Humanities 3V. The Scientific Revolution

Lecture 24

Forming a Commonwealth

Outline

• The Problem of Politics in the 17th c.

• The Argument of Leviathan

• Laws of Nature

• Forming a Commonwealth

What Is Hobbes’ Problem?• What is the basis of political sovereignty?• That is, on what grounds, or by what right, does

anyone hold the office of sovereign and exercisethe power of the state?– divine right– merely by force (commonwealth by acquisition) [see

chap. 20]– legitimately, as authorized by the subjects of the

sovereign’s rule (commonwealth by institution) [chaps.17-19]

Why Is This an Issue?• Largely because of the state of religion following

the Reformation.• In the face of conflicting religious beliefs:

– No one religion can claim legitimate authority overthose who do not accept it.

– A secular civil authority is necessary to enforcetolerance, i.e. to protect the religious views of theminority against persecution by the majority.

– Another big question: how far should tolerance extend:only Protestants? only Christians? Christians andJews? Only monotheists? Monotheists and deists?Atheists?

Hobbes’ Analysis• Religion and philosophy are inevitably sources of

factionalism and conflict, because they are the sourceof competing normative claims (claims of right andwrong, good and evil, etc.)

• Properly understood, in terms of a scientific theory ofhuman nature, such claims have no objectiveauthority: they are merely expressions of the desiresand aversions of those advancing them.

• Only the state, under the command of a legitimatesovereign, has the power to produce the conditions ofpeace and security under which people can live aswell as they are able.

The Argument of Leviathan• “For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN

called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE…which is but an artificial man, though ofgreater stature and strength than the natural,for whose protection and defense it wasintended; and in which the sovereignty is anartificial soul, as giving life and motion to thewhole body….” (Introduction)

• “The multitude so united in one person iscalled a COMMONWEALTH…. This is thegeneration of that great LEVIATHAN, orrather (to speak more reverently) of thatMortal God to which we owe, under theImmortal God, our peace and defense.”(ch. 17)

• Job 41: 33: “Upon earth there is not his like,who is made without fear.” (KJV)

Hobbes’ Philosophy• Materialism: human beings are just matter in

motion.• Psychology: the basic “passions,” appetite and

aversion, are “small beginnings of motion” towardor away from an object.

• Relativity of good and evil: “there is no commonrule of good and evil to be taken from the objectsthemselves.” We call ‘good’ what we desire; wecall ‘evil’ what we have an aversion to. In theabsence of an authoritative judge, these will differfor different people.

Hobbes on Happiness“Continual success in obtaining those things which aman from time to time desireth, that is to say,continual prospering, is that men call FELICITY; Imean the felicity of this life. For there is no suchthing as perpetual tranquility of mind, while we livehere; because life itself is but motion and can neverbe without desire, nor without fear, no more thanwithout sense. What kind of felicity God hathordained to them that devoutly honor Him, a manshall no sooner know than enjoy, being joys that noware as incomprehensible as the word of school-menbeatifical vision is unintelligible.” (ch. 6)

Hobbes on Religion

• “Fear of power invisible, feigned by themind, or imagined from tales publiclyallowed, RELIGION; not allowed,SUPERSTITION. And when the powerimagined is truly such as we imagine,TRUE RELIGION.” (ch. 6; see also ch. 12)

Moving Fromthe “State of Nature” to

a Commonwealth

“State of Nature” as a Condition of War

• The “state of nature” is the social condition inwhich there is no sovereign capable of making andenforcing laws.

• There is no justice in the state of nature:“The desires and other passions of man are inthemselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceedfrom those passions, till they know a law that forbidsthem—which, till laws be made they cannot know. Norcan any law be made till they have agreed upon theperson that shall make it.” (ch. 13 [10]; cf. [13])

• The war of all against all: “During the time men livewithout a common power to keep them all in awe, theyare in that condition which is called war, and such a waras is of every man against every other man.” [8]

• In the state of nature: there is “no place for industry,”“no culture of the earth,” but only “continual fear anddanger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor,nasty, brutish, and short.” [9]

• Principal causes of quarrel: competition (based onscarcity and natural equality); diffidence (fear of harmfrom another); glory (sense of one's own power). “Thefirst makes men invade for gain, the second for safety, thethird for reputation.” [6]

Leaving the State of Nature“The passions that incline men to seekpeace are fear of death, a desire of suchthings as are necessary to commodiousliving, and a hope by their industry to obtainthem. And reason suggesteth convenientarticles of peace, upon which men may bedrawn to agreement. These articles are theywhich otherwise are called the LAWS OFNATURE…” (ch. 13 [14]; cf. ch. 11 [1])

Hobbes’ Politics• Right of Nature: “the liberty each man hath to use

his own power, as he will himself, for thepreservation of his own nature, that is to say, of hisown life, and consequently of doing anything which,in his own judgment and reason, he shall conceive tobe the aptest means thereunto.” (ch. 14 [1])

• Law of Nature: “a precept or general rule, found outby reason, by which a man is forbidden to do thatwhich is destructive of his life or taketh away themeans of preserving the same and to omit that bywhich he thinks it may be best preserved.” (ch. 14[3])

Laws of Nature and Divine Law

“These dictates of reason men use to call by thename of laws, but improperly; for they are butconclusions or theorems concerning whatconduceth to the conservation and defence ofthemselves, whereas law, properly, is the word ofhim that by right hath command over others. Butyet if we consider the same theorems, as deliveredin the word of God, that by right commandeth allthings; then are they properly called laws.” (ch. 15[41])

Laws of Nature• Fundamental Law of Nature: “that every man ought

to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtainingit, and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek anduse all helps and advantages of war.” (ch. 14 [4])

• Second Law of Nature: “that a man be willing, whenothers are so too, as far-forth as for peace and defenseof himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down hisright to all things, and be contented with so muchliberty against other men as he would allow othermen against himself.” [5]

• Third Law of Nature: “that men perform theircovenants made.” (ch. 15 [1]) [the basis of justice]

Contracts and Covenants• Contract: a “mutual transferring of right.” [9]• Covenant: a contract in which “one of the

contractors may deliver the thing contracted for onhis part and leave the other to perform his part atsome determinate time after (and in the meantimebe trusted). [11]

• Rights that no one can be understood to haveabandoned or transferred: right to defend one'slife, to avoid injury, to escape imprisonment.Why? Because contracting is a voluntary act andall voluntary acts are done for the sake of anapparent good. [8]

Why a Sovereign is Necessary• What guarantees that men observe their covenants?• In the state of nature, nothing. In the state of nature, a

covenant is void, “upon any reasonable suspicion” ofthe trusted party not performing.

• Performance can only be guaranteed by fear, and thispresupposes a common power to enforce it.

• Voluntary agreements in the state of nature areunstable. Thus it is necessary to contract with othermen to create a sovereign: “Covenants without thesword are but words, and of no strength to secure aman at all.” (ch. 17 [2])

Motivation“The final cause, end, or design of men (whonaturally love liberty and dominion over others) inthe introduction of that restraint upon themselvesin which we see them live in commonwealths isthe foresight of their own preservation, and of amore contented life thereby; that is to say, ofgetting themselves out from that miserable state ofwar which is necessarily consequent… to thenatural passions of men, when there is no visiblepower to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear tothe performance of their covenants andobservation of [the] laws of nature.” (ch. 17)

Hobbes’ Thesis: AuthorizationThe only way to erect a common power that canmake and enforce laws is for men “[1] to confer alltheir power and strength upon one man, or upon oneassembly of men that may reduce all their wills, byplurality of voices, unto one will; which is to say, [2]to appoint one man or assembly of men to bear theirperson, and everyone to own and acknowledgehimself to be the author of whatsoever he that sobears their person shall act or cause to be acted inthose things which concern their common peace orsecurity, and therein to submit their wills every oneto his will, and their judgments to his judgment.”(ch. 17 [13])

THE COVENANTOF ALL WITH ALL

“I authorize and give up my right of governing myselfto this man, or to this assembly of men, on thiscondition, that you give up your right to him andauthorize all his actions in like manner.”

• This should be understood not as an historical event insome mythological past, but an obligation undertakenby any subject of a commonwealth (i.e. all of us)