Green (ed.) T. Hobbes (tr.) Chicago. — (1990) Behemoth or, The Long Parliament. S. T. Holmes (ed.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. — (1994a) The Correspondence. N. Malcolm (ed.), 2 volumes. Oxford: Clarendon. — (1994b) Human Nature and De corpore Politico. J. C. A. Gaskin (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (1994c) Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668. E. M. Curley (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. — (1999) On the Citizen. R. Tuck (ed.) M. Silverthorne (tr.), Cambridge: CUP. — (2005) Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right. A. Cromartie and Q. Skinner (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (2006) Appendix to Leviathan. G. Wright (ed. and tr.). Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes. Dordrecht: Springer.

Other Primary Sources Aquinas, T. (1964–80) Summa theologiae. The Dominican Fathers (ed. and tr.) 30 vols., London: Blackfriars. Aristotle, (1962) The Politics. T. A. Sinclair (tr.), London: Penguin. Aubrey, J. (1898) ‘Brief lives’, Chiefly of Contemporaries, Set Down by John Aubrey, Between the Years 1669 & 1696. A. Clark (ed.) 2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon.

144

Bibliography

Bacon, F. (1973) The Advancement of Learning. G. W. Kitchin (ed.), London: Dent. — (1996) Selections. B. Vickers (ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beckmann, J. C. (1679) Meditationes politicæ XXIV. Dissertationibus academicis expositæ. Adjectæsuut appendicis loco dissertationes de lege regia et de quarta monarchia. Frankfurt Bentham, J. (1988) A Fragment on Government. R. Harrison (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. Blackbourne, R. (1839–1845) Vitae Hobbianae auctarium, in W. Molesworth (ed.) Thomas Hobbes, Opera philosophica quæ Latine scripsit omnia, 5 vols., London, vol. I. xxii–lxxx. Blackstone, W. (1765–1769) Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols., London: J. Bohn. [Cavendish, W.] (1611) A Discourse Against Flatterie. London: Will. Stansby. Charron, P. (1604) Of Wisdom, L. Samson (tr.) London: E. Blount & W. Aspley. Cowley, A. (1680) The True Effigies of the Monster of Malmesbury, or, Thomas Hobbes in His Proper Colours. London: [Unknown Publisher.] Dee, J. (1570) Mathematicall Praeface in Euclid, The Elements of Geometrie of the Most Auncient Philosopher Euclide of Megara, H. Billingsley (tr.), London: John Daye, sig. aall r – sig. A iiii r. Descartes, R. (1897–1910) La Dioptrique, in R. Descartes, Oeuvres. C. Adam and P. Tannert (eds.) 11 vols, Paris: Leopold Cerf, vol. VI, 79–228. — (1984–1985a) The Passions of the Soul, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, in J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, and A. Kenny (ed. and tr.) 3 vols., Cambridge: CUP, vol. I, 325–404. — (1984–1985b) The Treatise on Man, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, and A. Kenny (ed. and tr.) 3 vols., Cambridge: CUP, vol. I, 99–108. — (1996) Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. David Weissman (ed.), London: Yale University Press. — (1998) The World and Other Writings. S. Gaukroger (ed. and tr.) Cambridge: CUP. Gilbert, W. (1893) De Magnete. P. Fleury Mottelay (tr.) New York: Dover Publications. Godwin, W. (1946) Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. F. E. L. Priestly (ed.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Grotius, H. (1925) The Law of War and Peace. Francis W. Kelsey (tr.), New York: W. S. Hein. Harris, R. (1654) A Brief Discourse of Man’s Estate in the First and Second Adam. London: J. Flesher. Hayward, J. (1991) The First and Second Parts of the Life and Raigne of King Henry IIII. J. J. Manning (ed.) Camden Fourth Series, vol., 42. London: Royal Historical Society. Lipsius, J. (1594) Sixe Bookes of Politickes or Civil Doctrine. William Jones (tr.), London: Richard Field. — (1939) Two Bookes of Constancie. John Stradling (tr.), New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Bibliography

145

Locke, J. (1936) An Early Draft of Locke’s Essay together with Excerpts from His Journal. R. I. Aaron and Jocelyn Gibb (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (1954) Essays on the Law of Nature. W. von Leyden (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (1960) Two Treatises of Government. P. Laslett (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. — (1976–1978) The Correspondence of John Locke. E. S. de Beer (ed.) 8 vols., Oxford: Clarendon. — (1997) Political Essays. M. Goldie (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. Machiavelli, N. (1993) The Prince. Q. Skinner (ed.) R. Price (tr.), Cambridge: CUP. Maine, H. S. (1885) Popular Government: Four essays. London: B. Pottiswoode. Marx, K. (1977) Selected Writings. D. McLellan (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon. Marx, K. and Engels, F. (2002) The Communist Manifesto. G. Steadman Jones (ed.), London: Penguin. Mersenne, M. (1625) La verité des sciences : Contre les septiques ou Pyrrhoniens. Paris. — (1932–1988) Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne. C. D. Waard and R. Pintard (eds.), 17 vols., Paris. Mill, J. S. (1859) On Liberty. London: J. W. Parker and Son. — (1863) Utilitarianism. London: Parker, Son, and Bourn. — (1869) The Subjection of Women. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Oldenburg, H. (1965–1986) The Correspondence. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall (eds. and trs.) 13 vols., Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press. Petty, W. (1927) The Collected Works of William Petty. Marquis of Lansdowne (ed.) 2 vols., London, Boston, New York: Constable & Co., Houghton Mifflin Co. — (1928) The Petty-Southwell Correspondence. Marquis of Lansdowne (ed.), London: Constable and Company. Plato, (1961) The Republic. F. M. Cornford (tr.), Oxford: Clarendon. Pufendorf, S. (1672) Of the Law of Nature and Nations. Lund: Junghans and Haberegger. — (1991) On the Duty of Man and Citizen. J. Tully (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. Rogers, T. (1576) A Philosophicall Discourse, Entitled the Anatomie of the Minde. London: Andrew Maunsell. Ross, A. (1653) Leviathan Drawn out with a Hook, or, Animadversions upon Mr. Hobbs His Leviathan. London: Tho. Newcomb, for Richard Royston. — Rousseau, J. J. (1997a) The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings. V. Gourevitch (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. — (1997b) The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings. V. Gourevitch (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. Savile, H. (1581) The Ende of Nero and Beginning of Galba, Fower Bookes of the Histories of Cornelius Tacitus. London: Edm. Bollifant, for Bonham and Iohn Norton. Senault, J. F. (1649) The Use of the Passions. Henry Earl of Monmouth (tr.) London: W. G. For John Sims. Sidgwick, H. (1969) The Elements of Politics. London: Macmillan.

146

Bibliography

Sorbière, S. (1660)Relations, lettres et discours de Mr de Sorbière sur diverses matières curieuses. Paris: Chez Francois Clousier. — (1664) Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre, où sont touchées plusieurs choses, qui regardent l’estat des sciences, & de la religion, & autres matieres curieuses. Paris: Thomas Iolly. — (1709) A Voyage to England, Containing Many Things Relating to the State of Learning, Religion and the Other Curiosities of that Kingdom. [Matthew Wren (tr.)], London: J. Woodward, in St. Christopher’s-Alley in Threadneedle-Street. Sprat, T. (1665) A Letter Containing Some Observations on Monsieur De Sorbier’s Voyage into England. London: John Martyn, and James Allestry. — (1958) The History of the Royal Society. Jackson I. Cope and Harold Whitmore Jones (eds.), St Louis: Washington University. Stephen, J. F. (1873) Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. Suarez, F. (1944) De legibus, ac Deo legislatore, in Gwladys L. Williams, Ammi Brown, John Waldron, and Henry Davis (tr.) Selections From Three Works, 2 vols., Oxford, Clarendon. Thucydides, (1629) Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre Written by Thucydides the sonne of Olorus. Interpreted with Faith and Diligence Immediately out of the Greeke. T. Hobbes (tr.), London: Hen. Seile. — (1989) The Peloponnesian War, The Complete Hobbes Translation. D. Green (ed.) T. Hobbes (tr.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Walker, J. (1813) Letters Written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: To Which Are Added, Hearne’s Journeys to Reading . . . and Lives of Eminent Men by John Aubrey Esq., 2 vols., London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown. Wright, T. (1986) The Passions of the Mind in General. W. Webster Newbold (ed.), London: Garland.

Secondary Sources Aaron, R. I. (1945) A Possible Draft of De corpore. Mind. 54. 342–56. Annan, K. (2002) Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. United Nations. Arblaster, A. (1984) The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism. Oxford: Clarendon. Arendt, H. (1958) The Origins of Totalitarianism. London: Secker and Warburg. Ash, T. G. (2006) Bush has created a comprehensive catastrophe across the Middle East. The Guardian, December 14, 31. Avant, D. (2004) Conserving Nature in the State of Nature: The Politics of INGO Policy Implementation. Review of International Studies. 30. 361–82. Axtell, J. (1965) The Mechanics of Opposition: Restoration Cambridge v. Daniel Scargill. Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. 38. 102–11. Baker, K. (1989) Closing the French Revolution: Saint-Simon and Comte, in F. Furet and M. Ozouf (eds.) The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture. Oxford: Clarendon, 323–39.

Bibliography

147

Baker, P. and Glasser, S. (2005) Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution. London: Scribner. Barkan, L. (1975) Nature’s Work of Art: The Human Body as Image of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press. Barthes, R. (1977) The Death of the Author, in R. Barthes, Image, Music, Text. S, Heath (tr.) London: Fontana, 142–48. Beal, P. (1987) Index of English Literary Manuscripts: 1625-1700, 2 vols. London: Mansell. Benedict, B. M. (2001) Curiosity, a Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bennett, J. and Mandelbrote, S. (1998) The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, the Temple, Biblical Metaphors of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Clarendon. Bierman, J. (1963) Science and Society in the New Atlantis and other Renaissance Utopias. Publications of the Modern Language Association. 78. 492–500. Blodgett, E. D. (1931) Bacon’s New Atlantis and Campanella’s Civitas solis: A Study in Relationships. Publications of the Modern Language Association. 46. 763–80. Bloom, A. (1987) The Closing of the American mind. New York: Simon & Schuster. Boot, M. (2006) Neocons. Foreign Policy. 140. 20–28. Bouwsma, W. J. (1968) Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brandt, F. (1928) Thomas Hobbes’ Mechanical Conception of Nature. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard. Bredekamp, H. (2007) Thomas Hobbes’s Visual Strategies. in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge. 29–60. Brett, A. S. (1997) Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought. Cambridge: CUP. Briggs, J. C. (1996) Francis Bacon and the Rhetoric of Nature. London: Harvard University Press. Buchanan, J. M. (1975) The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Buchanan, J. M. and Lomasky, L. E. (1984) The Matrix of Contractarian Justice. Social Philosophy. 2 (Autumn): 12–32. — (1985) The Matrix of Contractarian Justice. Social Philosophy and Policy. 2. 12–32. Bunce, R. E. R. (2003) Thomas Hobbes’ Relationship with Frances Bacon – an Introduction. Hobbes Studies. 16. 41–83. — (2006) Hobbes’ Forgotten Natural Histories. Hobbes Studies. 19. 77–104. Bush, D. (1973) Hobbes, William Cavendish, and “Essayes.” Notes and Queries. 20. 162–164. Centeno, M. A. (1993) The New Leviathan: The Dynamics and Limits of Technocracy. Theory and Society. 22. 307–35. Clark, J., Dennis, N., Hein, J., and Pryke, R. (2000) Welfare, Work and Poverty. D. Smith (ed.), London: Institute for the Study of Civil Society.

148

Bibliography

Cohen, S. F. (1973) Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, a Political Biography, 1888–1938. Oxford: Clarendon. Collingwood, R. J. (1999) The New Leviathan: Or, Man, Society, Civilization, and Barbarism. Oxford: Clarendon. Collins, J. R. (2005) The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon. — (2007) Silencing Thomas Hobbes: The Presbyterians and Leviathan, in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 478–500. Cook, T. I. (1943) Review: The Future of Industrial Man: A Conservative Approach. Political Science Quarterly. 58. 107–9. Cox, G. and McCubbins, M. (1993) Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Oxford: Clarendon. Cromartie, A. (2005) General Introduction, in Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right. A. Cromartie and Q. Skinner (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon, xiv–lxvi. Curley, E. M. (1988) “I Durst Not Write so Boldly”: How to Read Hobbes’s Theological-Political Treatise. in E. Giancotti, (ed.) Proceedings of the Conference on Hobbes and Spinoza. Urbino. — (2007) Hobbes and the cause of religious toleration, in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 309–336. Das, K. (2004) The Seven Sins of Highly Ineffective Government. (www. ccsindia.org/policy/philo/articles/kdas_striketheroot_article.pdf), accessed June 1, 2008. Dawson, H. (2007) Locke, Language and Early-Modern Philosophy. Cambridge: CUP. Dear, P. (1988) Mersenne and the Learning of the Schools. London: Cornell University Press. Devigne, R. (1994) Recasting Conservatism: Oakeshott, Strauss and the Response to Postmodernism. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dreitzel, H. (2003) The Reception of Hobbes in the Political Philosophy of the Early German Enlightenment. History of European Ideas. 29. 255–89. Drury, S. B. (1985) The Esoteric Philosophy of Leo Strauss. Political Theory. 13. 315–37. — (1997) Leo Strauss and the American Right. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Dunn, J. (1967) Consent in the Political Theory of John Locke. The Historical Journal. 10. 153–82. Feingold, M. (1984–99) The History of the University of Oxford, 8 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man. London: Hamish Hamilton. Gauthier, D. P. (1969) The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral and Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon. Gauthier, D. (1988) War and Nuclear Deterrence, in, Steven Luper-Foy (ed.) Problems of International Justice. Boulder, CO, 205–21. Gilbert, F. (1973) Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in SixteenthCentury Florence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Bibliography

149

Goldie, M (1991) The Reception of Hobbes, in J. H. Burns and M. Goldie (eds.) The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700. Cambridge: CUP, 589–615. Gordon, S. (1991) The History and Philosophy of Social Science. London: Routledge. Gray, J. (2002) False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism. London: Allen Lane. — (2007) Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. London: Allen Lane. Green, D. D., Grove, E., and Martin, N. A. (2005) Crime and Civil Society: Can We become a More Law-abiding people? London: Civitas Gregor, A. J. (1968) Contemporary Radical Ideologies Totalitarian Thought in the Twentieth Century. New York. Gros, J-G. (1996) Towards a Taxonomy of Failed States in the New World Order: Decaying Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda and Haiti. Third World Quarterly. 17. 455–71. Gurian, W. (1940) Review: The Soviet Union: Past and Present. The Review of Politics. 2. 127–29. — (1978) The Totalitarian State. The Review of Politics. 40. 514–27 Hale, D. G. (1971) The Body Politic: A Political Metaphor in Renaissance English Literature. The Hague: Mouton. Hampton, J. (1986) Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition. Cambridge: CUP. Hampshire-Monk, I. (1992) A History of Modern Political Thought: Major Political Thinkers from Hobbes to Marx. Oxford: Clarendon. Harrison, R. (2003) Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion’s Masterpiece. Cambridge: CUP. Herbert, G. B. (1989) Thomas Hobbes, the Unity of Scientific and Moral Wisdom. Vancouver: University of British Columbia. Higgs, R. (1987) Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. Oxford: Clarendon. High, B. (forthcoming 2009) Historiographical Review of Recent Books on American Neoconservatism. The Historical Journal. Hitler, A. (2004) Mein Kampf. D .C. Watt (ed.) R. Manheim (tr.), London: Pimlico. Hood, F. C. (1964) The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon. Ignatieff, M. (1993) The Balkan Tragedy. New York Review of Books. 13 May, 3–4. — (1993) Blood and Belonging : Journeys into the New Nationalism. London: Vintage. — (1998) The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience. London: Chatto & Windus. Ingegno, A. (1988) The New Philosophy of Nature, in Q. Skinner and E. Kessler (eds.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge: CUP, 236–63. Jackson, N. D. (2007) Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity: A Quarrel of the Civil Wars and Interregnum. Cambridge: CUP. James, S. (1997) Passion and Action, the Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon.

150

Bibliography

Jesseph, D. M. (1999) Squaring the Circle: The War between Hobbes and Wallis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Johnson, P. (1974) Hobbes’s Anglican Doctrine of Salvation. in R. Ross, H. W. Schneider, and T. Waldman. (eds.) Thomas Hobbes in His Time. Minneapolis, 102–25. Kagan, R. (2004) Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order. London: Atlantic. Kaplan, R. (1993) Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kassler. J. C. (1995) Inner Music: Hobbes, Hooke and North on Internal Character. London: Athlone. Kavka, G. (1986) Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. — (1987) Moral Paradoxes of Nuclear Deterrence. New York. Kenny, N. (1998) Curiosity in Early Modern Europe: Word Histories. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Kershaw, I. (1993) The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. London: Edward Arnold. Kekes, J. (2001) Dangerous Egalitarian Dreams. City Journal. Autumn Edition. http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_4_urbanities-dangerous.html Konstan, D. (1997) Friendship in the Classical World. Cambridge: CUP. Laird, J. (1934) Hobbes. London: E. Benn. Lal, D. (1999) Culture, Democracy and Development: The Impact of Formal and Informal Institutions on Development. IMF Conference on Second Generation Reforms. Lamy, P. (2005) Gunnar Myrdal Lecture, Global Governance: Lessons from Europe. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Discussion Paper Series. 2005.1. 1–12. Laslett, P. (1960) Introduction, in J. Locke, Two Treatises of Government. P. Laslett (ed.), Cambridge: CUP. Lengyel, E. (1944) Review of: The Danube Basin and the German Economic Sphere by Antonín Basch. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 232. 187–188. Lenz, J. W. (1956) Locke’s Essays on the Law of Nature. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 17. 105–13. Linnel, C. L. S. (1953) Daniel Scargill, a penitent Hobbist. Church Quarterly Review. 156. 256–365. Loewenstein, K. (1946) Reconstruction of the Administration of Justice in American-Occupied Germany. Harvard Law Review. 61. 419–467. Logan, O. (1972) Culture and Society in Venice, 1470-1790. London: Batsford. London, J. (1908) The Iron Heel. London: Everett an Co. Lucas, P. (1963) Ex parte Sir William Blackstone, “Plagiarist”: A Note on Blackstone and the Natural Law. American Journal of Legal History. 7. 142–158. MacIver, R. M. (1941) Leviathan and the People. Port Washington New York: Kennikat Press.

Bibliography

151

MacPherson, C. B. (1945) Hobbes today. The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science. 11. 524–534. — (1962) The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: From Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Malcolm, N. (1983) Thomas Hobbes and Voluntarist Theology (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University). — (1984) De Dominis (1560-1624): Venetian, Anglican, Ecumenist and Relapsed Heretic. London: Strickland & Scott. — (2002) Aspects of Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon. — (2004) Leviathan, the Pentateuch, and the Origins of Modern Biblical Criticism, in T. Sorell and L. Foisneau (eds.) Leviathan After 350 Years. Oxford: Clarendon, 241–64. Manning, D. J. (1976) Liberalism. London: Dent. Maritain. J. (1947) The Person and the Common Good. J. F. Fitzgerald (tr.), New York. Martinch, A. P. (1992) The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics. Cambridge: CUP. — (1995) A Hobbes Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon. — (1997) Thomas Hobbes. London: Geoffrey Bles. — (1999) Hobbes: A Biography. Cambridge: CUP. Marx, F. M. (1940) Totalitarian Politics. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 82. Symposium on the Totalitarian State, 1–38. McGovern, W. M. (1941) From Luther to Hitler: The History of Fascist-Nazi Political Philosophy. London: George G. Harrap. McNeilly, F. S. (1968) The Anatomy of Leviathan. London: Macmillan. Messick, R. E. (1999) Judicial Reform and Economic Development: A Survey of the Issues. The World Bank Research Observer. 14. 117–36. MICROCON (2007) Reappraising the Greed and Grievance Explanations for Violent Internal Conflict. MICROCON Research Working Paper, 2. 1–41. Miller, M. S. and K. E. Drexler, (1988) Comparative Ecology: A Computational Perspective The Ecology of Computation: http://www.agorics. com/Library/agoricpapers.html Minogue, K. (1989) Hobbes and Political Language, paper presented at the American Political Science Association Meeting, Atlanta. Mintz, S. I. (1970) The Hunting of Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP. Mirkovic´, D. (1996) Ethnic Conflict and Genocide: Reflections on Ethnic Cleansing, in the Former Yugoslavia. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 548, The Holocaust: Remembering for the Future, 191–99. Mueller, J. (2000) The Banality of “Ethnic War.” International Security. 25. 42–70. Nasr, S. V. R. (2001) Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power. Oxford: Clarendon. Neal, P. (1988) Hobbes and Rational Choice Theory. The Western Political Quarterly. 41. 635–52. Neumann, F. L. (1944) Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism. New York: Octagon Books.

152

Bibliography

North, D. C. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: CUP. O’Neill, J. (1985) Five Bodies: The Human Shape of Modern Society. New York: Cornell University Press. Oakeshott, M. (1935) Thomas Hobbes. Scrutiny. 4. 263–77. — (1946) Introduction, in T. Hobbes, Leviathan. M.Oakeshott (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon. — (1961) The Masses in Representative Democracy, in Freedom and Serfdom: An Anthology of Western Thought. A. Hunold, (ed.), London: Springer, 151–70. — (1991) Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. New York: Liberty Fund. Oakley, F. (1984) Omnipotence, Covenant, and Order: An Excursion in the History of Ideas from Abelard to Leibniz. Cornell: Ithaca. Orbell, J. M. and Rutherford, B. M. (1973) Can Leviathan Make the Life of Man Less Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish and Short? British Journal of Political Science. 3. 383–407. Orwell, G. (1949) Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel. London: Secker & Warburg. Paldam, M. and Svendsen, G. T. (1999) Is Social Capital an Effective Smoke Condenser? An Essay on a Concept Linking the Social Sciences. Social Capital Initiative Working Paper Series. The World Bank: Washington, DC. Pangle, T. L. (2006) Leo Strauss: An Introduction to His Thought and Intellectual Legacy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Parkin, J. (1999) Hobbism in the Later 1660s: Daniel Scargill and Samuel Parker. The Historical Journal. 42. 85–108. — (2007a) The Reception of Hobbes’s Leviathan in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 441–59. — (2007b) Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640-1700. Cambridge, CUP. Pasqualucci, P. (1990) Hobbes and the Myth of “Final War”. Journal of the History of Ideas, 51. 647–57. Peltonen, M. (1995) Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought 1570-1640. Cambridge: CUP. Peters, R. (1956) Hobbes. London: Pelican. Philp, M. (1986) Godwin’s Political Justice. London: Duckworth. Pocock, J. G. A. (1989) Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Popkin, R. H. (1964) The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Descartes. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Possony, S. T. (1954) Review. Military Affairs. 18. 90–91. Priestly, F. E. L. (1946) Introduction, in W. Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. F. E. L. Priestly (ed.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Rader, M. (1939) No Compromise. The Conflict between Two Worlds (Democracy and Fascism). London. Raphael, D. D. (1977) Hobbes, Morals and Politics. London: Allen & Unwin. Rajan, R. (2004) Assume Anarchy? Why an Orthodox Economic Model may not be the Best Guide for Policy. Finance and Development. September. 56–57.

Bibliography

153

Raylor, T. (2001) Hobbes, Payne, and a Short Tract on First Principles. The Historical Journal. 44. 29–58. Reik, M. M., (1977) The Golden Lands of Thomas Hobbes. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Reynolds, Noel B. and Hilton, John L. (1992) Statistical Word Print Analysis Identifies new Hobbes Essays. International Hobbes Association Newsletter. 14. 1–4. — (1993) Thomas Hobbes and Authorship of the Horae subsecivae. History of Political Thought. 14. 361–80. Riley, P. (1992) The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott by Paul Franco – Review. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 86, 509–510. Robertson, D. (1974) Well, Does Leviathan. . . ? British Journal of Political Science. 4. 245–50. Robertson, G. C. (1887) Hobbes. Edinburgh: Blackwood. Robinson, L. R. (1945) Powers or Peoples: The Issue of the Peace. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 240. 20–6. Rogers, G. A. J (1988) Hobbes’s Hidden Influence, in G. A. J. Rogers and A. Ryan (eds.) Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes. Oxford, Clarendon, 189–206. — (2000) Hobbes, History and Wisdom, in G. A. J. Rogers and Tom Sorell (eds.) Hobbes and History. London: Routledge, 73–81. — (2007) Hobbes and his Contemporaries, in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 413–40. Rogow, A. A. (1986) Thomas Hobbes: Radical in the Service of Reaction. New York. Ryan, A. (1983) Hobbes, Toleration and the Inner Life, in The Nature of Political Theory. D. Miller and L. Siedentop (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon, 197–218. — (1988) A More Tolerant Hobbes, in Essays on Toleration, S. Mendus (ed.), Cambridge: CUP, 37–59. — (1996) Hobbes’ political philosophy, in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 208–45. Sarasohn, L. T. (1999) Thomas Hobbes and the Duke of Newcastle. A Study in the Mutuality of Patronage Before the Establishment of the Royal Society. Isis. 90. 715–37. Savonius, S.-J. (2004) Friendship in Locke’s Political Imagination, paper presented at the John Locke Tercentenary Conference, St Anne’s College, Oxford. — (2006) Locke in French: The Du gouvernement civil of 1691 and its readers, in P. R. Anstey (ed.), John Locke: Critical Assessments of leading philosophers. Oxford: Clarendon. Saxonhouse, A. W. (1981), Hobbes and the Horae subsecivae. Polity. 13. 541–67. Schaffer, S. (1988) Wallifaction: Thomas Hobbes on school Divinity and Experimental Pneumatics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 19, 275–98. Schapiro, L. B. (1972) Totalitarianism. London: Pall Mall Press. Schuhmann, K. (1995) Le Short Tract, Premiere Oeuvre Philosophique de Hobbes. Hobbes Studies. 8. 3–36.

154

Bibliography

— (2000) Hobbes’ Concept of History. in G. A. J. Rogers and Tom Sorell (eds.) Hobbes and History. London: Routledge, 3–24. Schneewind, J. B (1994) Locke’s Moral Philosophy, in Chappell, Vere (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Locke. Cambridge: CUP, 199–225. Schofield, M. (1991) The Stoic Idea of the City. Cambridge: CUP. Schwab, G. (1996) Introduction, in C. Schmidt, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol. G. Schwab and E. Hilfstein (tr.) Westport: Greenwood Press, xi–xxxii. Shapin, S. and Schaffer, S. (1985) Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Shapiro, A. E. (1973) Kinematic Optics: A Study of the Wave Theory of Light in the Seventeenth Century. Archives of the History of Exact Sciences. 11. 134–266. Shevtsova, L. (2007) Putin’s Russia Revised Edition. A.W. Bouis (tr.) Washington: Carnegie. Shklar, J. N. (1985) Nineteen Eighty-Four: Should Political Theory Care? Political Theory. 13. 5–18. Simons, A. and Mueller, S. E. (2001) The Dynamics of Internal Conflict. International Security. 25. 187–90. Skinner, Q. (1964) Hobbes’s Leviathan. Historical Journal. 7. 321–23. — (1969) Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas. History and Theory. 8.1. 3–53. — (1996) Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP. — (1997) Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge Univerity Press. — (2002) Visions of Politics: Volume 3: Hobbes and Civil Science. Cambridge: CUP. — (2008) Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Cambridge: CUP. Sleigh, C. (2003) Ant. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Slomp, G. (2000) Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Smith, D. B. (2006) Living with Leviathan, Public Spending, Taxes and Economic Performance. London: Institute of Economic Affairs. Sommerville, J. P. (1992) Thomas Hobbes, Political Ideas in Historical Context. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Sondrol, P. C. (1991) Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfredo Stroessner. Journal of Latin American Studies. 23. 599–620. Sorell, T. (1986) Hobbes. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. — (1988) The Science in Hobbes’ Politics, in G. A. J. Rogers and A. Ryan (eds.), Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon, 67–80. Spencer, D. L. (1955) Mixed Enterprise as a Tool of Economic Development: India’s Contribution. American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 14. 139–58. Springborg, P. (1975) Leviathan and the Problem of Ecclesiastical Authority. Political Theory. 3. 289–303. — (1976) Leviathan, the Christian Commonwealth Incorporated. Political Studies. 24. 171–83. — (1995a) Hobbes’ Biblical Beasts: Leviathan and Behemoth. Political Theory. 23. 353–75.

Bibliography

155

— (1995b) Hobbes, Heresy and the Historia ecclesiastica. Journal of the History of Ideas. 55. 353–71 — (1996) Hobbes on Religion. in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 346–80. Stephen, L. (1967) Hobbes. London: Macmillan. Strauss, L. (1958) Locke’s Doctrine of Natural Law. American Political Science Review. 52. 490–501. — (1963) The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and its Genesis. E. M. Sinclair (tr.) Oxford: Clarendon. — (1965) On the Spirit of Hobbes’s Political Philosophy, in K. C. Brown (ed.) Hobbes Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1–34. Strauss-Kahn, D. (2004) Building a Political Europe, 50 Proposals For Tomorrow’s Europe – Round Table ‘A sustainable project for tomorrow’s Europe’ formed on the initiative of the President of the European Commission. Paris. Strong, S. A., (1903) A Catalogue of Letters and other Historical Documents Exhibited in the Library at Welbeck. London: J. Murray. Taylor, A. E. (1965) The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes, in K. C. Brown (ed.) Hobbes Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 35–55. Tregenza, I. (1997) The Life of Hobbes in the Writings of Michael Oakeshott. History of Political Thought. 18. 531–57. Tuck, R. (1988) Optics and Sceptics: The Philosophical Foundations of Hobbes’ Political Thought, in E. Leites (ed.), Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: CUP. — (1989) Hobbes. Oxford — (1990) Hobbes and Locke on Toleration. in M. Dietz (ed.) Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 153–71. — (1993) Philosophy and Government, 1572-1651. Cambridge: CUP. — (1996) Hobbes’ Moral Philosophy, in T. Sorell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: CUP, 175–207. — (2004) The Utopianism of Leviathan, in T. Sorell and L. Foisneau (eds.) Leviathan after 350 Years. Oxford: Clarendon, 125–38. Tucker, A. W. (1983) The Mathematics of Tucker: A Sampler. The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal. 14. 228–32. Tully, J. (1991) Locke, in J. H. Burns and M. Goldie(eds.) The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700. Cambridge: CUP, 616–53. van Gelderen, M. (2003) The State and its Rivals in Early-Modern Europe, in Q. Skinner and B. Strath (eds.), State and Citizens. Cambridge: CUP. Vevier, C. (1959) Review of The United States and China by John King Fairbank. The Pacific Historical Review. 28. 315–17. Von Leyden, W. (1956) John Locke and Natural Law. Philosophy. 31. 23–35. Watkins, J. W. N. (1957) The Posthumous Career of Thomas Hobbes. The Review of Politics. 19. 351–60. — (1965) Hobbes’s System of Ideas. London: Hutchinson. Warrender, H. (1957) The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, His Theory of Obligation. Oxford: Clarendon.

156

Bibliography

Webster, C. (1975) The Great Instauration, Science Medicine and Reform 16261660. London: Duckworth. Weinberger, J. (1976) Science and Rule in Bacon’s Utopia: An Introduction to the Reading of the New Atlantis. The American Political Science Review. 70. 865–85. Williamson, O. E. (1995) The Institutions and Governance of Economic Development. Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics 1994, Washington, DC: The World Bank. Wright, G. (2006) Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes. Dordrecht: Springer. Yolton, J. W. (1958) Locke on the Law of Nature. Philosophical Review. 67. 23–35. Zagorin, P. (1993) Hobbes’ Early Philosophical Development. Journal of the History of Ideas. 54. 505–18. — (2007) Clarendon against Leviathan, in P. Springborg (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: CUP, 460–77. Zuckert, C. and Zuckert, M. (2006) The Truth about Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Parliamentary Debates and Bills Senate Bill S. 2179 (2007) National Forests, Parks, Public Land, and Reclamation Projects Authorization Act of 2007 amend. 3966. United Kingdom, House of Lords (2002), Hansard, vol. 641, Column 665.

Index

9/11 111, 120 ABC Television101 Afghanistan108 Al Qaeda111 America3, 22, 36, 122, 124 American Constitution119, 122, 124, 132 Anglican Church2, 8 Annan, Kofi108–9 Apollo Programme125 Aquinas, Thomas20, 27, 37, 116, 127, 128, 129, 130 Arblaster, Anthony119 Arendt, Hannah86, 102–3, 105 Aristotle2, 9, 20–3, 32, 88, 92, 123, 127, 128 Aubrey, John1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 74, 131, 132 Bacon, Francis1, 2–6, 13, 16, 25, 32, 59, 61, 74, 96, 127, 136 Bakunin, Mikhail101 Barthes, Roland98 Baxter, Richard72 Beckmann, Johann Christoph74 Bene’t College, Cambridge, see Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Bentham, Jeremy82–3, 115 Big Brother105

Blackstone, William82–3 Blair, Tony120 Bodin, Jean4, 25, 129, 132 Book of common prayer57 Bosnia108, 110, 113 Boyle, Robert13, 32, 74, 135, 137 Bramhall, John54, 72, 137 Brandt, Frithiof136 Brett, Annabel59, 60, 85, 138, 139 Brezhnev, Leonid112 Buchanan, James M.114, 117–19, 132 Bukharin, Nikolai103–5 Bunce, Robin ii, ix, 3, 4, 6 Burke, Edmund101 Burundi110 Bush, George W.122 Calvin, John115 Calvin and Hobbes101 Calvinism72–3 capitalism87, 88, 102, 103, 104, 110 Centre for Civil Society100, 131 Charles I8–9, 12, 57, 65, 70 Charles II1, 10, 13, 74 Charron, Pierre92 Chernyshevsky, Nikolai100 China105 Christ’s College Cambridge72 church history56

158

Index

Church in Scotland8 Church Power13, 56–7, 69, 70–2, 85 Cicero20, 95 circulation of the blood12, 23, 136 CIVITAS100 Clifton, Gervase5 Coburn, Tom108 Collingwood, R.G.102 Collins, Jeffrey R.14, 73, 85, 139 Colombia108 Communist Party, of the USSR106–7 Comte, Auguste123 Constitution of the USSR (1936) “the Stalin Constitution”106 Copernicus, Nicolaus22, 128, 129 Corpus Christi College, Cambridge68 Cox, Gary108 Crick, Bernard118 Croatia113 Cromwell, Oliver65–6, 81 Cudworth, Ralph72 Curley, Edwin73, 130, 134 Darwin, Charles100 Davenant, William10 de la Court, Johan and Pieter79 de Montmor, Henri73 Democratic Republic of the Congo108 Descartes, René1, 7, 9–10, 16, 23, 25, 32, 73–4, 92–4, 127, 136 devil69 d'Holbach, Paul80 Dresher, Melvin89 Du Verdus, François13, 74

Elizabeth I2 Empiricus, Sextus92 Engels, Friedrick87 English Civil War8, 9, 12, 16, 43, 64, 65, 70, 106 Eno, Brian130 Estienne, Henri92 Euclid5–6, 8, 30 experimental philosophy16 Facebook101 FBI108 Filmer, Robert75 Flood, Merrill M.89 Four-Year Plan Organization106 French Revloution123 Freud, Sigmund100 Fukuyama, Francis121–3 Galileo, Galilei1, 7, 9, 16, 22–3, 25, 73–4, 127, 128 game theory68, 88–91, 99 Garton Ash, Timothy109 Gassendi, Pierre9–10, 12, 22, 69, 73, 74, 92, 93, 95, 127, 128 Gauthier, David89–91, 130 geometry5–8, 12, 14, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 30, 60, 92 Gilbert, William3, 23, 96 Glanvill, Joseph71 Godwin, William80–2 Gray, John110–11, 121, 122–3, 125 Great Fire of London68 Grotius, Hugo20, 25, 37, 128, 129, 132 Hamilton, Alexander121–2 Hampton, Jean89–91 Harvey, William12, 23, 25, 136 Hayes, Peter86

Index Hayward, John5 Helvetius, Claude80 Herodotus4 Higgs, Robert107 High, Brandon xi, 132 Hitler, Adolf100, 102, 106, 107, 131 Hobbes life early life1–2 grand tour3 exhile in France9–12 anatomic experiments10–11 return to England12–14 last years14–15 death15 epitaph15 works Antiwhite9, 25, 129 Behemoth2, 14, 15, 24, 56, 57, 64, 65, 105, 106, 134 De cive7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46, 47, 50, 53, 56, 57, 60, 61, 64, 69, 74, 75, 79, 86, 88, 95, 96, 97, 98, 128, 129, 134, 135 De cive, French translations74 De corpore8, 10, 12, 22, 28, 29, 30, 133, 134 De homine8, 10, 12, 24, 25, 27, 30, 41, 42, 129 Decameron physiologicum14, 15 Dialogue Between a Philosopher and Student of the Common Laws of England14

159

Elements of Law8, 10, 14, 24, 25, 26, 28, 33, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 64, 88, 93, 95, 96, 117, 129, 134 Elements of Philosophy.8, 10, 25, 129 English optical manuscript10–11, 20, 136 Historia ecclesiastica73 Historical Narration Concerning Heresy and the Punishment Thereof14 Leviathan, English Version ix, 2, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 57, 58, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 83, 84, 97, 98, 106, 115, 118, 124, 125, 128, 129, 130, 132, 134 Leviathan, Latin Version14, 15, 30, 43, 46, 47, 50, 51, 84, 129, 134 Leviathan, proposed French Translation74 Lux mathematica15 Praefatio to Mersenne’s Balistica28–9 Preface to Gondibert10 Problemata physica13–15 Rosetum geometricum15 Short Tract94–5, 136 Theology70–2, 85 Tractatus opticus9, 23, 129 Translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey15 Translation of Thucydides4–5, 6, 20, 36

160

Index

Hobbes (Cont’d) philosophy analytic-synthetic method28–9, 129 n.15 Christianity and philosophy21 civil law36–7, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 59, 64, 67, 71, 76, 79, 85 civil war40, 108 commonwealth by design45 commonwealth by institution45 composition and resolution, see Analytic and Synthetic Method covenant38–9, 44–5, 49, 51–2, 55, 56, 58, 84, 90 creation of the state44–5 death34, 36–8, 56, 60, 85, 103 Divine law37, 41 education49, 64, 67, 112 the fool61–2, 89–91, 99 freedom52–8 freedom of conscience57 God26, 27, 30–2, 38, 41, 50, 51, 59, 61, 64, 66, 70–2, 76, 80, 82–5, 93, 128, 137 gratitude39–40, 51–2 history of philosophy20–4 the law of nature27, 37–41, 44, 48, 50, 51, 52, 55, 58, 59, 60, 66, 74, 76, 79, 80, 84, 98, 128, 129, 138 memory and imagination25 motion7, 23, 24, 25–6, 30 Native Americans22, 36

natural philosophy9, 14, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 60, 135, 136–7 the passion8, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26–7, 30, 33, 34, 60, 64, 71, 138 persons41–4 pleasure and pain26 polygamy58 prudence28 reason27–8 religion30–2 representation41–5, 51, 55, 67, 82, 83, 84 the right of nature34–5, 45, 49, 64, 77 right reason29, 37 science in the state50 sovereign, rights of 46–52 sovereignty defined43 state defined43 the state of nature18, 35–7, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 62, 66, 68, 74–9, 81–4, 89–91, 98, 101, 103, 108–13, 118, 125, 132 taxation49–50, 63 types of sovereignty45 vision25–6 Hobbism68–9, 79 Hood, F.T83–5, 129 Hooker, Richard37 House of Commons69 House of Lords65, 120 Hussein, Saddam109 Ignatieff, Michael109 imperialism102–3 Institute of Economic Affairs100

Index International Monetary Fund 100, 108, 112, 120, 131 Iraq101, 110 Israel108 James I2–3 Jefferson, Thomas121–2 Jesus Christ71, 100 Justin of Caesarea119 Kagan, Robert121 Kant, Immanuel84, 101, 120, 121, 124 Kaplan, Robert111 Kavka, Gregory S.89–91, 130 Kepler, Johannes22, 128 KGB112 Kosovo111 Laird, John87 Lal, Deepak120 Laslett, Peter75 Latimer, Robert2, 15 Laud, William57, 70 Lenin, V.I.100, 105 Leviathanness105 Liberia108, 110 Lipsius, Justus25 Livy4 Locke, John xii 2, 73–6, 79–80, 82, 86, 101, 110, 120, 121, 124, 132, 136 London2, 12, 16, 23, 65, 68 London, Jack104 Long Parliament9, 65, 106 Lord Holme of Cheltenham120 Lost, ABC Television101 Lucy, William71, 72 Machiavelli, Niccolò20, 128 McCubbins, Matthew108

161

McGovern, William Montgomery102 MacIver, R.M.102 Madison, James121–2 Magdalen Hall, Oxford2 Maine, Henry124 Malaysia108 Malcolm, Noel3, 4, 7, 13, 94, 131, 133, 134 Manhattan Institute for Policy Research100 Manning, D.J.119 Mao Zedong102 Martinich, A.P.6, 72–3, 85, 130, 133, 134 Marx, Fritz Morstein102 Marxism68 Marxism-Leninism106–7 mathematics6–7, 9, 10, 13, 15, 20, 22, 89, 91, 99, 136–7 Mersenne, Marin7, 9, 12, 22, 28, 50, 73, 92–5, 127, 128, 129 Mersenne Circle50, 73 Messick, Richard E.113 Micanzio, Fulgenzio3, 6 MICROCON120 Minogue, Kenneth105, 118 Mintz, Samuel I.15, 32, 69, 70, 139, 140 Mirkovic, Damir109 Montaigne, Michel de92 More, Henry71 More, Thomas4 Mueller, John111, 113 Mussolini, Benito102 Myspace101 NASA125 Nasr, Sayyed Vali Reza108 Nazi Party106

162

Index

Nazism102, 104–7, 125, 131, 132 Neal, Patrick89 Neumann, Franz105–6 new science5–9, 32, 73, 92–3, 127, 128 New York Review of Books108 NKVD106 North, Douglass112 North, Thomas5 Oakeshott, Michael114–19, 125 Oath of Engagement12 optics6–7, 10, 12, 23–4, 92–4, 100, 136, 137 Orwell, George98, 105 Pakistan108 Palestinian territory108 Paris7, 9, 10, 12, 16, 72, 97 Parkin, Jon69, 130, 139 Payne, Robert6, 94 Petty, William10, 13, 73–4 Philadelphia Convention122 philosophical method7–8, 13, 21–3, 28–30, 129 Philp, Marc80 Plato20, 23, 115, 116, 119, 128 Pliny4 Plutarch4, 5 pneumatics13, 135, 136 Polybus4 Popkin, Richard H.93–4 Priestly, F.E.L.80–1 Prisoner’s Dilemma88–91 Proudhon, Joseph Pierre100 Ptolomie4 Pufendorf, Samuel74–6, 79, 82–3, 139 Puritanism2 Putin, Vladimir112 Pyrrhonism92

Rader, Melvin102 Rajan, Raghuram112 RAND Corporation89 Rawls, John117 Raylor, Timothy94 rhetoric6, 64, 68, 73, 95–8, 127, 138 Ricardo, David119 Riquetti, Victor79 Robertson, G.C.69, 87 Rogers, G.A.J.73, 139, 140 Roman Catholic Church16 Ross, Alexander69–72 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques74, 76–9, 82, 116, 120, 124 Royal Society xii, 1, 10, 13–16, 32, 72, 74, 135, 136 Rushton, Michael116 Russia100, 103, 106, 110, 111, 112, 122 Rwanda108, 110, 111, 113 Sackville, Edward4 St Mary’s the Great, Cambridge69 Saint-Simon, Henri123 Sandys, Edwin4 Sarpi, Paulo3 Savile, Henry5 Scargill, Daniel68–9, 130 Schapiro, Leonard106 scholasticism2, 21–3, 27, 53, 54, 64, 72, 127, 128, 130 Schuhmann, Karl94 Schutzstaffel (S.S.)106 Scottish Covenanters8, 57 Selden, John4, 12 Ship Money8 Shklar, Judith N.105 shock therapy110 Short Parliament8–9

Index Sidgwick, Henry83 Sierra Leone108 Skepticism68, 91–5, 138 Skinner, Quentin xi, 2, 4, 13, 25, 41, 42, 43, 53, 54, 55, 74, 85, 92, 95–8, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 134, 136, 138, 139, 140 Slomp, Gabriela97–8 Smith, Adam114, 119 Socrates20, 21, 22, 123 Somalia110 Sorbière, Samuel1, 10, 14, 15, 73–4 Soviet Communism100, 103, 105 Soviet Union, see USSR Spinoza, Benedict de79, 122 Sprat, Thomas1 Stalin103, 105–7 Stalinsim104–7, 118, 125 Stephen, James Fitzjames123–4 Stoic Philosophy27 Strabo4 Strauss, Leo84–5, 87, 114, 117, 119, 125 Suárez, Francisco20, 27, 37, 128, 129 Sweezy, Paul87

Totalitarianism101–8 Trinity College, Cambridge72 Tuck, Richard7, 32, 59–60, 85, 92–5, 130, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139 Tucker, Albert W.89 United Nations100, 108, 109, 131 United Nations Millennium Declaration108 USSR105, 103, 111, 112 vacuum13 Vaughn, John4 Versalius10 Virginia Company3–4 von Neumann, John89 Ward, Seth12, 72 Warner, Walter6 Warrender, Howard83–5, 87, 135 Watterson, Bill101 Weimar Republic106, 132 Welbeck academy6 White, Thomas9, 12, 135 Williamson, Oliver113 World Bank100, 113, 120, 131 Xenophon 4

Tacitus5 Taylor, A.E.83–5, 87 Taylor-Warrender thesis83–5, 87 Tito, Josip109 Tönnies, Ferdinand94

163

Yeltsin, Boris112 Yugoslavia101, 109 ZANU PF108