Hobbes VI (Pt II, chs. 22-4, 28-30)

PHIL 2345

2008-09

‘Systemes’, Factions, Ch. 22

• Freedom of movement: only if ‘lawfull’• No right to assembly for large groups of people-

their motives suspect on their face (125; 133)• Lawful groups such as corporations• Unlawful groups: private armies, corporations of

beggars, thieves (131)• Also unlawful: Factions, Conspiracies, Leagues

of Subjects (132)– E.g. ‘Factions for Government of Religion’ (132).

Ministers of Sovereign, Ch. 23

• Economic roles: taxation, treasury, etc.• Military• ‘Public Ministers = teachers of duties toward

sovereign (‘civics’?) (135)• They are judges

– By authority from Sovereign, who receives authority from God (why is God being introduced here?)

• Godliness• Just/unjust

The English Jury System, Ch.23

• Hobbes praises the jury of 12 of one’s peers• These are ‘peers’, literally:• If you are noble, you are tried by the House of

Lords• If a commoner, by men of your area• Why is this good justice?

– ‘there could be nothing alledged by the party, why the sentence should not be final’

– Public persons (judges) like ‘organs of Voice in a Body naturall’ (136).

Nutrition and Procreation of a Commonwealth (Ch. 24)

• Natural commodities, near surface of the earth• God may give or ‘sell’ them to us—this is

heterodox theology– in the Fall (Genesis, Garden of Eden), man sinned

against God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;

– Man’s labour is not part of a business transaction or contract with God—it is a punishment, according to orthodox theology.

– Another example of Hobbes’ odd theological ideas!

Nutrition and Procreation of a Commonwealth (Ch. 24)

• Commodities: this is what the War of all against all is for (138)

• Requires institution of property within civil society—civil law– One’s property is one’s own– This does not exclude Sovereign

• Distribution of land: a portion may be assigned to each Subject

• A victor may take it all and reassign it, as William the Conqueror did (when?)

• Sovereign may keep land to pay for defence (139).

Dangers of public revenue

• Taxes, public lands tend toward dissolution of Commonwealth (139)

• Monarch or Assembly– ‘too negligent with money’– ‘too hazardous in engaging the publique Stock into a

long and costly war’.

• Gold and silver: means of exchange, of storing perishable value– Analogy to the circulation of blood in the veins (141).

Procreation

• Colonies, e.g. in North America (in Hobbes’ time)

• In places ‘voyd’ of inhabitants, or made so by war (i.e. conquest)

• Colonists under a governor (rather unlike Mayflower pilgrims)

• They may be independent of ‘mother’ city, as were ancient Greek colonies

• Or provinces, as were Roman settlements

Dissolution of Commonwealths(ch. 29)

• Infirmities of Commonwealth—analogy to body• Defective procreation, i.e. Institution

– Taking less power than is needed to maintain the peace and the Commonwealth

• Seditious doctrines, e.g. – that each should judge good/evil (relativism), or– should choose his/her own faith—idea propagated by the ‘pens

of unlearned Divines’ (182)

• Doctrine of Sovereign’s subservience to the law (likewise rejected by Rousseau)

• Absolute right to property, exclusion of Sovereign• Division of sovereign power

Other dangerous examples

• The Low Countries, rich and divided• Reading histories of ancients• Justification of ‘tyrannicide’• 2 Kingdoms—earthly and heavenly, in

opposition, causes trouble• Fear drives men to concern with heavenly

powers, Ghosts, etc.• ‘A Disease which not unfitly may be compared to

the Epilepsie’ (185).• See also ch.30 for list of what is to be taught.

Sovereign (ch. 30)

• ‘The Office of the Sovereign consisteth in the end, for which he was trusted with the Sovereign power, namely…the safety of the people’ (187).

• Includes ‘all other Contentments of Life’• Sovereign must have and maintain

absolute power• Otherwise, the Commonwealth will

dissolve, SoN results (188).

Sovereign and law

• Sovereign power enhanced by– Equity, equal justice for all (193)– Bad laws should be eliminated

• Law is to keep subjects from hurting themselves (193).

Questions

What did you learn from reading Hobbes?

Do you agree with any of his ideas?