hobbes's state of war

H o b b e s ' s S ta te o f W a r i Jean Hampton

Every reader of Leviathan knows that in Hobbes's state of

nature there is a war "of every one against every one", and

that any individual's life in this state is "nasty, brutish and

short". Moreover, this war is supposed to be a result of every individual doing what, according to Hobbes, a human

being cannot help but do: namely, pursue the satisfaction

of his or her own desires, chief of which is the desire for

self-preservation. However, readers of Leviathan are startled

to find that after a description of this horrible natural war

in Chapter 13 of Leviathan, Hobbes goes on to define and

defend 19 laws of nature in Chapters 14 and 15 of that

book, and these laws dictate such moral behavior as keeping

contracts, being merciful, and showing gratitude. Some

modern interpreters of Hobbes, especially A. E. Taylor and

Howard Warrender, have contended that the appearance of

these laws means that Hobbes's ethical position has to be

understood as a variant of the deontological natural law

view common among Hobbes's contemporaries, and Taylor

even considers Hobbes a precursor of Kant. 2

But if we attribute this deontological natural law view

to Hobbes, then how can he establish that his state of

nature is a state of war? That is, if these laws are, as Hobbes

himself says, "immutable and eternal" (Lev, 15, 38, 79) 3 and commanded by God (Lev, 15, 41, 80), why aren't they

binding in the state of nature and why don' t people follow

these laws so that peace rather than war prevails in this

state? A seventeenth century critic of Hobbes, the Earl of

Clarendon, complains:

How should it else come to pass, that Mr. Hobbes, whil'st he is demolishing the whole frame of Nature for want of order to support it, and makes it unavoidably necessary for every man to cut his neighbors throat... I say, how comes it to pass, that.., he would in the same, and the next Chapter, set down such a Body of Laws prescribed by Nature itself, as are immutable and eternal? that there appears, by this own shewing, a full remedy against all that confusion, for avoiding whereof he hath devis'd all that unnatural and impossible Contract and Covenant? 4

Perhaps Hobbes could answer this question by invoking his

psychological claim that human beings are unable to do

Topoi 4 (1985), 47 60. 0167-7411/85.15. (~) 1985 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.

anything that they do not perceive to be in their best

interest (see Lev, 6, 1 -6 , 23 -24 ) , so that they are unable,

in particular, to act on these moral laws. But if people can't

act on these laws, why does Hobbes bother to articulate

them? Indeed, the fact that we can use Hobbesian psychol-

ogy to undercut action from the laws of nature shows that

the deontological meta-ethical position which the laws ap-

pear to represent is made otiose by his psychology. 5

So should we save the relevance of the objectivist

ethical position which the laws of nature seem to represent by abandoning Hobbes's psychology? We cannot, for if we do so, Clarendon would be right: we would have to attrib-

ute to Hobbesian people the ability to act on and recognize

the validity of the laws of nature such that the state of

nature would become cooperative and peaceful rather than

vicious and violent. Hence the better way to make Hobbes's

argument consistent and his state of nature violent would

seem to be to abandon the laws of nature. Understood as deontological natural laws, they are rendered functionless by

Hobbes's psychology, and not only do they make it dif-

ficult for him to argue that the state of nature is a state

of war, but they are also inconsistent with many passages

in Leviathan and other of Hobbes's writings in which he

appears to adopt a proto-Humean subjectivist meta-ethics, a position which actually is consistent with his psychology 6

But jettisoning two chapters of Leviathan seems a bit

drastic, and we should be sure that making Hobbes's argu-

ment consistent and saving his claim that the state of

nature is a state of war actually requires such drastic

action. Consider the fact that the laws only seemed to fit badly into the Hobbesian argument because they were

interpreted as objective, God-derived rules defining right

and wrong action. But should they be so interpreted?

Theorists such as J. W. N. Watkins 7 propose that they

should not, and interpret them as hypothetical imperatives of the form:

If you seek peace (which is conducive to your self-preservation), then be just, or merciful, or grateful, and so forth.

On this view, the laws are given an instrumentalist inter-

48 JEAN HAMPTON

pretat ion; they dictate ways of achieving an object, i.e.

peace, which almost every person in the state of nature

would desire in virtue of his or her desire for self-preserva-

tion. Thus interpreted, the laws can be acted upon by

people described by the Hobbesian psychology and they are

consistent with the subjectivist meta-ethics suggested else-

where in Leviathan in which good and bad are defined by

an individual's desires and in which "rat ional" or "r ight"

action is defined instrumentally as that action which best

achieves an individual 's desire-defined goals. But perhaps

most important of all, this interpretat ion is actually sug-

gested by Hobbes himself at the end of Chapter 15 when he

characterizes the laws o f nature as

Conclusions, or Theoremes concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves. (Lev, 15, 41, 80)

This characterization strongly suggests that the laws have

the hypothet ical structure Watkins at tr ibutes to.them.

But Watkins' interpretat ion doesn' t go quite far enough

because if the laws are understood as hypothet ical impera-

tives binding for all those who seek their own preservation,

then why don ' t such people obey these laws? Why aren't they followed by the self-interested human beings in

the Hobbesian state of nature such that this state is relative-

ly peaceful and cooperative? In this article I want to pursue

this question. That is, while agreeing with Watkins that the

laws of nature should be interpreted as hypothet ical imper-

atives consistent with Hobbes 's psychology and the sub-

jectivist meta-ethics which he appears to propound in

Leviathan, I want to pursue their interpretat ion more fully

so as to understand why these laws don ' t form a complete

remedy for the chaos in the natural state. And to do this, I

will have to pursue the reasons behind the chaos and vio-

lence in that state. Once we understand why warfare

inevitably erupts when there is no government, we will be

in a posit ion to understand why Hobbes's laws of nature,

even if endorsed and accepted by all the people of the

natural state, would fail to end that warfare.

But understanding the cause of conflict in the state of

nature is harder than it looks. The text o f Leviathan is quite

confusing on this question, perhaps reflecting Hobbes 's own

confusion about precisely what he should say on this issue.

Initially upon reading the book, one seems to find two

accounts of the origins of conflict in the state of nature.

The first account is what I call the "Passions" account o f

conflict. According to this account, cooperat ion among

people is generally rational - that is, it is generally in one's

interest to keep contracts, be grateful and so forth, because

performing these actions leads to peace and thus to longer

life. Nonetheless, people do not perform these actions and

fail to follow the valid hypothet ical imperatives leading to

peace because, according to this account, certain passions

disrupt many people 's reasoning and cause them to behave

irrationally, while the rest fear this disruption and (rational-

ly) refuse to cooperate in order to avoid being exploited.

Much that Hobbes says in Chapter 15 suggests this explana-

t ion o f conflict. For example, in that chapter he makes a

rather lengthy at tack on the reasoning of the " foo l" who

implies among other things that it is rational not to keep

one's bargain in the state of nature even if one 's partner

has already done so.

The Foole hath sayd in his heart, there is no such thing as Justice; and sometimes also with his tongue; seriously alleag- ing, that every roans conservation, and contentment, being committed to his own care, there could be no reason, why every man might not do what he thought conduced thereunto: and therefore also to make, or not make; keep, or not keep Covenants, was not against Reason, when it conduced to ones benefit . . . . This specious reasoning is neverthelesse false.

For the question is not of promises mutuall, where there is no security of performance on either side . . . . But either where one o f the parties has performed already; or where there is a Power to make him performe; there is the question whether it be against reason, that is, against the benefit of the other to performe, or not. And I say it is not against reason. (Lev, 15, 4-5, 73 ; my emphasis.) 8

Hobbes goes on to explain that keeping one's bargain in the

state o f nature when one has adequate assurance that one's

partner has done or will do so promotes one's reputat ion as

t rustworthy, and this makes it possible for one to enter

into confederacies with others for mutual security and

prosperity. Thus he suggests that anyone who reasons as

the fool does and who therefore reneges on his contracts

acts irrationally.

The Leviathan is also littered with passages in which

Hobbes blames people 's "irrat ional" passions - especially

the passion for glory - as the cause of strife in the state of

nature. For example, in Chapter 14, he appears to indicate

that the motivations to break a contract which men fear

are "irrat ional" ones based on desires other than the desire

for self-pre servation:

...he that performeth first, has no assurance the other will performe after; because the bonds of words are too weak to bridle mens ambition, avarice, anger, and other Passions, without the feare of some coercive Power. (Lev, 14, 18, 68)

And in Chapter 17 he names those natural passions which

are responsible for warfare and they are "part ial i ty, Pride, Revenge, and the l ike" - that is, passions related to the

HOBBES'S STATE OF WAR 49

desire for self-glorification and capable of disrupting rational efforts at achieving one's own preservation. Finally, in his explication of why creatures like ants and bees are more sociable than human beings (Chapter 17, 6 -12 , 86-87), Hobbes never once invokes the natural passion for self-preservation as the cause of human conflict, but instead constantly blames "vain-glory": in particular, human competition for honor and dignity, the relishing of what is

"eminent", the desire to prove oneself wiser than the rest,

the sophistical talent of using words to transform evil into good (for personal advancement), and the ease with which

people are personally offended; thus implying that this "irrational" passion (or others' fear of it) is the chief cause

of conflict and non-cooperation among human beings. Hobbes's earlier works also place particular emphasis on

the disruptive role of the desire for glory in the rational

pursuit of our self-preservation. But the passions account is a dangerous one for Hobbes

to adopt - dangerous because it fails to support adequately his argument that it is rational for people to institute an absolute sovereign. Consider that if we believe Hobbes's psychological pronouncements about the predominance of

the desire for self-preservation in almost all of us, the number of times people would be disrupted by passions more powerful than this desire should be fairly small. But then it would seem that cooperation should be quite widespread in the state of nature. That is, if self-preservation dictates cooperation, and people generally pursue their self- preservation, then it would seem that they would generally cooperate. Of course, even rational people might well fear

that their partners were irrational, and an expected utility calculation might tell them not to cooperate with their

partners. Moreover, the greater the stakes involved in the cooperative venture, the more likely this would be true. Still, one would expect that in many medium or low risk ventures where one had excellent evidence that one's

partners were rational and unlikely to be disrupted by

these passions, cooperation would be more rational than non-cooperation. That is, an expected utility calculation would generally dictate cooperation because of the prospect

of significant gains at low risk. Thus, Hobbes's psychology, when combined with the passions account of conflict, establishes at most only moderate amounts of conflict in

that state, certainly not total war. But why wouldn't it be good news for Hobbes that his

state of nature was really quite a nice place after all? The reason is that unless Hobbes can establish total war of all against all in the natural state, he cannot argue that there is any need for an absolute sovereign. Thus, in order to make

his political argument, he must reject all characterizations of the natural state and the behavior of its inhabitants that would make that state anything less than a violent anarchy. Otherwise, Hobbes's state of nature will look remarkably similar to Locke's. In this state of nature, men and women are able to cooperate, make contracts and thereby implicit-

ly recognize private property. Why do these reasonable creatures need an absolute sovereign? Locke persuasively argued that they did not. And it is impossible for Hobbes to avoid these Lockean conclusions if his sovereign is only

needed to "police" human interactions and punish irra-

tional people. A radical political solution for disorder, like the institution of an absolute sovereign, is only needed if radical division among people exists, and insofar as the

passions account of conflict implies that frequent coopera-

tion and contractual exchange would occur in the state of nature, it does not make the conflict between people deep-seated enough to warrant the drastic solution Hobbes proposes. In such a situation, one only needs a ruler to

enforce the already existing patterns of cooperation, one does not need an absolute sovereign to create those patterns

of cooperation. So, is there any way that Hobbes could salvage the

passions account so that it could generate total warfare and thus allow him to draw the political conclusion he wants? To do so, he would have to argue that affairs in the state of nature would invariably be such that cooperation wasn't worth the risk, i.e. that an expected utility calculation would almost always counsel against cooperation. How could Hobbes argue this point? He would have to maintain

that even where the losses associated with non-cooperation

were relatively small, the probability that one's partner

would renege was very high. But such a high probability would mean a high incidence of these disruptive passions in

the population. And if action from these passions were frequent and wide-spread, self-preservation would seem not to be the dominant desire Hobbes says it is. Hence this way

of fleshing out Hobbes's passions account would conflict

with his psychology of human beings. But does Hobbes have to be wedded to this psychological

characterization of human beings as persistent pursuers of their self-preservation? The answer is yes. Hobbes's argument for instituting an absolute sovereign is that doing so will promote one's self-preservation by bringing about peace. And if people are so frequently moved by passions contrary to self-preservation that almost total warfare is generated, how could there be general agreement on instituting an absolute sovereign? The passions disrupting cooperative activities in general in the state of nature would

50 JEAN HAMPTON

also seem to disrupt the creation and complet ion o f the

contract to institute the sovereign. In other words, if

these passions are so deep-seated as to generate total war, it

would seem that the rational pursuit o f self-preservation

would not be powerful enough among enough of the

populat ion to bring about peace. Thus, it is to preserve the

almost universal applicabil i ty o f his hypothet ical imperative

to institute an absolute sovereign - indeed, to preserve the

almost universal applicabil i ty of all his laws of nature - that

Hobbes credits people with the predominant desire to

preserve themselves, and this means that the psychology

with which this interpretat ion of the passions account

conflicts, cannot be abandoned in favor of that account.

So no mat ter which way we move as we try to salvage

this account we are impaled by one horn or another o f a

bad dilemma. If we accept that account, either we also

accept Hobbes 's psychology, in which case we end up with

too much cooperat ion in the state of nature to necessitate

an absolute sovereign, or we postulate the existence of

powerful and widespread passions disrupting people 's

pursuit of self-preservation, in which case we have not

only abandoned that psychology but endangered the

applicabil i ty o f Hobbes 's hypothet ical imperative to insti-

tute the sovereign.

It is perhaps because Hobbes appreciated the dangerous

political implications o f the passions account o f conflict that

he presented a very different kind of explanation of the

origins of conflict in Chapters 11, 13, and 14 of Leviathan.

In those chapters and primarily in Chapter 13, conflict is

blamed on rat ionali ty rather than on the disruptive passions

such .as glory; hence I call this the Rationality Account o f

Conflict. On this account, reason in service to desire for

self-preservation dictates war rather than peace in the state

of nature. The first premiss of the argument is that the

dominant passion in almost all human beings is the desire

for self-preservation. And, says Hobbes, the desire to live

means the desire to satisfy constantly arising needs and

wants generated by a living body. Hobbes does not say here

that human beings have an infinite number of desires, only

that they will have a large number o f desires that will never

cease as long as a person lives. But in order to satisfy their

numerous desires, people need the material means to do so.

According to Hobbes, the search for means is the search

for "power" (Lev, 11, 2, 47), and whenever a person finds an object that can be used to satisfy his desire, that person

believes himself to have a "r ight" to that object.

Alas, because each person desires and believes he has the

right to so many objects, people will inevitably come to

desire and try to appropriate the same object. But, says

Hobbes, since there is a rough equality of strength and

mental abili ty among people in this state, no one is ready to

acknowledge another 's superior right to an object by

virtue of this other person's superior strength or superior

claim to it, and competi t ion for it is created. Hence, says

Hobbes, compet i t ion is the first cause o f conflict, i.e. it

"maketh men invade for Gain" (Lev, 13, 7, 62):

...if any two men desire the same thing, which neverthelesse they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, (which is principally their owne conservation, and sometimes their delectation only,) endeavour to destroy, or subdue one an other . . . . if one plant, sow, build, or possesse a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to dispossesse, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life, or liberty. And the Invader is in the like danger of another. (Lev, 13, 3, 61)

And, clearly, insofar as Hobbes is assuming that competi-

t ion for goods will exist in the state of nature, he is assuming

that there will be in that state a "moderate scarcity o f

goods", which Hume tells us is no more than to assume that

the circumstances which make justice necessary actually

prevail in this state. 9

The realization that others are competing for the goods

which one has seized or will want to seize breeds "diffi-

dence", that is, distrust. Each person realizes that to

prevent a t tempts at gaining possession of the goods he has

seized, goods which he needs to further his own preserva-

tion, he must amass as much power as he can; thus he

makes preemptive strikes, using

...force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till be see no other power great enough to endanger him: And this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. (Lev, 13, 4, 61)

This distrust therefore constitutes a second cause of con-

flict, based on a desire to preserve oneself; that is, it causes

a person to invade in order to secure a good defense against

his enemies.

It is only at this point that Hobbes says a person in the

state o f nature begins to claim a right to all things. The

danger of at tack on his person, and the advantages of

power seen in preventing attacks on himself and his proper-

ty and in allowing him to make such invasions against

others, mean that there is nothing that could not help him

to further his own life:

...because the condition of Man, (as hath been declared in the precedent Chapter [Chapter 13]) is a condition of Warre of every one against every one; in which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a


Right to every thing; even to one anothers body. (Lev, 14, 4, 64; my emphasis)

However, once people begin to claim this right, there is

competition for every object, and conflict between them

can only escalate in frequency and intensity.

Hobbes could stop here if he liked, having established

two inevitable causes of invasion and quarrel (i.e. competi-

tion and fear) based solely on the rational pursuit of self-

preservation by each person. However, he adds one more

reason for invasion which is not based on this passion, that

is, invasion for glory's sake. However, what is interesting

about this third cause for invasion is that because the

previous two causes of conflict arising out of the desire

to preserve oneself are powerful enough to explain between

them the development of total war in the natural state,

this third cause is really not a necessary part of Hobbes's

argument in Chapter 13 that the state of nature is a state of

total war. Hobbes could easily have done without it. So

perhaps citing vain-glory as a third reason for invasion is

just a harmless addition to the Chapter 13 argument - j u s t a way of making the argument more persuasive to the

reader. We shall see.

It has naturally occurred to recent commentators on Hobbes's works that, given the account of conflict in

Chapter 13, the dilemma all people face in the state of

nature can be pictured using game theoretic tools, in

particular the device of the prisoner's dilemma matrix. 1~

Suppose we consider two people A and B in the state of

nature. Each person has seized a number of goods, wants

more, and hungrily eyes the goods seized by the other.

Each has the choice of invading in order to seize the goods, or refraining from doing so. They reason as the following

payoff matrix indicates:

A

B

not invade invade

not invade 3,3 1,4

invade 4,1 2,2

Each person has a choice of performing one of two actions,

and the numbers in the boxes of the matrix correspond

to their preference orderings (1 is lowest, 4 is highest) for

the state of affairs represented by that box. A ' s preference

orderings are on the left; B 's preference orderings are on the right. Let us consider A's preference orderings first. A reasons that if she and B do not invade one another's territory, each will be able to hold on to the goods they

have thus far procured, a situation which she rates with a

'3 ' (the upper left box). But she also appreciates that if

she does not invade, and B does, then she will most likely

be without any of her goods, enslaved to B, with her self-

preservation seriously endangered, a situation she rates with

a '1 ' (the upper right box). On the other hand, if she invades

and B does not, she will be the master and B the loser, with her power significantly augmented; this is her favorite outcome (rated '4', the lower left box). If both invade, the

situation is poor - the life of each is endangered but war is

at least better than total domination in that each has a chance of "winning it all", whereas if the other is the victor

everything is lost and death a likely possibility (therefore

rated a '2 ' - the lower right box). And if we consider B's preferences for the various outcomes, we see they are

symmetric with hers. But this means that, no matter what

the other person does, it is rational for each person in this

situation to be uncooperative. If the other cooperates, the

first player gains more if he/she doesn't. If the other doesn't

cooperate, once again he/she gains more by not cooperating.

Thus, the PD matrix shows how, in game theoretic lan-

guage, each person in the state of nature finds the action of

invasion "dominates" over the action of non-invasion, in so

far as it "maximizes his security level". But more impor-

tant, it pictures the way in which the predominant cause of

invasion is each person's rational pursuit of self-interest.

So is the rationality account of conflict an adequate

foundation for Hobbes's political conclusion and also

consistent with other premisses in his political argument?

Alas, like the passions account, it fails in both ways. Note

that accepting the rationality account essentially means

abandoning the idea that there are valid hypothetical

imperatives dictating peace. In other words, it means abandoning the idea that there are valid laws of nature. No

matter what your fellow human beings do, you are right

not to cooperate with them. For example, if they keep

their part of a bargain with you, you are right to renege. If they do not keep their part of a bargain with you, again

you are right to renege. Thus accepting the account means

abandoning the idea that these hypothetical imperatives have any kind of validity in that state, and Hobbes did not

want to do that. While he did indeed want to say that no

one should follow these laws, he still maintained that they

were valid in a certain way: he says in Chapter 15 that they are "in foro interno valid" although "in foro externo" not. These words are rather mysterious, and we shall be pursuing their meaning later, but suffice it to say here that accepting the rationality account would simply mean abandoning the

idea that the laws of nature had any validity whatsoever. The fool's position would have to be Hobbes's own. Clearlyl Hobbes was terribly uncomfortable with this, and we

52 JEAN HAMPTON

should not rest content until and unless we can come up

with an account of conflict which allows us not to have to attribute to him the fool's position on the rationality of total non-cooperation.

But there is another reason for abandoning the rationali-

ty account, and this reason might well explain Hobbes's insistence in Chapter 15 that it is wrong. That reason is that the account doesn't seem to be true! It would be true if

people really were in one-time PD game situations in the state of nature, but a number of critics have argued that

they are not, and that they are in fact in multi-play PD

games. 11 And because any prisoner's dilemma they are in

now is likely to be part of a series of these situations extending indefinitely into the future rather than a one-

time occurrence, it is no longer the case that non-cooperation is clearly the best strategy for them to take. To present

this argument, let us use the action of "keeping a contract" as an example of a cooperative venture. If the contractual PD game were sure to be played by two parties in the state of nature only once, the action of reneging on the contract would be the most rational action for both. But, there are parties to a bargain in the natural state who know they will have good reason to contract with each other in the future, and while they know the action of breach is rational in the short run (i.e. in the first game), in the long run they know

this act will result in depriving them of their benefits from future bargains by establishing distrust between them and putting the action of breach in equilibrium. Hence, the argument is that because contractual activity between people in the state of nature is likely to be frequent and

open-ended, 12 the keeping of a contract is always rational because in addition to supplying each with the benefits of

that particular bargain, it acts as a signal to each party that

the other party will keep contracts in the future, and thus enables both to reap the long term profits of constant contractual activity.

Even if one of the parties behaves irrationally by breaking his contractual promise in the first (or successive)games, this "iterated PD game" argument counsels that the long run benefits accruing from faithful contract-keeping would prompt the other party to continue to keep his part of the bargain for a time in order to try to "teach" the other to choose the promise-keeping act. The idea would be to make the other realize that it is in his best interest to reward rather than to punish his partner's cooperative act, because otherwise he will be forcing his partner to renege in forthcoming games, and a pattern of contractual breaches will be established which will deprive both of them of the benefits of future bargains. 13 So the argument would have us

conclude that the Chapter 13 account of conflict is wrong, that rationality counsels cooperation rather than conflict.

Not only does this iterated PD argument for the rationality of contract-keeping seem correct, it may even be right to say that it is a plausible interpretation and development of Hobbes's remarks in his answer to the fool. As we have discussed, Hobbes appeals to the benefits of confederacy in this passage in order to persuade us that contract-keeping

is rational, and these benefits would certainly be among the present and future contractual benefits which the iterated PD argument relies on in order to establish the rationality

of keeping any particular bargain. Indeed, modern critics llke Michael Taylor and Edna Ullman-Margalit have inter-

preted Hobbes's remarks on the benefits of confederacy as

an attempt at making the iterated PD argument. 14 In any case, the natural way in which the argument links coopera-

tion with self-preservation makes it fit well with Hobbes's psychology so that it seems to be an argument he shouM have made, even if he didn't clearly see how to do this in

Chapter 15. But if Hobbes accepts the iterated PD argument, he has accepted the idea that reason dictates coopera-

tion. And this means that conflict must be a function of people's irrationality, not their rationality. Thus, accepting

this argument seems to force Hobbes to fall back on the passions account of conflict, which we have already seen is inadequate.

So Hobbes appears to be in a real jam. The rationality account of conflict which it seems that he needs in order to draw his political conclusions is an account which does not follow from the premisses of his argument; and when the passions account (presupposing the iterated PD game argument) is interpreted such that it is consistent with those

premisses, it does not, in turn, allow him to draw these political conclusions. All of this has provided us with an

interesting lesson in the trials and hazards of philosophical theory building! Hobbes's premisses motivate the answer to the fool and thus the passions account of conflict; Hobbes's conclusion appears to presuppose the account of conflict (generating total war) in Chapter 13. Alas for Hobbes, the two accounts conflict.

But what if we could come up with an account of conflict which had all of the advantages of the passions and rationality accounts, but had none of either account's disadvantages? Such an account would fit with Hobbes's psychological premisses and yet generate enough warfare in the state of nature to make the institution of an absolute sovereign necessary to end it. Moreover, it would explain this conflict while still making it possible for Hobbes to argue that people would be able to carry out that institu-


tion. I shall now try to construct such an account. And I believe there is enough textual evidence to indicate that Hobbes would not only welcome this account of conflict but may even have been confusedly trying to make it in

both De Cive and Leviathan. We have already seen the way in which the argument for

the rationality of contract-keeping in iterated PD situations

fits well with Hobbes's psychological premisses, so let us accept what seemed inescapable before: that given those

premisses, this argument is correct. But can we accept this argument and still say that circumstances are such in the state of nature that people (for either rational or irrational reasons) treat prisoner's dilemmas as one-time occurrences rather than as members of a series? If we could do so, we would be acknowledging the soundness of the iterated PD argument for cooperation but still endorsing, in the main,

Hobbes's Chapter 13 account of conflict! This would mean reconciling Hobbes's account of conflict in Chapter 13 with

his argument against the fool in Chapter 15. Let us see what this argument looks like.

There is, quite clearly, one circumstance which would force people to take a single-play perspective. In high-risk situations, where one could suffer crippling losses if the other party reneged and took advantage of one's coopera-

tion, it seems irrational to engage in a strategy of cooperating in order to teach one's partner to do the same since one is unable to absorb the loss that might be involved in the teaching.

But it appeared before that if we accepted the iterated PD game argument, we could only predict pervasive conflict in these high-risk situations; cooperation in situations of lesser risk would, it seemed, be rational. The only disrup-

ters of rationality in these situations appeared to be passions

competing with self-preservation (such as the passion for glory), and if we postulated that these passions were prominent and pervasive enough to generate almost total warfare, we would be contradicting Hobbes's psychological description of human beings and endangering the widespread applicability of his hypothetical imperative to institute a sovereign.

But our acceptance of the iterated PD argument does

not commit us to the passions account of conflict we previously rejected. While it certainly commits us to an explanation of conflict in medium and low-risk situations which blames such non-cooperation both on people's

irrationality and others' fear of it, the argument still does not prevent us from endorsing the main outlines of the Chapter 13 account of conflict because there is something besides disruptive passions that could force a person to

take a single-play perspective in a prisoner's dilemma: shortsightedness. The account would contend that many people fail, for one reason or another, to appreciate the long-term benefits of cooperation, and opt instead for the short-term benefits of non-cooperation, and the rest are legitimately fearful enough of this shortsightedness af- flicting their partner to doubt whether cooperation would have any educative effects. This worry, plus the risks of cooperating, could then force a person to take a single-play orientation, with the result that the uncooperative action would dominate.

But exactly why is the shortsighted person irrational? Why should we condemn him for his "live for the moment" mentality given that this is presumably the approach to life which he wants to take? If we attribute to Hobbes an

instrumental conception of rationality which is consistent

both with his psychology and with the subjectivist meta- ethics strongly suggested in Leviathan, then there is no way

in which reason can dictate apart from a person's desires

that future profits "ought" to take precedence over present ones. But a person can be condemned as irrational on this

account if (and only if) his pursuing present profits over greater future profits is a poor way of achieving the satisfaction of his desires, and in particular the desire for the object

he supposedly cares about most: his self-preservation. Remember that this desire generates in human beings not

only immediate preferences for certain objects but also future preferences for these or other objects, and pursuing

self-preservation effectively can mean postponing or denying oneself the gratification of a present desire in order to be able to gratify a future desire more closely connected with the avoidance of death (for example, not satisfying a desire to eat large meals in the summer in order to have enough food to eat in the winter). However, the fact that reason can dictate the gratification of a future desire over a present one is not because of anything about reason per se, but

only because of what the pre-eminent desire for self-preservation demands if this goal is going to be effectively pur- sued.

There is important textual evidence in De Cive that we

are on the right track in attributing this shortsightedness account of conflict to Hobbes. In that work, Hobbes actually offers the following explanation of why people fight with one another in the state of nature:

...because men cannot put off this same irrational appetite, whereby they greedily prefer the present good (to which, by strict consequence, many unforeseen evils do adhere) before the future... (DC, EW ii, iii, 32, 48) ts

and in the same work he invokes short-sightedness to

54 JEAN HAMPTON

explain why people do not obey the laws o f nature:

most men, by reason of their perverse desire of present profit, are very unapt to observe these laws, although acknowledged by them... (DC, EW ii, iii, 27, 45)

This "perverse desire of present profit" seems to be the

irrational grasping at short-term advantage. Hobbes labels it

"greed" in the first passage, and greed is frequently cited as

a cause of conflict in Leviathan; for example when he

blames "avarice" in Chapter 14 for the failure of contracts

in the state of nature. (See Lev, 14, 18, 68)

It is also significant that Hume, whose A Treatise of Human Nature shows a deep indebtedness to Hobbes's

Leviathan in so many ways, should have espoused what

appear to be the main outlines of this account to explain the generation o f violence in a state o f nature:

You have the same propension, that I have, in favour of what is contiguous above what is remote. You are, therefore, naturally carried to commit acts of injustice as well as me. Your example both pushes me forward in this way by imitation, and also affords me a new reason for any breach of equity, by shewing me, that I should be the cully of my integrity, if I alone shou'd impose on myself a severe restraint amidst the licentiousness of others. 16

Perhaps Hume developed this account because he was

influenced by the suggestive passages from De Cive and

Leviathan just quoted. Or perhaps he simply realized the

power and plausibility o f this account of warfare. But

Hobbes can also use this powerful and plausible account to

good advantage in his social contract argument, and the

textual evidence indicates he was at least dimly aware o f

this fact.

But why would there be people in the state o f nature

who would mistakenly take a shortsighted perspective in their pursuit o f self-preservation? Hobbes does not say, but

we can, on his behalf, isolate four plausible sources o f

shortsightedness in this state, two of which have to do with

certain psychological features of some human beings, and the other two of which have to do with the way in which cooperative situations could be mistakenly interpreted by

many people in this state. The first psychological feature inclining someone towards

shortsighted reasoning is the tendency to incorrectly "discount" the future; specifically it is the tendency to reason incorrectly such that one does not regard future events as fully "real". The discounter knows that future events will occur, but has trouble taking them as seriously as the events he is presently experiencing or will shortly experience. This leads him in his deliberations to discount the benefits he would receive in the future because he has, as it were,

trouble "believing" in them. And the more distant the

benefit, the harder it is for him to take it seriously in his

calculations.

The failure to regard long-term benefits as real could be

a significant source of shortsightedness in the state o f

nature. The distance in time of these benefits, and the

immediate temptation o f the short-term advantages, could easily cause a self-interested person to discount them entirely, and to content herself with "the bird in the hand"

rather than the seemingly unreal prospect o f "two in the bush". And of course, if people treated a cooperative situa-

tion as a single-play PD game, the uncooperative action would dominate over the cooperative action. 17

The other psychological characteristic inclining people

towards a short-sighted perspective is extreme risk aversion. As we have already noted, the non-cooperative action is the correct maximin strategy in a high-risk PD situation. Even

when one knows that this situation might recur again and

again, the way to minimize one's potential losses is to

refrain from cooperation. And while it is arguably reasonable

to follow this strategy in high-risk situations, it seems

decidedly wrong in short-term situations. One should, it

seems, weigh the risks o f future losses (which in this kind of

situation would not be crippling) against the prospect of

significant future benefits, and opt to pursue those benefits.

However, there might be highly risk averse people in the

state of nature who could not do this, and who would try

to protect themselves no matter what profits they lost by

so doing. Once again, the proponent o f the iterated PD

argument would think there was something wrong with

these people's reasoning processes such that they were

drawing a mistaken conclusion, and that true safety would

actually be gained only if they risked cooperation. But it is the kind of reasoning mistake which Hobbes could plausibly

argue was a significant source of shortsightedness in the natural state.

If Hobbes could only cite these two psychological

"weaknesses" as causes of shortsighted reasoning in the state

of nature, he could not plausibly claim shortsightedness to

be very common in that state. The number of people in the

human population whose reasoning is distorted by extreme risk aversion or the mistaken discounting o f future benefits is not very great. However, Hobbes can also claim that there are two ways in which generally good reasoners who

do not _have these psychological tendencies could incorrectly interpret the situation in the state of nature, and

these incorrect interpretations are both natural enough that between them they could generate substantial shortsightedness in this state. First, the iterated nature of the prisoner's dilemma might not be obvious to some of the less intellec-


tually talented inhabitants of this state; it might never even occur to these people that they should take a multi-play

perspective and/or they might not be mentally acute enough

to work out the long-term benefits of cooperation. Such

people would prefer the short-term advantages of non-

cooperation simply because they did not understand that

the long-term advantages of cooperation were much greater.

Second, and most important of all, even if it did occur

to them that they might be in an iterated prisoner's dilem-

ma game where substantial long-term benefits make coop-

eration rational, they might decide, nonetheless, to reject

such a characterization of their situation on the grounds that future contractual interactions with their present

partners was too remote to warrant it. Remember that in

the state of nature people are supposed to be independent

of a// society. And it would be natural in such a situation

for a person to treat a prisoner's dilemma as a one-time

occurrence given the small chances of interacting with this

person again and the over-all uncertainties of this state.

In other words, establishing future cooperative ties would

seem too unlikely to make a multi-play perspective rational.

Indeed, such calculations do not seem badly wrong. Propo-

nents of the iterative PD argument would insist, of course,

that they are wrong because even if accidental meetings

with other human beings were rare, the vicissitudes of this

state would make it rational for them to seek out coopera-

tive interactions with one another so as to better deal with

the natural and man-made problems of living. (Consider,

for example, the benefits of forming a confederacy con-

tract.) The reasoner in this state believes incorrectly that

the chances of her interacting again with her fellows are

independent of what she does; she does not appreciate that

she can actually pursue cooperative interactions with her

fellows which, if successfully completed, could benefit her and them substantially (for example, building bridges over

streams, plowing fields, engaging in joints hunts for game).

It does not, however, occur to her that the chances of future cooperative interactions with others in this state are in large part up to her, and this does seem to be a very reasonable mistake, making it plausible that many people in the state

of nature would make it. This mistake would lead a person

not to cooperate with her partner, fully believing non- cooperation to be the rational course of action in what she

would regard as, to all intents and purposes, a single-play prisoner's dilemma. Indeed, in De Homine Hobbes seems to credit "mistaken" shortsightedness as a persistent feature of human reasoning disruptive of an effective pursuit

of self-preservation when he explains the difference between "real" and "apparent" good:

Whence it happens that inexperienced men that do not look closely enough at long-term consequences of things, accept what appears to be good, not seeing the evil annexed to it; afterwards they experience damage. (DH, xi, 4, 48; my italics)~8

The idea seems to be that "inexperienced" people are apt

to make mistakes about what actions will further their

best interests in the long run and mistakenly pursue short-

term advantages. Relevant to his argument Hobbes can thus

say that such inexperienced people can easily fail to see

how they can act in certain ways so as to make profitable

interaction between themselves and others frequent, and

believe (erroneously) instead that the probability of interacting with any of their fellow human beings in the natural

state has to be estimated to be quite low.

For these four reasons, it would be plausible (or at least

arguable) for Hobbes to claim that this shortsightedness is very common in the state of nature. Indeed, the fourth cause of shortsightedness suggests how prevalent this

perspective would be, simply because the belief that one

will not interact frequently with one's fellows in this a-

social state is not obviously wrong. (What would you

think if you were in this state?) However, Hobbes does not

have to take the unreasonable position that everyone suffers

in the state of nature from some sort of shortsightedness in order to explain the origination of wide-spread conflict.

Those who are good calculators of their long-term self-

interest and who therefore do recognize the rationality of

cooperation established by the iterated PD game argument,

would rarely find it rational to cooperate if this short-

sightedness were common in others. If each party to a

contract knows there is a high probability that his partner

is too shortsighted to be able to be "taught" to cooperate, he will not think his cooperative action overly likely to

bring him benefits of future bargains. Instead, he will

think there is a very good chance that his partner will fail

to understand his strategy, and thus end up believing him

to be a "sucker" in this (from the partner's perspective)

single-play PD game. Nor would he think that, as a rational member of the state of nature, he had much chance of developing a "trustworthy" reputation enabling him to reap future contractual benefits as long as this short-

sightedness was common, because the prospective partners

of any future contracts would be more likely to see any

previous contract-keeping as establishing one's reputation as a "sucker" rather than as a trustworthy promise-keeper.

These considerations would mean that the cooperative action is risky in the state of nature; whether one should

take the risk depends upon the probability that one's partner will renege, the extent of the damage his reneging

56 JEAN HAMPTON

would inflict, and the probability, if he did renege, that he could be educated by your cooperation to cooperate himself in the future. Clearly, as we have said, in high risk situations contract-keeping would be too dangerous for a person who was committed to self-preservation to perform.

And in low-risk situations, Hobbes could insist that the widespread short-sightedness of the natural state's inhabit-

ants would make the probability of one's partner reneging

and failing to learn anything from one's own cooperative act high enough such that an expected utility calculation

would likely dictate against cooperation. Consider, for

example, how it would affect a contract between two people to exchange his horse for her cow. If each knows there is a fairly high probability that the other will treat this as a one-time prisoner's dilemma, each will know there

is a fairly high probability that the other will renege on his or her promise, making the expected losses greater than the

expected gains.

But the situation is actually worse than this. I might believe that you are rational, and I might also be rational and thus willing to cooperate, but I might fear that you thought I was shortsighted. This fear would then cause me to worry that you would take a single-play perspective and behave uncooperatively in self-defense, leading me to take the same single-play perspective and thus to behave uncooperatively. In other words, in order for cooperation to be ensured, there must either be common knowledge among the partners in a cooperative situation that each of the

others is rational, or each must believe that the probability

of her fellows believing her rational is quite high, so that an expected utility calculation would dictate cooperation. Hobbes would certainly argue that this "common knowledge" or "common belief" assumption is very strong, and

unlikely to be present among many collections of people in the state of nature.

Note also how any tendency towards substantial risk aversion could cause you to over-estimate the probabilities

that )our partner was shortsighted and thus to incorrectly conclude that cooperation was irrational after an expected utility calculation. 19 Indeed, such over-estimates could be

innocently but incorrectly made by normally risk-averse people; evidence of the extent of one's partner's farsighted- ness might, after all, be hard to come by in this state.

There is another effect which knowledge of the wide-

spread existence of shortsighted people can have on the rational reasoners in the state of nature. The more convinced I am that shortsightedness is common in the state of nature, the less interested I will be in actually seeking out interaction with my fellows in this state with an eye towards

actively cooperating with them, because I will fear that by doing so I would only be foolishly exposing myself to the dangers of exploitation and/or open conflict. But the less inclined I am to seek out interactions with my fellows, the

lower the probability that I will interact with any of them again, and thus the less likely it will be that I can expect any long-term benefits of cooperation with them. These calculations dispose me, once again, to take a single-play perspective and hence not to cooperate with my partners in a prisoner's dilemma.

In the end, this account of conflict cites both shortsightedness and the (rational or irrational) fear of it in one's

partner as the reason why people in this state of nature generally behave exactly as Hobbes characterized them in Chapter 13, despite the correctness of the iterated prisoner's dilemma argument about which he (at least) hints in

Chapter 15. That is, people are generally disposed to com-

pete violently with and exploit one another in this state

rather than disposed to behave cooperatively towards one another, because they are too shortsighted to understand the benefits of cooperation or because they conclude after

an expected utility calculation that, given the likelihood that their partner either suffers from this shortsightedness, or believes them to suffer from it, the cooperative action just doesn't "pay".

Of course, there might be situations where one estimated

the probabilities and utilities such that an expected utility calculation actually would dictate cooperation. Hence, this account of conflict could not, like the rationality account, rule out the possibility of cooperation in the way the latter account does unless it presupposed that sortsightedness was universal - an implausible assumption. But as long as the argument only makes this kind of fallacious reasoning very common, the dangers of cooperation would seem to be enough to make conflict even in low-risk situations very widespread, making the state of nature almost a state of total war, and this is probably good enough for Hobbes's purposes. Although the account admits that a few people will have established patterns of cooperation among them-

selves in the state of nature, it maintains nonetheless that the vast majority will not have done so, and will be disposed to fight with one another in the way that, as Hobbes himself puts it, "foul weather" tends to result in rain (see Lev, 13, 8, 62). This means that genuine peace could be achieved in this state only by a ruler with the power to create the possibility o / cooperation, and not by one merely with the limited power to police pre-existing patterns - for almost none exist.

How is this account different from the passions account


previously sketched? The previous account explained

conflict by reference to certain passions, like the passion

for glory, which were said to interfere with one's rational

pursuit of self-interest. The problem with this explanation

was, as we saw, that either these passions were taken to be

extremely powerful in much of the populat ion, in which

case we purchased pervasive warfare but at the price of a

description of human beings at odds with Hobbes 's psychol-

ogy and one that made the applicabili ty of his hypothetical

imperative to insti tute a sovereign uncertain at best; or

these passions were understood to be no more common

that Hobbes's psychology would have us believe, in which

case there would be far too much cooperation in the state

of nature to make a ruler with absolute power necessary

for the achievement of peace. The account of conflict just

sketched, however, establishes almost total war in the

natural state and is nonetheless completely consistent with

Hobbes's psychology. It explains conflict by reference, not

to disruptive passions, but to fallacious reasoning, and this

can be held to be extremely common among the inhabitants

of the state of nature without in any way endangering

Hobbes 's psychological characterization of human beings

because it is a mistake that people who are predominantly

concerned about their self-preservation not only could but

would naturally make. It seems plausible to suppose that

many people who were terribly worried about preserving

themselves, and wound up generally in their own concerns,

would naturally grasp at short-term advantages, many of

them fearful that doing anything else would be foolish.

However, this account can certainly be supplemented by

an explanation for conflict that blames glory for at least

some of the warfare in the natural state. Hobbes 's psychol-

ogy recognizes that we are moved by other desires which

occasionally (although not usually) compete with and win

against self-preservation. As long as these desires are not

held to be very prominent or powerful among the popula-

t ion generally, Hobbes can invoke them to supplement the

previous two causes of conflict. Indeed, perhaps this is what

he meant to do in Chapter 13 - that is, perhaps he meant

to say that people 's believing, either rightly or wrongly,

that they were in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma was the

chief source of conflict in the state of nature, while ir-

rational passions such as the desire for glory were minor,

although not unimportant , disrupters of cooperation in

that state. Given that our new interpretat ion of the Chapter

13 account of conflict doesn' t establish total conflict, and

doesn' t implicate rat ionali ty as the sole source of conflict,

there is no theoretical obstacle preventing Hobbes from blaming passions like glory for at least some of the conflict

in the natural state.

However, the desire for glory can actually be used to

bolster the shortsightedness account of conflict. As Hobbes

himself says in The Elements of Law, people who suffer

from "vainglory" are "indisposed to allow equality with

themselves to others" (EL of L, English Works, Vol. ii, 14,

chapter heading, 70) and "hope for precedency and superi-

ority above their fellows" (EL of L, English Works, Voi. ii,

14, 3, 71). And because we want and even need to see ourselves as powerful and superior, even though we are not,

we are liable to underestimate our opponent ' s powers and

overestimate our own. Thus emboldened, we will be more

likely to think it reasonable to wage war with him or her.

To put it more exactly, it affects the probabilities o f our

expected util i ty calculation. We will tend to overestimate

the probabil i ty of our winning a conflict and underestimate

the probabil i ty of being beaten by our opponent , and that

will make our calculation more likely to favor warfare.

This Hobbesian idea, suggested in The Elements of Law, seems to be on solid psychological ground. I doubt whether

many soldiers at the start of a war have seriously doubted

that their side will win. A Hobbesian would say that this is the

human ego talking, leading people to wage war "for gain",

or to make what they believe will be effective preemptive

strikes. Moreover, other people's fear that the effects of

ego may lead their partners to make this kind of miscalcula-

t ion will make them less likely to trust their partners, and

more likely to turn to violence themselves. As Hobbes

himself says in De Cive:

All men in the state of nature have a desire and will to hurt, but not proceeding from the same cause, neither equally to be condemned. For one man, according to that natural equality which is among us, permits as much to others as he assumes to himself; which is an argument of a temperate man, and one that rightly values his power. Another, supposing himself above others, will have a licence to do what he lists, and challenges respect and honour, as due to him before others; which is an argument of a fiery spirit. This man's will to hurt ariseth from vain glory, and the false esteem he hath of his own strength; the other's from the necessity of defending himself, his liberty, and his goods, against this man's violence. (DC, EW ii, I, 4, 7)

If you know that your partner is disposed to think herself

more powerful than she is, and thus disposed to think she

could win a confrontat ion with you, you are fearful of

making yourself prey to her violence, and thus become

disposed to "defensive" violence yourself.

So far, the shortsightedness account of conflict has

passed two tests of acceptabil i ty: it seems to generate

enough conflict to make it plausible that only an absolute

sovereign can bring about peace, and it appears to be

consistent with Hobbes 's psychology. There is also, how-

58 JEAN HAMPTON

ever, some textual evidence that Hobbes may even have

been trying to make this argument in Leviathan and De

Cive. We have already quoted two passages from the latter

book in which Hobbes blames shortsightedness for warfare

in the natural state. Moreover, given that he gave both the

Chapter 13 account o f conflict and the answer to the fool

in Leviathan, and given that the shortsightedness account

o f conflict allows us to find a way to accept both passages

as correct, it might be that Hobbes was actually aiming at

this account o f conflict in both passages, albeit doing so in

a way that suggested two opposing explanations of conflict-

generation. However, as we shall now explore, this account

allows us to give a very successful interpretat ion o f Hobbes 's

remarks in Leviathan and De Cive on the validity of the

laws of nature, giving us perhaps the best evidence that it

was an account he was at least trying to promulgate in both

those books.

As we have already discussed, Hobbes characterizes his

laws o f nature as hypothet ical imperatives, that is, conclu-

sions or theorems designed to specify actions that will be

means to one 's self-preservation. However, he is very hazy

about the nature o f these laws' validity:

The Lawes of Nature oblige in foro interno; that is to say, they bind to a desire they should take place: but in foro externo ; that is, to the putting them in act, not alwayes. For he that should be modest, and tractable, and performe all he promises, in such time, and place, where no man els should do so, should but make himselfe a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruine, contrary to the ground of all Lawes of Nature, which tend to Natures preservation. (Lev, 15, 36, 79)

Clearly it is to stop his readers from thinking that these

laws provide a full remedy for the warfare in the state of

nature that Hobbes qualifies the laws' validity, saying that

some of them are only "in foro interno" valid and not "in

foro externo" valid. But what do these peculiar terms

mean? From Hobbes 's remarks in Chapter 15 we know that

the peculiar validity these laws have has something to do

with not making oneself a "prey" to others. And in Hobbes 's

statement o f the second law of nature, there is a "directive"

built into the law i tsel f to determine the willingness o f

one 's partner to perform the peaceful action before deciding

to do so oneself. It is right, he says,

That a man be willing, when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defence of himselfe 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 himselfe. (Lev, 14, 5, 64-65; my emphasis)

These two passages therefore suggest that the laws have the

following structure:

If you seek peace (which is a means to your preservation), then do action x, as long as others are willing to do x.

In other words, the laws of nature are to be understood as

hypothet ical imperatives with a rider attached to them

which specifies the condit ions under which doing x is

rational.

Exact ly w h y this rider must be at tached to each of these

laws is explained by the disruptive role which the account

of conflict just developed assigns to our shortsightedness.

According to this account, the rider has to be at tached to

these laws because only then will they be true hypothet ical

imperatives. Each of the actions mentioned in the laws

leads to peace, and involves cooperat ion with others. But

each action will only lead to peace if not only you but also

your cooperative partner(s) engage in the action. For

example, your contract-keeping will further your self-

preservation by leading to peace only if your contractual

partner is willing to do likewise. I f he reneges while you

keep, your self-preservation has been damaged, and your

chances for peace in the future diminished. According to

the iterated PD argument, if we can determine that our

partner appreciates this point now, or would appreciate this

point in the future after a little educative help from us, his

willingness to perform these peaceful actions should cause

us to perform them also. Doing so will generate a coopera-

tive equilibrium, and a state o f peace, rather than a state of

competit ive violence. Thus, the iterated PD argument helps

us to understand the mysterious phrase "in foro interno

valid": Hobbes uses it to endorse the laws as true hypothet-

ical imperatives. They correctly describe to us how we can

preserve ourselves by telling us ways of achieving peace,

ways which will be effective means to this goal as long as a

certain condit ion is fulfilled - the willingness of others to

perform these peace-producing actions also.

But the shortsightedness of men and their occasional

tendency to seek glory before anything else explains why

these laws are "in foro externo invalid" in the state o f

nature. That phrase simply means that the actions which

the laws direct ought not to be performed in the state of

nature, because the rider at tached to these laws will no t be

satisfied in this state. According to the shortsightedness

account o f conflict, although cooperat ion is rational, the

prevalence of shortsighted and glory-prone people will

mean one usually cannot risk cooperat ion oneself because

one cannot be sure enough in most cooperative situations

that one's partner will be cooperative (or learn to cooperate).

So the fact that the rider to these laws would rarely, if

ever, be satisfied would mean that the actions dictated by

the laws should not be performed. And remember that this


was the explanation of people 's not following the laws of

nature actually given by Hobbes in De Cive: "Most men, by

reason of their perverse desire of present profit , are very

unapt to observe these laws, although acknowledged by

them". (DC, EW ii, iii, 27, 45)

So it seems we have arrived at the conclusion we wanted.

First, we have presented an account of conflict consistent

with Hobbes 's psychology which, because it reconciles his

seemingly inconsistent remarks in Chapters 13 and 15 on the

origins of conflict in the state of nature, and because it fits

with certain things he says in De Cive and Leviathan, would

appear to be an account Hobbes actually meant (and was

trying to) espouse. And second, that account enables us to

understand how the laws of nature can be interpreted,

consistent with Hobbes 's psychology and ethical subjec-

tivism, as true hypothet ical imperatives presupposing the

desire for peace and self-preservation which, nonetheless,

people should not follow in the state of nature.

But is this an account which allows Hobbes to argue that,

despite their violence against one another, people in the

state of nature could nonetheless institute an absolute

sovereign? As we saw earlier, this was a serious problem

for the old passions account of conflict which could explain

total warfare in the natural state only by making the cause

of conflict, i.e. disruptive passions, so powerful and wide-

spread that it was unlikely people in this state could act on

a hypothetical imperative to institute a sovereign. Because

the shortsightedness account does not challenge Hobbes 's

psychology, people who are afflicted with shortsightedness

or who fear it are still able to institute a sovereign if they

perceive that do ing so will advance their self-preservation.

The only concern this account raises is whether short-

sighted people will be able to understand that creating a

sovereign is the only remedy for war. What Hobbes has to

do later in his social contract argument is to contend suc-

cessfully that because fallacious reasoning is widespread,

instructions about the benefits of cooperation won' t work

(shortsightedness, in other words, is hard, if not impossible,

to cure), but that both short and farsighted reasoners will

come to realize that the rational way to deal with this

deep-seated irrationality precipitating warfare is to institute

an absolute sovereign who will make it in one's short-term

interest to cooperate. Finally, Hobbes has to be able to say

that people are just rational enough to be able to perform

the cooperative actions necessary to institute such a sover-

eign. Can Hobbes pull off this project with the short-

sightedness account? Exploring this question requires

lengthy and detailed philosophical work which I cannot

provide here, but which I do provide elsewhere. 2~ Suffice

to say now that the shortsightedness account turns out to

be amazingly sturdy, and the problems Hobbes has at the

later stages of his social contract argument are not a func-

t ion of this account.

However, there remains one final question of importance.

Granted that we have found the right account of conflict

for Hobbes's justification of absolute sovereignty, how

plausible is it? How plausible is the psychology and the

ethical subjectivism upon which it rests, and how plausible

is the claim that uncorrectable shortsightedness is rampant

among human beings? In my view, not very. It might all

seem plausible to a man surrounded by the violent political

environment of the seventeenth century, but many of us

today find the ethical subjectivism suspect, and even

subjectivists find Hobbes 's psychological pronouncements

simplistic and the claim that a great many of us are not

only seriously shortsighted but also ineducable, one that is

exaggerated and unduly pessimistic. But lest we take an

overly rosy view of our capacity to be other-interested and

of our ability to learn to reason successfully, I will quote

from a passage in Leviathan in which Hobbes is clearly

addressing skeptics like us:

It may well seem strange to some man, that has not well weighed these things; that Nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this Inference, made from the Passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by Experience. Let him therefore consider with himselfe, when taking journey, he armes himselfe, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when even in his house he lockes his chests; and this when he knows there bee Lawes, and puhlicke Officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall bee done him; what opinion he has of his feUow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow Citizens when he lockes his dores, and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words? (Lev, 13, 10, 62)

It is an interesting passage upon which to reflect. Daily life

in the twentieth century would certainly suggest that if

Hobbes is wrong, he is unfortunately not far wrong. 21

Notes

This paper was originally presented at the Conference on the History of Ethics at the University of California, Irvine in January 1984, and is drawn from portions of three chapters of my book, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

See Howard Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford, 1957) esp. p. 220ff; and A. E. Taylor, 'The ethical doctrine

60 JEAN HAMPTON

of Hobbes', in Hobbes Studies, ed. by K. Brown (Blackwell, Oxford, 1965), esp. p. 37.

a All references to Leviathan in the text will be as follows: (Lev, chapter number, number of paragraph of chapter in which the passage quoted or cited appe~s, page of 1651 edition in which passage appears). This reference system is designed to allow readers to find the quotation or passage cited no mat ter what edition of Leviathan they use. 4 The Earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde), A Brief View and Survey of... Leviathan (1676), p. 37. s In his article 'Hobbes's concept of obligation' Thomas Nagel explores the problems which prevent a deontological natural law view from being anything but futile given the Hobbesian psychol-

ogy. See Philosophical Review LXVIII (1959), 68ff. I cannot undertake here to explore all of the passages inLeviathan,

De Cive and De Homine in which this subjectivist position is out-

lined, the most important of which are in Leviathan, Chapters 5 and 6, and De Homine, Chapter XI. Hobbes's meta-ethical views are explored at length in Chapter 1 of my book. 7 j .W.N. Watkins, Hobbes's System ofldeas (Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 75-99, and esp. pp. 82-99. 8 I do not have time to give a complete exegesis of this important passage here, but I do so in Chapter 2 of my book, where its relevance to the passions account of conflict is also explored. 9 Hume, ,4 Treatise o f Human Nature, III, II, ii. 10 Many have had the idea of using the prisoner's dilemma matrix to interpret Hobbes's remarks in Leviathan. For example, see John Rawls, A Theory o f Justice (Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 1971) p. 269; Michael Taylor, Anarchy and Cooperation (London, 1976), Chapter 6; Brian Barry, Political Argument (London, 1965), pp. 253-4. David Gauthier challenges this interpretation on the basis of Hobbes's remarks in his "answer to the fool" in Chapter 15; see Gautliier's The Logic o f Leviathan (The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969), pp. 76-89. Edna Ullman-Margalit also discusses the answer

to the fool passage in her book The Emergence o f Norms (The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977), pp. 62-73, and I will be dealing with her discussion later in this article. tl For a recent argument to this effect, see Gregory Kavka, 'Hobbes's war of all against all', Ethics 93 (1983), 291-310. 12 For a discussion of the argument, see R. D. Luce and H. Raiffa, Games and Decisions (John Wiley and Sons, New York 1957), pp.

98-99.

is Robert Axelrod has conducted computer experiments using

different strategies for dealing with iterated prisoner's dilemmas and has found that cooperative strategies in these situations amass considerably more "utility" points than non-cooperative strategies. See his 'Effective choice in the prisoner's dilemms', Journal o f Conflict Resolution 24 (1980), 3-25; and his 'More effective choice in the prisoner's dilemma', Journal of Conflict Resolution 24 (1980), 379-403. 14 See Edna Ullman-Margalit, The Emergence o f Norms (The

Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977), pp. 62-73. The repetitive PD game idea is also discussed by Michael Taylor in Anarchy & Coop- eration, Chapter 6, Section 1, especially p. l l2ff , as a way of explicating Hobbes's arguments for the rationality of contract- keeping. Finally, Gregory Kavka discusses it in 'Hobbes's war of all against all' [in Ethics 93 (1983), 291-310], viewing it correctly as a criticism of the Chapter 13 account of conflict but not seeing how, in fact, it provides a good interpretation of Hobbes's remarks in the

answer to the fool. ~5 All references to De Cive in the text are to the edition of that work in Molesworth's English Works o f Thomas Hobbes. Citations are as follows: (DC, Vol. ii of English Works, chapter number, section number, page number). 16 A Treatise o f Human Nature, III, ii, vii, p. 535 in Selby-Bigge edition. 17 This appears to be the most significant source of shortsighted reasoning in Hume's eyes. See the Treatise, III, ii, vii, (esp. pp.

535-7 in the Selby-Bigge edition). 18 References to De Homine are to Bernard Gert's translation in

Man and Citizen, ed. by Gert (Humanities Press, 1968). The references have the following form: (DH, chapter number, section number, page number in Gert's edition). 19 I am indebted to Don Hubin for suggesting this point. 20 See Chapters 4 - 7 of my book.

al I would like to thank Christopher Morris, Brian Barry, Don

Hubin, and those who attended the conference on the History of Ethics at UC Irvine for fruitful discussions of some of the ideas in this paper.

University o f California, Dept. o f Philosophy,

Los Angeles, CA 90024, U.S.A.

hobbes's state of war

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