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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

1. Hobbes was an English philosopher, who today is famous mostly for his political philosophy

his overall philosophy is comprehensive and systematic: it includes ontology, epistemology, political philosophy, ethics and a novel theory of human nature

his best-known book is Leviathan (1651); it has four parts:

1) “Of Man,” on his theory of human nature

2) “Of Common-Wealth,” on the formation of political society

3) “Of a Christian Common-Wealth,” on the authority of the state over the church

4) “Of the Kingdom of Darkness,” on the falsehood of ideas like hell and eternal damnation

2. Hobbes was born into a world of conflicts in religion, politics and philosophy

the religious conflicts were mostly due to the Protestant Reformation, which led to political conflicts and wars

in the 17th c., England endured a civil war between Catholic Royalists and Protestant Parliamentarians

in 1649, King Charles was captured and beheaded by Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians

Hobbes had been a tutor of Charles’ son, who would become King Charles II

the philosophical conflicts involved debates such as nominalism versus realism and naturalism versus theism

with the decline of Platonic realism, the way was clear for a new kind of realism in which nature was seen as machine created by God but that can run on its own without his direct presence

this idea was later called deism, in contrast to theism in which God is always present

Hobbes’ philosophy was naturalistic rather than theistic: he said only material things exist and he denied that spiritual or non-material things can exist

3. Hobbes’ ontology is called mechanistic materialism, in which reality consists only of matter in motion

unlike Descartes, who was an ontological dualist, Hobbes was ontological monist who thought there is only one kind or reality, which consists entirely of the motions of material bodies

Hobbes argued that Cartesian dualism failed to explain the connections between mind and matter

his denial that souls or spirits exist as separate from bodies led to suspicions of atheism, though Hobbes said God does exist as a material being

he also denied that humans have free will over the forces of nature; instead he believed that the human will is only part of the natural causal forces within us

human nature makes us want some kinds of things because they make us feel good and avoid others because they make us feel bad

the will is only a part of the causal process in which we react to stimuli to get what we want

however, his political philosophy includes a political kind voluntarism in which the state, in place of God, creates laws

some modern commentators, as we will see below, think this is Hobbes’ most important political message

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4. in his epistemology, Hobbes was an empiricist; his empiricism follows from his mechanistic, materialistic theory of human nature

he argued that all of our mental experiences can be explained naturally based on the idea of inertia

in this quotation from Leviathan (which was published when Newton was still a boy), he explains the idea of inertia:

That when a thing lies still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still for ever, is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion … is not so easily assented to…. When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinder it) eternally.

Hobbes said that all our subjective experiences are caused by inertial forces that begin outside of our bodies, which cause the sensations from which we get our ideas

the new physics of inertia is the basis of both Hobbes’ ontology and his epistemology

5. inertial forces outside of our bodies act upon our sensory systems; for example, if you rub your eyes, you will see a light and if you press your ear, you will hear a sound

according to Hobbes, these physical forces are transmitted through our nerves to the brain

according to Hobbes, we naturally react to these stimuli in a naturally given range of ways

the “passions” of human nature are our given propensities to react in given ways

there are two basic kinds of “passions”: “appetites” (feelings we like) and “aversions” (those we don’t)

6. the human will, according to Hobbes, is only the final link in a chain of cause and effect reactions that occurs naturally within us

at any given time, we are being stimulated by various sensations; these act upon our natural passions to create various urges (i.e. “appetites” and “aversions”) within us

we respond to these various urges with a process that Hobbes calls “deliberation”:

When in the mind of man appetites and aversions, hopes and fears, concerning one and the same thing, arise alternately; and diverse good and evil consequences of the doing or omitting the thing propounded come successively into our thoughts…. [T]he whole sum of desires, aversions, hopes and fears, continued till the thing be either done, or thought impossible, is that we call deliberation.

“deliberation” arises from the competition of positive and negative urges within us

this competition of urges is mediated by our understanding of the situation as we decide which urge is most important and most likely to be successfully fulfilled

what we call an “act of will” is nothing but the final urge in this process

in the competition of urges within us, the “will” is the last urge that we finally give in to and that is carried forward into action:

In deliberation, the last appetite, or aversion, immediately adhering to the action, or to the omission thereof, is that we call the will.

if the final urge is an appetite, then we will choose to act; if the final urge is an aversion, then we will choose not to act

each urge has its own momentum, which we are free either to submit to or to resist; the will is our act of going along with or resisting our natural urges

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7. in his political philosophy, Hobbes was what today is called a social contract theorist

a social contract theorist is someone who believes that political societies are founded on a basic agreement by people about how to live together

some other famous social contract theorists are Locke, Rousseau and more recently, John Rawls

the idea of a social contract as the basis of political society is at least as old as Plato and appears in dialogues like the Crito and the Republic

the social contract need not be formal and explicit; it can be informal and implicit

for example, Socrates suggested in the Crito that merely by choosing to remain in a society, one is obligated to obey its rules

the implicit endorsement of the social contract is what Locke later called a “tacit agreement”

8. the main goal of Hobbes’ political philosophy was to provide peace and social order; he sought to do so by finding a new source of political authority

Hobbes did not rely on the older theory of political legitimacy called the "divine right of kings," which said that the political legitimacy of rulers comes from God

instead, Hobbes developed a new theory in which scientific naturalism and human voluntarism were combined

naturalism in this context refers to the theory that reality consists of patterns and regularities, like scientific laws, that humans discover but do not create

voluntarism in this context refers to the theory that at least some kinds of reality are created by humans

on the naturalistic side, Hobbes argued that natural law creates obligations of obedience for the people

on the voluntaristic side, he argued that government, which is a human creation, is the ultimate source of social order and that the government, instead of God, freely creates moral laws

9. Hobbes’ Leviathan begins with an introduction that says God is the creator of the mechanisms of the world, but he then says that humans should emulate God when they create political states:

NATURE (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs … what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer?

this quote shows that Hobbes thought humans were a kind of mechanism

he then argues that humans should imitate God's artifice by creating a political society, which is analogous to a human body:

Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of Nature, man. For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH … which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength.

here we already see a mixture of voluntarism and naturalism: God created the mechanistic laws of nature that rule us, but in politics we can imitate his creativity by creating our own governments

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10. like many social contract theorists, Hobbes wrote about the “state of nature,” which means the condition of social life prior to the formation of government

he was pessimistic about life in the state of nature, in which there is no government to keep the peace

he said the state of nature is warlike because everyone naturally has similar wants and nearly the same amount of physical power to achieve their wants, so everyone is in perpetual competition

without government to keep peace, everyone always lives in fear that violence will break out, so there is no civilization:

Hereby it is manifest that, during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man. For ‘war’ consisteth not in battle only or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known…. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Leviathan)

11.Hobbes’ defined liberty as the absence of constraints on our natural powers:

By ‘liberty’ is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man’s power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgment and reason shall dictate to him. (Leviathan)

this is called a negative concept of liberty because it defines liberty as the absence of constraints

12.people in the state of nature have a natural right to use their natural power to preserve their own lives

by reasoning about our natural right to self-preservation, we discover that we also the natural obligation to preserve our own life

therefore, we have a natural obligation to seek peace by entering into a covenant or contract with each other, such that we delegate our power to the government

for the government to be able to keep the peace, it must be fully secure in its authority; any dissent by opponents would weaken the government and reduce its ability to keep the peace

therefore, the people never have the right to overthrow the government

13.Hobbes’ ontology is naturalistic, but there is also a voluntaristic element in his philosophy

he said we do not create our own nature: nature makes us what we are and we cannot change it

but most moral and political laws are freely created by humans, with a few exceptions

a few laws already exist in the state of nature, such as the right of individual self-preservation and the duty to honor one’s contracts, but most laws are human-made

today, human-made laws are called positive law and nature-made laws are called natural law

for Hobbes, most of the laws that govern us are positive laws, freely created by the state

Hobbes’ theory of law could be summarized as naturalism for the people and voluntarism for the state

his theory uses naturalism to convince the people to give voluntary power to the state

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14. in the 20th c., some thinkers saw the voluntaristic side of Hobbes’ theory as the most important part of his philosophy

Leo Strauss is famous for the distinction between exoteric and esoteric writing;

he believed that all great political writers wrote exoterically for the masses and esoterically for an inner elite; the elite are those capable of knowing and facing up to dangerous truths

what these truths are is difficult to say because they are esoteric; that is, they are not expressed openly by Strauss and his followers

one possibility is that Straussians believe there are no real truths, except for those that powerful humans create

a Straussian reading of Hobbes is as follows:

Hobbes’ exoteric message is that natural law gives the masses the duty to be obedient

Hobbes’ esoteric message is that the state is the source of all moral and political truths

the esoteric message cannot be stated openly because people want a naturalistic or religious foundation for their beliefs

“political theology” is the phrase used by Straussians and Carl Schmitt to describe the problem of convincing people to believe in moral and political laws created voluntaristically by authorities

Carl Schmitt was a legal theorist who argued that the basis of all law is the voluntaristic authority of a law-maker; this theory of law is called “decisionism”

in his early writings Schmitt approvingly described Hobbes as a pure decisionist, but following written exchanges with Strauss, he became more critical of Hobbes

he later wrote Hobbes erred by allowing even a minimal theory of naturalism, which supported the historical development of liberal individualism

Schmitt’s political theory, described in his most famous book, The Concept of the Political (1932), was based not on individualism but on a strongly holistic or collectivist idea of the people

he said politics is based on the friend-enemy distinction: politics begins when a people, under a strong leader, creates itself in an existential confrontation with an enemy group

Schmitt is a controversial thinker because he was a Nazi; however, some later thinkers on the political left came to see him as an important critic of liberal individualism

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