Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Leviathan
(1651)
Euclid’s Elements was an important influence.
The problem of making space
for reason in a world based on religious authority.
Hobbes was writing parts of
what would become Leviathan when the
English civil war broke out, so he thought that his prediction of “a war of all
against all” was being confirmed before his eyes.
Chapter 6:
Hobbes's Materialist Psychology and His Non-Cognitivist Theory of
Normative and Evaluative Judgment
Key elements:
Positive Motivators: Appetite, desire, love,
Positive Feelings: pleasure and joy,
Negative Motivators: aversion, hate,
Negative Feelings: pain and grief.
What they explain: Good, evil, and contemptible.
Note that Hobbes begins with
definitions. Where do the definitions
come from?
Is Hobbes’s psychological theory egoistic?
“But whatsoever is the object
of any man’s appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these
words of good, evil and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person
that useth them: there being nothing simply and
absolutely so: nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from the
nature of the objects themselves; . . . ”(97).
The Crucial
Equivocation: "[O]f the voluntary
acts of every man, the object is some
good to himself." (122).
"[O]f all voluntary acts, the object is to every man his
own good."(129)
NORMATIVE/EVALUATIVE COGNITIVISM AND NON-COGNITIVISM,
REALISM AND ANTI-REALISM.
NORMATIVE/EVALUATIVE COGNITIVISM: Normative/Evaluative Statements make claims
that are true or false.
NORMATIVE/EVALUATIVE NONCOGNITIVISM: Normative Moral Statements do not make claims
that are true or false. [They may
express sentiments or attitudes or in Hobbes’s case, desires.]
For Hobbes, to say that something is good [or evil] is not to
attribute an objective property to it, but to express one’s desire or appetite
for [or aversion to] it.
NORMATIVE/EVALUATIVE REALISM:
Some positive normative/evaluative are true. [Moral realism implies Moral Cognitivism.] Because Hobbes translates all
normative/evaluative terms (good, evil, justice, injustice) into purely descriptive
terms, he avoids ever asserting that any normative/evaluative statements are
true.
NORMATIVE/EVALUATIVE ANTI-REALISM: No positive normative/evaluative statements
are true. There are no objective moral
values and no objective moral imperatives.
Hobbes is a noncognitivist about the good, not necessarily an egoist. Explain.
What is Deliberation?
What is the Will?
What is a voluntary action?
On this account, if I
threatened to kill you if you didn’t give me your wallet and, as a result, you
gave me your wallet, was your act voluntary?
HOBBES’S GEOMETRY OF SOVEREIGNTY
Chapter 13: The State of Nature
What is the state of nature?
The Internal Security
CAP: The War of All Against
All
What is a state of war,
according to Hobbes?
What are the crucial
assumptions?
Competition,
diffidence, and glory.
What does Hobbes mean by
“war”?
Is there justice or injustice
in the state of nature? Why or why not? What does he mean by "no mine and thine distinct"?
Hobbes's way out of the state
of nature involves passions and reason. How
does it involve passions? How does it involve
reason?
What is the fundamental
problem that the sovereign is the solution to?
Conflict.
Since the solution is a logical solution, it must allow no possibility
of conflict.
HOBBES'S STATE
OF NATURE IS A COLLECTIVE ACTION PROBLEM
Everyone else
|
|
Make
Peace (C) |
Make War (D) |
|
Make Peace (C) |
+100, +100 |
-110, -99 |
|
Make War (D) |
+110, +95 |
-100, -100 |
WHY DOES HOBBES PREDICT A WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL?
Chapter 14. How Reason and
Passion Provide a Way Out of the State of
Right vs. So-Called Laws of
Nature
What is the Fundamental Right
of Nature?
What is the Fundamental Law (So-Called)
of Nature?
What is the Second Law (So-Called)
of Nature?
Why are “laws
of nature” not really laws?
Hint: Do they require us to actually do anything in
the state of nature?
The logical problem that must
be solved to escape the state of nature:
How can we make binding covenants in the state of nature?
Contracts, Pacts or Covenants,
and Gifts
When are contracts or covenants binding?
To be binding, does a contract or covenant have to be
expressly agreed to?
The need for an Original
Contract/Covenant which makes all contracts/covenants binding, including itself.
What are the terms of the
Original Contract? How does Hobbes
determine them? To be discussed in
Chapter 18.
Are covenants entered into
from fear of death binding? Why?
Which covenants cannot be
binding? (Another way of asking this
question: Which rights are inalienable?)
COLUMN
CHOOSER
|
|
|
C |
D |
|
ROW CHOOSER |
C |
3,3 |
1,4 |
|
|
D |
4,1 |
2,2 |
2-PERSON PRISONERS' DILEMMA
(Higher numbers represent more preferred outcomes.)
3,3
C
C D
1,4
4,1
C
D
D
2,2
Player #1 Player #2
The Sequential Two-Person Prisoners' Dilemma.
Chapter 15: The Necessary Conditions for Justice.
The Many Laws of Nature
Summarized in One.
What is justice? What is injustice?
The Fool's Challenge: To be discussed later.
How many other Laws of Nature
are there? What are they?
What is Hobbes' Formula for
the Laws of Nature: The Golden Rule.
Why is the Golden Rule
binding only in foro interno in
the State of
What does Hobbes mean by
“theorems concerning what conduceth to the
conservation and defence of themselves”?
The message: We can determine the requirements of justice
by the use of reason. But we cannot
acquire the motivation to act justly from reason alone. Motivation comes from sanctioning of defecters.
For Hobbes, what is moral
philosophy?
Is it normative or
descriptive?
Why are the laws of nature
not true laws, according to Hobbes? What
are they?
Chapter 16 sets the stage for
men in the state of nature to covenant obedience to a sovereign power.
Representation
of many by one, based on consent.
Multiple representatives must
abide by majority rule.
Why not less than a majority?
Why not a requirement of
unanimous consent?
Chapter 17 explains the need
for an Original Covenant to establish a Commonwealth to escape the State of
Nature.
What is the difference
between human beings, on the one hand, and the bees and the ants, on the other?
Covenants without the sword
"are but words".
The only way out of the State
of Nature
What is a COMMONWEALTH?
What is a SOVEREIGN?
Commonwealth by Institution (Chap.
18)
Commonwealth by Acquisition
(Chap. 20)
Chapter 18 states the terms
of the Original Covenant that establishes a sovereign by consent ("by
Institution"). Note that the same
terms hold when the sovereign is established by force ("by
Acquisition"). See Chap. 20.
Does Hobbes require unanimous
consent to the Original Covenant?
Can there be breach of the
covenant by the sovereign?
Why can there be no binding
covenant between sovereign and subject?
Why can the sovereign not do
any injustice to a subject?
What are the sovereign's
powers?
(Note that these powers are
expanded upon in Chap. 29.)
Why does Hobbes insist that
these rights of sovereignty are "essential and inseparable"?
How does Hobbes justify the
sovereign's powers? Is it a moral
justification?
The Guiding Idea of Hobbes's political
philosophy: The need to avoid conflict.
NOTE: Hobbes is the author of the idea that it is
part of the definition of a state that it have a
monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
Chap. 19.
Three kinds of sovereignty: Monarchy, Democracy, and Aristocracy.
Which does Hobbes favor? Why?
What is the only respect in
which monarchy is inferior to democracy?
Chap. 20. Paternal and Despotical Dominion
What is the only difference
between a commonwealth by institution and a commonwealth by acquisition?
Are there differences in the
rights of the sovereign?
How does a sovereign acquire
dominion over the children of his subjects?
What is the "greatest
objection" to Hobbes's account?
What is Hobbes's reply?
Chap. 21.
What liberty do subjects have?
Do subjects have any
inalienable rights?
Recall Chap. 14.
Chapter 26. Hobbes's
Philosophy of Law
Why is the sovereign not
subject to the law?
What does Hobbes mean by
"law can never be against reason"?
(Whose reason?)
What are the conditions for a
valid law?
(1) Scope
(2) Publicity (for positive,
not natural law)
(3) Who interprets the law?
Natural law vs. positive law
Can the sovereign make a
mistake?
Civil disobedience and
conscientious objection to the law
Chap. 29. Infirmities of
a Commonwealth
The six infirmities: Not enough sovereign power or the division of
power.
Against freedom of expression
and freedom of the press:
the danger of "democratical
writers".
Hobbes's Fear of
Conflict: Why did he think that
separation of powers would make a government less stable or that freedom of
expression and freedom of the press would make a government less stable? Could they make a government more stable?
What is the only way for a
commonwealth to be dissolved?
Chap. 30.
Can any law be unjust?
This is the big issue between
Hobbes and Locke.
Is there a standard of
justice that applies to sovereigns?
Is there a standard of
justice that applies in the State of
Can any law be bad? What is a good law?
The Fool’s Challenge
The fool says that there is no reason to keep covenants other
than fear of sanctions.
The example of regicide.
Why doesn’t Hobbes agree with the fool?
Whose view better fits the psychology of Chapter 6, Hobbes’s
or the fool’s?
Consider the sequential, two-person PD again. If the first person chooses to cooperate, is
there any reason for the second person to defect, if s/he can do so without
being sanctioned?
Is there moral motivation in Hobbes’s theory? If not, why doesn’t he agree with the fool?