Hobbes

Question 1

Hobbes as a Realist

Answer 1

REALIST?

• State as means of resistance
• Against human nature (rescuing humans from themselves)
• Few freedoms - Leviathan rule
• Instincts and passions control us, without Leviathan, State of War

Question 2

Hobbes as a Liberal

Answer 2

LIBERAL?

• No divine/ natural source of equality - no God
• Equality - all equally afraid and weak
• Recognising plurality of beliefs
• Understanding human nature in scientific way

Question 3

Life and Context

Answer 3

• Published 1651
• Writes Leviathan during Civil War - new agenda
• Life spans major period of conflict and instability
• Stuart monarchy, civil war, commonwealth
• Hobbes - trust the person who will protect you: whoever can stop the Civil War

Question 4

Why do we need a state?

Answer 4

• Without state, would live in state of war (state of nature = state of war) - severe conflict
• Live peacefully under rule of state - as well as receiving extra benefits of socially living (trade etc.)
• Absolute sovereignty necessary to command obedience (Leviathan)

Question 5

Problem of Political Obligation

Answer 5

• Urgent moral question of time
• Whether subjects have duty/ obligation to the state
• If yes why?
• If no what are the practical consequences? - should we reject state legitimacy in favour of anarchy OR just go along with state
• Is it permissible to resist state?
• Hobbes account of human nature forms basis for claims about true origin of state authority and absolute obedience

Question 6

Science: composing a person

Answer 6

• Hobbes aim at science of politics
• Emerging discourse of modern physics and anatomy
• Applied ‘resolutive-compositive’ method of analysis to the state (breaking into constitutive parts and recomposing)
• Looking at how parts come together as functioning whole
• Uses this account of individual to imagine what likely to happen when strip state away

Question 7

Analysing the Individual

Answer 7

• Passions motivate actions: desires/ aversions/ hopes/ fears/ selfish
• Bodily appetites/ prides and desire for power explain human behaviour
• Not governed by reason (fear and pride)
• Obsessed with power - want others to fail
• Seeking immediate satisfaction
• Never reach complete satisfaction - constant want to acquire more

Question 8

Natural condition of mankind - without state

Answer 8

• Seek felicity - continual success in achieving desired objects (search to secure = state of war)
• Want to increase power - competition - conflict
• Equal by nature - all ability to strength and kill
• Scarcity - but want same thing
• Some attack others posing no threat - reputation, future protection
• Principle reasons for attack: safety, reputation, gain
• Absence of coercive power = life of constant violence
• ‘life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short’

Question 9

Need for State

Answer 9

• Fear of death causes humans to create state
• To enforce collective rationality
• Life without state: ‘solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short’ - fearful creatures
• Humans constantly trying to increase power - no one sure won’t be invaded

Question 10

State of Nature as State of War

Answer 10

• Scarcity and Equality leads to conflict and competition
• Fear others may take what you have - attack, not for gain but for safety/ reputation
• Diffidence - fear of death and reputation
• All fight, meekness and mildness overcome for survival
• Motive to attack when realise surest way of getting what want
• Hobbes accept moments without conflict, but constant readiness to fight
• State of nature - everyone is rightly suspicious of each other

Question 11

Life with the state

Answer 11

• Live with suspicion under state authority - lock doors
• Suspicious with protection - what like without?
• Overlooked morality? BUT no morality in state of nature
• Notions of justice/ injustice have no place (no laws)
• Collective rationality - what’s best for individuals under the assumption everyone else will act the same
• Need state to enforce this

Question 12

Principles of Justice in the State of Nature

Answer 12

• Right of Nature - every man has right to everything/ everyone (fundamental human condition) - anything necessary for own self-preservation
• First Law of Nature - do whatever needed to seek peace- don’t have to exercise right of nature
• Second Law of Nature -willing to accept peace when others are
• Circumstances depend on how respond in state of nature
• If in State of Nature and others unwilling to strike deal to get out of it, we’re entitled to exercise Right of Nature

Question 13

How did the state come about?

Answer 13

• Authority of Government discovered by thinking about agreement would make sense for people to make if founding state for first time
• Hobbes - most attractive outcome SON = win, but unlikely, more likely be victim of violence
• Evil is worse/ more common than winning
• Gain security from state PLUS all benefits of social cooperation possible after basic security in place
• Moral rules ought to be followed in state of nature, but people unlikely to follow them- no such thing as justice!

Question 14

Escaping the State of Nature

Answer 14

• Social contract Hobbes thinks allows us to escape violence of State of Nature
  a) we can life peacefully under state AND all other benefits of social living dependent on state existence
  b) function of state is coercing, by means of threat, into obedience
  c) State must have absolute authority - subject to no moral constraints, create laws as sees fit!
  d) subjects of state have no right against it - no moral basis to complain/ oppose

Question 15

Social Contract Theory

Answer 15

• Covenant only between subjects - not sovereign
• Will fulfil 1st and 2nd laws of nature by laying down the Right of Nature
• Explains why such great authority bestowed upon state
• To guarantee agreement, will appoint authority to enforce - role of sovereign = coercive agent
• Contract with sovereign would lead to Civil War
• Limiting power of sovereign by terms of agreement means liable to accusations and breach of contract