Thomas Hobbes

For his contribution to History of Political Philosophy, Laurence Berns looks at the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, one of the men most responsible for the shift of the Classical/ Medieval paradigm to the modern one. One of the things that is most important to remember about Hobbes is that he has two major intentions. These intentions are as follows: 1) put moral and political philosophy on a scientific basis and 2) contribute to the establishment of civic peace and amity and to the disposing of mankind towards fulfilling civic duties. It also should be remembered that Hobbes represents a radical break in Classical thinking, particularly in regards to the place of natural law as Hobbes keeps natural law, but drastically reformulates it. For Hobbes, natural does exist but is rooted in passion, rather than in reason as the Classical natural law theorists thought it was. Hobbes made this move as he thought the most powerful men of his time had done this.

Hobbes focus on the importance of absolute knowledge that could not be seriously questioned is also a very important element of his thought, It is for this reason that Hobbes considers scientific knowledge to mean mathematical, and particularly geometrical knowledge. For Hobbes, these things are to be admired for their ability to establish absolutes.[1]  According to Hobbes, the philosophy of science proceeds in one of two ways. Those ways are as follows: 1) through the compositive method, which is reasoning from the first and generating causes of all things to their apparent effects and 2) through the resolutive method, which is reasoning from apparent effects, or facts, to the possible causes of their generation. This leads Hobbes to a highly mechanistic theory of understanding people, as people can now be seen as being ruled by their passions.

This mechanical understanding of humanity caused several other significant developments in Hobbes thought as while he does ground his conception of the goals and character of moral and political life in human nature, human nature becomes radically changed so that people are no longer seen as a political or social animal. Rather, human nature is seen as being rooted in pre-social and pre-political conditions. As to what these conditions were, Hobbes sees the pre-social world as a place of fundamental equality. And while this may seem like a good idea to people living in the early 21^st century, for Hobbes such a such a concept of horrifying as this equality was mostly manifested in people having an equal ability to kill each other. These conditions understandably create a good deal of fear as self-preservation is the most powerful passion. Fear plays such an important part of Hobbes’ conception of the world, he even sees ideas such as competition, distrust, and glory   as being rooted in fear. So prevalent is this fear, for Hobbes the state of nature is a state of war as mean war with one another out of fear of being killed. What this means is that people do not come to society because they are naturally inclined to do so, but rather because society is seen as the best way to avoid death, get comfort and attain glory. It also should be noted that Hobbes uses a mechanistic understanding of human nature as he feels that this is the easiest to understand, and thus hopes that his new understanding of human nature can help it be eventually conquered.

Though he is often misunderstood as a sort of proto-fascist, in reality Hobbes can be seen as a liberal, abet a highly authoritarian one, as he sees the obligations of human society as being rooted in individual rights. Individual rights are actually very important to Hobbes, and it is though one of his most influential ideas, the social contract, that people can come to this understanding. His ideas on the social contract also caused Hobbes to reject the notion of Aristotelian distributive justice as Hobbes thought that it overlooked the fact that people come into the social contract under equal conditions which leads to more of an expectation of equality. Furthermore, though Hobbes thinks there is a law of reason, he rejects the notion that reason alone can make people obey it as only fear can do this. Thus, the government is needed to enforce that fear. It should also be noted that ultimately Hobbes sees the commonwealth as a person.

The Hobbesian social contract also has two parts that need to be understood. These two parts are as follows: 1) a covenant of each member of the future civil body with each of the others to acknowledge as sovereign whatever men of assembly of mean a majority of their members decide one and 2) the vote to determine who or what is the sovereign. Once this has been completed, all people are obligated to obey the sovereign due to their signing of the social contract. This obligation extends to future generations as they have tacitly signed the social contract due to their acceptance of protection. Through the notion of the sovereign, Hobbes hopes that a mathematical exactness in political philosophy can be established. According to Hobbes, the first right of the sovereign is the right to punish. This is seen as an exclusive right. Furthermore, according to Hobbes, the will of each individual is in the will of the sovereign and thus accusing the sovereign of injury is tantamount to accusing oneself. Hobbes does however have a conception of the sovereign being divided into executive, judicial, and legislative branches. The concept of fear underlines each one. Despite this division, according to Hobbes the sovereign must be absolute in order for him to properly work and must eve be above the law.

Hobbes’ focus on the importance of fear can be further seen when he does into greater detail on how the sovereign should function. According to Hobbes, though running way from battle may be cowardly, it is not unjust. Thus, it is the job of the sovereign to make sure that the fear of punishment from running away from battle exceeds the fear of being killed in that battle. This does not mean that Hobbes necessarily gives the sovereign a black check to behave in whatever way he wants as the unjust sovereign is acting against the laws of nature. And while it is true Hobbes sees rebellion as something that is never justified, he is still well aware that unjust sovereigns often incite rebellions, and thus the unjust sovereign may face a rebellion as punishment for his crimes.

Much like the Classical thinkers, Hobbes does admit that there are several different kinds of commonwealths depending upon where the sovereign is located. Hobbes particularly notes three of them and they are as follows: 1) the power by one man, monarchy, 2) a situation in where every citizen has the right to vote, democracy and 3) a situation in where only part of the citizens have the right to vote, aristocracy. Unlike the Classical thinkers though, Hobbes makes no moral distinctions between the various types of government (i.e. monarchy/ tyranny). Though all three are examples of the sovereign, Hobbes does not see them as being created equally as he clearly favors monarchy over the others. This is because Hobbes wishes to closely align public and private interests and feels that monarchy is the best way of accomplishing this goal. Another reason for his preference of monarchy, particularly over democracy is that in monarch, bad people have a lower chance of having power. Hobbes also rejects the notion of mixed government as he feels will lead to civil war.

Talk of social contract often leads to talk over how the social contract can be abolished. For Hobbes, there is only one way to dissolve the social contract, and that is through unanimous consent. It should be noted that Hobbes does draw a distinction between law and council as while the law is rooted in will, council is rooted in reason as it can be voluntarily obeyed or disobeyed, thus, Hobbes’ world view is not one of complete force. Still, despite the focus on stability Hobbes uses, Hobbes is well aware that no commonwealth can last forever as it is made by morals and thus cannot be immortal itself. However, though proper structure and management, it can last a long time. Despite this realization, Hobbes still greatly fears revolution, even to the point to where he thinks that it is wrong for commonwealths to ask for less power than they need in peacetime and then as for more when it is necessary, such as in times of war as Hobbes feels that this may incite rebellion. Hobbes also places on the sovereign the crimes it commits. For example, if the sovereign tells a citizen to commit an unjust act and the citizen does so, it is the sovereign who is to be punished by God rather than the citizen who actually committed the act. Protection of the sovereign though is still paramount and thus Hobbes suggests that the censorship of potentially dangerous ideas is acceptable in order to defend the commonwealth.

Religion plays a major role in Hobbes’ thought as being fully aware of the problems the Puritans caused in England, Hobbes thinks religion must be kept in check as religion that is not kept in check has the potentially to be able to make men imagine rewards and punishments far greater than any sovereign could possibly give, thus causing people to disobey the sovereign. This is not to say that religion is completely or at least potentially negative for Hobbes, apart from the times when it is well managed by the sovereign as Hobbes draws his ideas on the social contract from the Old Testament idea of the covenant. What this does however mean is that Hobbes produces a much more robust conception of Caesaropapism than was seen in the Medieval period.    

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[1] It is for this reason that Hobbes rejected the experimentalist science of Robert Boyle and his air-pump. For more information see Leviathan and the Air-Pump (Shapin and Schaffer 1985).