HOBBES'S 'SCIENCE OF NATURAL JUSTICE'

ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES

INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

111

HOBBES'S 'SCIENCE OF NATURAL JUSTICE'

Edited by
C. WALTON and P.J. JOHNSON

Directors: P. Dibon (Paris) and R. Popkin (Washington Univ., St. Louis)

Editorial Board: J.F. Battail (Uppsala); F. Duchesneau (Montreal); T. Gregory (Rome);
J . D. North (Groningen); M. J . Petry (Rotterdam); Ch. B. Schmitt (War burg Inst., London).
Advisory Editorial Board: J. Aubin (Paris); J. Collins (St. Louis Univ.); P. Costabel (Pa-
ris); A. Crombie (Oxford); H. de la Fontaine Verwey (Amsterdam); H. Gadamer (Heidel-
berg); H. Gouhier (Paris); K. Hanada (Hokkaido University); W. Kirsop (Melbourne);
P.O. Kristeller (Columbia Univ.); Elisabeth Labrousse (Paris); A. Lossky (Los Angeles);
J. Malarczyk (Lublin); E. de Olaso (C.l.F. Buenos Aires); J. Orcibal (Paris); Wolfgang
Rod (Munchen); J. Roger (Paris); G. Rousseau (Los Angeles); H. Rowen (Rutgers Univ.,
N.J.); J.P. Schobinger (Zurich); G. Sebba (Emory Univ., Atlanta); R. Shackleton (Ox-
ford); J. Tans (Groningen).
HOBBES'S 'SCIENCE OF
NATURAL JUSTICE'

Edited by
C. WALTON and P.J. JOHNSON

1987 MARTINUS NIJHOFF PUBLISHERS

a member of the KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP
DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LANCASTER
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

Hobbes's science of natural justice.

(International archives of the history of ideas

v. 111)
Includes index.
1. Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679--Contributions in
political science--Addresses, essays, lectures.
2. Justice--Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Walton,
Craig, 1934- II. Johnson, P. J. (Paul J.)
Ill. Series: Archives internationales d'histoire des
idees; 111.
JC153.H66H57 1986 320.1'092'4 85-18793

ISBN-13: 978-94-010-8060-6 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-3485-6

DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-3485-6

Copyright

© 1987 by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht.

Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1987
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publishers,
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, P.O. Box 163, 3300 AD Dordrecht,
The Netherlands.
 v
CONTENTS

Dedication VII
Notes on Contributors IX
Abbreviations XIII
Editor's Introduction 1

I. Task of the 'Science of Natural Justice' 19

1. The Philosophical Implications of Hobbes's State of Nature 21

Jean Mathiot
2. Hobbes's Theory of Natural and Social Sciences 33
Nikhil Bhattacharya
3. Obligations: Science and Philosophy in the Political Writings
of Hobbes 57
Ross Rudolph

II. Logic and Language of this Science 69

4. Hobbes on the Natural and the Artificial 71

Craig Walton
5. Hobbes's Entanglement with the Excluded Middle in his
Theory of Man and Politics 89
Bertram Morris
6. Hobbes: Language and the Is-Ought 99
Martin A. Bertman
7. 'Insinuations to the Will': Hobbes's Style and Intention in
Leviathan Compared to his Earlier Political Works 111
Cornelis W. Schoneveld

III. Natural Right and the State of Nature 121

8. Hobbes's Conatus and the Roots of Character 123

Brian Stoffel
9. Hobbes and the Wolf-man 139
Paul J. Johnson
VI

10. Metamorphosis of the Idea of Right in Thomas Hobbes's

Philosophy 153
Simone Goyard-Fabre
11. The Peculiarity of Hobbes's Concept of Natural Right 165
C.A.J. Coady
12. Thomas Hobbes: The Mediation of Right 181
Gary B. Herbert

IV. Generating the Commonwealth 201

13. Hobbes, Revolution and the Philosophy of History 203

Philip J. Kain
14. Thomas Hobbes from Behemoth to Leviathan 219
Herbert W. Schneider
15. Covenant: Hobbes's Philosophy of Religion and his Political
System 'More Geometrico' 223
Klaus-Michael Kodalle

V. Justice and Equity in the Commonwealth 239

16. Hobbes on Equity and Justice 241

Larry May
17. Commentary on Professor May's 'Hobbes on Equity and
Justice' 253
William Mathie
18. Justice and Equity: an Inquiry into the Meaning and Role of
Equity in the Hobbesian Account of Justice and Politics 257
William Mathie

VI. Hobbes Today 277

19. The Leviathan, Old and New 279

Isabel C. Hunger/and
20. Hobbes and Macroethics: the Theory of Peace and Natural
Justice 297
Howard Warrender

Index 309
 VII

DEDICATION

We gratefully dedicate this volume to the late Professor Herbert W. Schneider, who
first called our attention to the theme of these studies, and whose encouragement
enabled us to seek out the parts of the whole. Since Professor Schneider's 1958
Library of Liberal Arts edition of Leviathan, his studies and discussions have
prompted students and colleagues toward a wider and deeper reading of Hobbes.
In the 1974 Thomas Hobbes in His Time, which he coedited with Ralph Ross and
Theodore Waldman, he further developed this work, and it was his inspiration that
motivated the initial planning for the 1979 Hobbes Tercentenary Congress. Some
of the papers delivered at the Congress developed into contributions included in this
volume. Without Professor Schneider's contributions to Hobbes studies and his
unfailing encouragement, the present volume would not have been undertaken.

Craig Walton
Paul J. Johnson
 IX

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Martin A. BERTMAN was educated at Syracuse and Columbia Universities.

Presently, he is Professor of Philosophy at State University of New York at
Potsdam. He edits AGORA and co-edits URAM. Aside from numerous
publications on a wide variety of philosophical subjects, he has published over a
dozen papers on Hobbes and the book Hobbes: The Natural and Artifacted Good
(1981).

Nikhil BHATTACHARYA is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chairman of

the Division of Liberal Arts at the Rhode Island School of Design. He has taught
previously at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and works primarily in the
areas of epistemology, social and political philosophy.

A.J. COADY is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

He has published work in leading philosophical journals such as The American
Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophy, Mind, and the Philosophical Review. He has
held visiting fellowships at St. John's College and Churchill College, Cambridge
and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Simone GOYARD-FABRE is Professeur Agrt!gee and Docteur des Lettres, and has
held the Philosophy chair at the University of Caen since 1967; she directs the
Equipe de Recherche de Philosophie politique et juridique and is the founder of the
Cahiers de Philosophie politique et juridique.

Gary B. HERBERT is a member of the Philosophy Department of Loyola

University in New Orleans. He teaches in the areas of political philosophy, 17th
century philosophy and metaphysics. His articles on Hobbes have appeared in
several journals.

Isabel C. HUNGERLAND is Professor Emeritus, University of California,

Berkeley. She has published in the fields of aesthetics, epistemology and philosophy
of language. Publications on Hobbes are 'Hobbes's Theory of Signification' (with
x
George R. Vick), Journal of the History of Philosophy (October, 1973), pp.
459-482; editor (with George Vick) of the translation by Aloysius Martinich of Part
I (Logic) of De Corpore, and (with George Vick) author of the introductory essay.

Paul J. JOHNSON is Professor of Philosophy at California State College, San

Bernardino. He is the author of a number of papers on Hobbes, Locke and Herbert
Marcuse. He was co-director of the Hobbes Tercentenary Congress and is a
consulting editor for the Journal of the History of Philosophy.

Philip J. KAIN teaches in the Western Culture Program at Standford University.

He is the author of Schiller, Hegel, and Marx and is presently at work on books
dealing with Marx's epistemology and ethics.

Klaus Michael KODALLE (1943) teaches philosophy in the Theological Faculty of

the Universitat Hamburg. He is the author of Thomas Hobbes-Logik der Herrschaft
und Vernunft des Friedens (Miinchen, 1971), and editor with U. Bermbach of
Furcht und Freiheit: Leviathan-Diskussion 300 Jahre nach Thomas Hobbes
(Opladen, 1982), among others. For the past two years he has been working on Syen
Kierkegaard and the history of his work.

William MATHIE (1941) is associate Professor of Politics and Coordinator of the

Liberal Studies Program at Brock University, St. Catharine's, Ontario, Canada. He
is the author of "Justice and the Question of Regimes in Ancient and Modern
Political Science: Aristotle and Hobbes" (1976) and forthcoming articles on
"Reason and Rhetoric in Hobbes's Leviathan", and "Political and Distributive
Justice in Aristotle's Political Science.

Jean MATHIOT (1941) studied philosophy and economics. He is Professor (maitre-

assistant) of the Department of Philosophy of the Universite de Provence (Aix en
Provence, France), and mainly interested in political philosophy and economics.

Larry MAY received his Ph-D from the New School for Social Research in 1977
with a dissertation on Hobbes's moral and legal philosophy. He is presently
Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University. His publications in the
areas of moral, political and legal philosophy, have appeared in such journals as:
J. History of Philosophy, Social Theory and Practice, American Phil. Quarterly
and Philosophical Studies.

Bertram MORRIS (1908-1981) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of

Colorado (1947-1977), and served as Trustee for the Consortium of Colorado State
Colleges. He published The Aesthetic Process, Institutions of Intelligence and
Philosophical Aspects of Culture, and co-authored Science, Folklore and
Philosophy.
 XI

Ross RUDOLPH was educated at University of Alberta (B.A. Honours, Political

Science), Brandeis University (M.A., History of Ideas), and Columbia University
(Ph. D., Political Science). He is currently Associate Professor, and Director of
Graduate Programme, Dept. of Political Science, York University. His Hobbes's
Philosophic Politics is nearing completion.

Herbert W. SCHNEIDER (1892-1984) was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at

Columbia University and Claremont Graduate School. His published work includes
A History of American lhilosophy, The Puritan Mind, Morals for Mankind and
Ways of Being; he was co-editor of Thomas Hobbes in His Time and, editor of the
Library of Liberal Arts edition of Hobbes's Leviathan.

Cornelis W. SCHONEVELD (1935), of Dutch nationality, graduated in English at

the University of Leiden, where he now holds a teaching post in English literature
in the rank of senior lecturer. He recently completed a doctoral dissertation on
Anglo-Dutch translations in the 17th Century, in which one chapter is devoted to
Hobbes. He has also published on Sir Thomas Browne.

Brian STOFFEL, after undergraduate work in Western Australia, and graduate

studies at U .B.C., taught for two years in Adelaide, and currently at the University
of Melbourne. Main interests are history of philosophy and history of ideas more
generally.

Craig WALTON (1934) teaches in philosophy at the University of Nevada, Las

Vegas. He has published a study of Malebranche's ethics, edited Philosophy & the
Civilizing Arts, and authored articles on Hobbes's first philosophy, on Ramus,
Bacon, Hume and the Socratic paradoxes.

Howard WARRENDER was Professor and Head of Department of Political

Theory and Institutions, the University of Sheffield, UK (formerly at the
Universities of Oxford, Glasgow & Belfast) He was author of The Political
Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford, 1957), among others and completed two volumes
of the critical edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes.
 XIII

ABBREVIATIONS

Contributions to this study cite the works of Hobbes according to the following
standardized scheme, using the indicated abbreviations in the text parenthetically
(as, e.g., Leviathan, page 116 = '(EWIII, 116)').

EW I = English Works, ed. Sir Wm. Molesworth (London: Bohn, 1839).

OL I = Opera Latina, ed. Sir Wm. Molesworth (London: Bohn, 1839).
E = Elements of Law, ed. Maurice Goldsmith (London: Cass, and New York:
Barnes & Noble, 1969).
B = Behemoth, ed. Maurice Goldsmith (London: Cass, and New York: Barnes
& Noble, 1969).
D = A Dialogue Between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of
England, ed. Jos Gropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).
W = Thomas White's De Mundo Examined, trans. H.W. Jones (London:
Bradford Univ. Press, 1976).
H = De Homine (Of Man) and De Cive (Philosophical Rudiments Concerning
Government and Society), in Man and Citizen, ed. B. Gert (Garden City, New
York: Anchor Books, 1972).
Th = Hobbes's Thucydides, ed. R. Schlatter (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1975).
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

Unlike many major figures in Western intellectual history, Hobbes has refused to
become dated and quietly take his appointed place in the museum of historical
scholarship. Whether by way of adoption or reaction, his ideas have remained
vibrant forces in mankind's attempts to understand the problems and dilemmas of
living peaceably with one another. As Richard Ashcraft said a few years ago:

One of the standards by which the greatness of political theorists is measured, is their
ability to evoke in us new insights into 'the human condition'. Only a few political writers
have risen Dionysus-like from the titanic assaults of their critics to become even more
formidable forces in the shaping of our destiny. One of these giants is surely the irascible
and irrepressible Thomas Hobbes l .

Given the power of Hobbes's thought, it is not then perhaps surprising to find that
his writings have generated seemingly endless scholarly controversy and an
astonishing range of imcompatible interpretations. Among other things, he has been
interpreted as a theist and an atheist, as a utilitarian and a deontologist, a humanist
and a scientist, as a traditional natural law theorist and a legal positivist, a
contractualist and an absolutist - indeed, as Professor Morris notes in his
contribution to the present volume, 'as almost any kind of philosophical 'ist except
Platonist or Aristotelist'.
Noting this confused situation a few years ago, one of the present editors
compared it to a multiply contested will, each scholarly contestant battling to claim
his right to inherit Hobbes's corpus to lend its weight to his favorite 'ist' or 'ism'.
And the other noted that their method of doing so seemed to be to play King's men
to Hobbes's Humpty Dumpty. Finding they could not put the whole together, each
threw out the parts that looked most indigestible to him and proceeded to see what
palatable dish he could cook up from the remainder. There came to be as many
Hobbeses as there were King's men. It seemed to us time for a closer look at
Hobbes, especially as there were some younger and a few older scholars who were
beginning to cast doubt on whether the apparent contradictions in Hobbes's work
that underlay those diverse interpretations really were all that contradictory. The
suspicion was growing that there might be a good deal more philosophic coherence
2

in Hobbes than the scholarly community had to that point recognized.

As a consequence of these reflections, in 1972 we began planning a memorial
congress to commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of Hobbes's death in
1979. 2 The result was the Hobbes Tercentenary Congress held 6-11 August, 1979
at the University of Colorado's Kittredge Commons, made possible by a grant from
the National Endowment for the Humanities.
We were pleasantly surprised by the vigorous response to our three-year, world-
wide call from younger as well as more established scholars now working on Hobbes
all around the globe, from Australia, New Zealand and Japan to Brazil, Argentina
and Canada through East and West Germany, France, Italy and Scotland to Israel.
Their fresh, disciplined readings are marked not only by philological skills of a high
standard, but excitingly by a wide reach across the entire corpus of Hobbes's
English and Latin works, stretching from his earliest 'Short Tract' to the
posthumously-published works. Finally scholars from five continents gathered to
present, listen to and discuss the new researches, which, while ranging in topic from
Hobbes's physical theory through the rhetoric, were focused on what Hobbes called
his "Science of Natural Justice" (EW III, 357).
Though some papers submitted to and presented at the Congress form the core
of the present volume, it is not a 'proceedings' of that affair. The editors began
conceiving of a systematic, cooperative volume on Hobbes's science of natural
justice well before the Congress took place. Some papers included here were not
read at the Congress because of their length. Other equally strong papers read at
the Congress are not included because they were not focused on the central theme.
Commentators were invited to the Congress in part because of their ability to
contribute to the theme. Some of the papers included here began as commentaries
which the authors were asked to expand into fuller discussions. Scholars were
introduced who had not known of one another's work on related issues; discussion
sessions were taped with a view to following up leads and questions in subsequent
discussion and correspondence. Finally, facets of Hobbes's work on our central
theme which had not received attention were later assigned to participants or
investigated by and written up by the editors, all in order to construct a thorough
and systematic inquiry. Each contributor was provided with copies of others'
contributions and both informal meetings and formal meetings were arranged to
promote extensive discussion of the central theme. As a result several commentaries
became papers, papers were rewritten, and several wholly new papers emerged.
The major purpose of the editors has been to foster a research-team approach to
the problem at issue - to enable contributors to compare work and respond such
that the whole maintains the individual integrity of each scholar's judgment, but at
the same time addresses the problem systematically in two senses: as Hobbes seems
to have meant his system of philosophy to cohere, and also in the sense of untilizing
the entire Latin and English corpus of his works rather than just the overtly political
writing. We are not aware of another study of Hobbes's science of natural justice
 3

with these systematic characteristics. Mary Whiton Calkins' Metaphysical System of

Hobbes (1905) argues briefly for such an approach, but is in fact selections from
De Corpore and other works meant to illustrate the system. Frederick J.E.
Woodbridge's introduction to his Scribner's Hobbes Selections (1930) was' ... so
arranged that the reader can follow through Hobbes's system from the logic to the
politics after the manner he himself conceived it', but is relatively scant on Hobbes's
rhetoric and his covenant theology. J.W.N. Watkins's Hobbes's System of Ideas
(1965) provides what might have been the missing link between the physical and the
political theory, namely the concept of conatus. We have organized our study, then,
to begin with first philosophy, go to the logic, then to conatus and natural morality,
building to the theory of right, and then generation of the commonwealth. Justice
and equity are considered, and finally two fresh and stimulating considerations of
Hobbes today. The range needed for such a volume required both the philological
and the philosophical systematicity just mentioned.
No one expected these efforts to resolve all controversy in one final, definitive
view. But in the time that has passed since the Congress adjourned it is apparent
that these researches are provoking a wide and active re-examination of a long-
maligned, maverick indeed, but universally human moral scientist. The tendency to
specialize by compartmentalizing this fertile and catholic thinker is thankfully
abandoned for the sake of a wider cast of the net.
As we shall see, the new accord transcending earlier interpretations still leaves us
with significant disagreement at certain vital junctures. The editors have not
attempted to gloss over these differences. Indeed, it is a strength of such a unified
study as this that what had earlier been taken to be key controversies can now be
safely set to rest and more carefully framed, more significant and more pertinent
questions placed on the agenda in their stead. The wars of the 'isms' have not borne
fruit, and increasingly scholars are shifting concern from pinning the proper label
on a major thinker to the question of just what it was he undertook and how well
he did it or failed to do it. Some fresh problems are posed by these studies of
Hobbes's Science of natural justice, but they arise both from the discovery of a
deepened philosophical complexity in Hobbes's thought and a more urgent, vibrant
concern among our contributors with actual human events and motivations. We are
provoked to ponder his thought as well as our own, both more precisely and in ways
more closely contacting our past and present than had been possible earlier. In this
manner the present study initiates a compelling and serious vein of work at once
strongly inspired by Hobbes's achievement and bearing closely on problems very
much with us today.
The organization of the book follows the order of the questions Hobbes set
himself in creating his Science of natural justice, beginning with setting the
philosophical boundaries of the question in Section I, and the logic and language
appropriate to it in Section II. In Section III the state of nature and natural right
are analyzed, preparing the way for a consideration of the generation of
4

commonwealths in Section IV. At this point the nature of law and the concepts of
justice and equity come to the fore (Section V). The volume concludes with Section
VI devoted to two masterful considerations of Hobbes's Science of natural justice
in comparison with major trends in recent moral philosophy. These highlight the
ways in which Hobbes, properly understood and stripped of his mythic character,
constitutes a challenge to recent moral philosophy and social science to repair their
neglect of war and peace and of human survival and well-being.

I. Task of the 'Science of Natural Justice'

It has been said that the mark of the philosopher is his setting of the boundaries
of his inquiry, realizing that what can be found in his search turns significantly upon
the chosen point of departure and its direction. The contributors to this section see
Hobbes as embarking on a novel methodological path rooted in the cautious,
though to his contemporaries, scandalous, minimal assumption of man's need to
sustain his life.
Jean Mathiot probes the question of how Hobbes sets up his task. Hobbes's
intent, he argues, is to establish the Science of natural justice as autonomous,
independent not only of prior metaphysical or ethical theories but also from
traditional views deriving political life from histories and rhetorics. To provide an
independent base for this science, Hobbes conceives of the problem of the 'state of
nature' as itself a question in first philosophy. As such it must show not only that
no other field of science explains the political, but must also show the connection
between natural and civil philosophy in such a way that no 'prior' nature could be
invoked to determine the facticity of politics. And it further must show that
dichotomies such as nature vs. covenant, or nature VS. art are false oppositions,
fruitless in the search for relationships between nature and commonwealth.
Hobbes's criticism of substance ontologies leads him to see that the causes of our
passions are not necessarily connected with the effects caused by those passions.
Lacking that substantial connection, he can and must found his science of natural
justice independently, on man as a sensing and willing agent among other agents and
objects. Because of this lack of substantive, necessary connection between the
causes and the effects of human passions, Hobbes must maintain a metaphysical
indeterminacy. Otherwise 'the a priori character of civil philosophy would be taken
away .. .'. At the same time the needed universality for his science is obtained,
because the search for principles is not 'bounded by a particular effect'. Thus the
state of nature as 'first philosophy' maintains both metaphysical indeterminacy and
universality and carries with it the additional nominalist merit that it can be
philosophically justified only in its employment, i.e., in the generation of the
commonwealth.
Nikhil Bhattacharya sees Hobbes as trying to found a new discipline that could
 5

function at a public level, deeper than factional or 'private' thought. Earlier

philosophical theories of justice had failed to provide firm foundations for public
order because they had failed to demonstrate the causes of war and peace as
universals. Hobbes saw that only by providing a universal causal link could he arrive
at an 'epistemologically defensible' political philosophy which might hope to
supercede partisan political bickering. This could be done by treating private interest
categorically, as if it were central to causal analysis. And so Hobbes saw that 'the
task of the civil philosopher is to demonstrate that the primacy of self-int~rest itself
requires controls on individual's random perceptions of self-interest...'. In this way
both the sources of conflict and stability may be explained without ideological
question-begging. The issue, for Hobbes, is essentially methodological, not a denial
of other-interest nor a pessimism about man's nature.
Approaching the same issue, Ross Rudolph finds a causal analysis dominant in
De Cive, but discovers a major shift away from this approach in Leviathan. There
causal analysis is de-emphasized in favor of a conceptual emphasis aimed not so
much at explaining as at describing the relations between protection and obedience.
Unlike De Cive's governing 'disassembly'-of-a-watch metaphor, Leviathan is more
like De Corpore in beginnning with a 'feigned annihilation' of the world - with
nothing. Causal questions become logical questions, physical events become mental
events and finally verbal ones. This can be seen, for instance, in Hobbes's treatment
of 'liberty'. In Leviathan 'liberty' is defined less physically and more morally, not
as mere absence of physical impediment as in De Cive, but more as a moral space
in which moral agency can move. Obligation becomes not the loss of liberty, but
a man's bond. Rather than a resolution of conflict by transfer of power, Leviathan
looks to a moral grant of authority. And so where 'the implicit model of De Cive
was an absolute power lacking in statu naturae, in Leviathan it is right reason
lacking in rerum naturae'. Between 1641 and 1650 then, the appropriate
'impediment' to liberty changes in Hobbes's thought from arbitrary to 'artificial'
and is authorized for the sake of knowledge of life and the preservation of peace.
Though Mathiot, Bhattacharya and Rudolph see Hobbes as striving to ground the
science of natural justice and delimit its subject matter in a new and independent
way, there is no accord among them as to whether he was chiefly creating a causal
analysis or a conceptual one, an ontological focus or a methodological one. These
differences require further work, but a deep agreement does appear on the
fundamental issue: Hobbes was clear that in order to ground the science of natural
justice beyond the ideological warfare of sectarian commitment, no privileged claim
must be allowed. Question-begging must be forestalled by stripping away tradition
and posing at the most primitive level the question of what minimal and neutral
beginnings are needed in order to proceed universally and afresh.
6

II. Logic and Language of this Science

Living as he did in the time of the King James Bible and the works of Shakespeare
and Milton, Hobbes nonetheless won renown for the literary elegance of Leviathan.
It is not too much to say that Hobbes stands as one of the greatest writers in English
letters. As our interest in Hobbes's logical works has grown, we have begun to see
that his place in the history of logic must be enlarged, but what is only now emerging
is that his literary and logical interests were not separated but unified by him for
the sake of both increased intellectual precision and motivational force. In this
section this unification is explored from a variety of directions in ways that add
perspective to the issues exposed by the previous section.
The distinction between nature and art runs throughout ancient Greek philosophy
and had become an issue of serious controversy in Hobbes's time. Craig Walton
briefly discusses the background of that controversy in the renaissance, in order to
examine more closely Hobbes's handling of the natural and the artificial in
Leviathan and A Dialogue, the two works offering his mature position on the
science of natural justice (natural-artificial). Unlike most contemporary positions
on this issue, Hobbes neither opposes the two nor reduces one to the other. Instead,
he discovers a series of complex and interwoven meanings for 'natural' and
'artificial' which emerge as eight steps or phases traversed in his inquiry: these are
natural/supernatural, natural experience and logic/artificial experience and logic,
private and public passions natural and artificial/private and public reason natural
and artificial, natural public passions/artificial reason's 'theorems' of this science,
persons natural and artificial, covenants natural and artificial, and the sovereign
as natural/artificial.
Bertram Morris suggests that incompatible interpretations of Hobbes, often
leading to endless controversy, may be seen to have arisen because of his habit of
defining a central topic first in terms of sharp opposites and the principle of the
excluded middle. However, equally typically he then gradually transforms these
logical contradictories into contraries, interrelated and even sometimes
complementary. For example, as nature/civil society are first defined, man is taken
to be less than he actually is, and in society more than it is. Hobbes must then yield
the excluded middle, in order to reconcile them. He does this by showing that it is
not literally war in which men naturally live, but rather a fear of war - which is not
contradictory to life and peace but instead allows for the transformation of that fear
into a motive for keeping covenants. Fear of death, doing things necessary for
commodious living, and hoping thereby to obtain such living emerge now as the
motive, the end and the means to civil society. The nature/civil society oppositions
have been transformed into contraries. Morris then analyzes the covenant/homo
lupus homini, desire/reason, and justice/in~ustice distinctions to reveal similar
transformations. These progressions not only show that Hobbes did not stick to a
strict dichotomy between such pairs, but more deeply reveal that 'the nerve of his
 7

argument' throughout is the search for the arts of peace as the highest purpose of
civil philosophy. On this analysis Hobbes's practice of setting terms as opposites
and then gradually transforming them into contraries produces a complex,
sophisticated philosophical investigation into man's practice of the arts of peace.
Recalling that Hobbes called language man's 'noblest invention', Martin Bertman
addresses the central question for Hobbes's reflection on moral language: what is
the relation between our particular knowledge of the fact, meaning and reference
of moral terms and the general foundation of language in the economy of human
action? Since the time of Hume we have treated this problem under the is/ought
dichotomy. Bertman argues that Hobbes's position on the logic of moral terms is
that description need not lack normative force. For Hobbes, a theory or science is
a standard, and thus a norm.
Because of his own causal theory of explanation in geometry and first philosophy,
Hobbes sees logical implication as itself a causal relation. And because explanation
in the science of natural justice shows us the cause of our artifice, 'the natural is
fulfilled by the artificial'. This science is normative and descriptive at once: the
natural element in language is its denotative function aiming toward private
memory; the artificial element is its complex connotative function aiming toward
public communication and coexistence. Thus Hobbes avoids Hume's problem
because he sees language as a human artifice ranging even over our perceiving, since
memory links perceiving with language. With the art of signification as 'ancilla' to
the natural 'marking' by language in memory, fact and value are not separated;
there are no values-alone.
Although Leviathan has long been considered to have grown gradually out of the
Elements and De Cive, Comelis Schoneveld examines the rhetoric of all three and
concludes Leviathan was conceived to be different from either of its Latin
predecessors, and did not just grow out of them. De Cive was intended for
philosophers, was rigorous and emphasized the requirements of method; it was
meant to avoid passions and did so via technical terminology. Since the English
translation of De Cive and also the Elements were going to press at the very time
when Hobbes said he had to interrupt his systematic trilogy to address immanent
civil strife, why did he write Leviathan at all? Schoneveld answers that Leviathan's
intention is different from those works, viz., to generate belief, to awaken the
passions inclining men toward peace, not by way of long trains of precise
connections but by derivation from something already widely believed. Careful
study of parallel passages in the three works reveals that rhythm, euphony and
structure are far improved in Leviathan, as tecnical terminology is transformed into
powerful and moving analogies.
What emerges most clearly from these discussions is the subtlety and power with
which Hobbes interweaves logic and rhetoric to achieve his purposes. This
dialectical process is seen by Hobbes to be the only one capable of bringing the arts
of peace to the forefront of our attention. The complexity of these arts, and their
8

immediacy to ourselves, their causes, make them hard to grasp at all and delicate
once found. Hence his logic for them begins with dramatic oppositions and only
carefully moves toward that tension of intellectual contrasts needed for full
understanding.
These insights obviously have an impact on the large methodological issues raised
in the previous section while underlining the smaller but knottily interconnected
issue of Leviathan's relationship to the earlier works. While this issue is by no means
settled, we can see the way in which Hobbes's revisions achieved increasing clarity,
force and precision, becoming both more memorable and more understandable. In
addition, these discussions open out into our topic theme and provide orientation
for study of the ensuing sections.

III. Natural Right and the State of Nature

This section undertakes to explore Hobbes's analysis of human endeavor from its
bare origins in life itself, through time and change to the particular determinations
which individuate people. The general thrust of this course is indeterminate, and,
far from committing Hobbes to some one specific nature for man, shows the
conceptual relationships accounting for any possible personality - as indeed, any
general human science must. But this account, first framed by Hobbes as conatus-
to-disposition, is reframed in the social setting as the problem of natural right in
which indeterminate self-interest must become determinate among others working
out the same needs.
This third phase of our systematic investigation opens with Brian Stoffel's study
of Hobbes's physical theory of eonatus (endeavor) and its relationship to the
development of character.
Stoffel lauds F.S. McNeiIIy for recognizing that Hobbes is not an 'egoist' moral
theorist, but deepens and extends that insight by turning to the ways Hobbes
developed his moral theory within the setting of his general inquiry into the 'first
beginnings' of any motion at all. Stoffel sees a continuum from Hobbes's earliest
hunches about eonatus in the Short Traet and first writings on optics through the
Elements and White's De Mundo Examined and on into Leviathan and De Corpore.
Hobbes's psychology arises in his physical theory, and is seen to be rich enough in
explanatory power to account for the entire range of human characters including,
but by no means confined to, that of the egoist. Through detailed study of the
earlier writings, from optics to cross-bows to people, Stoffel shows how Hobbes is
able to account for 'dispositions' as they tend toward or away from acts and objects
by the development of eonatus. Dispositions are then analyzed through the
interrelations of structures; for Hobbes there are no independent dispositions
possible. Bodily constitution, experience, habit, goods of the future, self-estimation
and authorities are found to be the six factors shaping character. Just because of
 9

this 'deep structure' of character, proceeding from conatus to disposition, Hobbes

does not put any particular form of character at the base of man's nature. And
because of this he is able to raise the question of education in the civilizing arts as
a major task for man rather than it being either impossible or easy.
Paul Johnson recognizes that for over three hundred years Hobbes has been
reputed a maligner of human nature; over two hundred years of histories of political
thought portray him as holding to the homo lupus homini doctrine, a charge already
levied against him before his death in 1679. Johnson's reading of the passages cited
by these critics reveals that the evidence cannot support their charges. Hobbes's text
is unraveled to show that 'desire' is equivalent to a formal concept of appetite, that
very few such appetities are innate, and that most differ according to one's character
and experience. More crucially, most of them are best satisfied, Hobbes argues, in
community. 'Power' is another such formal term in Hobbes, and depends on
relations between persons and their desires.
Considering Leviathan's three causes of war, Johnson argues that only one of
them may be seen as in any sense 'natural', viz., competition for scarce goods -
which is far from a drive to compete for the sake of competing. Diffidence is a type
of foresight, natural in the sense that we are able to see ahead, but not therefore
causing quarrel necessarily (i.e. unless there is something foreseen as dangerous),
and glory is not in nature at all, in the sense of innately 'inside man'. More
importantly, Hobbes is arguing that the source of conflict is deeper than any of
these, and occurs just precisely because no two of us have the same nature. To the
contrary, the factors making up our lives individuate us to such an extent that we
are not even self-identical over time. And our diversity carries over from experience
to concepts to language. In each of these three vital areas, we are 'dissociated' by
nature - a far cry from holding that all men are possessed of the same wolf-like
nature. It is the vast diversity of human beings which sets the problem for the
generation and sustenance of the commonwealth, not any innate amorality.
Even though Hobbes did not see himself chiefly as an innovator in philosophy
of law, Simone Goyard-Fabre finds his distinction between jus and lex offering a
new intuition in juridical thought. Unlike Aristotle, Hobbes derives jus from the
human individual's will to live. However, at this point, it is a mere conatus,
undetermined. Thus, 'natural laws' are not juridical norms, but rather the 'advice
of reason'. When jus and lex clash, right and liberty are at odds and anarchy results.
It is at this point that Hobbes introduces the covenant, for a bilateral exchange is
required to produce a 'true' delegation of power. The metamorphosis of right from
individual and undetermined to common and binding is completed by the founding
of the sovereign, possessed not of any 'divine right' but only a juridical right. As
such, the sovereign functions as the source of norms; right has become civil. Though
coercion is used, it is only the formal mark of the sovereign, not the content of the
law. As formal, it liberates, just because it 'raises obstacles to all those things which
raise obstacles to liberty' in the state of nature. If citizens are to have effective
10

rights, they must become civil. Public order and right are thus made by one and the
same action. By making right a positive outcome of human establishment, two
innovations are achieved in legal philosophy:
(a) the source of right is located on earth, and (b) the form and finality of
right are laical and logical.
Responding to Goyard-Fabre's thesis, C.A.l., Coady agrees that Hobbes locates
right among men on earth, and that he has distinguished lex from jus in a new way.
But natural right has, if anything, a positive connotation for Hobbes - even in the
state of nature the right to self-preservation is inalienable, and remains so even after
civil right is instituted. Further, other rights directly derivable from natural right are
also inalienable, irrespective of civil right. The latter supplements but does not
replace them. Goyard-Fabre seems to employ a standard of right which Hobbes had
rejected, as when she suggests there are 'contradictions' between natural right and
natural law. In Hobbes's own accounts, the second half of the right law of nature
in Leviathan is said to sum up all natural right; that is, self-defense is almost a part
of our endeavor toward peace. And in De Cive, it is. There does not seem to be a
contradiction between seeking peace and using war if peace is not attaina,ble.
These and other examples point to Hobbes's concept of civil right as being
morally 'thin' - meaning that many acts are left to us as rights, while at the same
time no one else is obliged to refrain from hindering us in their exercise. This 'thin'
conception leads to other problems for Hobbes because of his morally 'rich' theory
of authorization which depends on overt acts and language, while our civil liberties
or rights are simply whatever the civil law leaves untouched and depend then on the
sovereign's inaction and silence.
As for Hobbes's innovation in 'right', Coady concludes that in sovereign and
subjects it is not 'brutish' but limited, grounded by Hobbes in reason and natural
law rather than functioning by itself. Hobbes's 'right' is indeed counter to tradition,
but is not necessarily a replacement of it. And, perhaps, there is no metamorphosis.
Following this initial exchange on Hobbes's innovations in the theory of right,
Gary Herbert undertakes a carefully focused study of the 'mediations' Hobbes
brings about in order to portray the paradoxical and complex quality of human
right. Man is, one might say, 'unsociably social' - he sees the dilemma of either
serving his own needs at the cost of possible conflict, or else neglecting himself to
avoid conflict. This dilemma is not due to the absence of moral laws, but due to
the fact that unmediated self-interest is self-contradictory. Rational self-interest
confronts this dilemma, setting the problem of mediation so as to satisfy actual
needs without self-destruction. Generation of the commonwealth achieves some of
this, but not all, for some rights, in religious experience, in professional ambition
and intellectual achievement, remain outside the civic sphere. Once the
commonwealth is erected, Hobbes sees four threats to effective mediation; a bad
sovereign, religion, natural catastrophes and 'philosophic desire' . Herbert
 11

concludes that Hobbes's 'morality of natural reason' (EW III, 697) constitutes a
philosophic inquiry into the 'structure of desire' and is in no wayan ad hoc
appendage to a mechanistic view of man.
In this section it becomes clear that Hobbes produced a more sophisticated and
powerful psychology than he has ordinarily been credited with; it in no way
produces a one-dimensional aggressive man. And it is clear that the problems of civil
peace do not stem from man having any innately wolfish nature. The question
rather is one of mediating among individuals possessed of interests which are
themselves self-contradictory. And here emerges the debate as to 'thin' vs. 'rich'
determination, unresolved by our authors but illustrating that there is good evidence
that Hobbes expected obligation to cover a wider area than just the legal or juridical
- a foreshadowing of the fifth section's study of equity - and already extending
'right' from legal to spiritual, intellectual and religious needs potentially realizable
in civilization.

IV. Generating the Commonwealth

The question of generating the commonwealth has often been treated by scholars
of Hobbes as a problem which mutually hostile men had to solve by some sort of
game-theoretical strategy. In the light of the broadened view of human nature and
human rights gained via foregoing sections, the authors of the present section throw
the problem into a new and richer perspective.
Philip Kain examines how Hobbes differentiates between sovereignty by
institution and that by acquisition or conquest. The first of these concepts serves
Hobbes's intent to found a science of natural justice. It is rationally reached through
definition of natural right and the state of nature. But the second concept serves
Hobbes's intent to speak to man in history and produce a result practically useful
in human life. The former is a model for deductive science, the latter for actual
history. Thus, far from the usual view that Hobbes's civil philosophy is weakened
or scuttled by contradiction between the two, Kain argues Hobbes knew he needed
both in order to 'connect fact and right', history and science. In exploring that
connection, Kain finds 'the germ of a philosophy of history' and a way to see the
consistency of Hobbes's work. Hobbes ruled out both utopias and power struggles,
right alone or fact alone, in order to show what is required for human communities
to achieve legitimacy. A sovereign by acquisition may be legitimate if it makes itself
of a sort which would be agreed to by men in a fictive state of nature. In this linking
of history with philosophy, Hobbes initiates a line of thought later pursued by Kant,
Hegel and Marx, going so far, Kain argues, as to account for legitimate revolution.
A comparison of the Elements, De Cive and Leviathan offers another and fruitful
way to see the particular achievement of Hobbes. Herbert W. Schneider shows that
in the Elements, the 'Behemoth' of civil war is to be avoided by the conventional
12

cardinal virtues. In De Cive the ethics of contract in trade and commerce are placed
prior to moral law administered in civil society. One might call this approach a
'commercial ethics', wherein moral order arises out of commerce, not out of
politics. But Hobbes's third and final theory is considerably different: in Leviathan
the laws of nature rather than commercial ethics play the central role in the
commonwealth. Obligations among citizens are legal ones, while those to the
government are moral. 'Natural justice' is now a technical term for a carefully
contructed system of jurisprudence based on the natural science of cause and effect.
Although they are usually conflated or confused, foedus and pactum are shown
by Klaus-Michael Kodalle to be the two inseparable dimensions of covenant,
whereby that concept bridges the historical and the scientific-hypothetical. As
reworked by Hobbes, 'covenant' now comes to signify the unity of
(a) the natural law-contract element with
(b) the federal theology doctrine of the bond between God and his people.
The 'original contract' concept belongs to Hobbes's more geometrico, to his
demonstration of the founding of the commonwealth. But sustaining a
commonwealth throughout a 'mixed' history requires fides, trust, a faith in each
other and the institutions erected. Without this complementarity of joedus with
pactum, the original fear in the state of nature cannot account for an actual and
sustained community. Said otherwise, the covenant gives man two possible moves;
trust, or betrayal. Therefore he is not compelled. A pact, by itself, requires no trust
because it is bilateral and may even be coerced or externally motivated by a quid
pro quo. But a bond of trust implies self-determination. The act of founding and
the practice of preserving a commonwealth are both found to rely upon bonds of
trust, whereas the abstract explanation of the process is made by use of contract
theory. Just because Hobbes can distinguish between trust and obedience in these
ways, neither reducible to the other, we are able to see that he finds something in
man not coercible by external causes. Historically he saw religious truths dividing
men into warring sects, and also saw a rational calculus of contract theory
'generating' a commonwealth. But in that calculus reason alone was helpless. It is
in his reworking of the idea of covenant that actual dissociation and hypothetical
unity are brought to a philosophical plane of agreement.
Scholars of the problem of generating the commonwealth have puzzled over the
apparent conflict between Hobbes's abstract rational account and the seeming
embarrassment of his historical account involving conquest. In this section our
authors have noticed three important features which clarify Hobbes's thought and
suggest a more extensive achievement than had been suspected. First, far from
embarrassment, Hobbes is shown to have intended, and framed a case for including,
historical evidence as well as a purely theoretical schema. The two are not
necessarily at odds. Second, his account in Leviathan is neither traditional nor
strictly a 'modern' commercial or bourgeois theory; instead, while the classical
virtues are still in view and commercial exchange generates contractual obligation,
 13

a wider theory now bases both those earlier concerns and the new concern for
sustaining commonwealths already generated upon the causal principles of natural
consequences and the moral laws involving trust and fair dealing. Third, the notion
that Hobbes was just confused in using the terms 'contract' and 'covenant' is
clarified when his distinction between a deal and a bond is grasped as they
coordinate in his theory. He is not interested only in the generation of the
commonwealth, but also in its survival. Contract and covenant, bilateral agreements
and bonds of trust are the conditions for sustaining the commonwealth. Science and
history, value and fact are again coordinated by this argument because of its
turning, as it does, on individual agency.

V. Justice and Equity in the Commonwealth

The final issue coming under the general theme is that of law, justice and equity -
what does Hobbes mean by each, and how are they related? Larry May argues that
our usual meaning of 'legal positivism' will not fit Hobbes's Science of natural
justice, because of his relatively narrower concept of justice. Rather, it is Hobbes's
concept of equity which comes closer to what we now consider under the term
'justice'. For Hobbes equity is given a wider range than is justice as he delimits those
terms. Further, the signification and use of 'equity' increases over the period of his
writings in civil philosophy until, in Leviathan and A Dialogue, equity becomes the
dominant moral category. Hobbes may be seen as suppluing a relatively 'thin' role
for justice, namely keeping of covenants made. But by contrast, the sovereign is
enjoined to make good laws. As made, the Sovereign's laws are just; but they are
not therefore necessarily good. A Dialogue shows in detail that law is good as it
provides for the well-being of the people. Therefore two moral limits are placed
upon sovereigns because of equity:
(a) they must not interpret laws inconsistently or arbitrarily, i.e., they must be
fair; and
(b) laws cannot be unreasonable or capricious such as to threaten the people's
safety.
Legality and morality overlap in these two important ways.
William Mathie)agrees with May that equity plays the dominant role in Hobbes's
Science of natural justice. But what does Hobbes mean by equity, and how is it
related to justice? Did Hobbes add it to his system, as a moral 'wedge' (a term used
by May)? To the contrary, Mathie argues, equity is a fundamental category for
Hobbes, and so much so that justice is more nearly derived from it than the other-
way-round. Hobbes cannot correctly be read as a proto-Austinian legal positivist.
What May calls the 'thinness' of Hobbes's notion of justice is not at all a version
of moral relativism. Equity encompasses understanding of all that the laws of nature
require. It does indeed enjoin fairness and consistency, but more importantly it does
14

so just because all laws must be interpreted. The problem of equity, of getting from
the universal to the particular case, is a continual problem.
Moving from the comment and response to the riskier task, Mathie undertakes
to make more precise what Hobbes means by equity. Though the right of property
is secured by law, for example, it is equity which 'divides' that right, seeing to
impartiality and fair use. The same holds for taxation, where equity calls for tax
on consumption rather than on public lands so as to maintain a proportional
taxation. Hobbes emphasizes the general point that law-devising seeks universality,
whereas law-making for him connotes interpretation or, as we might say,
'application'. In every such case, the intent of the law must be taken to be equity,
i.e. the salus populi. Rather than presupposing the other virtues as does Aristotle
on justice, Hobbes's equity is the basis for all other virtues. That is, Hobbes places
fairness and equality as foundational, and lawfulness is only one part of that.
On the question as to whether civil and natural laws are brought into agreement
by Hobbes, in this section it is seen that the matter of their accord is considered by
Hobbes, in principle, to be resolvable by the assessment of reason, where 'reason'
must be a public standard rather than a privileged one. Further, Hobbes's concept
of equity reaches over all the laws of nature, while that of justice reaches only over
positive acts of the sovereign, even those latter being reviewable in moral terms. A
law is not necessarily a good law. The foggy vision of Hobbes as absolutist begins
to dissipate in the sunshine of these patient reading of Leviathan and A Dialogue
on equity, the courts of equity and the 'morality of natural reason' which ultimately
check bad laws or replace unsafe sovereigns. It is argued, finally, that the
philosophical rank given by Hobbes to 'equity' over the more limited 'justice' opens
the way for each individual citizen's pursuit of the classical moral excellences,
though here repositioned as stemming from rather than leading toward, fairness and
equality.

VI. Hobbes Today

Our study of Hobbes's Science oj natural justice concludes with two reflections on
the question of Hobbes's value to us in the face of present concerns. Isabel
Hungerland recognizes the extent to which contemporary ethical theory has been
influenced by rational decision (or 'game') theory. Both Rawls and Harsanyi pursue
this task, Rawls developing a deontological theory with traditional contract theory
as a base (in opposition to Utilitarianism), while Harsanyi proposes a utilitarian
theory employing decision theory. Both use fictionalized situations and an idealized
rationality, which is then somehow to be 'applied' to real life. Hungerland argues
that each of them fails to see the crucial differences between the ideal and the real,
thereby leading to misinterpretations of Hobbes and to confusions in theory which
Hobbes was able to avoid. Specifically, and in detail, Hungerland argues Hobbes's
 15

Science of natural justice displays four advantages not to be found in Rawls or

Harsanyi:
(a) Hobbes only requires a means-end rationality rather than an idealized
rationality;
(b) he produces a comprehensive, tightly-knit theory accounting for teleogical
as well as deontological 'oughts';
(c) he is able to account for the determination of the content of moral rules
despite the vast diversity of human desires, and
(d) his physicalism and other assumptions give egocentric and rational man a
framework with which to describe a struggle for survival of individual persons
rather than the (abstract) 'species'.
Hungerland concludes that not only political philosophers, but social scientists
with knowledge of science and mathematics will find in Leviathan a social theory
superior to much of what is available today.
Howard Warrender observes that contemporary philosophy is almost entirely
preoccupied with personal morality or with trivial examples of moral decision. But
by contrast, Hobbes centers his effort on 'macroethics', i.e. the theory of peace and
the theory of natural justice. Attempts to read Hobbes as amoral cannot explain the
strong moral concern of his works. Hobbes's aim was nothing less than the
preservation of the human race, not this or that faction within it, and he was, as
well, the first philosopher to offer a physical and moral foundation for the
inalienable rights of individuals. His major task, then, was to explain our obligation
to obey the laws of nature, which he founds not on logical universality, but on the
(more fruitful) universality of 'do-as-you-would-be-done-by'. Thus there is some
similarity to a Kantian 'strict deontology', though Hobbes is not really a proto-
Kantian.
Warrender sees two assumptions governing post-Kantian academic moral
philosophy - that there is a sharp gap between interest and duty, and another
between naturalistic and non-naturalistic explanation. If we could but understand
Hobbes's Science of natural justice more fully, we could roll back both these
assumptions and turn our attention to the macro-ethical issues of survival,
starvation, wages and welfare, freedom and equality which receive scant attention
from contemporary moral philosophy. Finally, in today's world where small nations
can threaten even the largest with destruction and we are near an 'equality of fear',
Hobbes's theory of peace needs serious reconsideration.

The studies comprising this systematic inversigation reveal several discoveries

emerging as repeated themes. These themes suggest patterns in Hobbes" thought
previously missed and only now coming to the forefront of study. They deserve to
be highlighted as much for their freshness and novelty of emphasis as for their
technical importance in Hobbes's train of reasoning.
First, a number of our authors perceived a pattern in Hobbes's logic whereby he
16

begins dialectically with a clear or commonly used distinction of opposites, and then
gradually sifts and refines them until he reveals an intricately textured interplay of
relationships, contexts and meanings. Those catching no more than the (often
powerful) 'opening act' of these investigations frequently concluded that there was
no more to the intellectual drama being played out before them and that Hobbes
had remained simplistically, if memorably melodramatic. It should be apparent now
that as what one might call a dramatist of thought and utterance, Hobbes saw both
a need to invent fresh language and at the same time touch intimately the common
base of usage, to bring the novel and the well-worn into communion. Several of our
authors recognized that Hobbes's discussion of the arts of logic and rhetoric are
replete with consequences not only for the study of Hobbes as a logician and
linguist, but also for understanding his substantive founding of a science of natural
justice. Whether referred to as a dialectic, a mediation, a transformation, a
reconciliation of opposites or under the musical metaphor of progressions, the
pattern is substantiated and requires further investigation in its own right.
A second pattern detected in these studies and fresh to Hobbes scholarship is his
technical interweaving of the scientific-hypothetical mode of thought with the
historical-rhetorical tradition. Appreciating the detail and immediacy of the second
and grasping the clarity and rigor of the first, Hobbes refused to cast his system
wholly into either the traditional mold or into that of the emerging 'science
nouvelle'. Rather he tried to work away from the weaknesses of each toward a third
mode combining the strengths of each, a mode both theoretical and practical,
rational but fruitful in time.
It seems to be a related, third pattern that what we have come to call since Kant
the deontological vs. the teleological approaches to moral philosophy were not
unknown to Hobbes, but were rejected by him as logical contradictories for the sake
of sifting and salvaging from each their critical kernal of truth. These patterns of
insight have emerged enough to be noticed by our authors and they too will require,
and no doubt receive, nore intense consideration in the future. As serious problems
of adaptation and survival loom over our lives, the sterility of rigid fact/value or
subjective/objective bifurcations of the moral life seem less and less defensible.
Hobbes, writing in times much like our own, made a fruitful start toward a moral
theory more rich and comprehensive than has been available to us in recent
generations.
Related to the foregoing but somewhat distinct from it, there emerges a fourth
pattern which offers an exciting avenue of research and reconsideration, namely,
Hobbes's subtle but powerful reworking of the relation between nature and art.
Though we have come to use 'art' as standing for a discrete, independent set of
activities isolated from the wider range of human activities, and though we use
'artificial' as a synonym for 'fake' or 'unreal', the problem originally conceived by
the ancient Greeks in their cognate terms is still much with us - what is the
difference between doing well and doing poorly? What are the arts, the achievable
 17

human skills, needed on our agenda for survival, and if possible, for well-being?
These issues press home, and we can see now that Hobbes rejected a strict
opposition between human doing and natural processes, rejected any neoplatonic
disdain for 'mere nature' as 'raw material' and yet also steered clear of
romanticizing nature as an easy, hospitable foundation for man's life. Instead, a
number of our authors find Hobbes achieving a more complex but complementary
view of natural causality and human artifice wherein the former limits and corrects
while the latter perfects and stabilizes. Thus we are put in a position to open up
questions of 'the art of peace' and the artifice of a 'natural justice' in empirically,
and normatively, rich theory and practice. It should go without saying that this
pattern requires extensive research and development in the Hobbes corpus and more
widely in our own general reflections on our present condition.
A fifth and final pattern to be noted and pursued in the future is the discovery,
noted by several of our authors, that Hobbe's concept of what makes for an
adequate philosophical or scientific theory sets up a requirement of developing the
widest and richest possible range of conceptual coverage for empirical detail with
the most spare u~e of formal assumptions. This has often been misunderstood by
his readers. His conceptions of natural right and fear of death, for example, have
triggered strong attacks in the absence of recognition of the formal and logically
primitive, first-philosophy status assigned to these concepts - as to that of conatus
- just in order to account for the whole range of human types, choices, motives and
outcomes, rather than focusing merely on the more ideally desirable instances. It
seems that as we mature in our understanding of what constitutes a theory and what
separates stronger from weaker ones. Hobbes's theory gains in stature and
significance. The large philosophy of science issue about theory and coverage is in
fact overshadowed by the larger current need for human understanding at the level
of global universality, that is to say, the need to develop patterns of understanding
capable of explicating and rendering pliable broad ranges of concrete human
problems. We are not overly rich in thinkers able to open pathways toward such
practically applicable insights. Hobbes now emerges as a singular example of
conscious and subtle achievement of this kind.
It is not possible to review and discuss every research discovery seen by us to merit
future effort, but two others deserve mention: first, the new insights concerning
Hobbes's concepts of justice and equity, how they are properly defined and the ways
in which equity bears the larger and more normative role; second, fresh insights
concerning the concept of covenant as a reworking of the 16th-century 'federal
theology' (such as moved the original Puritan pilgrims to the new world) into a
complex philosophical theme of enforcement and trust, immediate legal clarity and
mediate moral binding for the purposes of sustaining common life.
In the first, it becomes clearer not only how laws may be assessed as good or bad,
but also just how the region of what is now called the political is to be delimited
by Hobbes. Far from seeing politics everywhere, Hobbes asked relatively little of
18

it. Most human needs and choices fall into the area 'by the laws praetermitted'. It
is apparent that his reasons for this limitation of the legal and political sphere arise
from the broader end deeper moral requirements of equity and of individuated
human character. The same thought accounts for the richer concept of covenant,
or. if the reader will, the interrelationships between contract and covenant. Hobbes
is not a 'contract' theorist merely or alone.
Our description of the work of the present volume as truly fresh research into
Hobbes's Science of natural justice is justified then for two reasons. First, of course,
are the novel patterns of insight and detail just described which must stimulate
future investigations. And secondly, these studies arose from scholars worldwide
mostly unaware of one another's current work until brought into dialogue and yet
who were working out similar and related rereadings and reinterpretations. Perhaps
it would be Quixotic to hope for a permanent truce in the three-hundred-years-war
of the '-isms'. No doubt there will always be readers of Hobbes who will need
Procrustean furniture of the mind very soon after entering the chambers of his
thought, who will feel lost without the familiar melodramatic castings of thought
into boxes end bricks to fill out the haunting Hobbesean house of unfamiliar
philosophical sounds and shapes.
Nonetheless, we are hopeful, because of the unprecedented and welcome variety
of high-standard scholarship which came forth and interacted to create the interplay
in this volume. At least there is a 'beginning', an endeavor toward a newly critical,
careful and philosophically serious study of Hobbes, responsive not only to our
need to know, but to our need then to do and make. The Science of natural justice,
by whatever name it may come to be called, must stand very near the top of our
agenda as humans if we are to sustain civilized life.

Craig Walton
Paul J. Johnson

NOTES

Sheldon S. Wolin, Hobbes and the Epic Tradition of Political Theory, with an introduction by
Richard E. Ashcraft (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1970) p. vii.
2 The editors were later joined in this enterprise by Professor William Sacksteder (University of
Colorado), whose labors were both vast and valuable.
I. TASK OF THE 'SCIENCE OF NATURAL JUSTICE'
 21

1. THE PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF HOBBES'S

STATE OF NATURE

Jean Mathiot

Universite de Provence, France

No one supposes that Hobbes finally settled the modern meaning of the concept of
State of Nature. Grotius, though eminently innovative in conceptions of the Right
of Nature, did not use it. But Hobbes's concept soon gained a retrospective
authority, appearing as it does in Barbeyrac's commentaries on Grotius's Droit de
ta Guerre et de ta Paix where it is used as a self-evident tool of interpretation. Such
a retrospective interpretation is significant; for the great success of a philosophical
concept may often be grounded on misunderstandings, unless it does nothing other
than produce them while falling off into triviality.
When we consider that the question of the state of nature with Rousseau and
many other authors is at root the fundamental philosophical question of man's
nature, we may notice our tendency to take for granted the philosophical frame of
the question, that is the 'political anthropology' which itself should be specifically
and precisely examined. The misleading effect of such taking for granted is obvious
in the case of the proper meaning of Hobbes's state of nature as state of war: for
how can we admit that the war of all against all could be the very basis for the
analysis of man's nature, when man is at the same time 'the most excellent work
of Nature' (EWIII, IX)? Hobbes himself paid considerable attention to the possible
misunderstanding of his own conception, as seen for instance in the French edition
of De Cive, where he added some notes about this question.
Therefore this is not only a question of history, but also a problem for anybody
who wants to escape misleading questions or grievances concerning Hobbes's state
of nature. At issue are the questions of whether or not there is a bridge between the
state of nature and the civil state, of the method of overcoming the hindrances of
the state of nature, and so on. All these questions, as far as they are grounded on
a phenomenological or analogical conception of the generation of the civil state,
require some critical examination of the philosophical statements they implicitly
take for granted. More precisely, the underlying question is of the substantial unity
we may suppose in the generation of the Commonwealth. It is clear, too, that such
a question is related to the question of the interpretation of the Law of Nature in
the state of nature, and then to that of the political interpretation of Hobbes's
criticisms of legalists and philosophers. It seems to me that we may assume that any

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrechl.
22

political interpretation is haz~rdous before the philosophical frame of interpretation

is settled.

1. The Methodological Aspect

1.1 The Autonomy oj Civil Philosophy

That the proper meaning of the 'state of nature' is connected with the new theme
of the autonomy of political science, i.e. that civil philosophy can find out its own
principles, appears clearly froll?- both De Cive and Leviathan. As the term of the
proper analysis of society, the state of nature embodies the very field of this
autonomy. This is a sufficient ground for discarding any analogical interpretation
of the state of nature. For example, the comparison with the clock and its division
into separate parts, introduced in De Cive, is only an illustration.
We find in De Corpore an important confirmation of this autonomy, provided
by Hobbes's rejection of all previous definitions of the scope of political
philosophy: for political philosophy is one of the kinds of philosophy that is not
an enquiry about some question already propounded. On the contrary, it is an
example of indefinite inquiry, that is, of science sought 'simply' for itself (EW I,
68-77). Thus civil science is moral philosophy, and no longer dependent on received
status in the largest field of 'causes of universal things', which cannot be covered
unless we use a method of resolution. Therefore we cannot restrain civil philosophy
within the boundaries of its proper object: the state of nature embodies a conception
of political science according to which political philosophy extends· beyond
politically definite questions.
This universal scope must be noticed in order to give a true account of Hobbes's
rejection of two fields of knowledge which nevertheless reveal some similarity with
the analysis of the state of nature, namely the analyses of men's actions and passions
from a political point of view in history and in rhetoric. Thucydides succeeded in
finding out the real motives of men's actions; yet, history cannot go beyond mere
conjectures which have no necessity. One may say the same about rhetoric - it deals
with passions and consequences of passions considered from a political point of
view. Moreover, rhetoric allows a kind of research about the causes and the ends
of political behavior that is free from presupposed definitions of its scope dependent
on metaphysical systems of Truth and Good. Thus rhetoric brings to light the spring
of political behavior as nature or psychological power, that is, a dunamis which goes
beyond the field of moral virtues. Hobbes owes very much to rhetoric, too, when
he emphasizes the temporal and individual aspects of political enquiry from the
point of view of Truth: 'auctoritas, non veritas jecit leges'.
Yet we must discard rhetoric as a model for the analysis of the state of nature
for two reasons. First, according to the Aristotelian tradition, one may not dismiss
 23

the point of view of Truth in favor of Likelihood without at once dismissing Nature
itself as the frame of successful research into essences and real principles. One must
not confound the aims with the ends, the 'topoi' with the essence. Far from gaining
autonomy, rhetoric is therefore to be put on the fringe of natural knowledge, lest
the very basis of science be shattered. Second, the power which rhetoric brings to
light (thanks to its psychological scope) entails an unquestioned previous act in
response to which it is revealed. Rhetoric cannot arrive at its own principles and
particularly the main one, the persuasive action of speech. Hobbes, on the contrary,
involves speech itself in the analysis of the state of nature. According to De Homine,
speech is itself a spring of power, rather than the effect of a previous act which is
supposed to work in an unquestionable way, as in the books of rhetoric.
The above-mentioned characteristics of the Hobbesian science of politics -
universality of scope, autonomy of method, achievement of resolution into
principles - lead Hobbes to retain the new objects discovered by the pragmatic
knowledge of rhetoric and at the same time to reject the knowledge itself.
The proper level of interpretation of the state of nature is therefore the
philosophical one, it being the only one where such requirements can be satisfied.
As a counter-proof, can we cite any author among Hobbes's successors who could
accept this universality of analysis of the state of nature beyond any doubt or
question? All of them accept the idea of the state of nature, but only as a derivative
moment of the inquiry; even Rousseau, though he claims a new radicalism, makes
the state of nature depend on the prior question of man's nature.
If Hobbes's analysis of the state of nature is , as I suggest, a question for first
philosophy, then a more accurate interpretation is already possible concerning three
points: First, the link that is found between political philosophy and natural
philosophy is not a subordination as is the case in Cartesian philosophy. The
analysis of the state of nature does not depend upon a precious concept of Nature.
That is why Hobbes splits science into two main branches, the science of bodies
natural, and the science of bodies political (EWIII, 72). That is also why Hobbes
refuses to impute the warring behavior of the state of nature to a wicked nature fo
man (EW II, XVI-XVII). So far as the question of man's nature is a question to
be answered in the course of the analysis of the state of nature, and not conversely,
before it, Hobbes really founded a new philosophical discipline destined to be
carried on by posterity, namely, political anthropology, which conceives the
question of man's nature to be a political one.
Secondly, it follows that this level of first philosophy which commands all
analysis of the state of nature, cannot be reached by interpretations conceived in
terms of an opposition between Nature and Covenant, or between Nature and Art.
Such oppositions could not provide any account of the connection between Nature
and Covenant.
Thirdly, according to the interpretation here suggested, we must be very careful
in referring to a 'mechanistic' explanation of the state of nature and of the whole
24

political philosophy of Hobbes. No analogy can give an account of the autonomy

of political philosophy. It should be clear enough that physical mechanism has a less
universal scope, and at the same time, must satisfy much more restrictive
requirements of method than political philosophy. In physical mechanism, four
steps are necessary: geometry, as the science of motion in general; the science of the
effects of bodies; the science of sense; and last, the science of physical qualities (EW
I, 72). But because political science, on the contrary, is free from these four
requirements, physical mechanism cannot provide any help to it. Besides, this is true
of all philosophies until Kant's Newtonian paradigm, which then gets a precise
philosophical meaning in (Kant's) political conceptions. In any case, Hobbes makes
this point quite clear for his own doctrine, when he says that 'even they also that
have not learned the first part of philosophy, namely, geometry and physics, may
notwithstanding, attain the principles of civil philosophy, by the analytical method'
(EW I, 74). It is clear too that the use of analysis now is how this autonomous
method may be put into practice.

1.2 Analysis and Synthesis. The Hypothesis of the 'Dissolved Society'

Hobbes extended the field of the 'resolutive/compositive' method of ancient Greek

geometricians, renewed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Zabarella and
the Paduan scientists, Galileo included. In fact, Galileo does not pay much attention
to this method, although Hobbes claims to have borrowed it from him. As did
Descartes, Hobbes carried over this method from geometry to philosophy, in order
to achieve his design of a wholly demonstrative science of the generation of
Commonwealth, of its matter as well as its form.
The first requirements of this method (cf. Hermann led], Galileo's Dialogue des
grands systemes, p. 155) is not to begin with analysis but with the ground of already
well-known propositions: 'they must know what those universal things are before
they can know their causes', says Hobbes (EW I, 68). So it is necessary to refine
the 'data' with which the method is to deal later . In De Corpore, Hobbes achieves
this methodological process in the case of first philosophy by assuming the
hypothesis of the destruction of the world ('feigning the world to be annihilated',
EW I, 91), as the proper means to give the analytical method its scope. Such an
hypothesis discards the causes of empirical disturbance in the generation of ideas,
so that what remains retains only the indelible marks of reality, that is to say, the
mere phantasms of bodies. As they cannot be further refined, they may be
considered as the first ground of analysis. This methodological requirement of
science is closely related to Cartesian method in the Meditations.
Of course the hypothesis of 'dissolved' society that we find in De Cive (EW II,
XIV) fits exactly the same requirements, as was to be expected in the case of an
investigation of the same philosophical rank. But this hypothesis does not appear
 25

in Leviathan, and we may wonder why not. The reason is, I suggest, that the same
method can take a different form. Or, more precisely, the refinement of the concept
of the state of nature may have made this hypothesis useless. Moreover, from a
nominalist point of view, it would seem somewhat hyperbolical and therefore
subject to excision by Ockham's razor. The condition of a prior refinement of the
empirical 'data' is probably more adequately satisfied by the new summary of
natural philosophy which Leviathan added to the analysis of the state of nature. The
hypothesis of a dissolution of society may be considered as presupposing the very
thing that is to be dissolved, that is, the very nature of society. Only an ontological
conception could therefore justify using such an hypothesis.
The analysis of sense, in the beginning of Leviathan, fulfills the very conditions
that we have just pointed out in Hobbes's method. As a sense phenomenon, man
appears as a mere subject for the imputation of phantasms, without any
presupposition about the substantiality of the phenomenon itself. On one hand, the
analysis of sense is 'mechanistic' because the cause of a motion cannot be anything
but an external body: motion is only produced by motion. On the other hand,
Hobbes seems to abandon the mechanistic pattern for a dynamic one which involves
a criticism of the appearances introduced by the first explanation. The object of
sense must then be considered only as the inner correlative of a 'counter pressure'
which is an outward endeavor and thus, the exteriority of the object is reduced to
mere appearance, a simple phantasm. By contrast, a wholly mechanistic explanation
would entail an ontological argument which, first, would be a less efficient refining
of empirical 'data', and, secondly, would produce a misleading analysis of the
causes, as conceived from the point of view of the effects. This is because the
assumption of an external object is nothing but an effect of self itself.
The same can be said about all the arguments we find in the first part of
Leviathan. Hobbes here is careful not to start his analysis with the consideration of
effects. The a priori character of civil philosophy would be taken away if he did
that. His search for principles would have been limited by particular effects and
would have lacked universality. Hobbes's criticism of Descartes's Meditations is
formed in this same mould: to assume that the thinking subject is a thinking
substance rather than material substance is to overstep the 'datum' of thinking
subject. It is misleading, too, for Descartes's subsequent conception of the cause of
thinking is shaped by the effect - thinking itself. Thus the assumption of a thinking
body or substance is erroneous.
Here we see Hobbes's deepest criticism of ontological conceptions: they cannot
give analysis the correct starting point, because they admit that causes are shaped
by the very effects in question. Moreover, they cannot provide a correct conception
even of the effects, for they do not arrive at universal causes. These two arguments
are summed up in his rejection of 'formal' and 'final' causes.
Furthermore, Hobbes's rejection of ontological conceptions provides many
advantages for his analysis of the natural principles of political philosophy. As soon
26

as the 'universal things' that are to be attained are not some absolute reality, the
criticism of the 'data' may become at once less hyperbolical and at the same time
more effective. The drastic and hyperbolical hypothesis is itself a drawback of
metaphysics, which must be removed, at least in politics because, unlike first
philosophy, it involves 'universal things' which are at the same time empirical
things. In fact, the removing of ontological restraints allows a place for empirical
research. For example, this is why Hobbes uses instances of behavior in the state
of nature which are borrowed from social behavior. Comparisons with other men
and cautionary acts (like the locking of doors in cities) show that it is not necessary
to give up the perspective of society to find a way toward the universal causes at
work in political bodies. Thus, release from both ontological metaphysical restraints
and their criticism are most important aspects of the analysis Hobbes undertakes.
Nominalism therefore proves itself to be a self-supporting conception, justifying by
its results the initial choice which gave it its origin. Nominalism is finally connected
with empiricism.
From this standpoint, we may be afforded a more precise interpretation of the
'individualism' of the state of nature. Far from being dependent upon any
hypothesis of dissolution of society, it is in the Hobbesian analysis a result, rather
than part of the previous frame of the analysis. Hobbes does not give it any
ontological implications, but, on the contrary, arrives at it as the end of the process
of analysis: 'competition' emerges initially as the actual confrontation of men over
something real which is at stake. From competition springs 'diffidence', in which
competition is only fancied. Last comes the inner form of individualism, namely
'glory' as a self-appraising (which could erroneously appear in a metaphysical
conception as the spring of the two prior behaviors). It is true, in this sense, that
even selfishness cannot be a sufficient ground for anything in the state of nature.
In the case of the passions as well as in the case of power and the desire for power,
Hobbes's arguments sound similar. His criticism of appearances is always used to
afford a better approach to universal principles. More precisely, Hobbes lays down
two arguments: an extrinsic principle of determination (seeing that nothing can
move itself), and a dynamic one, with the result that the cause of an element of
nature often seems ill-connected with its own effects. There is, for example, no
substantial unity between passions as caused by sense and imagination and passions
as the springs of action. As we have seen above, so here too, this apparent jailure
oj explanation is, on the contrary, the very hallmark oj Hobbes's criticism oj
ontological conceptions.
It follows that even the causes illuminated by his description of the state of nature
necessarily lack substantiality, so that we cannot discover in all this description any
substantial ground for the state of nature, neither in Man nor in Nature, though
analysis of the state of nature arrives at universal causes. As is clear now, there is
no inconsistency here.
That civil philosophy's universality, on the contrary, is more firmly grounded by
 27

rejection of its ontological interpretation is very clear from Hobbes's argument for
the equality of men in the state of nature. It would be misleading to conclude from
equality to some common principle or property of men. Such a common ground of
human nature could easily be disproved by Hobbes's arguments. Moreover, the
ground really involved, for Hobbes, is man's universal pretense to inequality. Here
the more we discard equality as community, the more we can realize its universality.
More generally speaking, the same must be said about war in the state of nature:
one must not wonder that it may involve self-restraining men, who could content
themselves with little. For the state of war, as a universal correlation between causes
and effects of men's actions, is not to be imputed to men as the subjects of those
actions; it is (instead) like bad weather, says Hobbes. That the state of war is
universal does not imply that it is grounded on the substantial unity of any being:
a state is not a substance. This point has been misunderstood by Hobbes's posterity,
and altogether distorted by most of his successors.
Further, the concept of power itself could not rise in Hobbes's analysis unless we
recognize this correlation between the universal scope of the state of nature and
nominalist criticism of substantial links. By its own nature, power connects force,
beauty, riches, knowledge, and so on. Such a connection would be absurd in an
ontological conception and the universality of such a summary would be nonsense.
For Hobbes, no real property can be called 'power', but only the universality of the
differences arising from comparisons among distributions of, and acquisitions of
things. The concept of power can be built into a universal, but at no time does it
have a ground in the state of nature.
However, we cannot give a complete account of the state of nature within the
boundaries of method. The universal indetermination that we have pointed out must
precisely not be imputed to method only, unless we come back to a mere hypothesis.
In fact, for Hobbes it is this part of the object itself which is to be called matter.
The state of nature cannot be justified except as a moment of the generation of the
Commonwealth.

2. Beyond Method. The State of Nature as Materia Prima

2.1 The Concept of the State of Nature as Criticism

It is useful to emphasize the connection of the method with the object in the case
of the state of nature, for this is the only way to cover all the field of the state of
nature as being at once a universal and an unsteady state. As far as it is to be
imputed to the very object of politics, as its matter, Hobbes's state of nature proves
itself to be a radical criticism of earlier philosophers' conceptions of politics. What
is in question too is the meaning of the state of nature as the natural basis of the
'recomposition' of the Commonwealth. Can Hobbes escape inconsistency while
28

assuming at once the unsteadiness of the state of nature as a universal and the same
state of nature as the actual material basis of the Commonwealth?
To answer this question, it is necessary to realize the scope and the meaning of
Hobbes's criticism based on the concept of the state of nature. It is true that, as soon
as its unsteadiness is at once universal and objective, one cannot escape it. The hope
of discovering a principle of synthesis which could escape the dynamics of the state
of nature is vain. Neither right, nor reason, nor the Law of Nature itself can be
interpreted in such away. It is vain, too, to try to dissociate morality and
psychology, as do those interpreters who follow Taylor.
That, firstly, the charge of inconsistency must be dropped is clear enough from
the meaning of 'matter'. The unsteadiness of the state of nature, considered as the
undetermined materia prima of the Commonwealth, is by no means inconsistent
with the generation of it. Matter does not compete with form. It is not a fault for
matter to be lacking form.
The scope of Hobbes's criticism extends over all the false syntheses of political
bodies grounded on such misunderstandings. The real inconsistency is in hoping
that matter could be at the same time its own form. And that, for Hobbes, is the
main delusion of legalists and philosophers - namely, metaphysicians.
From this standpoint, neither psychology nor moral analysis has any advantage
as a principle of synthesis. According to the interpretation suggested above there is
no passion - even fear - which can be exempted from the unsteadiness and
indeterminacy of the state of nature in order to open up a way to get beyond it. The
fact that passions are at once determined by external causes (sense, imagination, and
so on) and are bound to produce some effects (as beginnings of action) does not give
them a substantial value. Dynamic and substantial properties are not necessarily
connected in Hobbes's doctrine.
As for false interpretations of the synthesis of political society and power, the
example of religion is most enlightening. It is true that political power had really
to be grounded on the power of priests or of the pope, as English history itself
shows. But the distinctive character of such a recomposition of political body is
precisely that it brings us back to analysis because of its failure. Even in history,
analysis followed that synthesis (cf. EW III, 695), and the power of the pope came
to be dissolved. There is nothing surprising about that, for religion is a perpetual
coming back to its first seeds, and cannot found a political order except on the
ground of fear of invisible power, that is, fear as mere (but strong) dynamics lacking
a wholly determined object. Thus political power stemming from religion is always
delusive. In the long run, as Hobbes thinks, the priests cannot help signifying indeed
the trickery of their power. One can therefore conclude that there is no passion, not
even fear, which might appear as the 'phenomenological' ground for leaving the
state of nature. Indeed, fear does not cease working in civil society; but its object
has changed, and this change does not depend upon fear alone.
The same shifting is necessary to give right its own consistency. Within the
 29

boundaries of the state of nature, it remains self-contradictory, precisely in as far

as it has gained a universal meaning. To use it as a ground - as the great legalists
tried to do - is to increase the unsteadiness of the state of nature by displaying
undetermined claims. As for the law of nature (which is to be examined further in
section 2.3 below), it may be noticed that it is divided into two contradictory
precepts: seeking peace and using all the advantages of war. Therefore it is not
exempt from the overwhelming unsteadiness of the state of nature.
The universality of the state of nature, with its radical criticism, is a matter of
philosophical choice. Being at once the focus of natural causes but deprived of any
substantiality, it comes under what Aristotle (cf. Metaphysics, Theta 7) and the
scholastic doctrine called 'materia prima', subject but not substance of natural
generation. Unlike the 'materia vestita' or second matter, it cannot be considered
as having any form or substantiality.
This meaning of the state of nature is consistent with the whole description of it
in Hobbes's works. It nevertheless leads us to a closer survey of what Hobbes calls
generation, nature and art. It seems to me that it is also the explanation for the
connection between the two main themes of Hobbes's political philosophy, the
naturalistic deduction of and the artificiality of political body.

2.2 Generation, Nature and Artifice

Insofar as this interpretation is correct, it follows that the overwhelming dynamics

of the state of war cannot be removed by any external cause. Far from demanding
any such breakthrough, it excludes it, for there is no principle of change able to seize
first matter as such. As Aristotle said, in art we make matter, whereas in Nature,
it is already lying there. First matter demands an immanent generation, which no
intermediary agent (like the Platonic 'demiurge') could provide. Religion in this
sense would be an intermediary of that kind. Any such artifice, simply added to
Nature, could not satisfy the requirements of generation intended by Hobbes. Any
artificial causation would entail a definitive split between matter and form, insofar
as it would seize matter as a substance. Here again we find the same requirement
as in Hobbes's criticism of ontological interpretations of the state of nature.
What, then, about the theme of artifice, much emphasized in the civil philosophy
of Hobbes? Far from being an objection, this stress is enlightening as the only way
of dealing with immanent generation in a nominalist framework.
Once having excluded artifice-as-addition to Nature, as an acceptance
inconsistent with Hobbes's doctrine - we may gather for example from the very
Introduction of Leviathan that Nature also could be considered as a sort of Art -
we are prepared to give the theme of Artifice a threefold meaning which fully
supports the immanence of generation mentioned above.
First, as unique specimen of its species, the artificial animal that is the Leviathan
30

points up the fact that this generation cannot be conceived in an analogical way.
Leviathan may be compared to God only, who cannot be generated. Thus this
generation itself is unique, and excludes the idea of a simply imitative art. The
Leviathan is at once the model and the copy, and that is precisely a distinctive mark
of an immanent generation.
Second, the theme of artifice may be justified in spite of the ambiguity concerning
the part played by intermediate principles, if we pay attention to the fact that
Hobbes refuses to distinguish between first and second matter (EW I, 118). For
Hobbes, the philosophical level of first matter does not exclude direct
recomposition, whereas, to the Aristotelian, there is a clean cut between generation
of the elements and generation of bodies. Rejection of this division allows Hobbes
to intend a generation of political body directly from natural elements. Again, this
argument supports the conception of an immanent generation.
Third and last, for Hobbes the artificialist theme is clearly related to the a priori
character of political science as well as of geometry. Like geometrical figures, power
is an object of study identified with its own generation and therefore, its generation
is wholly clear in relation to knowledge of its causes. The Leviathan is wholly
transparent to one who would know its causes.
It would overstep the scope of this paper to draw out all the consequences of such
an interpretation of the philosophical framing of the state of nature. However, we
may now shed some light on the question of the connection between the state of
nature and the law of nature.

2.3 The State of Nature and the Law of Nature

Is it not strange to admit at the same time the overwhelming dynamics of the state
of nature as universal, and the peculiar part played by the law of nature in Hobbes's
conception? According to the arguments displayed above, we may exclude as vain
the hope of dissociating moral or rational precepts from 'egoistic moral
psychology', as did Taylor. I shall try to assume that the peculiar part played by
the law of nature, far from being understandable by severing it from the dynamics
of the state of nature, cannot be understood except from the point of view of the
state of nature's unsteadiness.
As we have seen, neither reason nor moral precepts can be exempted from the
indeterminacy of the state of nature, if it is true that this indeterminacy expresses
the radical meaning of the matter of the Commonwealth. The law of nature,
therefore, is subjected to this universal unsteadiness. More precisely, it is divided
into the right of nature and the law of nature as two inconsistent ways to seek the
same thing, namely self-preservation. Here we may go further, and notice that the
law of nature is stricken by indeterminacy in another way, which is very
enlightening. It is divided according to the precedent division, by expressing within
 31

itself (through the opposition of 'injoro externo' and 'injoro interno') the division
into law and right. Furthermore, there is another level of discrepancy, which cannot
be reduced to the same opposition, but strikes the law of nature in its specific nature
as a rational and conscious principle of actions: 'it may be broken not only by a
fact contrary to the law, but also by a fact according to it in case a man think it
contrary' (EW III, 145). That is to say, this sort of division cannot be imputed to
the mere opposition between a state of war, where there is no security for self-
restraining men, and a state of peace where the precepts which are valid 'in joro
interno' would be put to practice, 'injoro externo' without damage. This is another
way discrepancy and unsteadiness inhabit the law of nature as such.
Yet, this specific indeterminacy of the law of nature is not strange. It is only a
sample of the very indeterminacy already discovered in other factors (sense, passion,
will). For, as has been shown above, Hobbes rejects any substantial link or
necessary connection between what causes an element and what this element causes.
The same paradigm is working here. As an inner principle of action, the law of
nature can be affected by inconsistency in respect to its own source, conscience. The
remedy for this situation cannot be provided by any miraculous change of war into
peace. Instead, it has a specific requisite, the covenant, which (as Warrender has
shown) is the means by which anyone may oblige himself, in a science according to
which nothing can move itself. In covenant, the specific unsteadiness of the law of
nature is removed, for the covenant makes impossible any discrepancy between
inner belief and law implemented.
The eminent part played by the law of nature, which would not cease in a civil
state, cannot therefore be understood as an exception. On the contrary, its privilege
is rather to bring indeterminacy and unsteadiness up to self-inconsistency, so that
it may and must be removed without any external principle. For covenant, as the
proper means of removing the indeterminacy of the law of nature, is also seized by
the dynamics of war and insecurity. Finally, power itself, which will provide for the
security of covenants, does not arise as a 'fiat', but as the summation of its own
elements.
In this generalization, the only privilege of the law of nature is to be able to
express by itself its own indeterminacy and hence, its proper remedy. The role of
the law of nature is therefore to signify the very immanence of the generation of
the Commonwealth.
May we here go any further than to conclude that Hobbes's conception of the
state of nature is consistent in its inter-relationships between the theme of natural
deduction of political philosophy and the theme of artifice? Perhaps not. But we
may at least comment that this consistency appears at the highest philosophical level
of the nominalist and empiricist agenda for first philosophy. And that, in turn, is
why these Hobbesian concepts have subsequently been considered as so firmly
grounded that they could be used without further inquiry. Therefore, too, that is
why misunderstandings such as occur in all revolutions of thought could not be
32

avoided. In light of the foregoing study, we may see beyond these

misunderstandings and acknowledge the bases for the twofold figure Hobbes had
embodied for posterity: on one side, he was seen as the radical critic of well
established doctrines; and yet, on the other, as the father of a more flexible doctrine
of natural law. In bringing a new form of rationality to political philosophy,
Hobbes could not help giving weapons to both sides. Perhaps this is the distinctive
feature of all political philosophy as soon as it has attained its own principles.
 33

2. HOBBES'S THEORY OF NATURAL AND SOCIAL

SCIENCES

Nikhil Bhattacharya

Rhode Island School of Design

Thomas Hobbes was quite explicit about the objective of his philosophic enterprise.
There were, he argued, moral, social, and political philosophies to spare. The reason
they were useless was because, however plausible they might seem to subscribers,
there was no way in which they could be guaranteed to command assent (EW I, 9).
This is because they were epistemologically unsound (EWIII, 33). Hobbes's central
concern was with civil conflict, and arbitrary conjectures about society and civil
duties, he felt, divided society into factions of supporters and opponents. His
principal task was the attempt to avoid dissension. What was thus of fundamental
importance was that a civil philosophy be one from which we could not rationally
dissent. The first problem that Hobbes confronted therefore was how such a task
might be performed. That is, how may it be possible to construct a civil philosophy
that is epistemologically defensible?
Unfortunately, this problem, the critical one for Hobbes, has since received little
consideration. The startling character of Hobbes's civil philosophy, his thesis
regarding the self-interest of individuals, his conclusion about the necessity of
'sovereign' power in the state, as well as his metaphysical position, have captured
attention from his day onwards. In the wide-ranging eagerness to disagree with
Hobbes's premises about human nature and conclusions about the nature of
society,l what is generally overlooked is that it was not Hobbes's aim simply to
present us with yet another political philosophy. His stated objective was to discover
how to construct an epistemologically defensible one. 2 How did Hobbes fare in this
aim? This is a question about Hobbes's epistemological method and its findings. It
might be tempting to think that if we disagree with Hobbes's political conclusions,
the method used to arrive at such can hardly be defensible. Perhaps such a thought
might lie behind the unwarranted neglect of Hobbes's epistemological analysis. But
as Hobbes himself might have argued, if we do not understand clearly why he came
to the conclusions he did, we do not really understand them.
Recently some have felt that we need to understand Hobbes's method, or what
he meant by 'science', to perceive what he was trying to do. 3 However, attempts to
examine his method so far have led to confusing results. McNeilly attributes
confusion to Hobbes himself, and claims that

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishef'll), Dordrecht.
34

a number of desperate and incompatible elements might be included in Hobbes's account

of science, and that no single account is likely to emerge. 4

This is a serious claim, particularly in view of Hobbes's assertion that it was only
by virtue of a coherent method that his civil philosophy - an attempt at a 'science'
of society - should be taken seriously (EW I, 9). My aim in this essay is twofold.
First, I want to argue that Hobbes's notion of science was far from confused.
Indeed, it is far more sophisticated than is generally recognized. Second, I want to
examine the advantages and disadvantages of Hobbes's theory of science.

1. Geometry and Civil War

Oakeshott has lamented Hobbes's preoccupation, along with other major
philosophers, with problems of the society around them. 5 His advice is to sanitize
their work of such concerns. I intend, instead, to focus on Hobbes's problem as he
saw it. As we shall see, a somewhat different perspective than the usual one opens
if we do. What exactly is Hobbes's problem?
Throughout his work, there is one overriding concern that reappears over and
again in Hobbes's thinking, and that is the disintegration of society through civil
war. This is part of his experience, and he feels he understands why the crisis of his
era came about,

when this nation very lately was an anarchy, and dissolute multitude of men, doing every
one what his own reason or imprinted light suggested (EW IV, 287).

Here Hobbes finds the cause of social breakdown: the private judgments of
individuals. The issue is simple: 'that private men being called to councils of state
desired to prostitute justice' and degrade it to no agency than 'their own judgments
and apprehensions' (EWII, xiii). The claims of private judgment are fundamentally
knowledge claims:

Lately, how many rebellions hath this opinion been the cause of, which teacheth that the
knowledge whether the commands of kings be just or unjust belongs to private men; and
that before they yield obedience, they not only may, but ought to dispute them! (EW II,
xii).

The social danger arising from individuals exercising their arbritrary judgments has
not been seen by other philosophers. It is this lack of understanding whence

they have begotten those hermaphrodite opinios of moral philosophers, partly right and
comely, partly brutal and wild; the cause of all contentions and bloodsheds (EW II, xiii).

But though the cause of social breakdown is the intractability of the individual,
 35

Hobbes feels that this needs to be demonstrated beyond anyone's doubt. This is part
of Hobbes's problem: how to demonstrate such a thesis indubitably. The search for
this demonstration is linked with the search for an answer to the complementary
question: how is society possible given the anarchy of private decisions?
But is the last claim sound? Dewey warned against reading something into
Hobbes that is outside the context of the seventeenth century. Dewey's suggestion
was that Hobbes was basically protesting the religious anarchy of his time and
simply attempted to replace it with a secular conceptual framework. 6 Indeed
Hobbes was concerned with religious 'sectaries'. But Dewey fails to see religious
factionalism in the way that Hobbes himself does - as nothing more than the claims
of the recalcitrant individual, namely,

that liberty which the lower sort of citizens, under pretense of religion, so challenge for
themselves. For what civil war was there ever in the Christian world, which did not either
grow from, or was nourished by this root? (EW II, 79).

There is little doubt that this problem is social and political, but it is a problem
which he poses in an epistemological garb: what are the appropriate limits of
legitimacy of private opinion, and how is one to know what such limits are? Hobbes
knows what these limits are, but his task is to demonstrate them to us. 7 How can
such a demonstration be achieved?
It ought to be realized that Hobbes's aim is not primarily a new theory of justice,
though that is a by-product of his analysis. The thesis that what we call moral
judgments are fundamentally political in nature, that what is right and wrong is a
matter of a decision of the commonwealth, is, as some have pointed out, hardly new
with Hobbes. 8 What is new is his attempt to examine how we can know this thesis
to be true and necessarily true at that. For it is our knowledge of the proper theory
of justice that makes for social stability; our ignorance of it brings about social
disintegration. Our ignorance and errors 'in matters wherein we speculate for the
exercise of our wits', are not fatal in their consequences.

But in these things which every man ought to mediate for the steerage of his life, it
necessarily happens that not only from errors, but even from ignorance itself, there arise
offenses, contentions, nay, even slaughter itself (EW II, xi).

In this way, the problem of peace is radically epistemological. Somewhat like Plato,
Hobbes feels that the crimes of the individual against society are consequences of
ignorance. This is why he wishes to investigate how we know anything about the
relation of the individual to society - his 'civil philosophy'.
The central difficulty, then, is the conflict of individual judgments. This is
Hobbes's basic reason for turning to geometry. Geometers, he repeatedly assures
us, are the only people who do not fight with each other about their judgments (EW
I, 9). Civil war and social disintegration thus might be avoided if we can clearly
36

understand exactly what it is that geometers do, and find some way of transferring
their modus operandi to civil philosophy. Not only do geometers agree with each
other about their conclusions, but Hobbes awards them the sole credit for
transforming society from savagery to civilization. It is the application of geometry
that makes possible the various arts from building to navigation, all those arts which
distinguish us from savages in America (EW IV, 72; EW II, iv). If we can only
handle civil philosophy as we do geometry, civil philosophy can also become
productive of social stability:

Seeing therefore, from the not knowing of civil duties, that is, from the want of moral
science, proceed civil wars and the greatest calamities of mankind, we may very well
attribute to such science the production of contrary commodities (EW I, 9-10).

The two characteristics of geometry, lack of contention and beneficial products,

also characterize 'moral science'. Hobbes is Baconian enough to insist that
philosophy or science (the words are synonymous for him) be judged by practical
outcomes (EW I, 7-8). The test of our knowledge of moral science or civil
philosophy is the preservation of society.
This realization, that 'from the want of moral science proceed civil wars', is
crucial for Hobbes's next step. How exactly do civil wars come about from
ignorance? Following Thucydides, Hobbes asks for the cause of such warfare, and
comes to the conclusion that it is not an intended outcome: 'the cause of war is not
that men are willing to have it' (EW I, 8). If unintended, it must be the result of
ignorance. But ignorance of what? The only possible answer is ignorance of the
causes of war and peace:

The cause therefore of civil war is, that men know not the causes neither of war nor peace,
there being but few in the world that have learned those duties which unite and keep men
in peace, that is to say, that have learned the rules of civil life sufficiently. Now the
knowledge of these rules is moral philosophy (EW I, 8).

The analogy with illness and the physician is clear. Just as we can say that there are
causes that produce disease, and ignorance of such causes is likely to bring about
disease, we can say something similar for social breakdown. Just as there is an
appropriate regimen for good health, and knowledge of such a regimen is likely to
produce good health, so with the body politic. Thus we can understand Hobbes
comparing his work with Harvey's. The only limit of the analogy is that, as we shall
see, our knowledge of causal connections in physiology cannot be guaranteed, while
for moral science it can.
Now that we know that it is a causal inquiry in which we are engaged, we must
identify the cause of social breakdown. The cause of civil strife, as Hobbes has told
us already, is interpersonal differences of opinion. But is this just Hobbes's
hypothesis? Indeed it is more than that. Hobbes wants to say two things:
 37

(a) that diversity of opinion in certain matters is a necessary condition for civil
war; and

(b) that diversity of opinion is the necessary consequence of the sUbjective

perspective of the individual, a perspective that the individual 'by nature' is unable
to avoid.

Since we can legitimately say that society is made up of individuals, and that
individuals 'naturally' have idiosyncratic subjective perspectives, civil war is, in the
nature of things, a necessary state of affairs.
But the inclinations of men are diverse, according to their diverse constitutions, customs,
opinions; as we may see in those things apprehended by sense, as by tasting, touching,
smelling; but more in those which pertain to the common actions of life, where what this
man commands, that is to say calls good, the other undervalues as being evil. Nay, very
often the same man at diverse times praises and dispraises the same thing. Whilst thus they
do, necessary it is there should be discord and strife (EW II, 47).

We shall later see what exactly Hobbes means by 'necessity' in this context. But if
(a) and (b) are indeed true, how can we avoid civil strife? How is civil peace possible,
and were it possible, what would be its cause? To try to answer, we need to take
a closer look at geometry.

We know that there is unanimity in geometry. Where Hobbes disagrees with Wallis
and other 'egregious professors' of geometry is how this unanimity comes about,
that is, about the nature of geometrical knowledge. For Hobbes, the mistake made
by some geometers is in regarding geometry simply as a logical deductive system.
This is also the way some contemporary commentators on Hobbes have seen
geometry, thus missing Hobbes's point altogether (EW VII, 183-184; 214-218).
Hobbes attributes a good bit more to geometry than anyone else has, and it is
important to understand how he interprets what happens in geometry to see what
he is trying to do.

The secret that Hobbes wants to learn from geometry is how it manages to be free
from epistemic conflict. He presents us with a contrast between
two kinds of learning, mathematical and dogmatical; the former is free from controversy
and dispute, because it consisteth in comparing figure and motion only; in which things
truth and the interest oj men oppose not each other: but in the other there is nothing
indisputable, because it compareth men, and meddleth with their right and profit; in
which, as oft as reason is against a man, so oft will a man be against reason (EW IV,
xiii).

Two features stand out about geometry: that it is about figures, and that man's
interests 'do not oppose' in it.
38

(A) First, geometry is about figures, and from Hobbes's peculiar perspective -
as we shall see - about motions. We might think that to avoid controversy in civil
philosophy, Hobbes would like to reduce it to a consideration of figures and
motions as well. Indeed, this is the case. But I think we shall seriously
misunderstand the nature of Hobbes's achievement in civil philosophy if we take
such a reduction seriously.9 His predilections are for such a methaphysical
reduction, but as he informs us, it is not necessary that we consider such a step (EW
I, 74). This is why Leviathan could be written before and independently of De
Corpore. But there is something else that Hobbes concludes from the peace that
prevails among geometers.
Why is it that a study of figures involves no controversies? As I have mentioned,
it is in trying to answer this question that Hobbes gets embroiled in his battle with
geometers. Let us recall what Hobbes wants to do: investigate the cause of social
order. How is agreement among geometers epistemologically relevant to the
problem? Hobbe¢ takes a daring plunge here. Since he is interested in a causal
inquiry, and he wants to learn the secret of unanimity in geometry, he boldly
declares that geometry is causal inquiry. Geometrical figures are caused by motions,
and must be defined as such. This stance seems pointless and perverse to Wallis and
his colleagues.
With this assumption about geometry, and a similar one about natural science,
Hobbes can thus declare the fundamental unity of aim of all philosophic or
scientific investigation, which is nothing other than an inquiry into causes and their
effects:

treating of figures, it is called geometry; of motion, physic; of natural right, morals; put
altogether, and they make up philosophy (EW I, 1).

But what exactly is causal geometry? This consists in considering geometrical

constructions and conclusions as the product of specific human actions.

How the knowledge of any effect may be gotten by the knowledge of the generation
thereof, may easily be understood by the example of a circle: for if there be set before
us a plane figure, having as near as may be, the figure of a circle, we cannot possibly
perceive by sense whether it be a true circle or not; than which, nevertheless, nothing is
more easy to be known to him that knows first the generation of the propounded figure.
For let it be known that the figure was made by the circumduction of a body whereof one
end remained unmoved ... (EW 1,6),

and the specific geometrical character of the figure is no longer in doubt. Here then,
we have at least one reason for the lack of strife among geometers. We are freed
from the conflicting idiosyncratic verdicts of our senses by knowing the procedure
by which the figure was created. But do we not depend on our senses to see how
the figure was constructed? No matter. Were we to construct it in the specified way,
 39

the result would be a circle. All that we need for geometry is this hypothetical
conditional.
While from orthodox views of geometry, the mode of production of the circle is
not relevant for our knowledge about the geometrical object, for Hobbes we only
know what it is, and its properties, by virtue of knowing how it was produced. The
circle, or any geometrical figure, is an effect, and

we are then said to know any effect, when we know that there be causes of the same, and
in what subject these causes are, and in what subject they produce that effect, and in what
manner they work the same. And this is the science of causes, or as they call it, of the
Dioti (EW I, 66).

Hobbes wants to consider social order as an effect. It would be a mistake, I suggest,

to think that Hobbes is influenced by the logically deductive character of geometry.
Rational theology is deductive as well, but leaves Hobbes unimpressed. It is by
viewing geometry as a specific kind of causal science, where our knowledge of doing
the actions that generate geometrical figures sufficies for our knowledge of the
products that geometry is a model for civil philosophy.
This is because civil philosophy for Hobbes is the inquiry after the cause of civil
order. Now we can see such an inquiry to have the same character as geometry, and
philosophy itself, which is

such knowledge of effects or appearances, as we acquire by true ratiocination from the

knowledge we have first of their causes and generation: And again, of such causes or
generations as may be from knowing first their effects (EW I, 3).

The next step is the method of philosophical inquiry, which is 'true ratiocination'.
Let us leave the word 'true' aside for the moment. Ratiocination has two modes:

(a) conceptually putting together or adding component causes to produce an

effect - called composition or synthesis, and
(b) conceptually substracting component causal elements from the effect we
want to understand - called resolution or analysis.
The general method is a mixture of the two (EW I, 66). This is nothing else, of
course, than conceptually modeling a physical construction procedure, or a
Gedanken-construction, together with a corresponding Gedanken-resolution.
Hobbes claims that this is what geometers do, even if they do not know that they
do it. This too is what a civil philosophy must do, if we want a viable one that avoids
civil war.
(B) The second lesson Hobbes learns from geometry is that in it 'truth and the
interest of men oppose not each other' (EW IV, xiii), while in attempts at social and
moral philosophy till his time, they do. His basic objection to earlier civil
philosophies is simply that they cannot withstand the claims of the idiosyncratic
40

subjectivity of the individual. People reject them because such philosophies are
perceived to be against their self-interest. Thus, to have a viable civil philosophy,

there is no way, but first, put such principles down for a foundation, as passion, not
mistrusting, may not seek to displace; and afterward to build thereon .. .(EW IV, xiii).

A civil philosophy, in order to have the unanimity of geometry, would have to be

based on principles that would be beyond the chaIIenge of private interest. To do
this, it must take the demands of private interest as fundamental.
This point, overlooked by critics, has given rise to the most serious
misunderstandings about Hobbes's work, and is worth a moment's pause. Let me
recapitulate the argument: civil war is brought about by the absence of an
appropriate civil philosophy, and no philosophy is appropriate if the individual can
refuse to accept it in the light of recalcitrant self-interest or private 'passions'. The
only way then to have a civil philosophy that can command assent, is to give the
claims of renegade self-interest their due, to accept self-interest as as the court of
last appeal, and use it as a foundation for civil philosophy. The task of the civil
philosopher then is to demonstrate that the very primacy of self-interest demands
that controls be placed on the individual's random perceptions of his self-interest.
Only when the individual understands this is society stable.
It is the methodological character of Hobbes's premise that is of central
importance. A lot of effort has been expended in trying to show that it is empirically
false to claim that human beings are fundamentally motivated by self-interest,10 or
to lament Hobbes's pessimism about the human condition,11 or yet again to try to
explain the founding of civil philosophy on private interest as a reflection of the rise
of the market economy in seventeenth century England. 12 All of that is quite beside
the point, and stems, I suggest, from a misunderstanding of what Hobbes is trying
to achieve. The issue here is a methodological one. If we find various people in
society that are not motivated primarily by self-interest, that would be no counter
to Hobbes's civil philosophy. As we noted, Hobbes is Baconian enough to demand
practical outcomes from philosophy - that a civil philosophy prevents civil war.
Thus an unavoidable demand a civil philosophy has to meet is that it can convince
the rebellious demands of self-interest; those who may not be thus rebellious are not
germane to the problem. That Hobbes believes that individuals are motivated by
self-interest is a separate consideration, whose basis we shaII examine in a later
section.
We have learned from geometers that we must avoid the claims of indiosyncratic
perceptions by 'true ratiocination' which ought to reveal the causes of social order.
But even if we know what it is that geometers do, how do they manage to do it?
That is, how is it that the geometer has 'knowledge' of the causes, so that his
ratiocination can be 'true'? Knowledge is, as Hobbes points out, of the true and the
evident (EW IV, 27). We are faced with society, as the geometer is faced with a
 41

diagram, and are about to begin our ratiocination. How do we know that our results
will be true?

2. Truth and Modality

While the ancients successfully used ratiocination only in geometry, Hobbes wants
to extend it to all inquiry (EW I, 86). This is the method of invention whereby we
can discover causes for effects and the other way around:

in the searching out of causes, there is need partly of the analytical and partly of the
synthetical method; the analytical, to conceive how circumstances conduce severally to the
production of effects; and of the synthetical, for the adding together and compounding
of what they can effect singly by themselves. And thus much may serve for the method
of invention (EW I, 86-87).

Analysis and synthesis of causes are fundamentally cognitive activities, that all
sentient creatures are capable of, including animals. Our problem with such basic
ratiocination is that our memory is weak, and we need marks to remind us of what
we have done before, so that we may not be mired in having to solve the same
problem over and over again. If we construct these marks

a man may be a philosopher alone by himself, without any master; Adam had this
capacity. But to teach, that is, to demonstrate, supposes two at the least and syllogistic
speech (EW I, 80).

We need public marks or signs, which we have in language, to communicate our

inventions by demonstrating them to others. Linguistic signs or names also remove
the need for private marks as aids to memory. But ratiocination is fundamentally
private, because it is mental, and even names that are communicative signs 'serve
for marks before they be used as signs' (EW I, 15). Language can represent to others
thoughts in the mind of the speaker.
There is, however, an important distinction between invention and
demonstration. In invention, by analysis we get to causes and principles, and by
synthesis reconstruct the effect. But communication of such ratiocination or
demonstration, suffers from a peculiar constraint. In demonstration, the analysis
that 'proceeded from the sense of things to universal principles' must be omitted,
because principles cannot be demonstrated, only explicated (EW I, 80-81). That is,
if one conceptually tried to take something apart into its constituents, there is no
way to convince someone else that those were indeed the causal constituents of the
thing to be analyzed. On the other hand, given a set of causal constituents, Hobbes
feels that it is possible by constructing something out of it, to convince others that
the thing in question indeed has been constructed. How we might tell the
42

equivalence of constructs is a problem that I will postpone till the next section. For
the moment, we can see how it is possible to mistake Hobbes as being intent on
simply constructing a metaphysical system with no apparent rhyme or reason, as
many have traditionally seen Hobbes as doing. 13 Hobbes's problem, the rationale
which motivates his analysis, he can only mention, and the analysis he cannot
philosophically justify. By his lights they can form no part of any demonstration.
Therefore our task is confined to 'the reckoning of consequences of things in the
mind' (EW III, 20). The use of names allows us to run this 'into a reckoning of
consequences of appellations' (EW III, 21). The names represent our conceptions.
The real world, on the other hand, causes our conceptions. The cause-effect
structure of the real world however is - as we shall see in the next section - not
always transparent. We may connect two of our conceptions A and B causally. The
names we use for A and B, say a and b, will then reflect such a causal claim.

and the causes of names are the same with the causes of our conceptions, namely, some
power of action or affection of the thing conceived, which some call the manner by which
any thing works upon our sense, but by most men they are called accidents ... (EW I,
32-33).

We can thus concatenate the two names a and b into a proposition which claims
something like 'a is the cause of b'.
But before we can go further, we have to decide what it would be for such a claim
to be true. Let us begin with a division. Some propositions are eternally true, such
as 'the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles', while others, like
'it is raining', are not. It is because in a mutable world some propositions can be
eternally true, that we come to the conclusion that truth is a characteristic of
language - that 'truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations'
(EW III, 21) and nothing more than that. Truth and falsehood are de dicto and do
not refer to thing de reo Cognitively, we can make mistakes in concatenating
concepts causally that do not connect that way.

For true and false are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there
is neither truth nor falsehood; error there may be, as when we expect that which shall not
be, or suspect what has not been; but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth
(EW I, 10-11).

Hobbes divides true propositions into two classes, which we might call the
observational and the causal. Our observations of natural and political history, if
true, make up one of these classes, while our attributions of causal connection make
up the other (cf. EW I, 10-11).
The characteristic of true observational propositions is that they are true
sometimes and not at others. That is, they are contingent. On the other hand, causal
propositions, if true, are always true, or necessarily true. If we can indeed say
truthfully that
 43

a is the cause of b
then there are no circumstances in which this is not the case. Hobbes is not
defining necessity by the logical criterion of non-contradiction. Instead, necessity is
defined by causation - by the principle that every effect has its cause and whenever
the (entire) cause is present, it necessarily implies the presence of the effect (EW I,
127). The expression 'whenever' gives us the clue to the next consequence of causal
necessity - such propositions must be universally quantified. For Hobbes, the causal
propositions of science are necessary, universal propositions.
But what does such a true causal proposition look like? What Hobbes presents
us with is somewhat surprising. In a true proposition two names are copulated 'both
which names raise in our mind the thought of one and the same thing' (EWI, 31).
But the two names do so, Hobbes argues, in different ways. The subject of a
proposition Hobbes calls a concrete name, the predicate an abstract name. Why
does Hobbes think that such a proposition has anything to do with causality?

But abstract names denote only the causes of concrete names, and not the things
themselves. For example, when we see any thing, or conceive in our mind any visible
thing, that thing appears to us, or is conceived by us, not in one point, but as having parts
distinct from one another, that is, as being extended and filling some space. Seeing
therefore we call the thing so conceived body, the cause of that name is, that the thing
is extended, or the extension or corporiety of it (EW I, 32).

That is, our reason (or cause) for calling the subject of a proposition what we do
call it, is the essential attributes it has. Something is a 'body' because it is 'extended'.
'All bodies are extended' thus is a causal proposition, universal, and since it is true,
necessarily true.
We thus face a peculiar thesis that Hobbes presents. All propositions of science
have the form

(x) (Fx::::l Ox),

which is to be read as a causal proposition. But that is not all. If it is true, then it
is necessarily true, by virtue of its being a causal proposition. Unrestricted, or
universal quantification is only possible for propositions that are necessarily true.
Hobbes will not permit us to use unrestricted quantification for empirical
generalizations. He takes the quantifier extremely seriously, arguing that we simply
cannot place such a quantifier in front of contingently related pairs of terms. This,
he argues, is because even in our experience if we find that 'all crows are black' we
cannot say whenever something is a crow, it is black (EW I, 39). That is, a
generalization such as 'all men are liars', even if true, does not translate into the
unrestricted

(x) (x isa man :::> is a liar),

44

while the necessary proposition 'all men are living creature' does translate into

(x) (x is a man ::l x is a living creature).

The difference of this point of view from our standard logical practice is important.
Contemporary practice is not to differentiate between necessary and contingent
propositions as far as quantification is concerned. This gives rise to the 'problem
of induction'. That is, for some P's and Q's, we can go from

(Pa.Qa) (Pb.Ob) ... ,

where a and b are values of bound variables to

(x) (Px::l Qx),

while in other cases we cannot. The universal generalization turns out to be true for
some predicates and false for others. In Goodman's terms, some predicates are
'projectible' and others not. 14 The trouble with this formulation is that we have no
way of deciding which predicates are projectible and which are not. Hobbes is
stating the distinction in a somewhat different way. He separates out dispositional
law-like statements from empirical generalizations at the outset, claiming that the
former are the domain of science, because if true, they are true in all possible
worlds. Hobbes wants science to be made of eternally true propositions, and as
such, though based on our experience, they do not concern particular empirical
observations. This is because there is no necessary connection between items of our
experience, where

one conception followeth not another, according to our election, and the need we have
of them, but as it chanceth us to hear or see such things as shall bring them back to our
mind (EW IV, 19).

This celebrated position, generally credited to Hume, is indeed here formulated by

Hobbes. Purported connections between different items of our experience have no
epistemic guarantees, and at best

are but conjectural: and according as they have often or seldom failed, so their assurance
is more or less; but never full and evident: for though a man have always seen the day
and night to follow one another hitherto; yet can he not thence conclude that they shall
do so, or they have done so eternally: experience concludeth nothing universally (EW IV,
17-18).

Inductive experience, or 'prudence' is thus no basis for science. All that empirical
prudence can bank on is statistical probability.
 45

If the signs hit twenty times for one missing, a man may lay a wager of twenty to one on
the event; but may not conclude it for a truth (EW IV, 18).

This, of course, is the central premise of contemporary or post-Humean empiricism.

But unlike the empiricists, for Hobbes this is not what science is about.
But then what can science be, if on the one hand it must be based on sense-
experience, yet on the other it cannot. be statistical generalization from such
experience? We know that for Hobbes it must be based on universal affirmative
propositions:

(x) (Fx:::>Gx)

For the above assertion to be true, the predicates F and G must be so related to each
other, that their connection is necessary. Since F and G are names, the basis of
demonstrative science is a set of definitions where each

is a proposition, whose predicate resolves the subject when it may; and when it may not,
it exemplifies the same (EW I, 83-84).

Such definitions are where our analytic ratiocination ends and the synthetic begins.
But if it is our experience that we are talking about in science, as Hobbes insists we
must, how can our experience be described by such 'causal' definitions?
The answer, in principle, is simple. We observe properties of things and form
classes and subslasses in terms of such properties, which we proceed to name:

the first truths were arbitrarily made up by those that first of all imposed names on things,
or received them from the imposition of others. For it is true (for example) that man is
a living creature, but it is for this reason, that it pleased man to impose both those names
on the same thing (EW I, 36).

It may be argued that our experience in general does not give us very many such
truths to build upon. Hobbes will agree, but with one serious difference. He wants
to argue that though our knowledge of natural science will be negligible, this method
will produce valid and useful results both in geometry and in civil philosophy (social
science).

3. Natural and Social Science

In natural science, we experience effects and not causes. I have pointed out earlier
that Hobbes preceded Hume in arguing that there were no necessary connections
between such effect that we experience. Where Hobbes would have disagreed with
Hume is the conclusion about causation that Hume drew from the absence of
46

'necessary connections between matters of fact'. Such an absence does not make a
causal analysis invalid. It has nothing to do with it. Hume's mistake was a
metaphysical one, in assuming that the causal relationship, if it existed, must exist
among those things that are sensed. But there is no reason for such an assumption.
What Hume was trying to do was examine the relation between two events, both
of which were effects, brought about by causes not available to the senses. That
there was no necessary relation between such effects would have been unproblematic
to Hobbes.
The natural world, Hobbes argued, is so constructed that causes are generally not
available to our simple observation. Thus only conjectures are possible in natural
philosophy, conjectures about causes that bring forth observable effects. Hobbes set
forth conjectures about the production of optical effects (EW I, 75-79, 448; EW
IV, 6), sounds (EW 1,487), fires and phosphorescence (EW I, 453-454), but admits
such to be guesswork about possibilities. He provides us with no notion of how we
might decide that one piece of guesswork is better or worse than another. But since
this is an unsolved problem even today we can hardly blame him.
But where science is indeed possible (like geometry) is in our inquiry about
society. Since this position generally goes against contemporary intuitions about
science, we need to examine such a thesis carefully.
To begin with, we must differentiate between causal explanation of the
characteristics of the individual, and those of society. Why the individual has the
attributes he does is a question for natural philosophy. Hobbes has the atomist faith
that such explanations are possible in terms of minute bodies and invisible motions.
But as we have seen, by his lights such explanations are hypothetical conjectures at
best, and no part of a necessary science such as geometry is, or such as he intends
social science to be. There is no methodological continuity between Hobbes's
conjectural psychology on the one hand, and his civil philosophy on the other:

seeing that, for the knowledge of the properties of a commonwealth, it is necessary first
to know the dispositions, affections, and manners of men, civil philosophy is again
commonly divided into two parts, whereof one, which treats of men's dispositions and
manners is called ethics; and the other which takes cognizance of their civil duties, is called
politics, or simply civil philosophy (EW I, 11).

Our conjectures of the causes of men's dispositions and manners are in an

epistemologically different category from demonstrable civil philosophy. This is
why it is somewhat unwarranted to view Hobbes's work as intended to be one
coherent system. 15
Hobbes himself is quite clear on the distinction which rests on his notion of
demonstrability, or rational construction. We always start from effects, and
analysis takes us to the causes. If such causes are known to be true, we can mentally
and linguistically construct a representation of the effect. In natural philosophy,
since we do not know the causes from experience, the result is hypothetical. When
 47

Hobbes is thinking about natural philosophy, his definition of philosophy therefore

becomes weaker than the one quoted earlier:

Philosophy is the knowledge we acquire, by true ratiocination. of appearances, or

apparent effects, from the knowledge we have oj some possible production or generation
oj the same; and of such production as has been or may be, from the knowledge we have
of the effects (EW I, 65-66; emphasis added).

This is the central apparent ambivalence in Hobbes's effort. He wants a necessary

social science, as against speculations about contingencies in natural philosophy,
but sometimes links the two in the occasionally ambivalent notion of 'philosophy'.
It is almost as if Hobbes wishes that natural philosophy were more epistemically
secure, but can see no way of getting there.
But in all fairness, Hobbes is generally consistent in his demarcation:

The principle parts of philosophy are two. For two chief kinds of bodies, and very
different from one another offer themselves to such a search after their generation and
properties; one whereof being a work of nature, is called a natural body, the other is called
a commonwealth, and is made by the wills and agreements of men. And from these spring
the two parts of philosophy called natural and civil (EW I, 11).

Natural philosophy is speculative because it starts from that which is an opaque

'work of nature' where we do not know its causal generation. Our only hope of
going beyond speculation in civil philosophy is that society, like geometrical
structures, is the work of men.
Let us try to see precisely what Hobbes means by this. Why should we think that
there can be necessary propositions about society? We recall that for Hobbes all
necessary propositions are conditional in character, besides being causal and
universal. We are only interested in the necessary truth of propositions of the type:
'whenever such-and-such is the case, thus-and-so will be the case'. This is obviously
a more restricted class of propositions than what we refer to when we commonly
speak of logical necessity. Hobbes is simply saying, in the first instance, that if there
is to be a society, then necessarily there must be some preconditions.
So far, such a premise is harmless. If we admit the notion of causation at all, and
if we can consider society as an 'effect', then there must be necessary and sufficient
causes for society to come about (EW I, 123, 127). This is, of course, true for
thunder and lightning, or any natural phenomena as well, but causes in the natural
world, the 'work of nature', are not directly available to our perception so that we
cannot know them. How then can we know them for society?
Suppose we consider society to be an effect. What can be its cause? The answer
is obvious. It is individuals that make up society, so society must be 'caused' by
individuals. But this is much too vague and will not do for Hobbes's purposes. We
have to assume first that all individuals can be treated as equivalent (EWII, 38-39).
48

We then have to ask, what characteristics do individuals possess whose outcome

society is? In Hobbes's analysis,

The faculties of human nature may be reduced unto four kinds: bodily strength,
experience, reason, passion (EW II, 1).

But though these are natural faculties, they are not all necessarily present in any
human individual. The child, though human, lacks bodily strength and experience
enough to count, and most people lack reason to a significant degree. What no one
lacks is passion. However, before we can examine the legitimacy of such a
reduction, we must understand what Hobbes means by 'society'.
Society is not a simple gathering of people. People may gather together, even be
gregarious. Hobbes is not denying that our needs and passions may be such that we
may need to or like to form groups (EW II, 2n). What he means by 'society' is its
formal structure, the network of contracts and covenants by which a society
functions. It is a breakdown in this structure of mutual obligations and bonds that
brings about civil war. Thus Hobbes's task is to examine how such obligations come
about, as well as how they are endangered. As far as how they come about, Hobbes
wants to say that they cannot come about from our passions. For our passions are
always with us and were society, in the sense of its formal structuring, a causal
product of our passions, we would necessarily always have a 'commonwealth', and
anarchy and civil disorder would be impossible. Society, in Hobbes's sense must be
regarded as an accident, possible but not necessary (EW II, 3),
We must keep in mind what it is that Hobbes is attempting. Methodologically,
he has to start with society as an existent, and analytically undertake a Gedanken-
revolution into its appropriate causal components, which must later be put together
in a Gedanken-construction.

For as in a watch, or some such small engine, the matter, figure and motion of the wheels
cannot well be known, except it be taken insunder and viewed in parts; so to make a more
curious search into the rights of states and duties of subjects, it is necessary, I say, not
to take them insunder, but yet that they be so considered as if they were dissolved (EW
II, xiv).

How would we know that the outcome of such a Gedanken-resolution would be

valid causal elements? First, they must, when put together in a Gedanken-
construction, yield what we wanted to understand, and second, they must be
definition acceptable to experience. Since Hobbes's resolution of society has caused
his readers great difficulty, it deserves a closer examination. He does not discuss his
analysis - it is not demonstrable - but he indicates enough so that we can follow
the line of reasoning which leads him to these constituent causes of society.
Suppose we consider a stable society. I do not mean that we should examine any
actual, historical society, but a theoretical construct - much as we do in geometry.
 49

Of course we do not know very much about what it is to start with. But how is the
state of civil war conceptually related to that of a stable society? Is the coming about
of civil war in a society a matter of adding or subtracting something to it?
Whichever it may be, for the moment let us understand more precisely what civil
war is. Civil war is the division of the society or the body politic into two or more
parts that are each hostile to the perceived interestst of the others, and able to
exercise this hostility. Theoretically, if we keep up the division, we arrive at
Hobbes's elements, individuals in a state of bellum omnia contra omnes. But why
need we resolve society in this way?
Could we not, for instance, resolve society first into some other sort of non-
belligerent groupings, such as businessmen, bakers or chicken-inspectors, and such
like, ultimately reducing each of these to individuals who are non-belligerent and
might very well mind their own business? The answer for Hobbes is an obvious
negative. The causes we do not build into our elements do not appear in the
constructions we make out of them. If conflict is not a characteristic of the
elements, it will not appear in a stepwise construction of society, so that no
Gedanken-composition of non-belligerent individuals as components will yield the
civil war which Hobbes wants to explain.
Thus for the purpose of a compositive explanation of civil war, we must have
belligerent individuals. But whatever our aims, is the claim of fundamental
belligerence as the property of individuals a defensible claim on which to construct
our social synthesis? Since presumably the notion of 'individual' does not evidently
contain the notion of 'belligerence', we must be able to derive the belligerence of
individuals from still more basic premises about individuals. But are there such
premises?
We saw that the basic constituent of the human individual through all
circumstances is 'passion' . An individual may lack bodily strength and reason, even
experience, but never passion. Preferences, value judgments, likes and dislikes are
endemic in the individual. We can therefore claim that it is necessary that

(a) every human individual has passions.

This is definitional. If something did not have passions we would not recognize it
as a human individual. Passions are private, that is, one's passions mayor may not
be similar to someone else's, but they are never someone else's. Now obviously
private passions need not be in conflict. If I like sunsets and someone else does or
does not, there is no real occasion for belligerence. We can each go our own way.
What else then do we need to deduce belligerence?
The occasion is private property. Hobbes tells us how he was analytically led to
this premise:

When I applied my thoughts to the investigation of natural justice, I was presently

50

advertised from the very word justice (which signifies a steady will of giving everyone of
his own) that my first enquiry was to be, from whence it proceeded that any man should
call any thing his own, than another man's (EW II, vi).

The context for the occasion of private property is economic scarcity:

that many men at the same time have an appetite for the same thing; which yet very often
they can neither enjoy in common, nor yet divide it... (EW II,8).

It is with scarcity of desired objects that the problem of interpersonal conflict arises.
Thus we get our next two premises as conditionals of possibility:
(b) given economic scarcity, private passions may conflict. Further, given
bodily strength, such a conflict of private passions can be translated into a physical
attack of one upon another. Hobbes's argument now is that
(c) given conflicting private passions, and given bodily strength to destroy each
other, for society to function it is necessary that here be a restraining authority.

This, I want to suggest, is the logical core of Hobbes's argument. It is all that he
needs to argue the necessity of 'sovereign power'. But he seems to go further. How
are we to understand him?
It may be argued against what I have just said, that Hobbes is not merely saying
that belligerence is possible without civil authority, but in fact it is the way things
are, even that belligerence is somehow a necessary state of affairs in the war of each
against everyone. Such a reading would, I suggest, be incorrect. Hobbes places too
many preconditions on the conflict of passions for it to be regarded as a necessary
character of any group of individuals. But it is possible, and Hobbes is interested
in what happens (civil war) if and when this possibility is actualized. So the analytic
reduction of the state of civil war and anarchy theoretically leads to warring
individuals. More than that, Hobbes argues for a sort of Murphy's law: if there is
the possibility of belligerence, sooner or later it gets actualized. Thus without civil
authority, peaceful people also become defensively belligerent with time, faced with
the encroachment of others (EW II, 6). But the description of such a hypothetically
actualized possibility, the 'state of nature', that has scandalized many, is not
necessary to Hobbes's argument. Its possibility is, and we have seen how Hobbes
attempts to deduce this.
If I want someone else's property, he can give it up to me for fear of death or
die fighting. In either case, with greater property I have greater power over others,
so my own physical power is augmented. Whoever wants to defend what property
he has, thus must willy-nilly try to keep expanding his power to protect himself from
raids by the stronger. If the very possibility of instability exists, random fluctuations
must sooner or later realize such a possibility.
Thus, for social stability, there needs to exist a device to check the individual's
private passions from encroachements on the private property of others. This is the
 51

necessity for a civil authority that will guarantee private property and commutative
justice. To do so it is necessary that
(d) the civil authority has jurisdiction over actions dictated by private passion
in ownership and exchange.

Its judicial-economic authority must necessarily delineate bounds of ownership and

the legitimacy of contracts; its physical power must uphold them against attempted
violations. For the society to be stable against the attacks motivated by private
passions, civil authority itself must decide what constitutes violations, not private
passions.
For the avoidance of anarchy and civil war it is thus necessary for private passions
to submit to the judgment and power of the state to protect them from the possible
encroachment of others. Understanding the necessity of such a submission of the
private to the civil is rationality. It is because we are capable of rationality that we
can form societies with civil authority (EW II, 16).
But rationality is not the same sort of attribute as passion. Passions are intrinsic
to the individual organism, while rationality is something we have a possibility of
acquiring to a greater or lesser degree. Rationality is a consequence of appropriate
socialization. Such socialization Hobbes empirically finds lacking in society.

Manifest therefore it is, that all men, because they are born in infancy, are born unapt
for society. Many also, perhaps most men, either through defect of mind or want of
education, remain unfit during the whole course of their lives; yet have they, infants as
well as those of riper years, a human nature (EW II, 2n).

Rationality is a possibility which, unlike the other three attributes of human nature,
may not get realized. This is because we start our lives with the primacy of private
passions, and rationality is a reorientation of this radical subjectivity.

unless you give children all they ask for, they are peevish and cry, aye and strike their
parents sometimes; and all this they have from nature (EW II, xvi-xvii).

Children have to be taught to abandon the private demand under appropriate

circumstances. Children, however, are not dangerous to society, because lacking
adequate experience and bodily strength, 'they cannot hurt'. But if we fail to
socialize children into rationality, we produce the sociopath.

In so much as a wicked man is almost the same thing with a child grown strong and sturdy,
or a man of childish disposition, and malice the same with a defect of reason in that age
when nature ought to be better governed through good education and experience (EW II,
xvii).

Good education and experience are the only means of persuading the recalcitrant
individual to abandon the primacy of private passions. The first either generates
52

rationality, or if it is absent or of no avail through 'defect of mind', the only factor

that tentatively holds society together is experience or prudence, through fear (EW
II, 6n).
Thus it is possible to have a society where, as far as rationality is concerned, most
men 'remain unfit during the whole course of their lives'. But though it is possible
to have such a society, it is necessarily unstable, and civil war can break out. Even
if prudence set up society in the first place, it needs rationality to be stable. This
is why acceptance of the 'true ratiocination' of civil philosophy is theoretically
necessary to avoid civil war and social breakdown. This is what Hobbes had set out
to prove.
How has Hobbes managed to get necessary propositions about society,
particularly since the existence of society itself is contingent? The answer is that we
are dealing with the necessity of a conditional proposition. The basic structure of
Hobbes's proposition is simple: if we have human beings that have the four
attributes, and if they are in a situation of economic scarcity, then either civil war
is possible or civil peace under 'sovereign' political authority is possible, and tertium
non datur. If we want civil war not to be possible, then civil order under 'sovereign'
political authority is necessary.
We must realize that it is pointless to argue against Hobbes's conclusion by
pointing to empirical societies that exist under weak political authority. Hobbes is
well aware of that - as a matter of fact that is the rationale for his work. His analysis
is modal. It concerns the possibility or lack thereof of civil war. The empirical fact
that civil war does not invariably occur with weak political authority is for Hobbes
a matter of chance - that the passions of individuals are not appropriately
exacerbated. There might indeed be devices to ameliorate exacerbated passions.
Society might try to curb recalcitrant private passions with other inculcated ones -
emotional appeals on behalf of custom or common law, or religious injunctions.
This may indeed hold the society together for a length of time. But without
rationality, that is without 'sovereign' subjection of private passion to civil
authority with understanding, a state of weak civil authority is a state of potential
civil war that may become actual.
The basic objection to Hobbes's conclusion since his own time has been our
preference for a weak political authority supplemented by other social institutions
that appeal to our emotion. Hobbes is aware of the strategy but considers it
theoretically unsound. There are no guarantees that the individual will indefinitely
continue to be subject to such appeals to his passions. But he expects this conclusion
to be unacceptable to purveyors of traditional and transcendental authority -
lawyers and priests (EW II, xxiii).
 53

4. Theory and Experience: Conclusion

In all this, Hobbes had put forward an epistemologically unique position. Given
that our dominant philosophies of science are quite different from what Hobbes has
in mind, we must try to clarify this difference. Generally our conventions affirm
that science, natural or social, is some sort of generalization based on experience,
or alternatively of the hypothetico-deductive sort. We have already seen that
Hobbes rejects the first option. What then can he mean by saying that his principles
are based on experience? Is his 'true ratiocination' nothing other than the
hypothetico-deductive method, as some have thought?16 The answer, I·suggest must
be in the negative. With what strange epistemology then is Hobbes presenting us?
Natural science (excluding kinematics) has this difficulty that there are no
principles to begin with that are found indubitable by experience. Were Hobbes a
proponent of the hypothetico-deductive method, this would hardly be a cause for
concern. Can we then say, as has indeed been said, that Hobbes has a peculiarly
confused notion of the hypothetico-deductive method, in which the premises must
be self-evident?17 That this will not do becomes clear if we look a little more
carefully at why Hobbes wants to rule natural science out on this basis.
Geometry for Hobbes, we have seen, is constructive, not deductive. So is proper
science, where effects have to be constructed out of causes.

But because of natural bodies we know not the construction, but seek it from its effect,
there lies no demonstration of what the causes be we seek for, but only of what there may
be (EW VII, 183).

Scientific inquiry is not a matter of logically deducing certain sentences from certain
other ones, just in the same way as geometry is not either. Only in those inquiries
'the construction of the subject whereof is in the power of the artist himself' (EW
VII, 183) is science possible. Vico understood this constructive epistemology from
Hobbes, to formulate his principle 'we only know the things we make'. 18
Scientific activity is conceptual construction that maps actual construction. As
such, it is a study of our actions and their consequences:

by which out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we
will, or the like another time: because when we see how anything comes about upon what
causes, and by what manner; when the like causes come into our power, we see how to
make it produce the like effects (EW III, 35).

Materially speaking, this is the idea of reproducible effects on which our notions
of experimental natural science ought to be based. But Hobbes veers away from
such a view of natural science. He feels that our control over nature is not adequate
for the purpose. That is, in confronting nature, the 'like causes' are not in our
power, so that we cannot produce like effects. All we can do about nature is passive
54

observation (EW IV, 16). Given the technology of his time, the attitude is
understandable. Hobbes is unwilling to take seriously even the partial control we
may achieve over the physical world.
The only actions of ours that we can appropriately map are social actions. Here
Hobbes feels that social stability and social breakdown are, unlike natural
circumstances, outcomes of our action simpliciter. Thus one can correspondingly
construct a 'true ratiocination' of such stability and breakdown. Only this, and no
more, is what social science is for Hobbes. What is the method of this theoretical
construction? We begin, of course, with causal relationships in experience, from
which we abstract to form indubitable principles. How can contingent experience
lead to indubitable premises? By defining our terms to avoid irrelevant
counterexamples - that is, irrelevant to our purpose.
Thus we may conclude for instance that anyone has the power to kill anyone else,
or that private passions are divisive. Possible counterexamples may be encountered
in experience. But they are irrelevant because if we run into someone with
inappropriate characteristics, he does not contribute to the outcome that we want
to explain, which is, civil war. Hobbes can appeal to our experience to convince us
of the general plausibility of his premise. But we take it as a premise to construct
a Gedanken-experiment which must be justifie4 by its outcome. What Hobbes does
is construct a particular model of society to explain a specific feature of our
experience. Of course his model, like, say, the kinetic theory of gases, is an abstract
model. But in physics we do not accuse the kinetic theory of gases of ignoring
features of our experience. It intentionally does so, to explain something specific.
This is just what Hobbes has done.
In fact, Hobbes is trying to work out how to construct theories in general and
social theory in particular. Though he ignores the possibilities of experiment in
natural science, he attempts to articulate coherently the notion of a social theory as
a Gedanken-experiment, which models appropriate segments of our causal
experience. This important epistemological position has not received the
consideration it deserves. Till very recently, age-old empiricist and rationalist
formulas have been taken to provide us with the truth about science. Through these
standard glasses, Hobbes's constructivist epistemology has provided distorted
projections that were incoherent and unimportant. But now that we are no longer
sure about what science is, the genuine alternative that Hobbes proposes is worth
examining in a new light.
 55

NOTES

1 S.l. Mintz, The Hunting oj the Leviathan (Cambridge, 1962).

2 L. Strauss's The Political Philosophy oj Hobbes (Chicago, 1966) pp. 1-2 castigates Hobbes
himself for such a misconception of his own work: Now it is obvious that the method is not its only and
not even its most important characteristic.
3 F.S. McNeilly, The Anatomy oj Leviathan (New York, 1968), p. 4.
4 McNeilly, op.cit., p 59. For a discussion of the inconsistency, see p. 83.
5 M. Oakeshott, 'Introduction' to Leviathan (oxford, 1947), p. 11.
6 J. Dewey, 'The Motivation of Hobbes' Political Philosophy, in R. Ross, H. Schneider, and T.
Waldman (eds.), Thomas Hobbes in His Time (Minneapolis, 1974), p. 15.
7 EW, II, XXIII-XXIV: 'Since therefore such opinions are daily seen to arise, if any man now shall
dispel those clouds, and by most firm reasons demonstrate that there are no authentical doctrines
concerning right and wrong, good and evil, besides the constituted laws in each realm and government;
and that the question of whether any future action will prove just or unjust, is to be demanded of none
but those to whom the supreme hath committed the interpretation of his laws: surely he will not only
show us the highway to peace, but will also teach us how to avoid the close, dark and dangerous by-paths
of faction and sedition; than which I know not what can be more profitable'.
8 See for instance W. Letwin, 'The Economic Foundations of Hobbes Politics', in M. Cranston and
R. Peters (eds.), Hobbes and Rousseau (New York, 1972), pp.143-164.
9 As is done for instance by T. Spragens, The Politics oj Motion (Lexington, 1973).
10 Dewey, op.cit., p. 30.
11 Oakeshott, 'Introduction' to Leviathan, pp. x-xi.
12 C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory oj Possessive Individualism (Oxford, 1962), pp. 47ff.
13 This is Oakeshott's perspective - see 'Introduction' p. xv. - as also that of Spragens, op.cit., p.
46.
14 N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (Indianapolis, 1965), pp. 84ff.
15 See note 13.
16 As is thought by McNeilly, op.cit., p. 71.
17 McNeilly, op.cit., p. 55.
18 N. Bhattacharya, 'Knowledge 'per causas': Vico's Theory of Natural Science', in G. Tagliacozzo
(ed.), Vico and Contemporary Thought (1981).
 57

3. OBLIGATIONS: SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE

POLITICAL WRITINGS OF HOBBES

Ross Rudolph

York University

Thomas Hobbes was heir to a tradition in which philosophy embraced both

knowledge about the world, and knowledge about knowledge. Concomitant with
the much remarked emergence from this matrix of science in a recognizably modern
form was the development of a new philosophy designed to establish the warrants
of scientific practice. Hobbes was in the vanguard of both developments. The
factors entering into his adoption of a distinctively philosophic perspective will be
briefly suggested in conclusion, but the most important consequence of its adoption
was the recasting of some of Hobbes's most characteristic political claims. The body
of the paper characterizes Hobbes's earliest systematic political treatises! as
scientific analyses; establishes the character of philosophy in relation to science in
De Corpore; suggests structural analogues to similar features in Leviathan; and
applies the parallel to explain differences between De Cive and Leviathan in their
respective treatments of obligation.

1.

De Cive presents a causal scientific explanation of political phenomena. Following

the model of Paduan science, 2 Hobbes likens his procedure to a thought experiment
in which the 'constitutive causes' of some effect under examination, such as the
operation of a watch, are isolated and identified (H, 98-99). In the case of political
artifacts, the relevant factors are 'bodily strength, experience, reason, passion'
(ibid. I, 1, 109), and especially the last two.
The passions ultimately account for the observed behavior of men in groups. The
cause of society is fear (ibid. I, 2, 113); the cause of fear is natural equality and the
mutual will of hurting (ibid. I, 3, 113). The mutual will of hurting is a product of
the glorying of some, and their intended victims' self-defence (ibid. I, 4, 114);
combat of wits (ibid. I, 5, 115-116); and competition over scarce resources (ibid.
I, 6, 115). The psychological data upon which this explanation rests are inclinations
(ibid. I, 1, 109: III, 31, 50), and dispositions (ibid. 1,2, 110-113), treated as the
natural product of human faculties, not subject to further analysis. The result in De

c. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science oj Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhojj Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
58

Cive is an egoism material in several senses at variance with Hobbes's later

understanding. In the first place, Hobbes maintains, not just that all people make
choices according to their own lights (ibid. IX, 3, 212), but that all men seek to
promote their own profit (ibid. I, 13, 118). In the second, there would seem to be
certain passions which all men share, prior to all reflection, such as a desire for
power over others (ibid. I, 2, 113), or an aversion to dying (ibid. I, 7, 115; II, 3,
124).
The contribution of the passions to social formation establishes the burden of
proof: any proposed arrangement must be shown to be required by the known
inclinations of men. Hence the importance of power in the early works,
necessitating favorable outcomes. Of equal importance, Hobbes's causal focus gives
a psychological cast to the whole argument. When he turns to the second politically
relevant factor, human reason, and its products, obligations, it will become
apparent that Hobbes is concerned with the manner of their operation. Political
science seeks to discover mechanisms artificially to create that omnipotence which
confers dominion.
This account of obligation plays on an ambiguity concerning necessity. It is
necessary that men defend themselves, in the sense that it is instinctual and
unavoidable. The recognition of the necessity of peace for preservation, and of the
other laws of nature for the securing of peace, is reason's contribution to the
securing of political arrangements. Reason proceeds in political as in natural science
by suppositio. 3 But whereas in natural science, reason provides middle terms in
arguments which render coherent accounts of phenomena, in political science, the
suppositio yields an obligation, a motive for action (ibid. IX, 211-212).
Hobbes always adhered to the view that 'the actions of all men are ruled by the
opinions of each' (ibid. VI, 11, 179; cf. EW III, 164). That is, our opinions do not
follow our desires; rather they determine them (H VIII, 18, 204; HI, 222; cf. EW
III, 360). Such is the nature of rational obligation in De Cive: one cannot
consistently seek his own preservation and practice war (H I, 13,118). The force of
the law of nature, as he had remarked in Elements of Law, 'is no more than the
force of the reasons inducing thereunto' (E I, xvi, 1, 82). As a result, the comparison
of injury and absurdity is adduced as an explanation on why contracts must be kept
(H III, 3, 137). Moreover, Hobbes adds an additional law of nature enjoining
anything which might destroy or weaken the reasoning faculty (ibid. III, 25, 147).
Finally, since reasoning is notoriously fallible, sin is identified with false reasoning
(ibid. II, fn., 123), or error (ibid. XIV, 16,282), it being impossible to will an error
(ibid. 25, 358).
At this stage in his intellectual development, Hobbes regarded all obligation as
consisting in a loss of liberty (ibid. XIV, 3, 274). In the case of natural obligation,
the liberty is taken away by corporeal impediments or by hope or fear (ibid. XV,
7,294). Where right is given up, either by renunciation or conveyance, whether gift
or contract, one loses one's liberty, putting an end to deliberation by making a
 59

decision. 'For where liberty ceaseth, there beginneth obligation' (ibid. 10, 127; cf.
E I, 9, 78). Contracts, however, are not enough to secure peace. There must be laws
with punishments attached in case they are breached (H VI, 4, 176). These latter act
as a hindrance, not external and absolute, but arbitrary (ibid. IX, 9, 216). In each
case, what rendered the rule or arrangement obligatory was the necessary response
or expectation of the parties. Hobbes's examination of the processes by which
liberty is lost is the application to political phenomena of his causal scientific
program. Starting from the passions and reason of man, and a condition in which
they would have as their result the construction of some political order, Hobbes has
shown how everyone for his own good must necessarily subscribe a social contract,
and obey the summum imperium thereby created.

2.

It has been shown that in the course of his exchange with Bramhall on liberty and
necessity, Hobbes came to realize that liberty is not taken away by hope or fear, that
obligation does not begin where all liberty ceases, and that arbitrary impediments
are no impediments at all. 4 These corrections do not exhaust the changes in
Hobbes's later discussions of obligation, for Leviathan is a different kind of work
from De Cive. Hobbes's earliest ventures in science had been relatively sanguine
about the ease with which theorems could be proved. Embroiled in a series of
disputes, Hobbes now sought to secure the bases of his system. In De Corpore, work
on which Hobbes broke off to compose Leviathan, the physics is preceded by three
sections, following 'the order of the creation' (EW I, X), dealing with logic and
language, first philosophy, and geometry, which provide the conceptual framework
and foundations upon which the subsequent physical explanations depend.
Leviathan is best understood as attempting for civil philosophy what De Corpore
would provide for natural philosophy, with the significant difference that the latter
aimed at explaining extra-mental reality in terms of hypothetical mechanisms, the
former at justifying an artificial creation by establishing the conditions and
consequences of political structures. De Corpore opens with a section on language
and method, which provides the instruments. The comparison of conceptions, in
which all thinking consists, is facilitated by a system of man-made marks and signs.
Truth is a function of language and not of things. The second section, building upon
the logic, defines those terms 'necessary to the explaining of man's conceptions
concerning the nature and generation of bodies' (EW III, 671). In the pivotal
chapter on place and time which introduces Part Two, Hobbes details a thought
experiment totally unlike the taking apart of a watch to discover its constitutive
causes. Hobbes invites us to imagine that all the world is annihilated, except one
solitary survivor who is left with his memories, which he will name and compute,
either as internal accidents of the mind, or 'as species of external things, not as really
60

existing, but appearing only to exist, or to have a being without us' (ibid. I, 92).
When we do so, we arrive at the conditions of the existence of all phenomena, and
our knowledge of them, in the first instance, of space.

If therefore we remember, or have a phantasm of any thing that was in the world before
the supposed annihilation of the same; and consider, not that the thing was such or such,
but only that it had a being without the mind, we have presently a conception of that we
call space: and imaginary space indeed, because a mere phantasm, yet that very thing
which all men call so (ibid. I, 93).

Part Three deals with motions and magnitudes, in terms of which all phenomena
are to be explained. This geometry is science as defined in De Homine, concerned
with the truth of consequences. Science in this sense is available whenever 'we know
a certain proposed theorem to be true, either by knowledge derived from the causes,
or from the generation of the subject by right reasoning' (H X, 4, 41). There can
only be science of things whose generation depends on the will of men, which is true
of geometric figures: 'everything ... follows from the construction that we ourselves
make in the figure to be described' (ibid. X, 5, 41). Geometry goes beyond logic and
first philosophy in propounding figures to be constructed or shown to be
impossible.
The culminating fourth section, the physics proper, is concerned with the 'causes
of the phantasms of sensible things' (EW I, 75; cf. 1,66; VII, 82; III, 671). The two
stages of physical explanation proffer a propaedeutic account of sensation, which
leads to an explanation of sensations on the principle that the causes of effects in
the external world are equally the causes of changes in our perceptions.

3.

The philosophic strategy of Leviathan displays parallels at every stage, extending

even to the rhetorical allusions of its 'Introduction'. De Corpore follows the order
of creation, but man, as he is the artificer of political order, does not just study
creation and its crowning jewel. In the generation of an artificial man, he imitates
the creation (EW III, ix).
Hungerland and Vick note correctly in their recent edition of De Corpore, First
Part, that Hobbes's philosophy of language is concerned to establish 'the conditions
needed for noises produced by men to be speech,.5 Successful achievement of this
goal is commonly relevant to scientific explanation and political justification, for
it provides a canon by which the abuse of language can be adjudicated and
corrected. Additionally, however, there are linguistic considerations distinctive to
natural science and political philosophy. Thus, language facilitates scientific
explanation, by completing the translation of physical events from mental to verbal
discourse. Leviathan refers to such explanations to fill out its method (ibid. III, 1),
but does not use them.
 61

Language is relevant to political philosophy, not just for what it signifies, but
more especially because of how it signifies. 6 Language is paradigmatic of a
prominent feature of political institutions, namely, artificiality. Hobbes's mature
version of the artificial is complex, 7 but particularly important for political purposes
are its conditions and consequences. Artifice is the product of human choices, but
not all choices will do equally well. Depending on the projected outcome, the
communication of meaning, the transfer of rights, or the erection of a public
person, there are only limited ways that the desired result can successfully be
achieved. Not all combinations of terms are intelligible. What may perhaps convey
the contrary impression in Hobbes's assertion that the first truths are the products
of arbitrary choices (ibid. I, iv, 88-9), but an examination of the examples he gives
will show that it is naming which is ad libitum, not the combination of names in
propositions. The same is true of contracts, laws, and commonwealths: to be
effective they must be correctly formed. Most controversially, perhaps Hobbes
insists that the criteria of correct formation are rationally discoverable in all cases.
Consequent to the creation of artifices are equally significant changes in the world,
for truth is a function of language, as justice is of laws and contracts.
The first philosophy of De Corpore defines basic terms, beginning with space and
time, ideas which are generated by the annihilation hypothesis. The analogue in
Leviathan is the 'inference, made from the passion' (ibid. III, 114) of the natural
condition of mankind. The basic terms in Leviathan are WAR and PEACE, RIGHT
OF NATURE and LAW OF NATURE, and they may pardonably be compared to
space and time. Indeed

the notion of time, is to be considered in the nature of war; as it is in the nature of

weather. For as the nature of foul weather, Iieth not in a shower or two of rain; but in
an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war, consisteth not in actual
fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance
to the contrary. All other time is PEACE (ibid.).

Similarly, it is not too far fetched to understand the liberty in which the right of
nature consists as identified with an imaginary space in which moral agents can
move without impediment. 8
The a priori character of geometry arises from man's making the lines which are
the causes of the properties that individual figures display (HX, 5, 41-42). As is weIl
known, Hobbes regards the conclusions of civil philosophy as having the same
status as those of geometry. In Six Lessons, the reason is

that the science of every subject is derived from a precognition of the causes, generation
and construction of the same; and consequently where the causes are known, there is place
for demonstration, but not where the causes are to seek for. Geometry therefore is
demonstrable, for the lines and figures from which we reason are drawn and described
by ourselves; and civil philosophy is demonstrable, because we make the commonwealth
ourselves (EW VII, 184)
62

Even where Hobbes repeatedly avers the parallel, there remains the typical
difference between the approaches of De Corpore and Leviathan to their different
subject materials. In the former, the author insists that the motions which describe
geometric figures are physical ones, which cause the perceived result: the motion of
a point to make a line, of a line to make a surface, and of a surface to make a solid.
In the latter, the motions which make up political structures are not physical, but
moral ones: contracts and laws, which are modes of social arrangements.
All science is working out of consequences. The 'artist ... in his demonstration,
does no more but deduce the consequences of his own operations' (ibid.). In
Leviathan, all science is working out the consequences of words, and the operations
which are constitutive of social arrangements, namely contracts, covenants, and
authorizations, are normally verbal instruments. This contingency may perhaps
create the mistaken impression that the elaboration of the consequences of verbal
constructs is wholly analytic and conventional, but that would seem no more to be
the case in politics than in geometry. Just as the geometrician's primary concern is
the thoughts signified and figures marked by his language, all of whose
characteristics are calculated, so the moral philosopher analyzes the word
'contract', 'obligation', 'ought', and so on, in order to discover the ramifications
of consensual arrangements.
The physics of De Corpore seeks to find out 'by the appearances of effects of
nature, which we know by sense, some ways and means by w~ich they may be, I
do not say they are, generated' (EW I, xxv, 1, 388). The science of phenomena is
only hypothetical because the principles of physics
are not such as we ourselves make and pronounce in general terms, as definitions but such,
as being placed in things themselves by the Author of Nature, are by us observed in them
... (ibid.).

Hobbes's aim here is to pass between the Scylla of dogmatism and the Charybdis
of skepticism. 9 Against dogmatists who laid claim to knowledge at once real and
absolute, Hobbes defended knowledge which was real, the dependence of one fact
upon another (EW III, V, 35), but hypothetical. Against the skeptics, Hobbes
sought to overcome the acknowledged fallibility of the senses by developing a causal
theory of sensation, and accounting for perceptual illusion in terms of the conjoint
effects of objects, percipients, and media.
There are moral equivalents of optical illusions, 'for all men are by nature
provided of notable multiplying glasses, that is their passions, self-love' (ibid.
XVIII, 170). The theory of natural law provides what I have elsewhere called
political optics, 10 structurally isomorphic with the physics. The objective is to
transcend illusory appearances of good, and the results are real, 11 but not absolute
in the manner of traditional natural law theory. There is, however, an important
procedural difference. In the case of perceptions, results are obtained by the
hypothetical identification of mechanisms. Hobbes has a comparable causal theory
 63

of the passions, but the work is done in the moral case by a philosophy of the
psychology of appetite and aversion, good and evil, willing and so on. By reflection
upon the nature of appetite and aversion, all men can come to the realization that
a condition of war will obtain as long as private appetite is the measure of good and
evil
and consequently all men agree on this, that peace is good, and therefore also the way,
or means of peace, which, as I have shewed before, are justice, gratitude, modesty, equity,
mercy, and the rest of the laws of nature, are good; that is to say; moral virtues; and their
contrary vices, evil (EW III, 146).

Philosophic reflection upon the passions in Leviathan also differs from a scientific
explanation based upon the empirical objects of the passions as practiced in De Cive
in regard to the level of abstraction and generality. In the earlier works, the
principles of demonstration were the inclinations, that is, the particular objects of
the passions, understood in a material egoist vein. The reader is alerted at the very
outset that the argument of Leviathan abstracts from all particular objects of the
passions. The arguments of chapters six and following do not depend upon or
suppose any particular objects of the passions, and apply to all men, whatever the
character of their inclinations or manners. The egoism now associated with the
analysis of desire is purely metaphysical. A person calls good whatsoever is the
object of his desire, but the object of his desire may as well be the advancement of
the welfare of mankind as of his own.
In De Cive, certain drives, such as those for power and self-preservation, were
held to be self-regarding, instinctual, and prior to all reflection. 12 Whatever
Hobbes's views at the time of the writing of the later work, no conclusion rests upon
the supposition that any or all men instinctively or necessarily harbor any particular
desires. Consider the celebrated ascription of 'a general inclination of all mankind,
a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death'. 13
Desire for power is a manner, not primitive and inborn, but to be accounted for
'partly from the diversity of passions, in divers men; and partly from the difference
of the knowledge, or opinion each one has of the causes, which produce the effect
desired' (EW III, 85). From the sequel, it would seem not that all men atavistically
seek power, but that the nature of appetition is such that in order to secure a
constant quantum of satisfaction, it is necessary to experience increasing bona,
which requires more power. Power is useful to all men, no matter the objects of
their passions.
The discussion of death avoidance exhibits similar features .

... of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself. And therefore
there be some rights, which no man can be understood by any words, or other signs, to
have abandoned, or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting
them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood
to aim thereby, at any good to himself (EW III, 120».
64

What makes self preservation morally relevant is not that it is instinctual, though
that might be so. It is rather that no matter the object of one's desire, the objectives
cannot be promoted by not resisting. Life is a real good because one can never weigh
in the balance of deliberation the benefits that accrue hereafter, for 'there is no
natural knowledge of man's estate after death' (ibid. III, 135). As far as one can
ever know, life is a real good, a condition for the achievement of whatever else he
may regard as good. The moral argument of Leviathan is an inference from the
passions, from an analysis of appetition, rather than from particular inclinations.
De Cive proceeded on the supposition of particular inclinations of men disposed
to act for their own good, and necessitated to avoid dying. Death-threatening power
was therefore the pivotal category since it could necessitate desired responses. In
view of the observation that 'The passion to be reckoned upon, is fear', and that
covenants without the sword are but words (ibid. III, 129-154), it would be foolish
to deny the importance of power here as well. But power figures differently in the
argument of Leviathan. No mention is made before chapter thirty-one 'Of the
Kingdom of God by Nature' of absolute power conferring right. Natural right is
derived from liberty and right reason; all other rights, over persons and things, are
the products of consent. What makes of the condition of men without society a war
of all against all is not just a failure of power, but of understanding. If the implicit
model of De Cive was an absolute power lacking in statu naturae, in Leviathan it
is a right reason lacking in rerum natura. This cannot be constituted by a
transference of power, but only by a grant of authority.

4.

These changes all redound upon Hobbes's theory of obligation. Though

consequences are inferred from the human condition outside society, it is not until
he defines the right of nature that Hobbes invokes it. A man's right in this
signification does not depend on his power, however great or slight it might be. Self-
preservation is always a right, because it can never be wrong to preserve oneself.
Where there is no right, there is obligation, and there are two ways in which one
could lack a right of nature. One has no right to do what he has no liberty to do,
nor does one have a right contrary to right reason. Lack of right in the first case
is artificial, in the second natural, obligation. The first kind of obligation might be
summarily characterized as self-imposed impediments to liberty which give rise to
titles. The obligation requires a forbearance from action or omission. The second
kind is none of these.
Only self-imposed impediments to liberty, whether laws or contracts, can
properly be called obligations, 'there being no obligation on any man, which ariseth
not from some act of his own' (HXXI, 203). One's own act has the effect of giving
rise to an impediment. All impediments limit freedom by restricting the space in
 65

which one may move without encountering resistance (ibid.). Impediments can be
either natural or artificial. If naturally impeded by a physical obstacle, a person does
not lose his moral freedom (ibid. XXI, 203; see also ibid. XX, 189). Contrarily, an
artificial impediment does not physically prevent one from doing what he ought to
do 'for nothing is more easily broken than a man's word' (ibid.XIV, 119). Citizens
are physically, but not morally, free to break the law.
In Leviathan, Hobbes jettisons the whole earlier psychological line of argument
culminating in the identification of contractual obligation with end of liberty. What
he offers in its stead is a philosophic investigation of the conditions of contracting
and its consequences. After elaborating 'what it is to lay down a right', either by
renunciation or transfer, Hobbes claims that either grant is obliging, likens injury
to absurdity, and concludes of the words and deeds that are signs of the will to divest
and accept the divestiture, 'And the same are the BONDS, by which men are bound,
and obliged' (ibid.). The whole paragraph is exemplary of the procedure of the later
work. The impediment is no longer the effect of the breach of arrangements, the
position of the obliger, all of which may add to the incentive to keep one's
obligation; rather, the words or other signs of the will to grant are themselves the
impediment. Here is an abstract elaboration of what is meant by calling a man's
word his bond.
In articulating the relations among contract, obliged, bound, duty, and so on
Hobbes is not offering an answer to the philosophic question of why one ought ever
to keep valid contracts. That enterprise is neither meaningless nor supererogatory,
and is undertaken by the philosopher in its proper place, after the introduction of
the third law of nature, in his answer to the fool that 'hath said in his heart, there
is no such thing as justice' (ibid. XV, 132). Particularly interesting in this regard is
the displacement of the comparison of injury and absurdity from the beginning of
De Cive chapter three, where it does function as part of the natural law appeal of
that work to rational obligation, to its definitive place here in the clarification of
the relation among basic moral concepts, where it points to a formal parallel. Nor
is Hobbes offering a series of lexical definitions of 'obliged', 'bound', 'injustice',
and so on. In unmistakable terms, consequences are being traced which flow from
our voluntary acts.
So long as the institutions can be shown to be real goods, an exploration of the
psychological mechanisms and dispositions is irrelevant to a consideration of their
moral force. In treating of the position of first performers, discussion of merit takes
the place of the expectations of the parties (H, XIV, 123). The language of
impediment captures this move, by making clear that the analysis focuses on
consequences, not motivations. In the state of nature, every person is an obstacle
to the claims of all others, not in the natural sense that they obstruct, but in the
moral one that they do so with right when they conscientiously judge their survival
at stake. By deciding to lay down a right, so declaring, and having the declaration
accepted, a contractor, A, lifts an impediment from a fellow, B. That impediment
66

was A's right to do whatever he deemed necessary. The effect of the self-imposed
loss of liberty is two-fold. It limits the area (as do all obligations properly speaking)
in which A can rightly exercise his discretion understood as 'liberty ... of doing, or
omitting, according to our own appetite, or aversion' (H., VI, 48). The effect upon
B is to convert his right in the sense of a liberty into a right in the sense of a title.
No pretence is made to explain the psychological mechanisms, not because Hobbes
regarded such a task as impossible in principle, but rather as no part of his 'science'
as here practiced.
The significant transition from 1641 to 1650 then is not just the jettisoning of the
notion of arbitrary impediments,15 but more precisely the substitution of artificial
for arbitrary impediments. The distinction bespeaks a difference between a
psychological analysis of how obligations work and a philosophic one of what they
are.
If impediments are moral rather than physical, a philosophic justification must
be given of why one ought to keep his word. That justification is provided by the
theory of natural law. The contrast with contracts is not that these obligations are
any more 'natural', that is, spontaneously practiced. Indeed, they 'are contrary to
our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge and the like' (EW
III, 153 ff.). Natural law indeed, is doubly fictitious, for it is a law which is not a
law, imposing an obligation which is not an obligation.
Considered in themselves, the laws of nature are not laws, but 'conclusions, or
theorems concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves'
(EW III, 147). They are not obligations properly speaking because they are not
voluntarily self-imposed. Natural law is nothing we agree to, but 'convenient articles
of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement'(EW III, 116), not the
products of consent, but 'immutable and eternal' (EWIII, 145). The obligation they
impose does not consist in a loss of liberty. What may perhaps create the contrary
impression is the author's gloss on the relation between right, which consists in
liberty, and law, which determines and binds.

So that law, and right, differ as much, as obligation, and liberty; which in one and the
same matter are inconsistent (EW III, 117).

Hobbes does not say that natural law is obligation, and natural right is liberty, any
more than he says that injury is absurdity. Liberty and obligation are contraries, as
we have just seen, and there obtains the same relation between natural law and
natural right. That laws of nature do not limit liberty may be gathered from the
repeated claim that civil law limits natural liberty, with never a mention, as in De
Cive there had been (H., XIV, 3, 274) of natural law doing so.
The true moral philosophy yields a knowledge of real good, namely life, peace,
and the means to peace. The primary law of nature is not that men do, but that they
'ought to endeavor peace' (EW III, 117). All the other laws of nature command
virtues as qualities of mind. One may perhaps extend the title 'obligation' to what,
 67

in the court of conscience, is 'a desire that they should take place'. All desire what
they; regard as good. The laws of nature identify real goods all men would desire
upon reflection, which is all the obligation they impose. As they require a sincere
intention, so are they broken by a contrary intention or purpose. 16 An intention is
not idle rumination, but a first step toward reversing the state of war which was a
product of the will or disposition to fight. The virtues are causes of peace, but as
a civil philosopher Hobbes is now concerned with providing reasons for, rather than
causal explanations of, action.
The latest editors of Hobbes's De Corpore have remarked,

Hobbes's approach to linguistic theory is much like his approach to political theory. In
the latter case, his concern is to find out what conditions must be satisfied if a multitude
of men are to be a body politic; in the former case, his concern is with the conditions
needed for noises produced by men to be speech. In both cases, there is a complex of
conditions. I?

Suitably adapted, these remarks apply to all of Hobbes's later philosophy. In the
foregoing, I have attempted to show that Hobbes's theoretical thought was not
always of this cast. The distinction between science and philosophy in the English
language tradition is usually dated from Locke's celebrated remarks about the
philosopher's underlaborer's task of clearing away the rubbish that stands in the
way of the advancement of learning. 18 Michael Oakeshott already identified this
incipient move in Hobbes. 19 Two developments inspired in Hobbes this same
speuclative direction. On the one hand, the radicalization of the political struggle
began to call into question, not just the locus, but the nature and status of political
authority.20 On the other, the scientific achievements of the virtuosi were mooted
by skeptics and critics. Indeed, in both realms the pressure was as pronounced from
dogmatists as from doubters. What was wanted, whether the authority at issue was
political or intellectual, whether the challenge came from the quarter of certainty
or of ignorance, was a reconstitution of the universes of knowledge and action
following the order of creation. It was to this common, but for Hobbes novel, task
that De Corpore and Leviathan were addressed.

NOTES

I follow the by now universal practice of referring to the Elements of Philosophy, even in English
translation, by their Latin titles. For reasons of space, the reading of De Cive will be asserted, rather
than rigorously argued. It is drawn from a larger project on the evolution of Hobbes's philosophic
politics. I should like to acknowledge the generous support of the Canada-France Cultural Exchange
Program, and the Killam Program, both administered by the Canada Council, and the assistance of
Henri Laboucheix and John Yolton, who were more than nominal supervisors. They are, of course,
absolved from any responsibilities for the views expressed here, with many of which they would disagree.
Finally, I should like to acknowledge the assistance of the Nuffield Foundation in awarding me a travel
68

grant making possible the completion of my research during the summer of 1979.
2 On the early seventeenth century English scientific scene, see R.H. Kargon, Atomism in England
from Harriot to Newton (Oxford, 1966), and J. Jacquot, 'Harriot, Hill, Warner and the New
Philosophy,' in J.W. Shirley (ed.», Thomas Harriot, Renaissance Scientist (Oxford, 1974).
3 The familiar reference to Galileo's Dialogues appears in a letter to Newcastle written from
London on January 26, 1633 (4). Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of His Grace
The Duke of Portland Preserved at Welback Abbey, Vol. II, p. 124. For Hobbes's relation to the school
of Padua, see J.W.N. Watkins, Hobbes's System of Ideas, Second Edition (London, 1973). On the
relation to Italian methodology generally, see Arrigo Pacchi, Convenzione e ipotesi nella formazione
della filosofia naturale di Thomas Hobbes (Florence, 1965) and Aldo Gargani, Hobbes e la scienza
(Turin, 1971).
4 For suppositio, see Pacchi, ch. three.
5 F.C. Hood, The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, 1964), chapter IV, and especially,
Hood, 'The Change in Hobbes's Definitions of Liberty,' Philosophical Quarterly (1967).
6 'To know the natural cause of sense, is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have
elsewhere written of the same at large.' Leviathan, I, EW III, 1.
7 See especially Leviathan, IX where the usages are conflated.
8 This has been noticed by Sheldon W. Wolin, Politics and Vision (Boston, 1960), 16-17,284-285.
9 Six Lessons to the Savilian Professors of te Mathematics, 'Epistle Dedicatory'.
10 Ross Rudolph, 'Optics and Ethics in the Philosophy of Hobbes,' paper delivered at the XVIIe
Congres de la S.A.E.S., Universite Francois-Rabelais, Tours, 30 April 1977.
11 The importance of Richard Popkin's The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Descartes (New
York, 1964) for Hobbes studies was quickly appreciated. The most thorough overview of Hobbes's links
to Mersenne and Gassendi on natural philosophy remains Pacchi. Pride of place for applying Popkin's
insights to the moral and political fields belongs to Theodore Waldman, 'Hobbes on Liberty: A Study
in Constructive Skepticism,' Proceedings of the Seventh Inter-American Congress of Philosophy
(Quebec, 1968).
12 See above p. 57.
13 Leviathan, XI, EW III, 85-86. The development of this analysis can be instructively traced from
Hobbes's Thucydides, edited by Richard Schlatter (New Brunswick, 1975), especially Book V, through
Thomas White's De Mundo Examined, translated by H.W Jones (London, 1976», chapters thirty-eight
and thirty-nine.
14 De Cive, I, 1 [n., 110. Leviathan, XXX, EW III, 322-333; XXXI, 357-358; 'Review, and
Conclusion,' 713. B, Dialogue I, 58-59.
15 As Hood claims in 'The Change in Hobbes's Definition of Liberty.'
16 EW III, XXVII, 277-278 corrects the seriously misleading impression of De Cive, XIV, 16,282,
quoted above, p. 58, that sin consists in misreasoning.
17 Thomas Hobbes, Computatio sive Logica; Logic. Translation and commentary by Aloysius
Martinich. Edited, and with an Introductory Essay, by Isabel C. Hungerland and George R. Vick (New
York, 1981), 21-22. The editors first made this point in Isabel C. Hungerland and George R. Vick,
'Hobbes's Theory of Signification', Journal of the History of Philosophy (1973).
18 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Edited with an introduction by John
W. Yolton (London, 1965), xxxv.
19 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. Edited with an Introduction by Michael Oakeshott (Oxford, 1957),
xxi-xxiii.
20 Of the proliferating literature on the so-called 'general crisis of the seventeenth century', two
collections are usefully broad ranging: T. Aston (ed.), Crisis in Europe 1560-1660 (London, 1965) and
G. Parker and L.M. Smith (eds), The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1978). The
argument that the general crisis is a crisis of authority is specifically made by T .K. Rabb, The Struggle
for Stability in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1975).
II. LOGIC AND LANGUAGE OF THIS SCIENCE
 71

4. HOBBES ON THE NATURAL AND THE ARTIFICIAL

Craig Walton

University oj Nevada, Las Vegas

Introduction

Scholars studying the early modern period agree that God and man are increasingly
portrayed as not just knowing, but also making and doing. The highest ancient and
medieval goods of the theoretical life are gradually supplemented, or even replaced,
by emphasis on human making and practice. One trail sign for tracking these
cultural developments is the ancient Greek distinction between the natural and the
artificial. As man has found more and more things he can make and do by skills,
his idea of his own and the earth's nature has correspondingly changed. Can man's
arts produce effects so disconnected from nature that those effects cannot be
accommodated or corrected by nature? If so, man's arts m"ay cause irreparable
destruction. Or, are fears of artifice exceeding nature really due to a mistake, or to
a lack of that 'daring to know' which has marked so much of human progress?
These questions, discussed in mid-seventeenth century idiom, run throughout those
mature works of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) which deal with the art of making
the commonwealth and that art's science, his Science oj natural justice.
Hobbes joined the growing number of renaissance writers who reconsidered the
notion of 'artificial' in order to criticize Scholastic or, even more broadly, what we
might call 'establishment' learning and manners. Sometimes he uses 'artificial'
much as we use the word today, to denote the 'phony', unreal or pretentious. But
more often and more deeply, the terms 'artificial' and 'artifice' and their cognate
derivations from the Greek or Latin terms for 'art', were undergoing strenuous
debate: the Italian neoplatonists such as Ficino and Pico, as well as later Christian
Stoics such as Justus Lipsius took art to be the imitatio Dei by which man becomes
perfected. By knowledge and choice man can make of himself and the rest of created
nature something more perfect because of Divinely-inspired reasoning and willing.
The contending group would include Leonardo, Paracelsus, Ramus, Montaigne and
Hobbes, to name only a few. Their notion of art was modeled after what they took
to be the creative ways of God as the Artificer of creation. Here, art is God's way
in nature, and therefore it is man's way to build within nature so as to bring natural
beginnings to their best possible fruition by admixture of man's labor and skill. It

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
72

would take us too far afield to pursue this broader topic, but within the context of
Hobbes's works and times, note must be made that he enters the lists on one side
of a hotly debated renaissance controversy over the genesis and goal of man's arts
in relation to the natural order. Hobbes opposed those who saw art and artifice as
opposed to, or over and above nature so as to war with nature for control. But he
did not thereby become a 'primitivist', as Hiram Haydn has characterized those who
rejected the neoplatonic doctrine of art imposed from on high upon 'mere' natural
'stuff' . Rather, as will be argued below, Hobbes is more clearly seen in the tradition
of Montaigne's view on this issue, where in his Essais he noted that Ficino, Hebreo
and Aristotle [Sic] tried to 'artify nature', whereas a more sane and wholesome
program would be to 'naturalize art' (Essais III/v). For Hobbes, a philosopher's
handling of the relationships between nature and art marks a major borderline
between fruitful and 'vain' philosophizing. Those who bifurcate the two, making
some instinctual or primitive 'nature' superior, or who, at the other extreme, claim
some celestial and otherworldly art to be superior, are alike erroneous in missing
the mark and sowing confusion. 1
But is Hobbes 'naturalizing art', with Montaigne? Readers of Hobbes's
Leviathan might well conclude to the contrary, and hold that Hobbes leans strongly
toward the artificial as superior to the natural - as when, on the first page, Hobbes
sees nature itself as 'the art whereby God hath made and governs the world', and
the commonwealth to be 'an artificial animal' which man can make. In Chapter 16,
again, he distinguishes between persons natural and artificial so that he may turn
in Chapter 17 to the generation of the commonwealth. It is to be made by every
person authorizing some man or assembly of men to bear their persons in the public
business, to represent them and act as their agent in matters requiring one unified
voice. Though ants and bees seem to do this by natural instinct, Hobbes argues that
agreement among men' ... is by covenant only, which is artificial.. . .' (EW III, 157).
Covenant is more than the consent of particular natural beings; it is, instead,
making a new being, ' ... a real unity of them all, in one and the same Artificial
person, made by covenant of every man with every man' (EWIII, 158). In that new,
real artificial unity, nature would seem to have been superceded.
However, Hobbes might also be said to scorn the artificial in favor of the natural.
In his attack on Sir Edward Coke's concept of lawyers, long schooled in the
common law, Hobbes examines the way they present themselves to us non-lawyers
as the learned bearers of the tradition of Anglo-Saxon law and equity. In his A
Dialogue Between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England
(ca. 1675), the Lawyer quotes with approval Coke's Institutes: The 'right reason'
of a judge is ' ... an Artificial perfection of Reason gotten by long Study,
Observation, and Experience, and not By every Man's natural Reason; for nemo
nascitur artifex' (from I Inst., Sec. 138, quoted at D, 16). 'No one is born skillful';
but all the rest of the dialogue is a scathing refutation of this maxim. The
Philosopher argues that natural reason serves the law and equity far more wisely
 73

than does the lawyer's artificial reason. 2 Again, in the famous Leviathan Chapter
13, 'Of the Natural Condition of Mankind .. .', Hobbes requires that in order to turn
our attention toward moral philosophy at all, we must here set aside the most
celebrated human arts of the classical world, namely both those 'arts grounded upon
words', and those 'attained By experience, as E.g. prudence' (EWIII, 110). The arts
grounded upon words are the rational sciences, whose conclusions are reached by
valid inference from universal and necessary premises. They must be left out of
Leviathan because their artifice is found only among a few persons and, he stresses
(chiding Coke), is not born with us. Hobbes then would also omit such a moral
excellence as prudence, because it, like intellectual excellence, is lacking at birth
(though here, unlike the art of epistemic reasoning, Hobbes thinks anyone can
attain prudence over time, given experience). Thus it seems that intellectual and
moral excellences, both of them artificial in the best Greek sense, must be omitted
in preference to something so natural that all men are born with it or can have it
without rare talent or special training. It would seem, from those passages, that
Hobbes allowed no room for the artificial.
Looking at this array of famous passages, then, we seem to see both a strong case
for the artificial over the natural, and also a strong case for the natural over the
artificial. It is small wonder that Hobbes's readers have not reached wide agreement
on what he meant as the proper spheres of, and relationships between, what is
natural and what is artificial in civil philosophy.
In this paper I shall offer a schema to clarify how Hobbes conceives the various
distinctions and relationships between nature and art, the natural and the artificial
as adverbs qualifying actions and beings in his science of natural justice. I shall
confine myself to Leviathan and A Dialogue. 3 Hobbes's major dialectical division
(Sec. 1) below is between the natural and the supernatural; the natural then has what
we may see as two species (Sec. 2), the natural and the artificial, such that he
specifies two senses of 'experience' and two senses of logic, one for each. An
objection is then interposed, after which (in Sec. 3) I explore the passions in two
spheres of life, the private and the public. Section 4 explores reason in private and
public spheres. Section 5 builds upon the foregoing to show the interplay of public
passions (natural) and moral philosophy's 'theorems' (artificial). Another objection
is then considered, after which Section 6 discusses persons and covenants, natural
and artificial. Section 7 briefly examines the sovereign as a natural and as an
artificial person. Section 8 extends this analysis to law, wherein justice as artificial
is contrasted with equity as natural. The concluding section then draws upon the
previous sections to show how the natural and the artificial are coordinated in a new
sophisticated weaving, to yield the richly textured fabric of Hobbes's Science of
natural justice.
Hobbes consciously draws on the ancient Greek distinction between nature and
art, but he reworks and probes both categories through a complex series of
transformations in order to elucidate both the artifices we need for civilization and
74

those natural causal principles on which civilizing arts depend for their dynamics,
their limits and possible correction. His careful reconsideration of the natural and
the artificial yields the philosophical basis for making a human community which
is both rooted in our natural resources at birth and brought to individual moral
excellence and public peace by causal principles intelligible to us. In a word, the
civilizing arts can be built upon what all persons naturally share and what, under
specifiable conditions of social life, can enable them to become just persons. 4

1.

The final paragraph of Leviathan Part II looks back over the distinctions between
natural and artificial persons, covenants, logic, reason, and bodies, and gains the
high ground to reiterate that all of Parts I and II had grown from natural reason.
The next page, where he begins Part III, 'On the Christian Commonwealth', again
stresses that Parts I and II had derived the sovereign and the duties of subjects 'from
nature only', as contrasted with the 'supernatural revelations of the will of God'
which are to be examined in Part III. But in that beginning section of Part III he
argues that revelation and the voices of prophecy are not inconsistent with 'natural
reason' - a position reminiscent of Erasmus's reply to Martin Luther in their debate
on the freedom of the will. 5 In his first and most broad consideration of nature,
then, the supernatural is simply unknown from a natural standpoint, and the
artificial is a species within the broader genus of nature.

2.

Several phrases suggest how Hobbes places the artificial as a species within the
natural and how the two may be distinguished. In Chapter 13 of Leviathan he had
cast aside the artificial reason of deductive sciences as well as the artificial excellence
of prudence gained through experience, in order to make his beginning in those
natural capabilities common to all men. 6 But, seemingly in contradiction of
Leviathan Chapter 13, he later claims that the reasoning in Parts I and II was
founded in what 'experience found true', or else in what 'consent concerning the
use of the words has made True'. Unlike artificial moral or intellectual excellences,
this moral experience and this logic he describes as natural - that is, they are drawn
from 'the nature of men, known to us by experience, and from definitions of such
words as are essential to all political reasoning, universally agreed on' (EWIII, 359).
One might suspect Hobbes for smuggling experience and logic in through the back
door, after having booted them out the front door. But in fact there are two sorts
of experience and logic at issue in Chapter 13. On the previous page he had briefly
contrasted his own work to Plato's Republic, saying that the account of moral
 75

excellence in Leviathan is radically different from that of the ancients. Plato had
expected his philosopher-sovereigns to learn mathematics, a discipline Hobbes has
ruled out of his Science of natural justice. Each of these points requires some
discussion.
First, let us look at the question of artificial vs. natural experience. Those phrases
do not occur in Hobbes, but he has ruled out such ancient Greek moral excellences
as prudence, gained through reflection on experience and denominated by him as
artificial in the noblest sense. The shift is radical. He realizes this, and signals it:
the making of the commonwealth cannot wait upon an adequate base of moral
excellence in the people. Instead, it must be generable from people in every moral
condition, as we find them, just so as later to provide stable civilized conditions for
seeking individual moral excellence - an achievement impossible in solitude or social
chaos. He interprets Plato and Aristotle to have required moral excellence in order
to found their communities. We need not defend his interpretation, which I think
we can agree is in error here. The vital issue, however, is that Hobbes sees open to
us a plane of experience of human nature within range of every potential citizen
irrespective of his character or intellect. He insists that his argument must rest on
this natural experience and the 'theorems' derivable from it by natural reason. His
famous discussion about the natural equality of men in the pre-civil condition
clarifies this point, for there he looks at physical, moral and intellectual excellences
- all artificial in the classical technical sense - and shows that in the absence of a
unified voice to set and carry out the standards of civility, none of these excellences
can prevail in action. From the standpoint of natural endowments alone, any man
or gang of men can prevail over anyone, excellent or not. By implication, one could
not reflect on experience which does not occur.
Second, let us consider Hobbes's intriguing notion of the natural and artificial
'concerning the use of words'; Hobbes seems to propose a distinction between a
natural and an artificial logic. Although those exact terms are not used by him, he
does distinguish and exclude from civil philosophy those artificial attainments in
formal logic needed to intuit apodictic first principles and premises, and validly to
derive certain conclusions by way of the Aristotelian rational syllogism. He then
insists that a different sort of logic can and must be practiced - seemingly a natural
logic, similar to the Ramist 'plain man's logick' then dominating Protestant
curricula throughout western Europe. 7 That is, having temporarily dispensed with
the rare, technically-trained Aristotelian deductive logician, much of Leviathan I
and II may be seen as a discussion to clarify a popular logic, an agreed-upon
denomination of those terms we need for social construction. That discussion draws
on current usage and everyday examples in order to settle the meanings of the key
terms needed for talk about the issues arising in human intercourse. Such a logic
is available to all men who, for example, commonly see the good as whatever is life-
preserving or life-enhancing for them, and see a contract as an agreement to
perform. I call this 'natural logic' only to draw out Hobbes's meaning. It is not
76

necessary to insist on an all-pervasive application of Hobbes's natural/artificial

distinction. But it is necessary to see just what it is that he includes in his discussion
'concerning the use of words', and what he excludes. Notice that he uses public
consent rather than a master's criterion in this realm of discussion: the logic to be
employed in the Science of natural justice must build only from those definitions
'of such words as are essential to all political reasoning, universally agreed on'. This
logic, unlike the formal logic of the few who possess verbal skills at the highest
plane, is to determine the true use of words by reference to 'consent concerning the
use' of those words (EW III, 359).8

2. Objection

An objection might be offered at this point: Agreed that specified artificial

excellences of moral and intellectual ability are excluded by Hobbes, and that the
experience and logic for founding the commonwealth are 'from nature only'; is it
not true that some artifice is still required to cultivate these natural talents? I think
the objection will be clarified later, when more detail is introduced about the
private/public distinction as it adds another dimension to the· natural/artificial.
That is, Hobbes sees potentially destructive results coming from highly skilled
private a priori and a posteriori reasoning, as well as from the divisive private
passions of 'competition, diffidence and glory'. But before those issues arise in their
proper sequence, some clarification comes from noting that Hobbes displays a sort
of spectrum from
(a) private natural passions to
(b) public natural passions to
(c) public artificial reason to
(d) private artificial reason.
The two (private) extremes (a, d) are equally dangerous in civil philosophy. The
two public or social abilities are related (respectively) as motives to (b) and cognized
conditions for (c) public action. We recall that the first page of Leviathan sees
Nature as 'the art whereby God hath made and governs the world'. The divine art
is already working, in the natural order. But what is crucial to civil philosophy is
that private passions and private reasoning produce only war, division or instability.
One might say that the issue in civil philosophy is to find the public arts of bringing
everyone's God-given particular nature to bear on our common concerns. Here the
artificial means the same as intentional social interchange developing toward
lessened intellectual and moral isolation, increasing intellectual and moral
communication. I suggest that to push the distinction beyond that would be to
quibble. It is vital, literally, that concerning civil life, the artificial arise through
intercourse from what is natural to all authors of the covenant.
 77

3.

Turning, then, to the spectrum just referred to, from (a) private passions to (b)
public ones, and from (c) public reason to (d) private reason, we must draw upon
Leviathan and A Dialogue to support this proposed schema with evidence. The
passages in Leviathan Ch. 13, concerning the three passions (a) above which incline
men to war are well known to readers of Hobbes, and it should not be presuming
much to denominate these as private passions because Hobbes himself uses the term
'private' in this way. Discussing 'Other Laws of Nature' in Ch. 15, he recalls Ch.
13 and restates the causes of war as setting the boundary for moral philosophy: as
long as we are in a condition where 'private appetite is the measure of good, and
evil', we are in war. Then the distinction between private and public is emphasized
again when he sees his task as 'the science of what is good and evil, in the
conversation, and society of mankind' (EW III, 146). The three natural passions
which incline men to war are inherently divisive - by them, nature 'dissociates' men
(EW III, 113).
In this same chapter Hobbes makes two other observations about natural
passions, and these two are frequently missed by his readers. First, even though the
above-named passions dissociate men, he insists that he does not 'accuse man's
nature in it' (Ibid.). These three passions move us toward at least some part of what
we must seek in order to live and become individuals. Dissociating is not necessarily
bad for anyone. Later Hobbes will allow a place in private life for any of these
private passions which is not 'by law praetermitted'. Some of the ways we might
compete, be diffident, or work to glorify ourselves can be acted out so long as those
acts do not violate laws necessary for the health of the body politic. And it seems
apparent that he allows for a wide range of private life. Moreover, so long as we
deal only with private passions, there is no public as yet. 'Lacking any standard
except private ones, we have in effect no standards at all, .. .', and so no agreed-
upon good or evil. Therefore nature has not made us evil (or, of course, good).
The second neglected point in elaborating this distinction is that nature has also
given us three passions which incline us toward peace (b); cf. Ch. 13, final
paragraph, each of them having to do with living civilly among others for the sake
of well-being. By nature, we are no more disposed toward the private than toward
the public, toward dissociation than toward association. In fact, we are naturally
disposed toward both, and as just mentioned, in the final analysis Hobbes will want
to provide for a wide range of private motivations as well as of public ones, though
the former can never violate the foundational priority of the latter as preconditions
for any civility at all. This is another reason why examination of the natural passions
inclining us toward war does not therefore 'accuse man's nature in it'. Whatever is
to be naturally private or individuating will in fact, eventually, have to be given
range and outlet. But on its own terms it can only 'dissociate' men and produce war.
78

4.

Next, let us examine Hobbes's distinction between natural and artificial reason.
Here again, it is Hobbes's own words which introduce the private/public distinction
in this context.
The public logic, i.e., how we agree to use words in conversation (c) must include
agreement about good and evil on those matters which make and dissolve
fundamental social bonds. Privileged definitions or usages cannot be allowed in
these matters. The same point is made in attacking Chief Justice Coke and the
tradition of the lawyers' 'Artificial perfection of Reason gotten [as Sir Edward had
written,] by long Study, Observation, and Experience'. By Coke's criterion of good
and evil, the lawyers' claim that 'Universal Reason' warrants their decisions, in fact
reduces to the 'particular reason' (d) of every man over ever other man's (D, 26).
But Hobbes sees that this is the same as to deny that there is any 'Universal Reason'.
There is no such thing as 'Legal Reason'; there is only 'Human Reason'. True, no
person is born skillful in reasoning about the law. But it does not follow that only
lawyers can become so skilled. Instead, Hobbes argues, any person can 'grow up
to Human reason', and apply it to the laws, and then be fit to interpret them for
the sake of justice and equity. Any man could (and should be enabled, through wide
and open publication of the statutes, to) look at the preamble of the law, the time
it was made, and the incommodities it means to prevent. These are the only facts
needed by any person with a 'grown up' natural reason in order to tell what is the
intent and purport of the law. To write or interpret law otherwise is to damage the
body politic by a sort of secular priesthood of private (or, here, 'particular') experts
neither understood by, nor understanding the people as a whole. What is worse,
such law will not receive willing obedience and respect. Therefore it cannot support
the common weal.
Hobbes stresses that in the Science oj natural justice we are not seeking faculties
of the individual body and mind, as in physiology and formal logic respectively, two
'particular' sciences. Rather, we are seeking something to be found only in the
public life: 'Justice, and injustice are none of the faculties either of the body, nor
mind .... They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude' (EW III,
115). Indeed, though the case for the dissociative quality of the three war-inclining
passions (a) has received considerable stress by Hobbes's readers, it seems fair to
say that his readers have not usually placed equal emphasis on the dangers he sees
in dissociative private reasoning (d). His strongest discussion of rationalistic (as
compared to passionate) excesses is provided in A Dialogue, focusing on the
'particular reason' of lawyers and judges. But also in Leviathan we see signs of the
same problem. For example, in Leviathan's discussion of natural right, so long as
each individual has only private reason as guide, every person will infer a full right
to everything because the logic of his claim is a universal egocentricity. That is just
what is meant by natural right, that it is a claim or assertion which could be made
 79

by anyone, and which is as yet unqualified by any mediating standard or common

ground.
To strengthen this distinction between public and private reason, Hobbes goes on
to show that even though we might naturally learn to speak in certain ways by social
custom, we might still use our natural reason in a naive way which could seemingly
entail committing ourselves to renunciation of our life, limb or health. But in such
a case of naive speaking, he insists, we camiot in truth ever be taken to have actually
meant to harm ourselves. Normally we have not reverted to an idiosyncratic or
'particular' reason in those cases. Instead, he explains, a person's natural reason
may not have 'grown up' enough to know which words to use for accuracy in
contracting and otherwise socially interacting. But the rest of us can know, anyway,
that no one ever thinks to give up his life and substance. Therefore if the naive
speaker's utterances seem to say that he does so, we or a court, can safely judge that
he did not do it, but only misspokeout of naivety (EW III, 118). This example from
Leviathan shows that public reason in its coining and using words to conduct our
social affairs may further be distinguished as natural-naive and natural-'grown up',
especially regarding speech about what is and is not inalienable. If a man by words
or other signs 'seem to despoil himself of the end I.e., 'some good for himself','
'" he is not to be understood as if he meant it, or that it was his will; but that he
was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted' (EW III, 120).
The danger caused by such ignorance is not due to natural passions, but to natural
reason in social immaturity.

s.
Having discussed those natural passions which dissociate, and that natural reason
which in one's naivety may seem to alienate vital rights that are biologically
inalienable to Hobbes. we turn next to those natural passions which incline men
toward peace, and that natural reason which 'discovers' the so-called 'Laws of
Nature'. The three peace-inclining passions are as natural as are the war-inclining
passions, and are not depicted by Hobbes as being either stronger or weaker than
the latter. This is not a three vs. three, as if in a mechanical conflict where each is
separate and opposite to the other, like vectors which are resolved mathematically.9
Rather, as noted, Hobbes provides us considerable play for the privative passions
in a true commonwealth, but under the specified conditions. More profoundly, it
follows from Hobbes's 'first philosophy' that the irreducible endeavor toward life,
which constitutes the 'first beginning' of all vital motion in man, is naturally
ambiguous. One and the same vital endeavor must sometimes move us to
individuate, sometimes to co-operate or covenant. Self-preservation, it should be
clear, does not mean self-isolation. In Hobbes's language, we move both toward one
another and away; but we endeavor to live in both moves. Neither private nor public
80

is necessarily good vs. evil. Rather, the philosophical question is, when and for what
reasons should we do either? Nature gives us indicators of the ultimate aim and the
broad boundaries of these moves. Artifice must make the paths which enable co-
existing and (sometimes) interdependent moves. The peace-inclining passions move
us toward the artifices necessary for civilization; they are 'natural' equally with
those passions inclining us toward war.
The other public area in the four-part spectrum mentioned earlier would be that
of public reason. Hobbes sees a way in which this, too, is natural. That is, the so-
called 'Laws of Nature' are to be 'found out by reason' by all concerned, the learned
and the unlearned, the morally excellent and the morally weak. It is just because
distinctions about learning and character, based on time and artifice, are not
necessary to make his case, that he finds his argument to be a unique departure from
Greek and Roman philosophy. He means that every man, considering only himself
and either bracketing or not knowing any pubic standards whatsoever, can tell from
his own inner life and from observation or projection, that all people seek to
preserve and enhance their lives, and that that 'endeavor' is natural.
The statement that it is natural can take the law-like form of a generalization
without begging any question as to how we should interpret or act out this endeavor.
Later, after discussing each of the 'Laws of Nature', Hobbes notes in a sort of aside
that in strictest accuracy none of them is a 'law'" because nothing can be law unless
it proceeds from the common voice or public person artificially generated. He uses
the phrase 'law of nature' because of its standing in common public usage. But at
this level, still discussing what is 'natural only', these discoveries are more skillfully
to be referred to as 'theorems' (EW III, 147), because while they can be 'found out'
by anyone's natural reason, at this moment they have no public standing (there is,
as yet, no public at all). The theorems describe those' ... qualities that dispose men
to peace and obedience' (EW III, 253). This is not the place to examine each of the
'theorems'. What is pertinent to the natural/artificial distinction is that they are
seen by Hobbes as not to be question-begging in civil philosophy, but instead
formulating what our common experience shows to be the qualities we need in order
to live together at all.
In review, then, Hobbes sees natural passions as dissociative and associative,
natural reason as naive or mature. He is above the fray here, neither condemning
nor praising but seeking to show what are the natural ways of feeling and thinking,
privately and publicly, and how they may bring good or harm. Neither the private
nor the public, the passional nor the rational, can have an a priori privileged
position: each of them admits of harmful extremity or helpful moderation vis-a-vis
the others. Seeing the full array of these four distinctions in the natural, and what
each can mean for good or for ill in civil philosophy, the way is opened next to
consider artifice in regard to each of these four.
 81

Objection

Thus far we have seen natural passions and natural reason as they may incline us
either to private or to public action. The symmetry is not perfect, for while private
and public passions are natural, and the reason which finds out the theorems of
coexistence is natural, the reason which dissociates seems to be ambiguously both:
it is natural if it is a rare intellectual genius for a priori reasoning which leads to
superior verbal skills such as not to be able or inclined to speak commonly with
people in general. But as (e.g.) legal learning, it is artificial. Which is it, then?
The point need not be stretched too thinly. The distinction between private and
public passions is clear; that between private and public reason may be fogged up
if we take the lawyers' reason to be artificial, as it is, and in a potentially good sense.
But Hobbes stresses, in Leviathan and in A Dialogue, that even when great
intellectual artifice is achieved by cultivation of rich natural gifts, still, if that
artifice then operates as no more than particular or private influence in its purview,
it is socially and morally ignorant, undeveloped, perhaps dangerous and (we may
say, without paradox) not yet artificial enough! That is, not enough human skill has
entered into its formulation, it is still too 'natural' in the sense of being
interpersonally naive and so, when socially considered, only latently human,
because its own sort of artifice is still particular or private. It is with these
qualifications in mind, then, that we may safely pass to those senses of 'artificial'
which Hobbes intends in civil philosophy. He allows for great physical or
intellectual achievement of artifice in other spheres, such as in formal logic or
classical scholarship, and sees that he can still have a social barbarian on his hands.
His attacks on divisive clergy and lawyers make it plain that he does not equate every
artifice with public artifice.

6.

Space permits only a cursory glance at what follows next in Hobbes's sequence,
though little risk is involved by quickly summarizing these next steps since they are
more well-known. On the basis of the foregoing distinctions, Hobbes differentiates
between natural and artificial persons and then uses the notion of artificial person
to explain what it is that we author when we covenant and bind ourselves everyone
to every other one. The commonwealth thus authored, its person must be
impersonated by a man or assembly to bear 'the public person' and act with
covenant-generated 'authority'. The natural persons remain so in all matters not
vital to the public person; in that realm, however, they have made the public
person's acts to be their own, and so have no private acts there. In every issue not
public, they act as natural persons or else make such artifices as are permissible
within the boundary conditions of public life. The details or 'particulars' - in a
82

double sense of the word - need not be specified. Natural persons cannot transfer
their inalienable rights even if they may seem to have done so. Moreover, they need
not consider the covenant which made the commonwealth when considering those
matters 'by the law praetermitted' - which, we should note, means most matters of
commerce, family life, educating children, health, and personal taste or pursuit.
However, some attention should be paid to covenants, since they are so crucial
to Hobbes's civil philosophy. Are they natural, or artificial? Because he emphasizes
that 'the nature of justice, consisteth in keeping of valid covenants' (EW III, 131),
and that unlike ants and bees, the agreement of men to co-operate toward the public
safety is 'by covenant only, which is artificial' (EW III, 157), perhaps we must
conclude that all covenants are artificial. Considering the distinction between
natural and artificial persons, however, it seems possible that a natural person may
covenant with another, and that in so doing each of the participants in the covenant
might see by natural reason, as Hobbes says in his third theorem, 'that men perform
their covenants made' (EW III, 130). If such a covenant were made, then it would
be performed lest one become known as a breaker of covenants and therefore not
to be trusted. On this account, natural covenants work because of cause and effect
relationships. But in the absence of the commonwealth and its public person (the
sovereign), a reputation of untrustworthiness would be the only sanction involved.
For natural persons in private matters, that factor may suffice. I do not see that
Hobbes's logic or 'use of words' obliges him to say that every time two persons
covenant, they have made an artificial object; if their purpose is mutually
advantageous and experience warrants mutual trust, they naturally keep the
covenant and so act justly. In that much, they become just persons. Or, by contrast,
if they make (for example) a marriage or friendship, then there is a new thing made
by art which is an artificial person. 'this married couple' or 'this friendship'.
That much said, however, it is clear that one cannot become a just man by one
act, or by a random scattering of acts. There must be a stable habit of such acts
to generate the moral excellence of justice, and on that issue Hobbes does not differ
from Plato and Aristotle. Where he thinks he differs is in saying that in order for
such a steady and stable excellence to be formed, good faith will not be enough.
There will be occasions of bad faith, if one lives in the natural condition of
mankind. This is why the artificially-created sovereign must set rewards and
penalties in this life, understandable to men as they are, to make it plain that they
will be better off keeping covenants made. This does not mean that no one would
keep a covenant made unless there were a sovereign, but that since we have a
sovereign and the laws obliging us all because of our own authorization, we need
not find out whether good faith is present in the other party. A covenant will be
binding anyway, for other reasons. The difference is not between covenant and no
covenant, but between the pre-civil conditions where two persons may indeed see
mutual advantage and know the other will act in good faith, as compared to the civil
artificial conditions of life in the commonwealth where formal ways of covenanting
 83

can be ascertained and publicly sanctioned irrespective of personal knowledge. This

latter condition offers us a wider range of just acts. Thus, in civil society one
becomes just through acting out covenants made 'over a long life', as Aristotle
would say.

7.

The question next in sequence would involve the artificially-constituted sovereign.

As he is both a natural and an artificial person, could he act in a private or purely-
natural capacity, say by one of the three passions inclining men to war, and then
successfully disguise the act by claiming that, as public person, what he did was
legal? That is, since he is both natural and artificial, how could we demarcate his
conduct in a questionable case? Or would he be held to account for everything he
did? Hobbes is not usually considered to have addressed this question. Indeed,
many readers have thought he said that the king can do no wrong. Yet the texts are
more clear if we utilize the natural/artificial distinction as a guide in reading them.
As sovereign, he cannot breach the covenant by acting on private particular motives.
lest he disembody himself, because his 'body' as sovereign is itself artificial. He is
the public person because he bears the citizens' persons by their authorization. But,
writing as he did so soon after the Civil War, Hobbes obviously did not want to
draw this consequence out too far. The conditional status of the artificial person
is a logical outcome of his definitions. For the sovereign to act in a private capacity
returns us to our starting-point, because the motivation behind the covenant was to
transcend private versions of good and evil with a public, authorized and decisive
standard.
More directly, however, Hobbes addresses the issue of the sovereign as-private vs.
as-public, in A Dialogue. Some people are saying, Hobbes begins, that a king can
do what he pleases, if he does not believe in the afterlife. Not fearing eternal justice,
such a king could take 'all from us', on this line of reasoning - including our very
lives. These people say also that the only reason such a king might not do whatever
he pleases, is that in so doing he would weaken his subjects, which would therefore
weaken his own power. By hypothesis, he cannot wish to weaken his own power,
since that is what 'pleases' him. Therefore he will not wish to act unjustly. To this
line of argument, Hobbes replies that the sovereign is bound to observe his own laws
not because otherwise he could weaken himself, but rather, he is bound to observe
them causally - he is the cause of the laws, and as their cause he observes them,
one may say, in order to cause them because it is what he does as sovereign that
confers upon laws their quality as laws, instead of being no more than theorems of
natural reason (D, 4lff.). Like any other citizen, he may naturally do those things
not touched by law. But his only agency as sovereign is representative, the
commonwealth's personated agent. His only power as sovereign is 'sovereign
84

power' , which means the artificial power of all covenanting agents bound into one
agent for the sake of the public weal.

8.

Finally, Hobbes concludes his reconsideration of the natural/artificial distinction

with his study of justice and equity. As noted in his Introduction to Leviathan,
justice is artificial. The making of law specifying what is good or evil is at bottom
a matter of establishing a public standard, and this can only be done by the public
reason of the public person. The needed universality of standard is artificially made
by these acts of the public person.
Yet these acts, as law, just because of their universality, may cause harm in a
particular case not foreseen by the legislator/sovereign. In that case the matter must
go before a court of equity - which, unlike a court of justice, uses as its standard
natural reason's theorems of peace-seeking life. Judges, acting in the best of faith
and with the highest learning, may err in particular cases, and cannot be expected
(by Hobbes, at any rate) to correct those errors on appeal because they do not
usually rise above their fellow lawyers' and judges' customs and usages. For this
reason, he argues for a court of equity which is expected to go beyond the letter of
the (artificial) law to its intent and, more deeply, to the intent of all law, namely
Salus populi, which is the most fundamental law of all. Running over this argument
in A Dialogue, Hobbes is able to recount painful but telling examples of inequity
drawn from Coke himself, as well as from Bracton and the statutes of English law.
Once he points them out, we can see them to be causes of inequity even though they
were originally justly made and enforced. Natural reason and its theorems, at this
level of appeal, need not and (Hobbes sees) cannot be made into laws, just because
their scope embraces the universal and this particular case at the same time. An
equity judgment embraces the need for a public standard of good and evil and the
equally public need for exceptions not foreseen or correction of errors unavoidable
in policy matters. Examples that Hobbes gives make clear that equity shows us how
there cannot be a ratio for the burning of a heretic; that there cannot be a legislated
way to cause the punishment to fit the crime (so that the only universality open to
punishments is that they be punished in advance of enforcement); that Coke had
erred in seeing the flight of an accused innocent as culpable (thus the Common Law
tradition was not so reasonable after all!); that suicide cannot be legislated into
being a felony, and so forth (D, 30-40, 113-119, inter alia).
Here, in discussing the highest appeals court in the land, Hobbes takes the
artifices of the commonwealth - the public person, the laws and their enforcement
- back to their original source in human nature. When all else is said and done, -
and only then, lest we lapse into chaos - the fine-tuning of the laws to equity must
be carried out by the highest judge in the land acting - here, too - as agent of the
 85

sovereign. Thus in what may seem to be a paradox, or a dialectical completion of

the circle, it is the highest act of the artificial person of the sovereign to remedy
particular wrongs caused due to artifice of law, by referring ultimately to natural
reason alone - combined, I take it, with the three natural passions inclining us to
peace.

Conclusion

Hobbes remarks that though the 'unwritten law' underlies all written law, it seems
that once in a while someone ought to try to write it anyway, because we have
trouble finding it. He evidently sees his work as the writing of the hitherto unwritten
law for peace-seeking life. His Science of natural justice must utilize several senses
of 'natural' and of 'artificial', in a rich fabric of threads and weavings. It builds
only on natural experience, passions and reason, as compared to supernatural
prophecy or scriptures and authorities, because its aim is peace for all, irrespective
of individual differences (including religious differences). He distinguishes three
natural passions inclining us to peace, and three to war. The former lend themselves
toward those artifices necessary for the making of the public sphere. But the
artificial is not necessarily salutary. Artificial reason in its specialized or 'particular'
senses can be inapplicable to the subject matter of the science of justice, or else can
be outright harmful (as in some of Sir Edward Coke's mistakes). There is a notion
of logic as the making and using of words to signify, which is natural in that all men
do it, and is public because they must do it by agreement and consent if they are
to communicate. Though such logic may be called, subsequently, 'artificial' in the
sense of socially-generated by the refining of discourse and agreement, it is still
distinguishable from the artficial formal logic of the rational syllogism which only
few can use.
Senses, passions and experience are natural so long as Hobbes confines himself
to universally-observable findings anyone could confirm for himself. When the
findings require special insight, that sort of artificial achievement is ruled out as
impertinent to the Science of natural justice.
Even though he is mistakenly touted as having intended to make this science
deductive, in fact Hobbes says of his Science of natural justice that its theorems and
distinctions are not deductive demonstrations. Rather, they are ' ... put into order,
and sufficiently or probably proved ... .' (EW III, 357). When discussing equity, he
realizes that just as these theorems' universality in civil philosophy cannot be
applied by deduction, so too, and for the same reasons, they cannot be perfectly
made into laws. Their subject-matter does not admit of that sort of precision.
Therefore, though generally true, laws must be correctable in human affairs by wise
judges in a court of equity. If Hobbes had believed that he reasoned deductively and
apodictically here, he could not have given us any reasons for an equity court above
86

the justice courts. Since the law is and can only be artificial, made by the public
person, it is based upon the artifices of man. These, in their turn, stem from our
natural passions toward peace and the natural theorems of the condititons for
peace-seeking life. The sphere of the commonwealth - which Hobbes calls 'the
artificial person', and then, through its 'representative', whom he calls the
'sovereign' because he 'bears' that person - is entirely a sphere of the artificial. lO
But as it arose from a careful study of the natural, so it continues to rest on the
natural in two major ways: first, the particular lives of the citizens continue in their
natural or else in publicly-nonharmful artificial ways, which make up the greatest
part of life; and second, whenever the public sphere, under the conditions it must
set and the policies it must act out, inadvertently causes harm to the people's safety,
the final remedy is the natural reason of equity.
I have suggested that a study of the way Hobbes distinguishes the natural from
the artificial could serve as a trail guide for exploration of every part of his Science
of natural justice, from its bare beginnings in the natural passions all the way to
civilized life. The finest culture may need correction from man's natural inalienable
rights and the theorems of natural reason seeking peace.
Hobbes could not have been unaware that immense artifice was exhibited by him
in the construction of this work, even though the public safety could never be made
to depend upon genuises. However eccentric or idiosyncratic he may have been in
his natural person, Hobbes was the artificer of a philosophical work intended to
state 'sufficiently and probably' the usually-unwritten conditions for civilized life.
In doing this he has based his case on every person's sense, experience and reason
irrespective of those particular achievements which set us apart. It may seem
paradoxical that it took such artifice to put artifice in its proper place. I suspect that
in this too, he was seeing humanity even though only 'reading himself'. 11

NOTES

For the more neoplatonic treatment of this issue, see Hiram Haydn's The Counter-Renaissance
(New York, 1950), pp. 408-497, where those rejecting Italian renaissance neoplatonic views are seen as
'primitivists' for whom the only option to art-over-nature is an instinctivist or romantic nature-over-art.
One might consider Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences (Chicago, 1946) in this same vein. The
broad movement to consider God not only as Knower but also as Artificer, is well-discussed in l.A.
Mazzeo's Renaissance and Revolution. The Remaking of European Thought (New York, 1956). His
handling of Leonardo and Paracelsus is particularly relevant. Ramus's work on this topic is discussed
in my 'Ramus and Socrates', Proc. A mer. Phil. Soc. vol. 114, no. 2 (April 13, 1970), pp. 119-139.
Montaigne's view is discussed in section 4, 'The Artfully Natural in Socratic Philosophy', in my
'Montagne on Socrates and the Art of Judgment' (unpublished manuscript). Among those discussing the
Reformation thinkers who stressed God as Artificer and man's salvation as finding God's arts 'in' rather
than only 'above' our own and other natures, see Perry Miller, The New England Mind (New York, 1939)
and Leon Howard, 'The 'Invention' of Milton's 'Great Argument': A Study of the Logic of 'God's Ways
to Men", Huntington Lib. Qrtrly. vol. 9 (1946), pp. 149-173.
 87

2 The same argument occurs in Chapter 26 of Leviathan at EW III, 256ff.

3 A thorough treatment of the topic would require a study of the entire body of Hobbes's work.
Already in the early Elements of Law, Natural and Political (at E, 102 f.) Hobbes speaks of the bees'
agreements in the life of the hive as 'natural', and man's agreement in the commonwealth as 'artificial'.
It is employed by him in his 'First Draught' and Tractatus Opticus II under the notion of what he calls
'natural judgment' of the eyes in the act of vision (cf. Elaine Stroud's Introduction to her forthcoming
edition of those works, for a preview of which I ammost grateful). The two parts of his The Whole Art
of Rhetoric, first published in the same volume with the Dialogue, are divided on these lines. Part I on
things 'invented by us' in the Ramist sense of 'found out by us' and so requiring art, and Part II on
things 'we invent not', and which are therefore only used by us. Further, one would have to call upon
the recent work of William Sacksteder on making and artifice in Hobbes:
(a) 'Hobbes: The Art of the Geometricians', Jour. Hist. Phil. (April, 1980), pp. 131-146;
(b) 'Hobbes: Man the Maker', in J.G. van der Band, ed., the proceedings of the 1979 Leusden
(Holland) Conference on Hobbes's Studies of Man, (Leusden 1982);
(c) 'Hobbes: Man the Artificer' (unpublished manuscript);
(d) 'Speaking about Mind: Endeavor in Hobbes', Phi/os. Forum, forthcoming; and
(e) 'Hobbes: Teaching Philosophy to Speak English', Journ. Hist. Phil. XVIII (Jan., 1978), pp. 33-45.
See also the studies by Mathiot, Bertman, Morris, Rudolph and Mathie, infra. I would be grateful to
learn of other studies of Hobbes on the topic of nature and art.
4 Cf. EWIII, 357-8, 'The Conclusion of the Second Part'. I borrow the phrase 'civilizing arts' from
Prof. Herbert W. Schneider's 'The American Establishment, the Civilizing Arts, and Philosophy', in
Craig Walton and John P. Anton (eds.), Philosophy and the Civilizing Arts (Athens, Ohio: 1974), pp.
433-445.
5 The question of Hobbes and scepticism lurks nearby; see especially the thorough and even-handed
investigation of this issue by Richard H. Popkin, 'Hobbes and the Sceptics', delivered at the Hobbes
Tercentenary Congress, 6-11 August 1979 at the University of Colorado.
6 Because Hobbes describes the 'theorems' of his civil philosophy as 'sufficiently or probably
proved' (EW III, 357), we cannot interpret him as claiming deductive proof in our current sense of that
sort of proof. But we need to recall that Hobbes's logic provides for two sorts of 'demonstrations' as
well as two sorts of 'deduction': 'demonstration' belongs in theoretic sciences and may proceed either
(a) from known axioms or definitions synthetically by valid inferences. or (b) from 'supposed' objects
'analytically' to one or more 'principles' for the construction of the figure or object being analyzed. The
final point, reached analytically, is the one from which it then becomes possible synthetically to 'deduce'
the item originally supposed (cf. Thomas Hobbes, Computatio sivel Logica. The Logic. Translated with
commentary by Aloysius Martinich, edited with introductory essay by Isabel Hungerland and George
Vick, New York: Arabis Books, 1981, and Isabel Hungerland, Leviathan: Old and New, Ch. II, 'The
General Character of Hobbes's System and Methodology', forthcoming). Prof. Hungerland emphasizes
that Hobbes and his contemporaries inherited a tradition of 'Platonic analysis' as well as the more-
Euclidean one, and that classical Greek usage began analysis with a hypothesis or supposition. Hobbes
considered this to be one sort of 'deductive' reasoning, and that from a principle to the thing it explains,
'demonstratively', to be the other sort. Thus it would seem that the reasoning in Leviathan as
'sufficiently or probably proved' would mean 'probable' when Platonically analytical, and then
'sufficient' when synthetically 'demonstrated' from authorizing the Sovereign to the just and equitable
commonwealth. However, Hobbes's phrase may also be an echo of Aristotle's distinction between the
rational and the dialectical syllogism, the latter dealing with the best premises available when apodicticity
or unanimity is missing, and concerning 'things which can be other than they are'. In such matters an
educated person must require only as much precision as the subject-matter admits.
7 Cf. Waiter J. Ong, Ramus, Method and the Decay of Dialogue (Cambridge, 1959), and a
somewhat different analysis in my 'Ramus and Socrates', cited in note 1 above, and my 'Ramus and
Bacon on Method', Jour. Hist. Phil., IX/3 (July, 1971), pp. 289-302. Hobbes was long considered by
88

bibliographers to have written a Rhetoric in the Ramist fashion, e.g. the card entry to such an early 17th
century Rhetoric in the Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library (Los Angeles). Recent evidence suggests
that the volume was not Hobbes's own work. But he does append a typically Ramist table to Leviathan,
Chapter 9, and some internal evidence suggests sympathy with the 'plain man's logick' of Ramus's 1555
Dialectique. Also see Louis Roux's introduction to his translation of Hobbes's Elements of Law (Lyon,
1976), pp. 91-111. There Roux cites Oxford as well as Cambridge Ramists active during Hobbes's studies
at Oxford, and shows the Ramists' 'single logic' of Hobbes's Elements. I am indebted to Professor Ross
Rudolph for this latter clue; one should pay special attention to Roux's contrast between Aristotle and
Ramus, and then 'Planches I-II' as to Hobbes's Ramism.
8 As will be seen below, Hobbes himself both structures his Leviathan systematically, and exhibits
technical logical prowess throughout, especially in the grounding and explication of his 'theorems' of
civil philosophy. Prof. Sacksteder's 'Hobbes: Teaching Philosophy to Speak English' (op. cit.) is quite
clear on the difference Hobbes sees between founding technical terms in common usage and tradition,
and then refining and combining them artfully for purposes of philosophy; the first is 'natural' to
language, the second is its art (see esp. his section on the term 'imagination', ibid., pp. 34-37). The same
issue is involved in Sacksteder's study of man as artificer of science (also cited in note 3 above).
9 Cf. my 'The 'Philosophia Prima' of Thomas Hobbes', in Ralph Ross, Herbert W. Schneider and
Theodore Waldman (eds.), Thomas Hobbes in His Time (Minneapolis, 1974), pp. 31-41 and 131-132,
and my 'Hobbes's First Philosophy and the Question of Mechanism' (unpublished manuscript). The
difference between Hobbes's metaphors taken from living things or life processes, and those taken from
machines, are explored in George Kimball Plochmann's 'Hobbes and Harvey on Internal Motions', read
at the Hobbes Tercentenary Congress, 6-11 August 1979 at the University of Colorado. See also the
discussions of Hobbes as contrasted to those who subscribe to 'mechanical' metaphors, in Sacksteder,
'Teaching Philosophy .. .' and 'Speaking About Mind' (cited in note 3 above).
10 'It is the reason of this our artificial man the commonwealth, and his command, that maketh law:
and the commonwealth being in their representative but one Otherwise natural person, there cannot
easily arise any contradiction in the laws; and when there doth, the same Public, natural reason is able,
by interpretation, or alteration, to take it away' (EW III, 256). The context of the passage is a criticism
of Sir Edward Coke's defense of the artificial reason of lawyers; it therefore seems to stress that whatever
lawyers and judges do under law, the commonwealth must keep those doings in harmony with natural
reason, if need be, by 'interpretation, or alteration'. It is also worth noticing that the one who is called
'sovereign' is so-called because he is the 'representative' of the commonwealth - he 'personates' the
artificial person or, as Hobbes might say, he embodies the covenanted citizens. The being of the
sovereign is an artificially-constructed being of a particular kind, representative and limited. Ther.: can
be no concept of an unlimited individual power-hungry sovereign in Hobbes.
II As this paper has developed in response to other papers, commentaries and extended discussions
during and since the Hobbes Tercentenary Congress, I wish to thank the many participants who
encouraged and assisted in preparing it. Special thanks are due to George Kimball Plochmann, who read
and commented extensively on the first draft; valuable suggestions were offered by Herbert W.
Schneider, Isabel Hungerland, Ross Rudolph and William Sacksteder. University of Nevada at Reno
Department of Philosophy members gave it a patient and yet rigorous hearing and deserve thanks for
their responses. These many gifts leave all the more reason to admit that the remaining faults are the
author's sole responsibility.
 89

5. HOBBES'S ENTANGLEMENT WITH THE EXCLUDED

MIDDLE IN HIS THEORY OF MAN AND POLITICS

Bertram Morris

University of Colorado

Characteristically Hobbes defines a topic and then negates it by its opposite, and
in doing so creates contradictories, not just contraries. The invariable result is that
he cannot cope with the development of the topic without raising problems of
interpretation both for himself and for his critical readers. My primary intent here
isto point to a number of these contradictories and to show that in coming to terms
with the problems of politics he .is constrained to transform contradictories into
contraries. Secondly, I wish to show how Hobbes's style of dealing with these
matters lends itself to a variety of imcompatible scholarly interpretations, which,
though textually grounded, produce endless controversy. Prior to discussing the
question of the use of the excluded middle in his philosophy, I shall note something.
of the range of interpretations scholars have made·of his theory of man and politics.
I conclude by showing the one-sidedness of commentators' interpretations that fail
to acknowledge the distinction between contraries and contradictories as they
appear in his basic philosophy.
The range of characterizations of Hobbes's philosophy may be traced, I think,
to the bifurcations found in it. Among the obvious ones are: the state of nature/civil
society, injustice/justice, war/peace, desire/reason, felicity/commodious living,
and, more metaphysically, bodies/phantasmagoria. The list can easily be extended,
but it suffices to suggest danger signals to the understanding of this philosophy. Soft
and hard interpretations abound in it, both of which fail to provide satisfactory
accounts of his science of politics as well as of nature. Hobbes's political philosophy
has no doubt given rise to more imcompatible interpretations than that of any other
political philosopher, except possibly Rousseau. To enumerate, he has been
interpreted as a utilitarian, deontologist, philosopher of the possessive market
society, philosopher of piety, legal positivist, atheist, Kantian, materialist,
humanist, statist, scientist, philosopher of natural rights, contractualist - in fact
almost any kind of philosophical 'ist' , except Platonist or Aristotelist.
Paradoxically, he is all of these and yet none. In order to accommodate political
theory to consonant practical objectives, he is virtually constrained to abdicate the
principle of excluded middle, as well as the principle of identity, and to enthrone
the principle of contrariety. In the opposition of war and peace Hobbes asserts the

c. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
90

basic distinction in his secular political philosophy, one that underlies the other
oppositions and at the same time serves as the nerve of the argument for establishing
the matter, form and power of the commonwealth. Peace is defined as 'the time that
is not war' (EW III, 113; EW IV, 84). The significance of this opposition Hobbes
develops in his extended argument, the primary features of which can be seen in
(a) the state of nature vs. civil society,
(b) desire vs. reason, and derivatively in
(c) injustice vs. justice.
(a) In the excluded-middle version, Hobbes begins his analysis with a stark
contrast between the state of nature as one of universal warfare and civil society as
one of peace. The one is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short', the state of
warfare; the other is the opposite, the absence of warfare; the one is not viable,
the other is; consequently, the alternative for a person is to quit the state of nature
and to enter into a contract to establish civil society.
Clearly, the predicament so stated is fraught with difficulties: man has to be more
than he is; civil society has to be less than it is; and the genius of Hobbes is to effect
a reconciliation of the two. Accordingly, he is required to yield the principle of the
excluded middle and to regard man as something more than a brute, and to
acknowledge that the commodious society is something less than a paradisiacal
haven of generous human beings. Thus Hobbes's division between the state of
nature and civil society turns out to be one of the most provocative topics in political
theory. It underlies the contract theory; it involves a sophisticated conception of
man; it demands a realistic notion of society, if not of government; and it requires
the abandonment of the naive, excluded-middle version of universal warfare and the
civil state.
Concerning the state of warfare, Hobbes said that life is 'short'. but this adjective
is inaccurate, According to the excluded middle, the opposition is not between long
and short, but whether there is any life at all. In effect, it is between life and death.
Hobbes's real predicament is to get life started, for civil society is a life of living;
the state of nature is a life of dying, which is tantamount to death. Hence, the
excluded middle is between life and death, and then there should be a 'time' of
death, as there is a 'time' of life - yet for Hobbes a 'time' of death could be only
for Christians, for whom immortality can be vouchsafed as embodied, consecrated
bodies. These observations are not to be taken as frivolous, but rather as indicative
of a rigorous application of the principle of excluded middle to life and death - or
to war and peace when the latter is described as that time that is not war. In fact,
Hobbes extricates himself from the predicament by insisting that it is not death that
is the state of nature, but fear of death. Fear then turns out to be a potent motive
for transforming the state of nature into civil society, which, taken with other
factors, makes plausible, not how an opposite turns into its reverse, but how
something less good becomes something better - and qualitatively different. Before
pursuing this avenue of Hobbes's philosophy, we may instructively turn to another
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aspect of the excluded middle that treats the state of nature and civil society as 'the
life of felicity' contrasted with 'the commodious life'.
Although Hobbes describes the state of nature in terms so harsh it inclines men
to find a way to leave it, he also considers it in a felicitous, even if unattainable,
way. Regarding men as individuals pursuing their own ends, he projects a good for
this life, called 'felicity'. This is described as 'continual success in obtaining those
things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering'
(EW III, 51). Since Hobbes repudiates the summum bonum such as 'the old
philosophers' sought, felicity is the best in accord with his nature a man can
contemplate. Felicity, then, is regarded as a round of pleasures. In his words it is
'a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the
former, being still but a way to the latter'. He adds: 'The cause thereof is, that the
object of man's desire, is not to enjoy once only, and for an instant of time; but
to assure forever, the way of a future desire'. This, then, constitutes 'a contented
life' (EW III, 85). Such a life, however, is not for human beings.
Human life turns out to be a complete transformation from contentment to 'the
commodious life', a life in which desires become needs, contentment becomes
satisfaction; and persons become an integral part of a functional society. The
commodious life is not one of pleasure but of industry. The important passage in
the Leviathan to this effect is the famous one beginning: 'The passions that incline
men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to
commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain then' (EW III, 116). In
this one sentence, Hobbes states the motivation, the end, and the means of civil
society as the contrary of the state of nature. The objectives of this society are
certainly not those that a 'wolf' could contemplate, for there is no animal other than
man capable of so comtemplating and creating this artifact, as well as engaging in
the operations it demands. In the transformation by which civil society is created
from the state of nature, a stark contradictory has become a subtle contrary, an
organization of human talents that in the language of Rousseau transforms man
from a limited and stupid animal into a moral being and a man. The major steps
by which this transformation comes about are, first, the establishment of a
community, a commonwealth, or One Person, that is, a union of human beings
(EW III, 157-158; EW IV, 121-122). Secondly, it requires a wielder of power who
can speak and act for the whole; that is, in Hobbes's language, a sovereign.
Again, difficulties are apparent: how can a contract come about if men are
wolves; and, if they are not, is there any need for it to come about? Hobbes's picture
of a brutish state of nature can be but a device; for in actual fact there must already
be a consensus in the very being of a society of human beings. I do not here intend
to impugn the contract theory of society, but only that literal form that regards men
as lacking in a degree of consensus and society as lacking in a degree of common
welfare. Hobbes is loose about the former and rigid about the latter, and
consequently contrariety must give way to contrariness. Without acknowledging a
92

community of interest, the state is not possible; without hedging the power of the
sovereign, tyranny is irresistible.
The contract theory is acceptable only because men live neither in a state of
universal warfare nor in a felicitous, paradisiacal state of nature. They (at least some
of them) already engage in industry, make things, support a population, enter into
barter or trade, create some division of labor, and protect one another. The truer
version of the contract theory, then, is better described comparatively by such words
as: 'We, the people, in order to establish a more perfect union ... .'
In the comparative form of union, something can reasonably be ordained, rather
than having a governor irrevocably installed. Hobbes's theory of authorization of
the latter, as he proposes in Leviathan, is combed with difficulties, comparable to
those inherent in the contract theory. Authorization implies that an agent act in the
interests of the author. In the case of the state, all members must authorize the same
agent to care for their individual interests. When in the course of events these
interests conflict with one another, the agent also is faced with a conflict of interest.
Hobbes cannot wholly acknowledge this state of affairs. To be sure, sometimes such
conflicts can be resolved, sometimes not. To cope with the latter alternatives,
Hobbes employs two mechanisms of escape: one by making a distinction between
'injustice' and 'iniquity', and, two, by invoking a theory of natural rights such that
no man need submit to his demise, dismemberment, or incarceration (EW III, 163,
204). In the rigid form of the imperial power of the sovereign, Hobbes declares that
since all laws are just, the sovereign can commit no injustice, though he admits that
the sovereign may commit iniquities. The linguistic solution of the problem saves
the language of the Leviathan, but fails to solve the political problem, even if the
sovereign may by virtue of his iniquities have to reckon the responsibility for his acts
with God. The theory of authorization also fails by virtue of Hobbes's insistence
that men cannot surrender their right to life and safe-keeping, for this amounts to
an appeal to natural law in the state of nature in which natural law is non-natural.
The conclusion to be drawn from these considerations is once again that the rigid
contradictions Hobbes originally proposes need to be abandoned to viae mediae so
that he may cope with the problems of civil life.
(b) Another aspect of the opposition between the state of natural and civil
society is seen in Hobbes's opposition between desire and reason. This opposition
constitutes a significant problem in the history of ideas generally and in Hobbes's
treatment of the passage from the one state to the other specifically. Since much of
the problem is repetitious of the contract theory, I shall treat it only briefly,
emphasizing Hobbes's need to pass from a psychological to a moral point of view
of man.
After distinguishing between the autonomic nervous system and the passions,
both of which are functions of endeavor, Hobbes first relies upon a simple
psychology of the latter motions and then develops their connection with the more
complex forms. The simple form is set forth as the voluntary motions of desire and
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aversion, dependent upon the senses. The complexities involve the higher mental
processes: memory, imagination, and degrees of learning. Psychological activity is
regarded as a function of an individual's desires and aversions, his loves and hates,
and his management of them. They constitute the basic activities of man in the state
of nature. Consequently, they are antithetical to those activities appropriate to civil
society. The antithesis is in essence one between a psychological and a moral point
of view, between voluntaristic and customary activity, on the one hand, and
cognitive and obligatory activity, on the other. The ends and means being different
in both cases, the opposition is as complete as that of the state of nature to the civil
state.
From the individual's point of view in the state of nature, good and bad are
simply defined as 'whatever is the object of any man's appetite or desire ... lorl
the object of his hate and aversion .. .'. The object of desire and aversion then are
those 'which a man for his part calleth good ... Or evil' (EW III, 41). One naturally
seeks to obtain those objects one desires and to avoid those one hates, the identity
of the objects being found by experience. Pleasure and displeasure, then, are not
the objects of desire and aversion, but rather pleasure is an accompaniment that
appears in the success of attaining the object desired and displeasure the
accompaniment of an aversion the object of which cannot be avoided. Hobbes
asserts pleasure and displeasure to be 'a corroboration of vital motions, and a help
thereunto' (EW III, 42). This appears to be a hedonistic, or better, an egoistic
utilitarian, theory of value. Good and bad consist in obtaining what one wants and
avoiding what one does not want. Were all activities pleasurable, they would
constitute a life in the Garden, a life of felicity. Actually Hobbes draws the contrary
conclusion, insisting it is a life in the Jungle, sordid and unsatisfying. The reason
for this state of affairs is found in man's seeking 'power after power', in a world
in which he is essentially powerless. There is always someone more powerful than
he.
Hobbes acknowledges the inadequacy of the simple psychology in the state of
nature: man remembers, and thus has a knowledge of consequence; he also
imagines, and in 'imagining anything whatsoever', Hobbes says, 'we seek all the
possible effects, that can by it be produced; that is to say, we imagine what we can
do with it when we have it' (EW III, 13). Finally there is prudence, which is 'much
experience', from which comes foresight in conduct. Imagination and prudence are
acknowledged as qualities of the human mind, not of the animal. Yet despite all
these mental paraphernalia, man still is imprisoned in a world of fear and insecurity
and dread.
In order to escape this world, Hobbes asserts the existence of another facuity,
reason, by which man can contemplate an entirely different line. Reason envisages
mechanisms by which a moral life of industry and obligation and justice can become
a reality, that is, the 'commodious life'. Moreover, reason is said to suggest
'convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement ...
94

otherwise called Laws of Nature' (EW III, 116).

Now it appears that the state of nature and the state of civil society are no longer
contradictories, but rather are opposed in a milder form. Reason intervenes, not as
prudence or psychological foresight, but as an activity by which men are 'drawn to
agreement', which when consummated is of course the social contract. Does reason
belong only to civil society or does it belong as well to the state of nature? Must
not the simple psychology be abandoned? If not, then man would appear doomed
to the solitary and nasty life, if not to no life at all. By providing man with the
capacity to apprehend laws of nature and the mechanisms for achieving peace,
Hobbes's psychology becomes suspect, and so does his theory of morality. In short,
he needs, on the one hand, to suggest a better means for civilizing desires and
aversions and, on the other, to revise his notion of natural law so that it may
function not just as a kind of a priori categorical imperative, but instead as a faculty
founded in, and capable of illuminating, experience. Thus the line between
prudence, 'much experience', and sapience, 'much knowledge', must be a broken,
or at least a wavering, one.
From the point of view of the larger corpus of Hobbes's writings, we do in fact
observe a number of tendencies that remove the sharp distinction between the state
of nature and that of civil life. To suggest a few of these: there is a continuity
between nature and man; man is not really alone and solitary in nature; man's
obligation is limited and hypothetical, not absolute and categorical; reason is
enlightening, not autocratic and demanding; science is ultimately to play a
functional role in political life; and, finally, the sovereign is not all powerful, for
even he who represents the commonwealth does not determine good and evil 'simply
and absolutely so' (EWIII, 41)1 Accordingly, Hobbes modifies his notion of man's
relation to nature, the character of the state of nature vis-ii-vis the civil state, the
theory of value, the role of reason, the function of science, and the dictatorial power
of the sovereign, and thus also of the conception of law. I now turn to a discussion
of the latter two, emphasizing Hobbes's treatment of contradictories in his
definition of injustice and justice.
(c) Once having established a sovereign and having set forth the civil state,
Hobbes focuses attention on law and its rule in directing acceptable and
unacceptable conduct. His discussion is addressed to the matter of obedience and
disobedience to law. To disobey the law, he says, violates the contract, is against
one's own interests, and constitutes injustice. He then declares: 'And whatsoever is
not unjust is just'. This contradictory, of course, is intended to apply only to the
civil state: 'Therefore before the names of just, and unjust can have place, there
must be some coercive power, to compel men equally to the performance of their
covenants ... (EW III, 115). In contrast to the state of nature where force and fraud
prevail, justice and injustice, we recall, are said to be 'none of the faculties neither
of body, nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the
world, as well as his senses, and passions' (EW III, 115). Thus the covenant by
 95

which men agref.: to live together under law is prior to the state of affairs where
either justice or injustice prevails, and this covenant entails the authorization of a
sovereign responsible for the promulgation of laws. Clearly, Hobbes cannot mean
that anything in civil society that is not unjust is just, for in the affairs of men there
are vast areas of both customary and harmless idiosyncratic conduct to which the
law does not speak and which are neither just nor unjust. Were Hobbes to have
defined justice first as obedience to law and injustice as disobedience, he would
clearly have done so in terms of law-abiding or law-breaking conduct. But by
defining them as contradictories they refer to all that men do in civil society. A much
more serious consequence of the defining of justice and injustice in relation to law,
however, is to be observed in those cases in which law is in some respect defective.
Justice and injustice are not the only values in the civil state, for it is possible that
the laws by which they are defined· can themselves be good or bad. Hence, there is
a sense in which good and bad are values of greater magnitude than those of justice
and injustice. We have already alluded to the problem Hobbes faces when laws are
bad. He refuses to call them unjust laws, though he is willing to apply the adjective,
iniquitous, if not to them, at least to the law-giver. He does, nevertheless, address
the topic of good and bad laws. Clearly, the sovereign is constantly confronted with
the awesome need to promulgate laws for the common good, and a propos of this
need Hobbes explicitly recognizes the intimate connection between the people and
the state. He asserts that, 'the power of the citizens is the power of the city', and
also that 'the safety of the people is the supreme law' . Moreover, Hobbes insists 'the
good of the sovereign and the people cannot be separated' (EW II, 166, 167; 336).
By definition sovereign laws cannot be unjust, but they can be poor. The need is
for good laws: 'To the care of the sovereign belongeth the making of good laws',
and 'A good law is that which is needful, for the good of the people, and withal
perspicuous' (EW III, 335; italics in original). Good then cannot be equated with
just or with law. It is a property of the city. Whether or not it is a 'virtue' , it clearly
is the fundamental principle of value, the essence of the commodious life. 'Justice'
in Hobbes's sense, then, may be good justice or bad justice. In the supreme case
of the latter it signifies the dissolution of society, a renouncing of the sovereign, and
the scramble for eking out a new existence. Perhaps a new society under implicit
compact by acquisition may be established. Accordingly, Hobbes can save his
definition of justice only by acknowledging that it may be self-defeating. Under this
circumstance, it would be a poor form and could end only in the demise of the city.
This conclusion concerning justice serves to reveal the weakness of Hobbes's
defining it as the contradictory of injustice; but more importantly, it serves to reveal
the nerve of his argument, namely that peace, not justice, is to be regarded as the
supreme value, a value above that of individual passions and above that of sovereign
rule. The authentic opposition in his argument thus turns out to be that of warfare
and peacefare - not the absence of war, but the waging of peace. Clearly, Hobbes
had this theme in mind when he described warfare as the absence of peacefare, that
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is a society in which '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 instrument
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 ... ' (EW III,
113). Thus the pursuit of the industrial arts is basic to peace, that is, to the pursuit
of the peaceful arts. This conclusion is sound, and Hobbes had reason to believe
that the egregious war of his time was a denial of the 'desire of knowledge and arts
of peace', (EW III, 87) that is, a denial of the commodious life. The principle of
sovereignty he endorsed is acceptable - the people and the sovereign are inseparable
- but his implementation of it, including his formal definitions of peace and justice
as mere contradictories of war and injustice, need to be rejected, and, in fact, in
the spirit of his philosophy are rejected. His discussion of them does prove the
definitions unwarranted. But his massive vision of politics and morality is far from
unwarranted. To do it justice, however, one needs to translate that vision into the
total context of this philosophy of man in his practice of the peaceful arts.
As a short addendum, I would reiterate the criticisms suggested in my prefatory
remarks. At one extreme are those critics who regard Hobbes's idea of natural law,
such as the )'aylor thesis asserts, as applicable to man in the state of nature. Hobbes
does speak in these terms, as for example when' a person agrees to pay a ransom
or to become an indentured servant to some brigand who would take his life.
Although we can see why Hobbes said this, nevertheless, as Rousseau emphatically
pointed out in another context, he should not have - unless of course something like
a civil society already exists in the state of nature. Such Hobbesian errors can be
easily corrected when the state of nature and the civil state are no longer regarded
as contradictory. Then, of course, brigands would be treated as brigands, not as
actual human beings.
At another extreme are those who, like C.B. MacPherson, regard Hobbes as the
philosopher of the market society. With exceptions, Hobbes does appeal to the
market, but clearly not as a force to expand property or to engage in exploitation
or colonialism. He does appeal to the market as a necessary part of the practice of
the industrial arts. However lowly might be the bourgeois motivation toward
possessive individualism, Hobbes clearly has in mind the need of property and the
market to support other peaceful arts, including the search for knowledge and the
practices by 'generous natures'. The latter do reveal an elitist tinge that indicates
Hobbes's own predilection for the entrenched nobility rather than for bourgeois
capitalists. 2 But whatever his predilections, he did attempt in his philosophy to unite
utility, justice, and knowledge.
Between these extreme interpretations are innumerable others, including those of
Hobbes as a mechanist or alternatively as a religious philosopher. Such
interpretations are subject to similar criticisms of reading him in terms of one side
of his contradictories. To be sure, such interpretations cite relevant passages from
 97

Hobbes's works; yet we miss the heart of his political philosophy unless we keep
in mind the larger scheme, possibly summed up when he says of the good life, that
'reason is the pace, increase of science, the way, and the benefit of mankind, the
end'.

NOTES

I have addressed myself to a number of these issues in 'On Hobbes's Humanism', in Craig Walton
and John P. Anton (eds.), Philosophy and the Civilizing Arts, Essay's Presented to Herbert W.
Schneider on His Eightienth Birthday, (Athens, Ohio: University Press, 1974), pp. 89-102.
2 Cf. on this score, Keith Thomas, 'The Social Origins of Hobbes's Political Thought', in K.C.
Brown (ed.), Hobbes Studies, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965).
 99

6. HOBBES: LANGUAGE AND THE IS-OUGHT

Martin A. Bertman

State University of New York, Potsdam

Hobbes considers speech - names and their connections - as invention: 'The most
noble and profitable invention' (EWIII, 18.)1 Speech separates man from the beast,
without it there would be no commonwealth and, consequently, no peace. Also,
there would be no science and little art. In Leviathan, Hobbes says, 'The general
use of speech, is to transfer our mental discourse, into verbal' (ibid.). This makes
for two benefits which provide a neat distinction between 'mark' and 'sign'. Marks
serve the memory of the user; they need not be words nor need they be known to
other than him who uses them to remember. Marks suggest the benefit of language
including signs, as a mnemotechnical device. Signs have the function of
communication. The greater complexity of using signs is suggested by its function.
Communication involves the connection and ordering of words one to another with
attention to systematic exactness and agreed upon meaning. From the use of
language proceed both specific political benefits and entertainments; and, with each
of these a corresponding possibility for abuse.
In Leviathan, speaking of this great invention, Hobbes attributes authorship of
speech to God. Following the biblical narrative, God instructs Adam about naming.
Continuing, Hobbes suggests the loss of language, following the impudence of the
Tower of Babel, thrust men into the position of inventing for themselves their
several languages through necessity. Necessity becomes the cause of additions and
variations which various languages evince. Implied is a view that, in various
theoretical frameworks, has been associated with relatively recent times; language
serves and reflects the scientific, social and cultural conditions of its users.2
Leviathan was published in 1651; six years later, in De Homine, Hobbes
attenuates the force of the biblical narrative. His exegesis 3 makes the Genesis stories
rationally incredible. Thereby, he honorifically imputes a 'supernatural'
circumstance to the biblical rendition and, by this, clears the way for finding a
natural and plausible explanation for the origin of language. This natural origin he
finds in the will of man himself. In man's desire to secure for himself the desirable
'names have arisen from human invention' (H, 38-39).
With the authorship of language ascribed more openly to man, the natural history
of language can be related to the fabrication of the state: 'It is easily understood

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science oj Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus NijhoJJ Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
100

how much we owe to language, by which we having been drawn together and
agreeing to covenants, live securely, happily, and elegantly; we can so live, I insist,
if we so will' (ibid., 40). Indeed, the state depends on language. Through law, it
properly limits language in some of its meaning and use. Generally dependence on
language is obvious: men must communicate with one another for a variety of
purposes, some of which directly use the offices of government (e.g., establishing
rules for conduct). Language is limited in the state through the sovereign's
authority. The civil laws are his 'word' and with them the meaning of 'good' and
'evil' are taken from the privacy of the state of nature and transformed to a public
condition. The state directs and limits language by its authority,4 especially moral
language. In doing this, it provides the very condition necessary for the existence
of morality.
Hobbes takes morality to rest on the right ordering of desires for the sake of
peace. The peace of the commonwealth is obtained through authority defining and
containing desires. The permissible is not merely the individual's desire or private
good but that desirable for the general good or peace. The nominalistic aspect of
the theory emphasizes that, like the state itself, language is a fabrication. Man's
artificial creation is necessary for fulfilling the needs or ultimate welfare of human
functioning. Raymond Polin suggests our general viewpoint:

En choissant la parole comme Ie fait humain fondamental, Hobbes res out Ie probleme en
fait, meme s'il n'en a pas pris un conscience explicite. La faculte de parler constitute, en
effet si paradoxal cela soit-il, un pouvoir naturel d'arbritraire. C'est un pouvoir naturel,
et, comme tel, iI releve, et l'homme avec lui, du mecanisme universel; mais c'est Ie pouvoir
d'imposer arbitrairement des noms, ce qui suppose, a la fois un detachement par rapport
a la presence de l'object, et un detachement par rapport aux sons vocaux qui lui seront
imposes en guise de noms. L'homme, pouvoir de detachement arbitraire, nait de l'exercise
de ce detachement arbitraire, c'est-a-dire de la parole. On peut dire de lui, que seuf, entre
tous fes animaux de fa terre, it est I'auteur et l'artisan de lui-meme: it nail homme et it
se jait humaine. 5

Assuming the artificiality of language, especially moral language, and adding

Hobbes's view that truth depends upon language - 'veritas in dicto non in re
consistit' - we are stimulated to ponder the relationship among knowledge of fact,
the meaning and reference of moral terms and the general function of language in
the economy of human action. Since Hume a distinct focus for such considerations
has arisen. It is the philosophical examination of the relationship of matters of fact
to moral ascriptions or the 'is-ought'.
Not uncommonly objections to Hobbes's treatment of morals, even to the point
of denying that he has a moral theory, take force from his putative commission of
the 'naturalistic fallacy' or making from the is an ought. Richard Peters provides
an example of such criticism:

Hobbes's analysis omits the normative force of the term. To say that peace is good implies
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not just that it has qualities in virtue of which it is desired; it is to insist that it has qualities
in virtue of which it ought to be desired and promoted. 6

Hobbes, I think, is not open to criticism here. To show why, we must bring attention
to deep issues silhouetted in Hobbes's philosophical horizon: the identification of
philosophy and science in the seventeenth century's mechanization of the world-
view. In this context, Hobbes's philosophy of language is an expression of the
mechanization of the world-view and in opposition to the tradition identifying
thought, as mirrored by language, with being. This Hobbesean viewpoint,
continued by Locke and Berkeley and their epigone, is not only against the
Schoolmen but also against Descartes and the rationalist identification of truth and
being: ' ... la verite etant une meme chose avec l'etre'. 7 Ernst Cassirer makes the
point:

Hobbes ... had definitely withdrawn the philosphy of language from the sphere of
metaphysics. Since names are signs for concepts and not signs for objects themselves, the
whole question as to whether they designate the matter and the form of things, or
something composed of the two could be set aside as empty metaphysics. 8

Since the considerations arising from the is-ought allow us to examine various
·aspects of Hobbes's theory of language, it is appropriate to recall Hume's classic
passage distinguishing 'is' from 'ought' propositions. 9 A reply to Peters' accusation
that Hobbes committed what Hume chastises can make the following argument: a
descriptive theory about human functioning, or, for that matter, some particular
organ or even, the behavior depending on that organ, need not lack normative force
by being factual. 'Normative' considered as proper function or standards is implicit
in theory itself. Without descriptive standards we cannot deal with experience
theoretically; so there is a reductio ad silentium against Peters. Peters identifies the
normative with moral preference rather than with the descriptive as Hobbes does.
In this Peters follows Hume.
From Hobbes's viewpoint, there should be a distinction at this juncture. On the
one hand, all facts, internal or external events or movements of matter, can be
treated normatively, in principle; that is, all phenomenal events can be treated
theoretically and norms, per se, are intrinsically expressed in any particular theory.
Theory is an 'authority' for the collection of fact. Its use is for the mental peace
we call understanding or intellectual satisfaction. Within this framework, normative
or theoretical consideration of man's moral behavior is appropriate. A physiological
theory of human functioning may surely include ethical and political actions within
its interest.
The theoretical consideration of behavior and the ensuing use of norms or 'good'
however, has not yet made the leap to moral language. Though functional
considerations explore the capacity and importance of fabrication as an aspect of
proper human fuctioning or, even more specifically, man's creation of the
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commonwealth, it is the action itself of fabricating the commonwealth that

produces moral language, assigns words like 'good' moral meaning. This is an act
of will. A leap is made from the state of nature, where private desire is equivalent
to good, to the commonwealth, where a public standard is promulgated as to what
ought to be desired.

For moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good and evil, in the
conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our
appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are
different ... so long as a man is in the condition of mere nature, which is a condition of
war, private appetite is the measure of good, and evil; and, consequently all men agree
on this, that peace is a good, and therefore, the way, or means of peace ... (EW III, 146)

Hobbes observes that peace is universally good and the state is good because it is
a means of obtaining peace. But peace itself is not a moral good; rather it is the
condition in which moral good can arise and for whose sake the moral good is done.
Neither is the state itself a moral good though its existence logically demands civil
laws and these define just and unjust, mine and thine - morality.
Moral good, though not universal in content for all mankind, is absolute within
the state. Its content is identical with the civil laws of each state. Logically, these
cannot be contradictory, nor relative within a particular state: the state is a
condition, depicted by language, opposed to the warfare condition of private,
relative, and opposing opinions. Consequently, a moral science is possible by
refining language to bring to a systematic understanding the civil law and what
dispositions or virtues are necessary in the law-abiding citizen. Since the goal of the
civil laws is peace, and, as such, they express the 'laws of nature', - theorems given
by experience and reasoning - the dispositions necessary for the citizen are those
that incline him toward peace, which is co-extensive and solely possible in the state,
with the obedience to civil law. To have socially desirable dispositions, moral
virtues, is again not itself morally good but the basis of moral goodness, properly
considered as action in concert with the law of the land. Men who are morally good
because they intend to obey the law, when they have the opportunity to do so, can
err through some ignorance or clumsiness in attempting to act morally. Men who
intend injustice within the commonwealth are properly called absurd, for by war
they hope to reap the benefits of peace. The logical point in Hobbes's position more
than a little suggests Kant's categorical imperative: 1o

... And there is some likeness between that which in the common course of life we call
injury, and that which in the Schools is usualy called absurd. For even as he who by
arguments is driven to deny the assertion which he first maintained, is said to be brought
to an absurdity; in like manner, he who through weakness of mind does or omits that
which before he had by contract promised not to do or omit, commits an unjury, and falls
into no less contradiction than he who in the Schools is reduced to absurdity. For by
contracting for some future action, he wills it done; by not doing it, he wills it not done:
 103

which is to will a thing done and not done at the same time, which is a contradiction ...
(EW II, 31).

Hume speaks of 'every system of morality' he has encountered not drawing the
proper distinction between fact and value, is and ought. Though he read Hobbes,
and one might think Hobbes offers a system of morality, Hume's criticism does not
properly seem to apply to Hobbes. It has considerable force against a reifying
metaphysical-religious tradition: one identifying moral imperatives with natural law
conceived as expressing an intrinsically and purposively rational reality - the very
tradition Hobbes himself criticized. Hume and Hobbes are in agreement about
passions being the basis of morality. Also, against the tradition, they agree that
reason is a proper instrument for fulfillment of the passions. Moreover, they agree
that knowledge is ultimately dependent on the senses, and that experience or factual
knowledge never is conclusive.
If factual knowledge is merely probable and values are conceived in imperative
terms, carrying the force of 'certitude' from their inability to be empirically
discomfirmed, how is the gap bridged between the two? Since no factor is
forthcoming to explain one in terms of the other, Hume dirempts the one from the
other. A dualism is created: the world of fact, generated by sense experience and
the world of sentiments. They relate to one another practically, yet, being generated
separately, neither can be reduced to the other or explained by the other. Hume,
by taking into account that men have different moral opinions, is forced to explain
moral attitudes by a (perhaps) similar sentimental structure transformed by custom
and education. These last would then have the uppermost force in moral
considerations.
Hobbes's position diverges from Hume's at a crucial point. As we have
mentioned, he agrees with Hume that reason is the instrument of the passions or
desires. Nevertheless, reason is not thereby the passive principle Hume believes,
incapable of functioning decisively in moral life. Rather Hobbes conceives of it as
part of the self-regulating aspect of human functioning. It liberates the individual
from the immediacy of desire, postponing satisfaction, because of the wisdom of
experience or knowledge. Further, as ratiocination or science, it creates structure
and new conditions conducive to the individual's ultimate welfare. Rationally
scanned experience deplores the state of nature. Ratiocination makes for the
creation of the state which the will enacts.

Science is understood as being concerned with theorems, that is, with the truth of general
propositions, that is, with the truth of consequences. Indeed when one is dealing with the
truth of fact, it is not properly called science, but simply knowledge (H, 41).

Hobbes's skepticism about knowledge of fact does not preclude his belief in the
possibility of having science, including moral science, since science is the knowle'dge
of the consequence of words invented by ourselves.
104

No discourse whatsoever can end in absolute knowledge of fact, past, or to come. For,
as for the knowledge of fact, it is originally, sense, and ever after, memory. And for the
knowledge of consequence, which I have said before is science, it is not absolute but
conditional. No man can know by discourse, that this, or that, is, has been, or will be;
which is to know absolutely: but only, that if this be, that is; if this has been, that has
been; if this shall be, that shall be: wbich is to know conditionally: and that not the
consequence of one thing to another: but of one name of a thing, to another name of the
same thing (EW III, 52).

Hobbes's skepticism about obtaining knowledge of fact (not to menti'On, what is the
reality below the phenomenal superstructure), does not preclude science. Science,
for him, does not with certainty disclose the world. Hobbes's skepticism can be
contrasted to that of Hume, who, among the classical British philosophers, is least
interested in language, and who surely doesn't think of it as a vehicle to mitigate
skepticism. Hobbes's science is oriented to language. Science works within assigned
meanings - ' ... true and false are attributes of speech, not of thing; and, where
there is no speech there is no truth and no falsehood'. Science is the product of the
process of deduction. from the signification of words. What would be the case, if
language corresponded to being cannot in principle be since being is disclosed by
language as an instrument for selecting and ordering (sense and memory)
experience. The passage quoted above is followed by:
And, therefore, when the discourse is put into speech and begins with the definitions of
words, and proceeds by the connexion of the same into general affirmations, and of these
again into syllogisms; the end of the last sum is called the conclusion; and the thought
of the mind by it signified, is that conditional knowledge, or knowledge of the
consequence of words which is commonly called SCIENCE (ibid.).

The word signifies the mental image. At least, this is the most basic notion of word,
though some words like 'is', 'nothing', etc. are incapable of calling forth images or
phantasms and must be considered as aids to the primary process. This is a private
process, depending on the individual's capacity to remember similar marks, which
refer to similar mental images. (One of the peculiarities of Hobbes's view is that this
reference is not firm, since it is possible that no two images or marks are the same;
in principle they cannot be known to be the same.) The privacy of language is
overcome, like the solitary condition of the state of nature, by general consent to
authoritative definition. But, to understand Hobbes about this transition is not
easy. There is a temptation to oversimplify. For example, H6nigswald says,
Das 'Wort' stellt das Instrument dar, urn die 'Sache' in Gedanken zu festigen, ihr
Bestimmtheit zu geben und ihre Objektivitat damit unantastbar zu machen, oder anders:
am Gedanken die Normen der Sache zu entdecken. Das Denken der Sache liegt genauso
in der Linie des Hobbesschen 'Nominalismus' wie der immanente Denkbezug aler
Realitat. Urn der bedingungs!osen Gegenstandlichkeit willen, deren Sicherung so dem
Zeichen ZufaIlt, heisst das auf Erkenntnis gerichtete Operieren mit Zeichen, d.h. das
Denken - bei Hobbes - 'Rechnen'. II
 105

This is puzzling. In what way does a word or a definition achieve its authority?
Surely H6nigswald is wrong; merely by relating to the object in mind the word
cannot achieve an 'inviolable objectivity'. Nor is he right to say this makes for a
discovery (how so, discovery?) of standards. There seems less room for discovery
than for stipulation. But a stipulation is, after all, also made in words and would
not these words bring forward private, and possibly different images in the minds
of the hearers or readers of them? What makes us able to consider these private
responses to any particular definition capable of ultimately being worked into a
process that achieves science, or even, communication?
The answer is that Hobbes, I believe, anticipates Wittgenstein. It is that the circle
is closed, in that language originating in experience returns to experience to prove
its viability. Language as the instrument of human action is proved by its
efficaciousness in the realm of action: men communicate with one another in a
shared world - e.g. Wittgenstein's example of bricklayers at work. It may be true
that private images or associations attend words which are clearly understood within
a communication, but the point is that language holds and allows the public order
of the communication. The matter of scientific knowledge is more complex. When
we have a knowledge 'we make ourselves', it is certain that here it is an ordering
of language without recourse to experience fqr warranting its certitude. This, for
Hobbes, is not only true of mathematics but also of ethics. In the latter case, the
use of the ethical science for practical matters is not to be confused with a return
to the observation of human behavior to warrant the science. Instead, it is imposed
on behavior - as a civil code - and the prudential problem of usefulness is not the
same as its authority, i.e. truth. It is not justified by its usefulness, though it was
made for that purpose. 12 Here we have a radical departure in Hobbes from, say,
Aristotle. The physical sciences, since they do not depend totally on our own
making, are considered hypothetical. There is no certainty in them because of an
inductive gap between appearances and our ordering them through language. So in
explaining phenomena or physical facts, one depends on providing a plausible
hypothesis for their occurrences.13
Hobbes makes the <a posteriori' sciences, e.g. physics, to depend on the a priori
sciences, mathematics and ethics, whose artifice brings certainty or complete
authority. The deeper view of artifice is that it gains authority through usefulness
in organizing experience - scientia propter potentium. The systematic development
of language by the sciences depends upon universals; for Hobbes, in opposition to
the Schoolmen, this is a matter of language. Universals are a mnemonic method or
artifice for the efficiency of human functioning in relation to man's experiences.
Each universal stands for a number of individual images: to that extent it is a matter
of memory. However, memory is a natural action and language is an artifacted
instrument. They interact with one another. That their functions are to be
considered together in the economy of human action suggests that the artificial
fulfills the natural and from that vantage influences the natural. Not only is
106

language dependent on memory, its natural base, but memory is guided to an extent
by language. Like the commonwealth in relation to the objects of passion, language
orders and monitors speech into certain 'grooves'.
A primary difficulty for nominalists is the seeming impossibility of dissolving the
problem of meaning into the problem of designation and to derive the one entirely
from the other. Hobbes attempts to deal with this difficulty. He does not wish one
to dissolve into the other or be reduced to the other. Yet, he suggests seeing them
in an interpenetrating functional relationship. The natural is fulfilled by the
artificial. In the case of language, the natural is the denotative or designative
relation between words and concepts in the mind, through the vehicle of memory.
The artificial is complex,14 but essentially makes meaning or connotation a
condition of a public dimension.
A public dimension arises when one is forced to recognize basal, general
conceptions in the a priori scientific construction, e.g., work with the notion of
figures in geometry, or the notion of justice in political philosophy. This realist
element is modified, for in actually doing such an activity one must deal with a
product of conventional authority (or at least choice); e.g., when living in the
commonwealth, one must consider justice identical to the particular civil laws of
that state (and, in doing geometry one must choose a particular figure within some
Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry - of course this example is anachronistic, so
it has perhaps more force than what Hobbes might have said: choosing to construct
a particular figure).
The artificial directs, restrains, concretizes the immediacy and privacy of the
natural, as Hobbes uses these terms. Language, like the state, grows from the
natural, and is in the service of the natural. Its character of fulfilling human
functions by organizing activity through a conscious consideration of time seems to
set it in contrast with the natural.
Hobbes's physiological analysis of memory suggests the interpenetration of the
natural and the artificial, making for a kind of retrieval system. Memory, we have
seen, for Hobbes, is important to language both in its private and natural basis -
say by taking a word as a mark - and in its public dimension. He considers it
perception of a past perception: 'sentire se sensisse meminesse est'. Since Hobbes
finds perception nothing else than a reaction to outward stimuli, memory is based
on sense. However, this relationship can be reversed to the extent that memory can
become an ingredient of sensation. Memory can make the organism ignore some
sensations or parts of sensation, to seek to fit it into the context of past experience.
Our point is that while language depends on memory it also works to extend
memory and to fix, control, and choose, to some extent what is possible for
observation and communication. Language working as a retrieval system is helped
by the past to organize the present. This is brought into view by the following
passage on the influence exerted on memory by the recording of past sensations for
the recognition of present sensations:
 107

For by sense, we commonly understand the judgment we make of objects by their

phantasms: namely, by comparing and distinguishing those phantasms: which we could
never do, if that motion in the organ, by which the phantasm is made, did not remain
there for some time, and make the same phantasm return. Wherefore sense, as I here
understand it, and which is commonly so called, hath necessarily some memory adhering
to it, by which former and later phantasms may be compared together, and distinguished
from one another (EW I, 393).

Though language depends on memory, which in turn depends on sense, by a sort

of feedback-loop it functions to influence both memory and sense.
By drawing together the strands of this wide ranging discussion, it is possible to
see why the is-ought problem, which arose for Hume, does not arise for Hobbes.
For one, ethical language is authoritative in its domain - like the civil code. It does
not have to return to experience for its justification in the primary sense of finding
authority in experience for human functioning. Rather, 'like hedges', it orders
human functioning in the political/social realm. On the other hand, since ethical
language - which properly comes into being with the political/social realm - is
forced on an asocial humanity, it may be asked what is the use of both ethics and
this realm itself to the individual? This functional question should not mislead one
into questioning the a priori authority of ethical science. Instead, it allows us to
understand the human situation as one where the natural is fulfilled by the artificial.
Here we are not questioning the relation of fact and value, but rather how value is
established as a fact, albeit an artificial one, like the civil laws. So fact and values
are not separable in the circumstance of commonwealth since, at least, ethical values
are made into facts by the words of the sovereign. Those decisions of the individual
beyond the sovereign's words are simply discretionary - 'natural facts'. Further, the
discussions of memory and experience and Hobbes's understanding that prudence
leads to commonwealth must not be confused with the uses of prudence in the state
of commonwealth - again, prudence is the realm of discretion but the discretionary
realm is limited by the civil laws which are the moral values. Hume's error lies in
his view of the continued use of individual discretion against the authority of the
state and in this consideration of the discretionary realm as something other than
a realm of the natural fact. The explanation of the need for values - the artificial
facts of civil law - must be separated from a discussion of what they are, just as
the hypothetical science of human physiological psychology is separated from the
certain man-made science of ethics or civil law.

NOTES
Cf. EW II, 305: 'The explication of words, whereby the matter inquired after is propounded, is
conducive to knowledge; the only way to know is by definition'.
2 M. Robbe, 'Zu Problemen der Sprachphilosophie bei Hobbes', Deutsche Zeitschrijt jur
Philosophie vol. 8 (1960), pp. 433-450.
108

3 H, 38: 'But when in the second chapter of Genesis, God is said to have prohibited the eating of
the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil before Adam had given names to anything, in what
manner could Adam have understood that commandment of God, when he did not as yet know what
was meant by eating, fruit, tree, know/edge, and lastly, good and evil? It must be therefore that Adam
understood the divine prohibition not from the meaning of the words, but in some supernatural manner,
as is manifested a little later from this: that God asked him who had told him that he was naked'.
4 Hobbes's tendency is constantly to centralize power and authority in the sovereign. Scientific or
mathematical teaching seldom enters the arena of the state's sanction - yet, even here, Hobbes is open
to the force of authorization. Cf. EW III, 164-65: 'And though in matters of doctrine, nothing ought
to be regarded but the truth; yet this is not repugnant to regulating the same by peace. For doctrine is
repugnant to peace, can no more be true, than peace and concord can be against the law of nature ...
It belongeth therefore to him who hath wovereign power, to be judge, or constitute all judges of opinions
and doctrines, as a thing necessary to peace; thereby to prevent discord and civil war'. Cf. M.A.
Bertman, 'Hobbes Use of 'Good", Southwestern Journal of Philosophy vo!' 6 (July, 1953), pp. 59-74.
5 R. Polin, Politique et Philosophie chez Hobbes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953),
p.7.
6 R. Peters, Hobbes, (Baltimore: Penguin, 1956), p. 152.
7 R. Descartes, Meditations, p. V.
8 E. Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Form: Language Vol. I (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1953), p. 153.
9 D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature. Bk. III. Pt. I. Sect. I.
10 A.E. Taylor tries to impute the separated existence in Hobbes of a theory of psychological egoism
and a Kantian deontologieal ethies. Cf. 'The Ethical Doctrines of Hobbes', in K. Brown (ed.) Hobbes
Studies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 53: 'And I conceive Hobbes's religion ...
consisted, as Kant's did, almost exclusively in the discharge of the duties of every day morality with an
accompanying sense of their transcending obligatoriness'. Compare the more qualifying statement of the
'Taylor Thesis' in respect to Kant by H. Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford: The
Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 222-233, passim .. Of course I disagree with this thesis, but its exponents
have made as much detailed comparison between Kant and Hobbes as one might suppose they would,
especially in terms of the logical basis of their argumentation.
II R. Honigswald, 'Uber Thomas Hobbes's Oxforder Nominalismus', Analysen und Problemen
Band II, (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1959).
12 Cf. H, 41-43: 'Therefore many theorems are demonstrable about quantity, the science whereof
is called geometry. Since the causes of the properties that individual figures have belong to them because
we ourselves draw the lines; and since the generation of the figures depends on our will; nothing more
is required to know the phenomemon peculiar to any figure whatsoever, than that we consider everything
that follows from the construction that we ourselves make in the figure to be described. Therefore,
because of this fact (that is, that we ourselves create the figures), it happens that geometry hath been
and is demonstrable. On the other hand, since the causes of natural things are not in our power, but in
the divine will, and since the greatest part of them, namely the ether, is invisible; we, that do not see
them, cannot deduce their qualities from their cause. Of course, we can, by deducing as far as possible
the consequences of those qualities that we do see, demonstrate thilt such and such could have been their
causes. This kind of demonstration is called a posteriori, and its science, physics. And since one cannot
proceed in reasoning about natural things that are brought about by motion from the effects to the causes
without a knowledge of those things that follow from that kind. of motion; and since one cannot proceed
to the consequences of motions without a knowledge of quantity, whieh is geometry; nothing can be
demonstrated by physics without 'something also being demonstrated a priori. Therefore physics (l mean
true physics), that depends on geometry, is usually among the mixed mathematics. For those sciences
are usually called mathematical that are learned not from use and experience but from teachers and rules.
Therefore those mathematics are pure which (like geometry and arithmetic) revolve around quantities in
 109

the abstract so that work in the subject requires no knowledge of fact; those mathematics are mixed, in
truth, which in their reasoning also consider any quality of the subject, as is the case with astronomy,
music, physics, and the parts of physics that can vary on account of the variety of species and the parts
of the universe. Finally, politics and ethics (that is, the science of just and unjust, of equity and inequity)
can be demonstrated a priori because we ourselves make the principles - that is, the causes of justice
(namely laws and covenants) - whereby it is known what justice and equity, and their opposites injustice
and inequity, are. For before covenants and laws were drawn up, neither justice nor injustice, neither
public good nor public evil, was natural among men any more than it was among beasts'.
13 Hobbes considers (physical) science and philosophy (except for first philosophy) the same from
an epistemological viewpoint: 'PHILOSOPHY is such knowledge of effects or appearances, as we
acquire by true ratiocination from the knowledge we had first of their causes or generations as may be
from knowing their effects' (EW I, 3).
14 Various aspects of artificiality in the context of language relate (a) to objects one's attention is
directed to by the social context of language; (b) in the case of pure science, the choosing of the
fundamental definitions by notions which Hobbes accounts to be !Joth phantasms of mind and, with
somewhat of a realist turn, real beyond their phenomenal conceptualization, e.g., magnitude; and (c) the
power of the sovereign to define language, especially moral language through his civil laws, including
his rulings on the proper interpretation of his own definitions or laws. Though we have quoted Hobbes
as saying 'experience concludeth nothing universally', and find this his general principle, he sometimes
suggests a more realistic approach: 'now when a man reasoneth from principles that are found
indubitable by experience, all deception of sense and equivocation of words avoided, the conclusion he
maketh is said to be according to right reason' (EW IV, 24). Cf. EW 1,3: ... 'Experience is nothing but
memory; and Prudence, or Prospect into future time, nothing but expectation of such things as we have
already had experience of. Prudence is also not to be esteemed philosophy'.
 111

7. 'INSINUATIONS TO THE WILL': HOBBES'S STYLE AND

INTENTION IN LEVIATHAN COMPARED TO EARLIER
POLITICAL WORKS

C. W. Schoneveld

State University of Leiden, The Netherlands

Chronological awareness might lead us to consider Hobbes's Leviathan as his most

definitive statement on political philosophy in the historical development of his
thought and to prefer it for that reason to his earlier works on the subject, in
interpreting his system. However, history involves more than mere chronology.
There is evidence of various kinds that Leviathan (1651) did not just come last, but
was conceived from the start as different in intention and therefore in nature from
both De Cive (1642) and The Elements of Law (1640).
As we know De Cive forms part of a larger scientific undertaking, of which the
other parts are De Corpore (1655) and De Homine (1658). All three of these were
conceived in Latin - Greek and Latin being the languages, in Hobbes's own words,
'utiles ... apud gentes vicinas ... propter scientiam' (useful ... among neighbouring
peoples ... for the purpose of science) (L W II, 100). In this 'trilogy' Hobbes
addressed himself as a philosopher to his fellow-philosophers in search of truth,
subjecting himself as he should to the rigorous requirements of method. Thus, as
he put it in the Preface to De Cive (in a literal translation):

I have judged that I ought to start from the matter of civil society, next to progress to
its generation and form, and Then to the first origin of justice. For from those things of
which some thing is constituted, from those same it can also best be known (ibid. II, 145).1

The language to go wi~h this method was to be 'conspicuous' ('orationis ordinem

... conspicuus ... sit'; ibid.). Hobbes keeps insisting in his Preface that he has
proceeded logically in his argument, and he strews it with phrases which, in the
published English version, run as follows: ' ... by most firm reason I demonstrate';
' ... for I only do reason, I dispute not'; ' ... derived from true principles by evident
connection'; , ... one thing alone I confess in the whole book not to be
demonstrated, but only probably stated' (EW II, xx, xiii, xi, xxii). He realized that
with this approach (irrespective of which language was used) he could only reach
the learned world for, as he wrote later in Leviathan:

the most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering
to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-0/0-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
112

themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience,

quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good
or evil fortune, and the errors of one another. For as for science, or certain rules of their
actions, they are so far from it, that they know not what it is (EW III, 36)

In this light it is not surprising that, in the case of De Cive, he informs the reader
(in the words of the English Preface) that:

what I had thus written I would not presently expose to public interest. Wherefore I got
some few copies privately dispersed among some of my friends; that dis crying the
opinions of others, if any things appeared erroneous, hard, or obscure, I might correct,
soften and explain them (EW II, xx-xxi).

Most of these friends lived in the 'neighbouring country' where De Cive was
published and therefore he had addressed them in Latin. But some years earlier,
before he went to France, he had already written The Elements of Law for those
'who know what science is'. It was produced by the command of William
Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and dedicated to him. Again, it was not intended
for a large reading-public. For more than ten years it only circulated in a number
of manuscript copies. Although there had been no need to write it in Latin - after
all it was directed to an Englishman - Hobbes did look upon it as belonging to the
world of science. He states in the Dedication that with the help of 'rules and
infallibility of reason' he is going to set down and 'put into method' the principles
on which to found 'the doctrine of justice and policy'. An inevitable consequence
for him was that this precluded the use of stylistic devices of persuasion:

For the style, it is therefore the worse, because I was forced to consult when I was writing,
more with logic than with rhetoric. But for the doctrine, it is not slightly proved (E, xvii).

There is, however, also a tactical reason behind this use of a plain style, for he has
planned to present the principles in such a way 'as passion not mistrusting, may not
seek to displace'; in the opinion sentence he had associated passion with 'dogmatical
learning' and reason with 'mathematical'. Thus he seeks to get as closely as possible
to the latter since in it 'truth and the interest of men oppose not each other'. He
does not, I think, actually claim here that he exclusively practices pure mathematical
learning. Within the realm of science itself, as Hobbes pointed out in Leviathan,
there are not only 'certain signs' but also uncertain ones as 'when only some
particular events answer to The scientist's pretence, and upon many occasions prove
so as he says they must' (EW III, 37).
The question, then, how to communicate his thoughts was of particular interest
to Hobbes in relation to the aims of his writing. A further instance of this concern
is found in a private letter to Samuel Sobiere, of 1649. In explanation of the delay
in publishing the first part of the trilogy, De Corpore, he writes that so much time
as his friends and his health will allow he devotes to the writing of his work: 'the
 113

writing I say, for it is no longer the labour of investigating but of explaining and
demonstrating the truth that delays the publication. 2 From this remark about De
Corpore as well as his earlier one on the style of The Elements of Law, it can be
concluded that Hobbes felt the requirements of a scientific style as a strain.
Soon after he wrote this letter Hobbes was to interrupt his 'speculation of bodies
natural' (ibid. III, 714) in order to write Leviathan. In the Review and Conclusions
to this he makes it clear that this interpretation was occasioned by 'the disorder of
the present time' (ibid. , 713). In view of the fact that both De Cive (in English
translation) and The Elements of Law were being printed at precisely this time, one
might wonder why Hobbes wrote Leviathan at all. The answer to this, then, must
surely be that Hobbes's intentions with Leviathan were very different from those
he had with the other two. It w~s not intended to prove his doctrine to the world
of learning but to show the world at large or in his own words 'to set befoi:e men's
eyes' (ibid.) its practical implications, in the interest of 'the continuance of public
peace' (ibid., 714). To turn 'round Hobbes's earlier statement in the Dedication to
The Elements of Law, his new aim could imply that now, 'he was pleased to consult
more with rhetoric than with logic'. This is perhaps more than he himself would
have admitted, but he did observe in his conclusion to Leviathan: 'reason and
eloquence ... may stand very well together' (ibid. 702). It is true that a few pages
later he also wrote: 'there is nothing I distrust more than my elocution' (ibid., 711).
This, however, dos not mean that he denied himself the u.se of it but, on the
contrary, that he realized that he should employ it as responsibly as possible. In a
passage in The Elements of Law on the dangers of eloquence, he starts out. by
arguing that it has a necessary fucntion as well:

Eloquence is nothing else but the power of winning belief of what we say; and to that end
we must have aid from the passions of the hearer. Now to demonstration and teaching
of the truth, there are required long deductions, and great attention, which is unpleasant
to the hearer; therefore they which seek not truth, but belief, must take another way, and
... derive what they would have to be believed, from somewhat believed already (E,
140-41).

In Leviathan Hobbes was first of all after belief, not truth. The 'aid from the
passions of the hearer' is explicitly invoked in the Introduction, where he asks him
'to read himself' (EW III, xi).3 In those passages in which he speaks of the use of,
for instance, metaphoric language he only excludes it from the 'seeking of truth' not
its communication; and to quote the Review once more: 'if there be not powerful
eloquence, which procureth attention and consent, the effect of reason will be little'
(ibid. III, 34 and 701; emphasis added).
It would lead us too far afield to discuss Hobbes's position in the longstanding
debate on the respective functions of logic and rhetoric in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, but it is clear that rather than being on the side of Ramism,
Hobbes was in profound agreement with the views of his one-time employer Francis
114

Bacon. A few quotations from The Advancement of Learning will illustrate this.
Distinguishing between these two liberal arts, Bacon makes mention of the familiar
emblem of the fist (for Logic) and the open palm of the hand (for rhetoric) but then
goes on to say that the distinction lies more in that:

Logic handleth reason exact and in truth, and Rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in
popular opinions and manners ... for the proofs and demonstrations of Logic are toward
all men indifferent and the same; but the proofs and persuasions of Rhetoric ought to
differ according to the auditors. 4

The passage from The Elements of Law just quoted sounds very much like a
paraphrase of this. In the immediately preceding section of the Advancement of
Learning there are some further striking parallels to Hobbes's view on the relations
between reason, the imagination and the passions:

Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to reason, it were true there
should be no great use of persuasions and insinuations to the will, more than of naked
proposition and proofs; but in regard of the continual mutinies and seditions of the
affections ... reason would become captive and servile, if Eloquence of Persuasions did
not practise and win the Imagination from the Affection's part, and contract a
confederacy between the Reason and Imagination against the Affections (Bacon,op.cit.,
p. 410).

A last illustration from The Advancement of Learning that may help us to see the
distinction between The Elements of Law and De Cive on the one hand, and
Leviathan on the other, is that:

the most real diversity of method, is of method referred to Use, and method referred to
Progression: whereof the one may be termed Magistral, and the other of Probation,

and after noticing an existing preference for the former, Bacon goes on to observe:

for he that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such a form as may be best
believed, and not as may be best examined (Bacon, op. cit., pp. 403-4).

Hobbes, then writes Leviathan in the 'Magistral method'.

In view of all this the suggestion that Leviathan may originally have been
conceived in Latin seems very unlikely indeed. If something like a 'proto-Leviathan,
had ever existed it must have been so unconnected to the direct circumstances and
intentions of the English work as we know it that there is little point in calling it
by that name. It is also very telling that Hobbes was much more particular about
its translation into other languages than about the translation of his other works.
There were several attempts to make a French version, under close supervision of
Hobbes himself. They proved abortive. s Believing with Bacon 'that the proofs and
persuasions of rhetoric ought to differ according to the auditors', a translation in
 115

the language of science among neighbouring people must have seemed even more
out of place to him. He had to be persuaded by the Amsterdam publisher of his
Latin Opera, Johannes Blaeu, when the latter visited him in London, and by
Sorbiere from France to have one made, thirteen years after its first publication in
English. In the end he decided to do it himself, however difficult and time-
consuming it was. His remark that 'someone else might not do it to his liking' and
that he would leave out 'such passages as strangers were not concerned in' exactly
fit this pattern. 6
If the foregoing is a correct interpretation of Hobbes's different intention with
his various political writings it is to be expected that their actual methods of
reasoning, the nature of their arguments and the style employed will reflect those
differences. That such variations exist has long been recognized but rarely been
connected with changes in intention. I leave it to others more qualified to examine
methods and arguments in this light and shall restrict myself in the space remaining
to a few examples of style; but in so far as style and content are one, a discussion
of the former will also have a bearing on the latter.
A suitable testcase is provided by the Laws of Nature since they are formulated
in all three of the works under discussion. The thirteenth Law in Leviathan
corresponds to number twelve in De Cive; in The Elements of Law, where these laws
are not numbered yet, this reads:

In those things which neither can be divided, nor used in common, the rule of nature must
needs be one of these: lot, or alternate use; for besides these two ways, there can no other
equality be imagined. And for the alternate use, he that beginneth hath the advantage;
and to reduce that advantage to equality, there is no other way but lot: in things,
therefore, indivisible and incommunicable, it is the law of nature, That the use be
alternature, or the advantage given away by lot; because there is no other way of equality;
and equality is the law of nature (E, 69-70).

Hobbes was right: the style is the worse for its strongly reasoning character, which
is exemplified by words like 'for', 'therefore', 'because', 'must needs be', 'can be
no other', and 'there is no other way'. The last phrase and other terms and phrases
too, occur more than once, providing the necessary concatenation - but to the
detriment of euphony. The italicized part is not a complete summary of this law:
it does not cover the first half, which argued that the whole possession could fall
to someone by lot. In the English version of De Cive, which gives an accurate
translation of the Latin original here, there is an attempt to remedy this:

Also what cannot be divided nor had in common, it is provided by the law of nature,
which may be the twelfth precept, that the use of that thing be either by turns, or adjudged
to be only by lot; and that in the using it by turns, it be also decided by lot, who shall
have the first use of it. For here also regard is to be had unto equality: but no other can
be found but that of lot (EW II, 40-41).
116

The italicized part now formulates the complete law in an accurate and explicit
manner. The number of words is reduced from 101 to 82, but Hobbes was still
consulting with logic rather than with rhetoric. This can be seen very clearly if its
formulation is compared to that in Leviathan:

But some things there be, that can neither be divided, nor enjoyed in common. Then, The
law of nature, which prescribeth equity, requireth, that the entire right; or else, making
the use alternate, the first possession, be determined by lot. For equal distribution, is of
the law of nature; and other means of equal distribution cannot be imagined (EW III,
142).

Another 25 words are cut away and, skillfully wielding his stiletto, Hobbes has
remodeled the Law itself, as given in italics, in a curt, succinct and memorable way.
It now has the force and shape of an aphorism. It no longer sounds argumentative,
or, as Bacon said: 'as may be best examined', but authoritative: 'as may be best
believed'. There are many passages and even whole chapters in Leviathan that are
memorable in this way. Such a chapter is the tenth, on power, which employs a
truncated style, strongly reminiscent of Bacon's early essays. The corresponding
passages in The Elements of Law, (Chapter 8) are totally unlike this. They show the
same concatenated reasoning that characterizes the treatise as a whole.
At other times the rephrasings are more a matter of shifting the rhythm of
sentences and redistributing emphases. For instance, in the case of the comparison
of 'animalia politica' like bees with men living in multitudes but outside civil society,
The Elements of Law formulates one of the differences as follows:

Amongst other living creatures, there is no question of precedence in their own species,
nor strife about honour or acknowledgement of one another's wisdom, as there is
amongst men; from whence arise envy and hatred towards another, and from thence
sedition and war (E, 79).

Leviathan has:

men are continually in competition for honour and dignity, which these creatures are not;
and consequently amongst men there ariseth on that ground, envy and hatred, and finally
war; but amongst these not so (EW III, 156).

The stress has shifted from what is absent in bees to what is present in men. The
opposition has been made crisper and more symmetrical:

men are: these creatures are not; amongst men ariseth : amongst these not.

the operative nouns were in the first version: 'precedence', 'strife', 'honour',
'acknowledgment', 'wisdom', 'envy', 'hatred', 'sedition', and 'war'. Their number
has now been reduced to five, placed in pairs in stressed end-positions and in clear
mutual opposition:
 117

honour and dignity: envy and hatred

and the fifth noun comes tacked on at the end, destroying the built-up symmetry
with its omninous emphasis: 'and finally war'. This in its turn makes the following
phrase: 'but amongst these not so', with its elisions, into an effective anti-climax. In
De Cive the passage had already been shortened but not yet patterned rhetorically:

For, first, among Men there is a contestation of hounour and preferment; among beasts
there is none; whence hatred and envy, out of which arise sedition and war, is amongst
men; among beasts no such matter (EW II, 66).7

The urgency and persuasiveness of Leviathan, as was argued earlier, were very much
tied up with the time and circumstances of its composition. That this was no longer
the case with Hobbes's Latin translation is illustrated by his wording of this same
passage here:

homines inter se de honoribus et dignitate perpetuo contendunt; sed animalia ilia non
item. !taque inter homines invidia, odium, bellum, propter eam, inter alias, causam saepe
nascitur; inter ilia rarissime (L W III, 129).

The rhythmic structure is no longer as persuasive; moreover, no less than three

qualifications are inserted: 'inter alias' (among others), 'saepe' (often), and
'rarissime' (very seldom) replacing 'not'. Obviously, translating Leviathan into
Latin for Hobbes also involved toning down its rhetoric as one of the aspects that
'strangers were not concerned in'.
Thus, in the English Leviathan Hobbes shows himself to be very sensitive to the
rhythm and structure of sentences. In his Leviathan, he observed:

prose requireth delightfulness, not only of fiction, but of style; in which if prose contend
with verse, it is with disadvantage and, as it were, on foot against the strength and wings
of Pegasus (EW IV, 445).

An aspect of Hobbes's style in Leviathan that is more often remarked upon than
the structure of his sentences, is, of course, his use of illustrative examples and
analogies. Besides being designed to clarify his argument or adding conviction to it,
they often implicitly or explicitly express his emotional attitude to the subject in
hand. They owe their success to their wit, which is due to a combination of aptness
and originality of choice and economy of phrasing. Such analogies tend to come at
the end of a paragraph, in order to clinch an argument and effectively forestall all
opposition. Many of them are derived from the overall personification in Leviathan
of the commonwealth as an artificial man. It is his own original application of the
familiar view of the state as a 'body politic'. To Hobbes it is first and foremost a
strategic device to allow him to draw upon common human experience ('the
passions of the hearer') as a source for his wit. On the very title-page he literally
118

uses a human body 'to set before men's eyes' his notion of civil society; the famous
giant made up of the bodies of his subjects. 8 This analogy is worked out in the
Introduction and informs large parts of Book II, in which the state is anatomized.
In the earlier works Hobbes sometimes made use of concrete examples to
illustrate a point, but comparisons were used very sparingly; he did not allow them
in works of science 'except sometimes the understanding have need to be opened by
some apt simile' (EW III, 59). Since it seems to me unnecessary to labor this point,
one example of such a worked out simile will do to show Hobbes's changing
intentions. Chapter 29 of Leviathan discussed the various possible 'diseases' of the
commonwealth. A serious one occurs when 'the passage of money to the public
treasury Is obstructed, by the tenacity of the people' (EW III, 319). This is
compared to 'an ague' in the human body, when the veins are not supplied with
enough blood for the heart by the arteries because these are congealed or obstructed.
In the end the patient may well die, and in the same way the commonwealth may
perish through lack of money. This analogy is worked out with relish into great
detail. Hobbes is no doubt indirectly reminding the English people of one of the
causes of the Civil War in England. In the corresponding passage in De Cive (EW
II, 159) the only thing that remotely resembles this analogy is the causal comparison
between a private man's fortune and 'the hand that holds the sword ... to be
sustained and nourished by the subjects' care and industry'. There is no mention
of sickness here. In the Latin translation of Leviathan the passage is retained but
the passion has gone out of it (L WIll, 238). The Elements of Law had no section
corresponding to this.
These few examples of figures of language and figures of thought must suffice
to illustrate differences of style and intention between Hobbes's various political
works. Together with the discussion of his Baconian view of logic and rhetoric, they
were meant to suggest a possible solution in case of discrepancies between
statements made by him in various contexts. Hobbes wrote The Elements of Law
and De Cive for his fellow-scientists, who were only few in number, 'for science is
of that nature, as none can understand it to be, but such as in good measure have
attained it' (EW III, 75). His intention in writing Leviathan was, in Bacon's words:
'to contact a confederacy between the reason and imagination against the
affections', and to educate the English people and their ruler towards sensible
political behavior by means of 'persuasions and insinuations to the will'.
 119

NOTES

The English version is more euphonious but less literal here: 'I thought it not sufficient ... except
I took my beginning from the very matter of civil government, and thence proceeded to its generation
and form, and the first beginning of justice. For everything is best understood by its consecutive causes'
(EW II, xiv). The Latin had: 'a civitatis materia incipiendum, deinde ad generationem et formam ejus,
et justitiae originem prim am progrediendum esse existimavi. Nam ex quibus rebus quaeque res
constituitur, ex iisdem etiam optime cognoscitur'.
2 F. Tonnies, 'Siebzehn Briefe des Thomas Hobbes an Samuel Sorbiere', Archiv fur Geschichte der
Philosophie III (1890), p. 208; Hobbes to Sorbiere, Paris, 14 June 1649; 'non enim iam quaerendae sed
exp/icandae demonstrandaeque veritatis labor editionem moratur'.
3 For comment on this phrase and an introduction of the whole of Leviathan in connection with it
see the contribution by Gary Shapiro to this volume. Although I do not agree with him in calling
Leviathan definitive, I fully second him in his rhetorical reading of it, as will become clear later on. Ross
Rudolph, too, sees Leviathan in a similar light, in his essay in this volume. That Parts III and IV are
integral to the (rhetorical) unity of Leviathan was rightly stressed by Bernard H. Baumrin in his paper
'Hobbes's Christian Commonwealth', read at the Boulder Congress.
4 Francis Bacon, The Works, ed. J. Spedding, a.o. (London, 1857), III, p. 441.
5 See Q. Skinner, 'Thomas Hobbes and his Disciplines in France and England', Comparative Studies
in Society and History VIII (1956-66), pp. 159-60, and C. von Brockdorff, Hobbes als Philosophe (Kfel,
1929), pp. 150-51. The theory of a 'proto-Leviathan' in Latin is defended by F. Tricaud in the
introduction to his French translation of Leviathan (Paris, 1971).
6 These remarks were made by Hobbes in his Answer to Bramhall (EW IV, 317). The progress of
the translation is discussed by Tricaud (op. cit.). For Blaeu's and Sorbii:re's promotion of a Latin edition
see a letter by Sorbiere to Hobbes, Paris, 1 July, 1664 (no. 60 of Hobbes's foreign correspondence in
the Hardwick papers at Chatsworth House, England). A Dutch translation of Leviathan appeared in
1667 and of De Cive in 1675. More information on these and on Hobbes's relations to Holland is to be
found in my forthcoming study on Anglo-Dutch translation in the 17th century, to appear in the series
of the Sir Thomas Brown Institute of State University of Leiden.
7 Again, the English version translates the Latin quite accurately here. But for 'honour and
preferment' the Latin reads 'honoris et dignitatis' (L WII, 212), which indicates that for Leviathan, which
has 'honour and dignity', Hobbes made use of the Latin text of De Cive, not the English translation.
8 The frontispiece is discussed by K. Brown, 'The Artist of the Leviathan Title-page' , British Library
Journal IV (1978), pp. 24-36. Brown suggests that Hobbes may have had a hand in the design. For the
title-pages of De Cive, see my 'Some Features of the Seventeenth-Century Editions of Hobbes's De Cive
Printed in Holland and Elsewhere', in J.G. van der Band, ed., Hobbes's Studies of Man (Leusden, 1982).
III. NATURAL RIGHT AND THE STATE OF NATURE
 123

8. HOBBES'S CONATUS AND THE ROOTS OF CHARACTER

Brian Stoffel

University of Melbourne

Introduction

In 1966 F.S. McNeilly pointed out that the common view of Hobbes's psychology
as egoistic was 'reaching epidemic proportions'. 1 Neither McNeilly, nor Bernard
Gert, subscribed to the orthodox view, and both went against the tide of tradition
by refusing to give Hobbes's materialism a determining role in the formation of his
egoism. Their reasoning was different: Gert believed that Hobbes's materialism
negated beliefs and thus destroyed any motivational theory; whe{eas McNeilly held,
more reasonably, that Hobbes's materialism was merely an ornament, an idle wheel
that played no part in the shaping of his psychology. The tradition against which
Gert and McNeilly turned their faces was formed in seventeenth and eighteenth
century criticisms of Hobbes, where it was generally held that materialism had
egoism as a corollary.
As the battle formations currently stand, both sides assume that if Hobbes's
materialism is operative within his psychology, the resultant theory will have the
stamp of egoism. In this essay, I shall explore a position with which neither side has
had any truck. I shall proceed on the assumption that Hobbes attempted to form
a system of ideas based on a materialist metaphysics, and that this attempt was not
simply an act of faith. This assumption commits me to search for some connection
between his physical theory and psychology. The requisite connection is found in
one aspect of eonatus. With this connection unearthed I go on to suggest that a
theory of dispositions is the feature of Hobbes's materialism revel ant to his
psychology. Furthermore, the connection between psychology and ethics is also
made via dispositions or manners in De Homine. Hobbes's theory of character is
too rich to fall into any simple egoistic interpretation: this is my major claim.
My overall approach can usefully be compared with David Gauthier's. He argues
that Hobbes's psychology was indispensable to an understanding of the politics; I
shall argue that Hobbes's physics is indispensable for an understanding of his
psychology. My conclusions are, however, intended to show that we cannot assume
any simple configuration of Hobbesian man, and thus that just how psychology
bears on politics becomes seriously complicated. To put the point in a nutshell, as

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
124

the contingent nature of character comes to light, so the form of Hobbes's political
state loses its rigidity.
The paper is divided into four sections, the first three of which are devoted to
tracing one central strand in the idea of conatus. The aspect of the concept with
which I deal is Hobbes's candidate for the intrinsic states of an entity which ground
its particular dispositions. Considerable effort is devoted to unearthing the traces
of this idea in Hobbes, since as far as I know no one has correctly understood the
manner in which Hobbes sets forth a theory of dispositions based on physical states.
In the final section, an attempt is made to show the direct relevance of such a theory
for the formation of Hobbes's view about the construction of character.

1. Conatus I

'Endeavor' is the term Hobbes chose to render the Latin conatus. The concept
makes its formal appearance in his system in the third part of De Corpore, where
it is explained as:

Motion made in less space and time than can be given ... that is, motion made through
the length of a point, and in an instant or point in time. (EW I, 206).

Hobbes is anxious to stress that it is actual movement with some short but specific
duration involved, although 'less than can be determined or assigned by exposition
or number' (ibid.). Later in the same work Hobbes refers to motions and
magnitudes that are 'unspeakably little' (ibid., 445) yet nonetheless measurable,
even if not by us. The analysis of endeavor given in De Corpore is nested with others
for the closely related concepts of pressure, force, impetus, resistance, and pulsion.
All of these topics follow in train as part of the discussion of causation which began
in Chapter 9, and continued through Chapter 10. In fact the completion of the
discussion does not come until the end of Chapter 22 where, as is noteworthy, the
account of habit is given in terms of 'iterated endeavours' (ibid., 349) thus harking
back to an earlier section of the book. Why Hobbes broke the sequence apart in this
way eludes me.
De Corpore did not appear until 1655; hence there is every reason to distinguish
the formal place of endeavour within Hobbes's system - as a part of the first
philosophy - from the first stirring of the idea in his thought. We know for instance
that conatus plays a significant part in Hobbes's critique of Thomas White's De
Mundo. This Latin manuscript dates from 1642-43, and would seem to represent
Hobbes's reimmersion in metaphysics after his work on De Cive. There is also a
modicum of evidence to suggest that sketches of what were to become chapters of
De Corpore existed in the late 1630's.2
In any case, our first introduction to the idea is through The Elements of Law,
 125

a work that Hobbes completed by May of 1640. The first thirteen chapters of this
manuscript cover topics in morals and psychology (both cognitive and
physiological). Strictly speaking, the Elements is Hobbes's civil philosophy, of
which he says that it 'is again commonly divided into two parts, whereof one, which
treats of men's dispositions and manners, is called ethics; and the other, which takes
cognizance of their civil duties, is called politics or simply civil philosophy (EW I,
11). It is Hobbes's belief that in order to gain any 'knowledge of the properties of
a commonwealth, it is necessary first to know the dispositions, affections, and
manners of men' (ibid.). Thus it is as part of a politically relevant psychology - one
coextensive with ethics - that Hobbes introduces endeavor. Its principle theoretical
function is to ground the 'internal beginnings of animal motion' (EW IV, 31).
Hobbes believes that both the heart and brain have characteristic modes of
response to incoming sensation, either in its raw form at the brain, or as imagination
flowing to the heart. In both cases responses take the form of a counter-pressure:
exerted by the brain, this gives us the impression of an external source for sensation;
and by the heart, to give us the feeling of either appetite or aversion. How the heart
is prompted to increased or decreased motion by the inflow of imagination we are
never told! From what we can gather the 'beginnings of animal motion' are
themselves a species of motion, namely that species named by the word 'endeavor'.
But that seems unhelpful in the extreme. To get a better light on the origination of
action as a species of motion we need to take a remark out of Hobbes's account
of animal motion in his De Corpore. There he says of the heart that:

There is in the whole organ, by reason of its own internal natural motion, some resistance
or reaction against the motion which is propagated from the object (EW I, 387).

A perfectly parallel story will of course hold for the brain as well. Now, the heart
is not always producing endeavors, where endeavors are understood to be the
minute first beginning of motion, but nonetheless it is so constituted (,by reason of
its own internal natural motion') that given the inflow of imagination it will initiate
the fledgling motions that ramify into action. Granting that conceptions are 'but
motion in some internal substance ofthe head' (EWIV, 31), it would seem to follow
that the brain must have forms of motion natural to it. However, in the case of the
brain the forms of motion inherent to it will in part at least correspond to our
catalogue of emotions.
We are now faced with what appear to be two distinct things: endeavor as
infinitesimal motion, or the initial motions arising from the heart's (diastolic?)
action. The. second is that form of motion we are told is natural to the heart in so
far as it is an organ. This is the form of motion which will, if anything will, qualify
the organ as the center of action or reaction. But can both forms of motion be
subsumed under the umbrella of endeavor? The Elements alone does not give
sufficient ground for this view: it simply argues that endeavor is to be understood
126

as the beginnings of movement, and that action begins with conception. Thus, in
so far as conception - our sizing things up - is the first intra-bodily cause of human
action, and endeavor is the first step in voluntary action, it seems reasonable to
suspect that motion states of the organs and endeavor might be intimately
connected. To gain more purchase on the issue we need to look into Hobbes's early
works on optics; for there I think we can find a new dimension to the idea of
endeavor left underdeveloped in his Elements.
The Elements may have been Hobbes's most notable early work, but it is by no
means his first philosophical production. The Short Tract, as is well known, was
probably written seven years before the former book, that is , around 1630. In one
respect the Short Tract is a precursor to the Elements, which in its turn is a precursor
to De Homine, and De Cive. The lines run from this early tract, through the first
thirteen chapters of the Elements and on to De Homine because the subject of all
three is sensation (primarily vision) and human nature.
The major question moving Hobbes in the Short Tract is the one Aubrey alludes
to, namely 'what is sense'? Working out an answer in terms of vision Hobbes
specifies the following elements:

(a) the agent or source of light;

(b) the species;
(c) the medium through which the species travel;
(d) the patient whose optic nerve is affected.
Of the four elements, the second and third are of little interest. However, in the
first and fourth we have the first and the final steps in the illumination story.
There is nothing new in what Hobbes has to say about the more general notions
of agency and patiency captured in two of the principles from the Short Tract:

3. Agent it that which hath power to move.

4. Patient is that which hath power to be moved (E, 193).

Allowing that these are orthodox Aristotelianisms, the only lesson to be derived here
is that Hobbes's conception of how to set out a genuine explanation of sensation
(in this case sight) involved the specification of qualities in the agent and patient via
which they were able to mark and register respectively. Hobbes does not ask the
further question, namely, 'in terms of what do the agent and the patient have the
power to act and be acted upon'? The answer to this question did not appear until
1655 in De Corpore.
When Hobbes is discussing the ability of 'fiery bodies' to fuel 'their own fires',
he is quite prepared to admit that this event, like so much else in nature, 'be to us
not so perceptible' (E, 201). Such bodies have a capacity of some sort; conjecturally
it is the capacity to draw fuel for themselves. At the other end of the causal chain
however Hobbes goes into much greater detail showing how a patient is able to be
 127

impressed by the illuminant. The internal picture includes the brain, impressed and
'qualified' by the species of objects, and the animal spirits. Of note here is the fact
that the brain is 'qualified by these Species with active power to produce the
similitude of those objects whence they issue' (ibid., 205). Hobbes has brought the
power of the patient (in this case the percipient) down to the purely organic capacity
to receive, record and transmit impressions. He plays with the idea of the soul
having 'an active power inherent in itself' (ibid.), but rejects it; the power of the
patient is explained purely in terms of local motion: 'therefore actual sense is a
motion' (ibid.).
The Short Tract evidences a mind exercized about the nature of active and passive
power, and it gives some indication that Hobbes saw the obvious next move as one
utilizing nothing above and beyond local motion with bodies (see E, 206 top). The
De Corpore treatment of internal motions may be seen as a development of these
earlier rough conjectures:

For bodies, as bodies, have no difference; but only from some special cause, that is, from
some internal motion, or motions of their smallest parts (EW I, 127).

How did Hobbes make the transition to this later view? I shall now try to chart the
main lines of his progress. There is one principal event which proves crucial:
Hobbes's confrontation with Descartes's work on the theory of optics. There is
nothing contentious in the suggestion that Hobbes was much exercised by
Descartes's work; this point was made plainly and very effectively by Frithiof
Brandt in 1928. What stands a much better chance of being contentious is the claim
that Hobbes discovered an idea in that work of Descartes which would give his own
thinking about the nature of bodies a fundamentally new direction. Most of those
who have considered Descartes's physics at all have commented on his conception
of a tendency, but none that I have seen to date have linked Descartes's notion with
Hobbes's use of conatus or endeavor. 3

2. Descartes's Optics

In the fifth part of his Discourse on Method Descartes avails himself of this excuse
for not pursuing matters that arose in the fourth part:

Because this would make it necessary for me to discuss many questions which are a matter
of controversy among the learned ... I believe that it will be better for me to abstain ...
leave wiser men to judge. 4

I shall follow suit. Rather than attempt a reconstruction of the Cartesian physical
theory I shall focus attention on just the work with which Hobbes came into contact
in 1637, the Discourse on Method.
128

Following up his promise to instruct through clear examples, in the imitation of

astronomers, Descartes introduces the blind man using a stick to facilitate his
progress over rough ground at night. Once the image is firmly in mind Descartes
utilizes it:

In order to draw a comparison from this, I would have you consider the light as nothing
else, in bodies that we call luminous, than a certain movement or action very rapid and
very lively, which passes toward our eyes through the medium of the air and other
transparent bodies, in the same manner that the movement or resistance of the bodies that
this blind man encounters is transmitted to his hand through the medium of his stick. 5

At least four lessons about sensation are taught with the use of this example, 'for
you know that the action with which we move one of the ends of a stick must thus
be transmitted in an instant to the other end,.6 Secondly, that our experience of
light, or rather our experience of things as coloured, is a function of the way
external objects affect our retina. This corresponds to the way different objects
resist the stick and thus exert differing pressures on the man's hand. Thirdly, just
as there is a continuous extended object between hand and ground, with nothing
making the journey from the second to the first, so there is nothing travelling
through the medium of the air from the source of light to our eyes. Descartes
understands his third point as directed against those who believed 'intentional
species' to be 'small images flitting through the air'. 7
The final lesson is less successfully taught, and this has something to do with the
magnitude of difficulty, but rather more to do with the plausibility of Descartes's
conjecture. This suggestion is that by keeping the example in mind 'you will even
easily be able to decide the question ... concerning the origin of the action that
causes the sensation of sight,.8 We are asked to consider two different ways in which
the stick and an obstacle might be connected: the first is simply impact caused by
something leaping up to strike the walking stick, whereas the second is more like
the stick being rested on firm ground with a constant pressure maintained by the
hand. The normal idea of illumination for human subjects corresponds to the first
case, occurring 'by means of the action which, being in them, tends toward the
eyes,.9 But what does the second case argue by analogy? Descartes is of the opinion
that the action which causes sight can be initiated in the eyes of some creatures -
cats for example! That peculiarity to one side though, the crucial yet problematic
notion of action is now right to the fore. And since we are primarily concerned with
'the action which comes from the objects', 10 our attention is really directed to the
question of what form the action of illumination takes. At this point, Descartes
introduces the second major example.
We are asked to envisage (with the help of an illustration in the text) a vat full
of wine and half crushed grapes. There are two holes in the bottom of the vat
marked A and B; these are plugged. On the surface of the liquid Descartes has
points marked C, D, and E. C is directly above A, E is directly above B, and D is
 129

equidistant between the two holes. This model is a replica of Descartes's solar
system: the surface of the mixture in the vat is the interface between the sun and
the medium which extends between it and us. The holes A and B correspond to two
eyes and the intervening medium is composed of solid grapes (third element
particles) and wine (second element particles that fill all of the interstices between
bodies and transmit light). Each of the points on the surface is joined to both holes
by a straight line, and we are asked to envisage what will occur when the wine is
allowed to flow freely through the two drain holes at the bottom. The imaginary
straight lines from points on the surface are representative of rays of light, and
Descartes holds that irrespective of the intervening medium being full of
obstructions, the wine at anyone point on the surface will, presumably as rays will,
be connected by a straight line with each of the holes below. The model is intended
to represent a very large number of such straight lines of course, so it would have
a limited number of points on the surface (those Descartes has drawn in as C, D,
and E for example) connected by an infinite number of lines to the bottom of the
vat.
Well, what does happen when the holes are unstopped? Descartes believes that
wine at each of the surface points tends 'to go down in a straight line through hole
A at the very instant that it is open, and at the same time through hole B'.l1
Moreover, none of these geometrically mixed pathways is an impediment to any of
the others. We are now asked to believe that the tendency of the parts of the wine
to go to A and B at precisely one and the same time is an action, but 'without any
of these actions being impeded by the others, nor by the resistence of the bunches
of grapes in the vats'. 12 This example has one main function: to explain the action
of light rays. The difficulty, soon to be felt by many, was that rays of light
considered as tending along an infinite number of pathways were also considered
to be acting without movement. The explanation we are offered is as follows:

And note here that it is necessary to distinguish between movement, and the action or
inclination to move. For one can very easily conceive that the particles of wine which are
for example near C, tend toward B and also toward A, notwithstanding that they cannot
actually be moved toward these two holes at the same time. 13

When illumination is under consideration we get the following:

It is not so much the movement as the action of luminous bodies that must be taken for
their light, you must judge that the rays of light are nothing else but the lines along which
the action tends.

And then again, in a passage which comes shortly after this:

It is very easy to believe that the action or inclination to move which I have said must be
taken for light, must follow the same laws as does movement. 14
130

There is not the slightest doubt that Descartes wants a clear, unmuddied distinction
between movement and inclination; yet at the same time he insists that inclination
be understood as a form of action. I presume that he sees both actual movement
and the inclination to move as, in some sense, modes of action. However,
contemporaries like Morin and Fermat who were well versed in the distinction
between potency and act were confused by Descartes's terms. IS Hobbes's reaction
argues a different state of mind.

3. Conatus II

Hobbes wrote three distinct works on optics:

(1) Tractatus Opticus, which was published as part seven of Marin Mersenne's
Cogitata Physico-Mathematica in 1644. Due entirely to the research of Brandt, we
now know that this work formed part of an exchange that took place between
Descartes and Hobbes in the early months of 1641. 16
(2) A Minute or First Draft of the Optigues, written in two sections: one on
vision, the other on illumination, and completed in 1646. Hobbes must have been
pleased with this treatise if his words from the conclusion are any indication: 'I shall
deserve the reputation of having beene the first to lay the grounds of two sciences;
this of Optigues, the most curious, and the other of Natural Justice, which I have
done in my booke DE CIVE, the most profitable of all others' (EW VII, 471).
(3) Latin Optical Manuscript, an excerpt of which Tonnies added as an
appendix to his edition of the Elements. Brandt, in agreement with Kohler, dates
this work between 1644 and 1646. 17
The most important of these for my own purposes is the first: the portion from
the Hobbes-Descartes exchange. One of the topics discussed in the exchange was
conatus, the idea of tendency that Descartes had utilized to explain the action of
rays. In a letter that Descartes wrote to Mersenne, we get some indication of what
Descartes and Hobbes had originally discussed:

What the third proposition, on systole, contains is completely overthrown by what I have
already said, as is what he says in the corollary about inclination: he holds that this is a
motion, and for the following brilliant reason 'because the beginning of motion is
motion'. But who has conceded to him that inclination is the beginning or first part of
motion. 18

We have no independent record of the remark from Hobbes that is the object of
Descartes's ridicule here, but something pretty close can be found in a fragment that
Kohler reproduced from the Latin Optical Manuscript. With respect to the
propagation of light Hobbes claims that:
 131

This processure is really and actually ... a local motion ... and is not ... a mere inclination.
For all inclination if it be pressure or endeavor is actually a motion and progression of
something out of its place, pressure cannot otherwise be conceived. 19

Since this excerpt comes from a later period than the exchange with Descartes, it
is clear that Hobbes stuck to his guns on the issue of tendencies or inclinations being
actual motions. Remembering that Descartes claimed inclination to obey the same
laws as movement, and that both movement and inclination were actions, it is no
wonder that Hobbes might have taken the path he did in interpreting Descartes on
inclinationa. Descartes wants light rays to be conceived of as lines, 'along which ...
action tends', 20 but Hobbes has read this requirement as one about pressure
(endeavor). Perhaps he was seeing the model as a fluid one, or more likely he just
could not imagine a pressure to be anything other than a species of motion.
It is hardly surprising that Hobbes and Descartes would be at loggerheads on the
question of illumination, especially since the cast of Hobbes's thought since the
Short Tract had been formed by the idea of a medium that was subject only to local
motion. A version of the mobile medium appears in the Tractatus Opticus, where
Hobbes considers the sun's operation in terms of dilation and contraction, thus
flying directly contrary to Descartes's most basic idea about its function (L W V,
217-18). Descartes was quite prepared to envisage the sun as containing first
element particles, and he was convinced that these minute, rapidly circulating
entities gave rise to light. However, he strongly resisted any suggestion that light was
caused by their pressing out into the second element. This form of pressing out and
retracting was Hobbes's way of explaining the sun's ability to illuminate.
Furthermore, despite the fact that Hobbes did not publish details about the sun
propelling the adjacent medium from its place until 1644, he must have discussed
this precise point in his exchange with Descartes, as a letter of the latter's to
Mersenne makes clear:

The second proposition is true, and my own, if one replaced rejectione in it by repu/sio,
so that impulsion alone, and not motion, can be understood. 21

Hobbes's thinking on illumination had certainly progressed to the point of having

a view about the way in which the sun acts outwardly, but its ability to so act is still
a mystery to him as his response to a question from Charles Cavendish about solar
dilation and contraction shows: 'the cause of such reciprocation, it is hard to guess
what it is' (EW VII, 259). However, the ingredients do appear to be forming for
a step forward: conatus or endeavor, rather than being simply tiny outward tending
motions, would be given a role as those internal motions of bodies which explained
their capacities. So, the inclination or tendency of some body to have certain
characteristic effects, or to be affected in certain ways, would now be explained in
terms of motions, but now the motions in question are of the particles out of which
the objects in question are composed. Local motion is still the base line in
132

explanation. but there is an expansion of the conatus idea's provenance to include

the inner, invisible motions of constituents.
In his Thomas White's De Mundo Examined (1642-43) one can observe Hobbes
somewhere between horses on the question of what conatus motions are; seemingly
he wants to be able to keep his more basic conception of conatus as infinitesimal
motion, while using the same term to cover what is clearly the internal motion state
of an object. Chapter 34 contains the following definition of the term 'potential':

The act by which an act not yet produced will be produced later (W, 414).

Recent discussions of dispositions has centered around dispositional properties like

fragility, solubility, elasticity, and the like. Recourse is often taken to a micro-
structural story in order to show why, for example, certain materials shatter when
struck: their molecular bonding is said to explain their fragility. If the state of a
thing's molecular bonding is an intrinsic state, then a behaviour of that thing is
explained by reference to an intrinsic state. Hobbes's line on potential is very like
this indeed. Because he does not rest his account on dispositional terms, he must
direct attention to some actual state of a thing which is responsible for qualifying
that thing either to act or be acted upon in some specific respect. Having no grasp
of molecules, and being no atomist, Hobbes turns to entities and their motions:

If someone, Descartes presumably, said, 'The principle of motion is the potential to

motion without the act (of motion)', it would follow that conatus is not an action and
does not achieve anything, whether the conatus be outward or inward. Conatus is
therefore motion in actuality, even though the motion be very small and indistinguishable
to the eye ... So conatus is nothing but an actual motion, either of the whole body that
tends, or of its inner and invisible parts. But, (I say) the presence of motion in the inner
parts of all hard bodies and of those whose visible parts cohere and resist an agent is
argued from the fact that all resistance is reaction; a reaction is an action; and all action
is motion (W, 148-49).

In this passage Hobbes links conatus with actions that constitute an object's ability
to react. In the Elements he had given endeavor an employment much closer to the
other sense of conatus found in this passage; namely the initial stages of an internal
motion which could ramify into an overt action. More importantly however, in
explaining reaction by reference to conatus Hobbes has subsumed the brain states
occasioning perception under the conatus umbrella. Recall that our impression of
sound as coming from external sources is a function of the reaction of the brain to
the inflow of sensory information. With this new conception of conatus operating
Hobbes is obligated for the first time to postulate states of the brain which empower
it to so react. These states are precisely those which characterize the organ as the
organ that it is - they define its function. What I refer to here is the 'internal natural
motion' from De Corpore. Our next step is to observe how the idea of conatus as
intrinsic states was elaborated within the context of Hobbes's physical speculations.
 133

The works in question are Seven Philosophical Problems (1662) and Decameron
Physiologicum (1674). Chapter 5 of the Seven Problems is concerned with hardness
and softness, an issue that brings back into view matters which arose in the 1641
exchange with Descartes. The work takes a dialogue form, with a novice A posing
a series of questions for his Hobbesian mentor B. Our interest in their discussion
begins at the point where B claims that:

For the cause thereof of hardness, I suppose the reciprocation of motion in those things
which are hard, to be very swift, and in very small circles (EW VII, 32 f).

The degree of impenetrability and resistance to distortion is put down to the speed
and direction of the constituent elements in a hard body (whatever they might be
qua material). The explanation perplexes A, and by way of amplification B suggests
that he envisage a cross-bow that is drawn ready to fire. B then puts the question,
'do you think that the parts of it stir'? to which A's immediate answer is that they
do not. The stage is now set for B's triumphal explanation, the salient portions of
which are as follows:
B. How are you sure? You have no argument for it, but that you do not see the motion.
When I see you sitting still, must I believe that there is no motion in your parts within,
when there are so many arguments to convince me that there is ....

A. What argument have you to convince me that there is motion in a cross-bow when it
stands bent?

B. If you cut the string, or any way set the bow at liberty, it will have then a very visible
motion. What can be the cause? ...

A. Well, grant that endeavor be motion, and motion in the bow unbent, how do you
derive thence, that being set at liberty it must return to its former posture?

B. Thus there being within the bow a swift (though invisible) motion of all the parts, and
consequently of the whole; the bending causeth the motion, which was along the bow (that
was beaten out when it was hot into that length) to operate across the length of every part
of it, and the more by how much it is more bent; and consequently endeavors to unbend
it all the while it stands bent. And when the force which kept it bent was removed, it must
of necessity return to the posture it had before. (EW VII, 34).

At this juncture A dutifully reminds B that, since endeavor is motion, and that since
all motion produces some effect or other, it follows that some change must be taking
place whilst the cross-bow remains drawn. B agrees, adding that after a 'long time'
the new posture will become a permanent shape; the cross-bow will then resist any
attempt to return it to the original shape. The Hobbesian lesson well learnt, A makes
the final comment:
That is true. For bows long bent lose their appetite to restitution, long custom becoming
nature (EW VII, 34-35).
134

There are two thing to note in this final remark. First, a state in a piece of metal
is described in terms of appetite. That might be passed off as mere
anthropomorphism or simply as a harmless locution. It is neither, and the reason
will become obvious when we turn to a parallel discussion in the Decameron
Physi%gicum. Secondly, since the original nature of the bow was created in the
forge and hammer process, something just as fundamental has occurred in the
change which reverses the tension of the bow. Hobbes is, I believe, deliberately
saving something stronger than would be captured with the term 'second-nature'.
As I mentioned above, there is a period of twelve years seperating the Seven
Problems from Decameron Physi%gicum, and for some intents and purposes they
can be considered as mapping the one ground. However, in the detail of the
discussion of hardness some relevant and important changes take place. In this latter
work Hobbes put his final touch on the theory of conatus by suggesting a change
in motion. The characters in the dialogue are unchanged:

B. I have told you already, how the smallest parts of a hard body have everyone, by the
generation of hardness, a circular, or other compound motion; such motion is that of the
smallest parts of the bow. Which circles in the bending you press into an ellipsis. and an
ellipsis into a narrower but longer ellipsis with violence; which turns their natural motion
against the outward parts of the bow, and in an endeavor to stretch the bow into its former
posture.

A. It is manifest; and the cause can be no other but that, except the bow have sense.

B. And though the bow had sense, and appetite to boot, the cause will be still the same
(EW VII, 135 ff.).

B's concluding remark states a position that we should have been prepared for all
along. His account of how dispositions are based goes for all physical objects and
is quite insensitive to the distinction between animate and inanimate bodies. This
is made perfectly clear in the discussion of habituation in De Corpore, in which the
acquisition of any particular disposition is reduced to a story about iterated
endeavors (EW I, 349). Thus strictly speaking, the analysis of dispositions is carried
out as part of the study of 'motions and magnitudes', which is the study that
immediately precedes a consideration of 'the phenomena of nature', part of which
is a study of animal motion. 22
Conatus, then, is the concept which is articulated into three aspects of motion:
pressing or pressure, fine or infinitesimal motion, and finally the circle-like internal
motions which enable a body to press and which respond when it is pressed by being
subject to certain local motions. With the latter of these three notions Hobbes can
investigate, or at least theorize about, the constitution of bodies. In the case of
animate bodies this can take the form of theorizing about appetite and version,
those reciprocating opposites at the basis of human nature. Once we realize this we
can appreciate what Hobbes meant when he boasted that he was almost in a position
 135

to offer a theory about the faculties and passions of the soul. What he actually
delivered was The Elements of Law, a work which analyzed the passions, those
'interior beginnings of voluntary motion' (EW III, 38), as states of organism fit to
bring about certain behaviour.
In Leviathan, Hobbes notes that 'of the appetites and aversions, some are born
with men ... not many. The rest, which are appetites of particular things, proceed
from experience, and trial of their effects upon themselves or other men' (ibid., 40).
Leaving the small group of inherent appetites and aversions to one side, we can see
that appetites for particular things spring from, or are initiated by, conceptions; 'the
imagination is the first internal beginning of all voluntary motion' (ibid., 39). In
other words, our emotions or passionate responses are, in all important cases,
prefigured by certain conceptions. Now, since it is another of Hobbes's claims that
all men share the same repertoire of passions, albeit not the same intentional objects
of those passions, a question suggests itself: 'how do men come by their particular,
idiosyncratic objects of desire and aversion'? Hobbes's answer to this question
appears in Chapter 13 of De Homine:

Dispositions, that is, men's inclinations towards certain things, arise from a six-fold
source: namely from the constitution of the body, from experience, from habit, from the
goods of fortune, from the opinion one hath of oneself, and from authorities. When these
things change, dispositions change also (H, 34).

It is well known that Hobbes's interest in human dispositions and manners was
generated by a desire to provide a rationale for civil association and the decision
procedure it requires. Human nature in its passionate aspect is the prime candidate
for that which makes the commonwealth necessary. Since the study of human
dispositions has the point that it does, one might well expect Hobbes to distinguish
between dispositions on the basis of their effect on social life. This is precisely what
he does. Hobbes divides the passions into two classes, those which lead us to
'accommodate ourselves, and to leave others as far as we can behind us'; while on
the other side we have 'that passion by which we strive to accommodate each other
... charity' (ibid.). Exactly the same division can be found in De Cive and Leviathan,
but one finds the clearest formulation in De Homine where Hobbes asserts that
'good dispositions are those which are suitable for entering into civil society ...
dispositions contrary to these are wicked ... all virtues are contained in justice and
charity' (ibid., 35).
Captured in the gaze of civil philosophy, men dissolve into sets of dispositions
or politically relevant inclinations. Hence, when Hobbes claims, as he so often does,
that the known inclinations of mankind propel us into chaos if unchecked, he
should be understood as referring to the first of the above two classes of
dispositions. A failure to notice this results in the claim that Hobbes has issued a
blanket condemnation of human nature. Such a claim is patently false. As a
corrective we should look to De Cive where Hobbes carefully lays out his position
136

on the nature of human wickedness. He wants to license caution and foresight, both
of which are taken to be required by the exigencies of a situation where the identity
of the wicked (those evilly disposed to their fellows) is a mystery. It is not the case
that all men are so disposed, but simply that some are, and their presence creates
the problem. In a situation where many are self-accommodating to the detriment
of others, then to be other-regarding might amount to rendering oneself as prey.
However, this inclination to accommodate others appears in a new light when men
in groups act uniformly in accordance with their inclinations toward uncoerced
cooperation, that is, when they act in terms of the laws of nature:

For if men could rule themselves, every man by his own command, that is to say, could
they live according to the laws of nature, there would be no need at all of a city, nor of
a common coercive power (EW II, 81).

Since there is no clause about plenitude built into this conditional we can infer that
mere scarcity of goods is insufficient to engender war of all against all; other
insecurities based on the anticipated inclinations of others need to be brought into
play. Indifference, cruelty, and greed are corrosive in a way that scarcity is not.

4. Structural Properties and Character

I have argued that in one of its guises conatus is Hobbes's explanation of the deep-
structure of dispositions. By reference to such internal states Hobbes hopes to
explain what it is for things to have a disposition at all. Thus to be disposed in some
way or other entails being in some state or other, and hence having a property, or
set of properties in virtue of which the thing in question is enabled to interact in
certain ways.
From what we have seen it is obvious that Hobbes did not stop at giving an
account of what a disposition is. In conjecturing that the most basic particulars were
particles of small mass transcribing circle-like paths Hobbes was offering his
opinion as to what the physical basis for dispositions looked like. Luckily, the
strength of his view about what a disposition· is does not rest on the truth of his
conjecture. Indeed, the actual processes Hobbes alluded to can, I would suggest, be
bracketed out. They function as a placeholder for whatever physical account
actually explains the possession of a disposition.
Surprisingly, Hobbes does not seem to be committed to the view that a thing's
dispositions are identical with its structural properties, although he is certainly of
the opinion that the structural properties are sufficient to explain dispositions. That
dispositions are to be understood as a function of the relation between structures
comes out rather nicely in this passage from Chapter X of De Corpore:

The agent has power, if it be applied to a patient; and the patient has power, if it be
applied to an agent (EW I, 129).
 137

The point is simply that an enumeration of structural properties will not serve to
provide a full list of a thing's dispositions. In order to arrive at an understanding
of dispositional properties we need to know how other things are configured, and
then how the object under consideration stands causally to these others.
What is the significance of all this for Hobbes's position on the nature of human
character? If it were true to say that all men were selfish, then it would follow that
all men were, as a matter of fact, constituted in a structurally similar way. To say
this would be akin to saying that steel is elastic; where we are attempting to
characterize steel in terms of one of the properties it has in virtue of structure. As
I have explained it, Hobbes's position on conatus is preparatory to any account of
what dispositions something actually has. Hence with regard to human beings,
unless we were told some story to the effect that they could only acquire a specified
set of dispositions, we can safely assume that they are psychologically apt to acquire
those dispositions I have referred to above as passions. An enumeration of the
passions to which Hobbes draws our attention would be equivalent to an
enumeration of the ways in which parts of the brain, nerves, and center of vital
emotion can be configured. Since Hobbes does enumerate more or less the full
gamut of passions. virtues, and vices, it follows that men of significantly different
characters are possible. What range we actually find at anyone time and place will
be a contingent matter, depending on the functioning of the six determinants: bodily
constitution, experience, habit, goods of fortune, self-estimation, and authorities.
There are no barriers within human nature that would necessarily exclude the
acquisition of certain dispositions, but there are reasons to explain why characters
of the kind that we come across are as they are. The quick way of stating this point
is as follows: there is no internal constraint to the form that a Hobbesian man's
character can take, but there will be social or external constraints outlined in the
'six-fold' source of human dispositions.
Nothing that I have said excludes the possibility that all men at anyone time
might genuinely be egoistical. What I have denied is that Hobbes's theory about
how dispositions are based can commit him to the view that all men are egoistical.
Thus at the deepest strata of his psychology, Hobbes is uncommitted on the form
of human nature. If it were the case that a man found surprising uniformity in the
way that people behaved, then on Hobbesian grounds he would turn to those
determinants of character in order to try and find out why. That this was Hobbes's
own method, and that his analysis turned out to be a startling lesson in morbid
anatomy or social pathology, seems to have been clear to Sorbiere who saw Hobbes
as 'a gentle and skillful surgeon, who, with regret, cuts into the living flesh, to get
rid of the corrupted' .23
138

NOTES

F.S. McNeilly, 'Egoism in Hobbes', The Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 64 (July, 1966),
pp. 193-206, p. 193. B. Gert's paper, 'Hobbes, Mechanism, and Egoism' appeared in The Philosophical
Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 61 (October, 1965), pp. 341-349).
2 R.I. Aaron, 'A Possible Early Draft of Hobbes's De Corpore', Mind Vol. 52-53 (1944-45), pp.
342-355.
3 See A.I. Sabra, Theories oj Lightjrom Descartes to Newton (London, 1967), especially Chs. 1-3;
R. Westfall, Force in Newton's Physics (New York, 1971), Ch. 2; A. Shapiro, 'Light Pressure, and
Rectilinear Propogation: Descartes's Celestial Optics and Newton's Hydrostatics', in Studies in the
History and Philosophy oj Science Vol. 5 (1974), pp. 239-296.
4 R. Descartes, Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meteorology, translated by P.
Olscamp (Indianapolis, 1965), p. 34.
5 Ibid., p. 67.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., p. 68.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., p. 69.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., p. 70.
14 ibid.
15 From C. Adam and P. Tannery (eds.), Oeuvres de Descartes, Vol. 1, pp. 540-542.
16 F. Brandt, Thomas Hobbes's Mechanical Conception oj Nature (Copenhagen, 1928).
17 Ibid.
18 For this letter see Hobbes's LW V, 294-298. The quoted passage is from p. 296, and the
translation is that of Peter Remnant.
19 From M. Kohler, 'Studien zur Naturphilosophie des Th. Hobbes', Archiv jur Geschichte der
Philosophie Vol. 16 (1903), pp. 59-96; quote comes from p. 72.
20 Descartes, op.cit., p. 70.
21 L W V, 296. Once again, the translation is by Peter Remnant.
22 See C. Walton's 'The Philosophical Prima of Thomas Hobbes', in R. Ross, H.W. Schneider, and
T. Waldman (eds.), Thomas Hobbes in His Time (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974),
pp. 34-41.
23 Quoted by I. Disraeli in his Literary Miscellanies, (London, 1840), p. 309.
 139

9. HOBBES AND THE WOLF-MAN

Paul J. Johnson

California State University, San Bernardino, California

A few years ago when I was living in Spain, I depended in part on the London Times
Literary Supplement to keep me abreast of developments in the English speaking
literary and intellectual worlds. On unfolding the latest issue one morning, I was
greeted by a bold-face headline proclaiming 'The Hobbesian world of the
Amazonian Jungle'. The headline writer had, of course, hit on a nearly infallible
way of communicating with his educated readers. They would know Hobbes's name
and if they remembered anything at all about him from their school days, it would
be that he held men to be vicious, wolflike creatures who preyed without stop or
relent against one another. And so Hobbes's name could be depended on to inform
the readers of the supplement that if they read the trailing article, they would be
treated to juicy tales of savage atrocities, in this case among the steamy vines and
ferns of Brazil. Such has been the fate of Thomas Hobbes. This timid, scholarly
man who detested war, and who expended his best energies in trying to persuade
his contemporaries to cooperation, accommodation and peace, had come in the 20th
century to be a symbol for all that is worst in human nature. Branded the Monster
of Malmsbury in his own lifetime, he is remembered three hundred years later as
the great maligner of human nature.
Few scholarly myths are more popular or more persistent than this one. If a
search were to be made of textbooks of the history of political thought in use in
universities around the world over the last two hundred years, I doubt if any could
be found that did not somewhere inform us that Hobbes believed men to be wolves
to men. Indeed, the myth was in place before Hobbes's death.
In 1672 John Eachard, the wittiest of all Hobbes's critics, published Mr.
Hobbes's State of Nature considered: In a Dialogue between Philautus and
Timothy. Philautus, who represents Hobbes, refuses to precede his newly met
acquaintance Timothy into a garden exclaiming:

No, I thank you, unless I knew your tricks better: you may chance to get behind me and
bite me by the Leggs. Let them take a turn with you that have not search'd in the
Fundamental Laws oj humane nature, and first rise of Cities and Societies. I know better
than to trust myself with one I never saw before, I have but one body, and I desire to carry
it home all to my chamber.

c. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
140

A bit later, having been reassured that his heels won't be snapped at, Philautus lets
Timothy in on his great discovery.

Then as a secret Tim, I must tell thee, that men nurturally [Sic] are all ravenous and
currish, of a very snarling and biting nature; to be short, they are in themselves mere
Wolves. Tygers. and Centaures. I

From his own day to ours, our understanding of Hobbes's philosophy has been
hindered by this wolf-man thesis, that, to borrow a few more words from Eachard,
'all men naturally are Bears, Dragons, Lyons, Wolves, Rogues, Raskalls .. .'. 2
Scholars, with I suspect, something like the delicious, naughty thrill teenagers get
at vampire films, have seized upon Hobbes's phrase, 'man to man is an arrant
wolf') to support the notion that Hobbes saw the source of man's political ills to
be his innate wickedness and ruthless competitiveness. But this view trivializes
Hobbes's theory. If men are by nature nothing but ravening beasts, then, of course,
there is nothing to be done with them except leave them to fight it out or cage them
around with bars wrought of fear and superior force. But Hobbes saw deeper than
this and the significance of his tracing of the source of political problems to human
nature lies quite in a different place.
In what follows, I shall try to dispel the wolf-man myth first, by showing that
passages notoriously cited to support it do not in fact give it any support. Then I
will look at what Hobbes has to say most directly about human nature and at his
psychology in order to show just what it is about the nature of man, as Hobbes sees
it, that lies at the root of man's problems in living peacefully with other men.
Finally, I will note briefly two ways in which this view of Hobbes makes our
perspective clearer regarding some key elements in his political philosophy.-
Certainly the text most frequently cited to support the Wolf-man thesis is the one
where the phrase linking men and wolves occurs. I will quote the passage in full so
the context of the phrase will be evident.

To speak impartially both sayings are very true: that man to man is a kind oj God; and
that man to man is an arrant wolf. The first is true if we compare citizens amongst
themselves; and the second if we compare cities. In the one there is some analogy and
similitude with Deity; to wit, justice and charity, the twin sisters of peace. But in the other,
good men must defend themselves by taking to them the two daughters of war, deceit and
violence; that is, in plain terms, mere brutal rapacity (EW II, ii).

Now it should be clear to anyone reading this passage with attention that it has
nothing whatever to do with human nature. There are no references whatever in it
to human nature and nothing in it that supplies the foundation for any definite
inferences about human nature. What it does refer to is how men may behave
toward one another, first in their social roles as citizens, where they are 'god'-like,
and second, how they may be forced to act when combined into 'cities' or states at
war. In this latter situation, when their countries are at war, here Hobbes says 'good
 141

men' (and I emphasize the word 'good') may be forced by circumstances to become
deceitful, violent and, generally wolfish. There is no more justification for citing the
'arrant wolf' phrase as a summary of Hobbes's view of human nature in this passage
than there would be for going around saying Hobbes thought humans were divine.
If there is any conclusion at all that can be drawn from this passage about Hobbes's
view of human nature, it is that man's nature gives him the potential for both god-
like and wolf-like behavior.
A second passage, not quite so popularly known, but frequently enough cited by
scholars when commenting on Hobbes's alleged 'low and cynical view of human
nature', as one scholar has phrased it, is the extended metaphoric comparison of
man's life to a race which appears in the Elements oj Law. This race, Hobbes says,
'we must suppose to have no other goal, nor other garland, but being foremost ... ' .
In this race

To endeavor, is appetite. To be remiss, is sensuality. To consider them behind, is glory.

To consider them before, is humility. To lose ground with looking back, is vainglory. To
be holden, hatred ... To endeavor to overtake the next, emulation. To supplant or
overthrow, envy.

And the comparison ends,

Continually to be outgone, is misery. Continually out-go the next before, is felicity. And
to forsake the course, is to die (E, 36-37).

Now all this sounds brutal and rapacious enough. But it might be worthwhile here
to remind ourselves of Hobbes's own admonitions about metaphors. He was well
aware of the traps to clear thought they contain and warned us that they 'can never
be true grounds of ratiocination'. A metaphor is a comparison between things
substantially different which nonetheless share enough similarities to permit the
highlighting of certain characteristics. It is a device of rhetoric, not of reasoning.
Any attempts to draw the comparisons too tightly or to draw consequences from
beyond their immediate use, are likely to result in mistakes. It would be
embarrassing to rehearse such elementary points were it not the case that so many
readers of Hobbes, scholars among them, take the race metaphor as evidence
favoring the wolf-man thesis.
Hobbes did not intend the race metaphor to carry this suggestion and provided
his readers with sufficient warnings as to how it was to be taken. Indeed, within the
body of the comparison itself there are times which ought to give the careful reader
pause. For instance,

To turn back, repentance ... To see one out-gone we would not, is pity ... To hold fast
by another, is love To carry him on that so holdeth, is charity (E, 37).

What, one might very well ask, are repentance, pity, charity and love doing in
142

comparison of life to a mad race to get ahead of one's fellows? A moment's

reflection will show that the descriptions of these passions are inconsistent with the
supposition on which the race image is based, that is, the supposition that life has
no other goal than being foremost, if that supposition is taken somehow to be a
summary of human motivation. What can turning back, concern for another's loss,
holding fast to another and helping him along have to do with men whose only
motivation is getting to be foremost? The answer is, nothing.
But, again, Hobbes did not intend the race metaphor as a general description of
human life, nor its 'win-at-all-costs' supposition as a summary of human motives.
The context in which the race image is introduced makes this clear. The comparison
is introduced as a mnemonic device to aid in remembering some details of Hobbes's
reductive account of the passions. And in introducing this race metaphor, Hobbes
is careful to warn his readers against illegitimate extensions of it.

The comparison of the life of man to a race, though it holdeth not in every point, yet it
holdeth so well for this our purpose, that we may thereby see and remember almost all
the passions before mentioned (EW IV, 52).

Hobbes clearly enough warns us that the comparison does not hold overall, but only
for his limited purpose of providing an aid to memory.
Another warning flag occurs when Hobbes notes that if his metaphor is to work,
it is necessary to 'suppose' the race to have no other goal than getting ahead of
others. But Hobbes does not embrace this supposition, nor does he recommend it
to his readers beyond its immediate use. The one desire Hobbes holds all men
naturally to share is avoiding early death; not precedence over others. And certainly
to desire to live one's life to its natural term is not identical with desiring to out-do
everyone else. On the contrary, fear of early death, Hobbes sees as the motivating
force leading men to seek peaceful cooperation in social schemes which will aid all
in living a full life. And so, when we read carefully, we can see that the race image,
like the wolf image, tells us nothing about Hobbes's concept of human nature.
At this point an objection is likely to arise going something like this. 'You've
shown clearly enough that the wolf passage and the race image are not summaries
of human nature and motivation, but still Hobbes does describe human life as a
ceaseless progression from desire to desire where the only possible human happiness
is a continual satisfaction of these endless desirings one after the other. Because this
is so, he concludes clearly enough that human life must become a restless quest for
power after power. And doesn't this imply a human nature that must lead to endless
natural competition among men just as the race image would suggest'?
This objection brings us directly to the third locus classicus to which supporters
of the wolf-man myth repair. This is the passage in Leviathan where Hobbes denies
the existence of any 'utmost aim' or 'greatest good' for man. The critical passage
continues:
 143

Nor can a man anymore live, whose desires are at an end, than he whose senses and
imagination are at a stand. Felicity is the continual progress of the desire, from one object
to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the latter. The cause
whereof is, that the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for the instant
of time; but to assure forever the way to his future desire ... So that in the first place,
I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after
power, that ceaseth only in death (EW III, 85-86).

There are several things worth noting about this passage. To begin with the least
important, we should not allow the term 'restless' in the phrase 'perpetual and
restless desire for power after power' to suggest to us a driving attempt to do
mischief to other's interests. 'Restless' here can be taken in the most literal sense,
'without rest' or, in another word, 'ceaselessly'. The whole passage quoted is a
prime example of Hobbes's unremitting attempt to reduce all matters psychological
to instances of physical principles. The denial of an utmost aim or greatest good for
man and the notion that desire is an endless process are part and parcel of Hobbes's
general concern to deny the Aristotelian notion that rest is the natural state of bodies
and to put motion in the primary metaphysical position. The phrase 'perpetual and
restless' is redundant and 'restless' carries no pejorative connotations.
The second point to notice is that both desire and power are open or formal
notions. 'Desire' for Hobbes is synonymous with 'appetite' which is defined as an
endeavor 'toward something which causes it' (EW III, 39) either through sense or
through imagination. 4 And Hobbes holds that very few appetites are natural to
man; he mentions only appetites for food and for 'excretion and exoneration' and
says there are a few more but 'not many' (ibid., 40). 'The rest', he goes on, 'which
are appetites for particular things, proceed from experience and trial of their effects
on themselves or other men. For of things we know not at all, we can have no
further desire, than to taste and try'. In other words, what a man happens restlessly
to desire depends on his own constitution and on his past experience. Among the
objects of desire Hobbes mentions are not only things like riches, honor and
command, which to a degree cannot be shared and tend to foster competition, but
other more peaceful things which can be shared, such as ease, sensual indulgence,
knowledge and the leisure to pursue it (ibid., 86-87). Such things indeed, are most
successfully sought cooperatively, not competitively. This list of what we might call
peaceful desires could be indefinitely extended; family, friends, amusement, science,
business, art; in general most of those things without which life would be indeed
poor, nasty and brutish.
And what of the means to these? The 'power of a man', as oppposed to power
generally, Hobbes defines as 'his present means; to obtain some future good' (ibid.,
74). Clearly what one seeks in his restless desire for power after power will depend
on what one believes to be good, that is, what one desires as ends. And so what
counts as a power is as diverse as the things men desire. Among what he calls
'natural powers' Hobbes mentions strength, form, prudence, arts, eloquence,
144

liberality, and nobility. Among 'instrumental powers' are such things as friends,
reputation and good luck (ibid.). Such lists hardly make the restless desire for power
after power look like a mad, wolf-eat-wolf scramble.
And, of course, it is important to note that of all the various powers men may
desire, of all the various means to their future good they may restlessly seek, peace
is the most potent. The main thrust of Hobbes's message to his contemporaries was
that anyone with half his wits about him will 'restlessly' seek peace as the only sure
'power' with which to secure his future life and any possible future goods.
The point then, is that the endless process of desire and ceaseless quest for powers
do not tell us anything about what men naturally desire or anything about how they
would naturally seek what they desire. Certainly neither implies that the only thing
men naturally seek is dominance over others or that their way of seeking what they
do desire would be vicious or wolfish.
Each of these passages contains a powerful and disturbing image, men as wolves
to men, a race where there is no goal but beating one's fellows, a resless quest for
power. Hobbes's considerable powers as a writer and rhetorician have betrayed him
here and led to misunderstanding. Even among careful readers, such images become
fixed in the imagination and tend to remain long after the contexts, the caveats and
definitions necessary to proper understanding have faded away.
Hobbes, I think, felt that he needed vivid images to jar the minds of his readers
awake. It is important to keep in mind that Hobbes always had a dual motive when
writing his political works; he was trying to construct a political science that would
give men the understanding necessary to preserve peace and, at the same time, he
was struggling to affect his contemporaries in an immediate, practical way.
Hobbes's works are no mere academic exercises in political theorizing, but attempts
to motivate willful men caught up in conflict, toward the inestimable value of peace.
In a footnote he added to De Cive, discussing whether men were born fit for society,
Hobbes notes that' ... civil societies are not mere meetings, but bonds, to the making
whereof, faith and compacts are necessary: the virtue whereof to children and fools,
and the profit whereof to those who have not yet tasted the miseries which
accompany its defect, is altogether unknown' (EWII, 2, n.). It is especially the latter
group that forms an important part of Hobbes's intended audience. As he says in
the same note, it is 'education' and not nature which makes men fit for society.
Most men perhaps, 'either through defect of mind or want of education, remain
unfit For society during the whole course of their lives'.
His desire to capture the imagination of those of his contemporaries who could
be educated led Hobbes to create vivid metaphors and, sometimes, I think, to
overstate the negative side of his case. But, at the same time, he was careful enough
to give us the means to understand his theory stripped of the rhetoric. And at this
distance in time there is no reason for us to fail to heed his textual warnings and
become overheated by his rhetorical images.
Now we must approach more directly the problem of human nature as the source
of the difficulties of social life.
 145

Certainly Hobbes saw nature dissociating man. In the 'Preface to the Reader' in
De Cive he lays it down that men are such, that 'except they be restrained through
fear of some coercive power, every man will distrust and dread each other ... '.
(ibid., XIV). Immediately, however, and at considerable length, he denies that this
is because men are wicked by nature.

But, this, that men are wicked by nature, follows not from this principle. For though the
wicked were fewer than the righteous, yet because we cannot distinguish them, there is
a necessity of suspecting, heeding, anticipating, subjugating, self-defending, ever incident
to the most honest and fairest conditioned' (ibid., XV).

It may be that Hobbes, in fact, believed the wicked to outnumber the righteous. But
here as elsewhere, he always recognizes that there are some righteous ones, 'honest
and fair conditioned'. In any case, whatever the relative numbers of the righteous
and the wicked, Hobbes goes further and denies even that wicked men are wicked
by nature. He continues,

Much less does it follow, that those who are wicked, are so by nature. For though by
nature, that is their first birth, as they are merely sensible creatures, they have this
disposition, that immediately as much as in them lies, they desire and do whatsoever is
best pleasing to them, and either through fear they fly from, or through hardness repel
those dangers which approach them; yet are not for this reason to be accounted wicked.
For the affections which arise only from the lower parts of the soul, are not wicked of
themselves ...

Just then, as children may cry and rage and 'even strike their parents' and yet are
not wicked, so

grown strong and sturdy, or a man of childish disposition; nature ought to be better
governed through good education and experience (ibid..

And, Hobbes concludes,

Unless therefore we will say that men are naturally evil, because they receive not their
education and use of reason from nature, we must needs acknowledge that men may
derive desire, fear, anger and other passions from nature, and yet not impute the evil
effects of these unto nature (ibid.).

I have followed this passage at some length, because it draws attention away from
the titillating images of ravening wolves toward the much less exciting but very much
more important issue of education. Hobbes says here, as clearly as could be wished,
that men are not evil by nature, but to borrow the term popular in the twentieth
century, by nurture. If men are wicked, it is in part at least for want of 'good
education and experience'. 5 One is reminded of Mill's comment in On Liberty that
'If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up mere children,
146

incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has

itself to blame for the consequences'. Whatever his critics and commentators may
think, Hobbes does not believe that man's nature is inherently wicked. And this
must be kept in mind when looking at other places where Hobbes attributes the
source of men's quarrelling to their nature.
For example, when he is explaining why the state of nature is a war of all against
all he says, ' ... that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel.
First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory' (EW III, 112). But two of
these three seem to have little, if anything, to do with man's nature and Hobbes is
surely loose in speaking in this way. Competition, he explains, results from two or
more men happening to desire some unshareable good. Hobbes does not suggest
that men will compete over just any goods or that there is in their nature some innate
competitiveness which forces them to quarrel. The problem here seems to lie in the
nature of some goods, being unshareable, than in the nature of man.
Diffidence does arise from man's natural tendency to take foresight for his own
welfare and it is this that leads those who 'would be glad to be at ease within modest
bounds' to adopt a first strike strategy in the state of nature. They must do this
because, unless they 'by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long
time, by standing only on their defence, to subsist' (ibid.).6 But the tendency to take
foresight for one's own welfare does not of itself engender quarrel. This foresight
would not become the fearful foresight called 'diffidence' and lead to battle if there
were not something out there in other men causing the fear. And this brings us to
glory, the apparent villain in the piece. Hobbes gives this definition of glorying: 'Joy
arising from imagination of one's own power and ability, is that exultation of the
mind which is called GLORYING .. .'. (ibid., 45). And those for whom glory has
become a primary value do indeed constitute a danger to modest men. But the
critical point to notice here, is that glory is not a part of man's nature either. For
if it were, then there would be no, nor could there be any, modest men. Neither
modesty nor glory is inherent in man's nature. So despite Hobbes's language, it does
not appear that we can find in the notions of competition, diffidence or glory any
way by which man's political problems are rooted in his nature.
What makes social life difficult and problematic for men is not that they are
innately wicked or inherently vain-glorious or naturally competitive. For Hobbes,
the source of the problem lies deeper in man's nature than that. To see this, it is
necessary to rehearse some of the familiar basic elements of Hobbes's theory of
human psychology.
In Watkin's phrase, 'man, according to Hobbes's picture of him, is a sort of engine
governed by its mainspring, our heart'. 7 The way men come to have desires or
appetites (the two are synonymous for Hobbes) is as follows: Whenever any motion
is set up in the body, either from incoming sensation, from imagination, or the
disturbance of some organ, that motion eventually reaches the heart, the center of
the organism's vital motion, its life. In those cases when the incoming motion is
 147

considerable enough to influence the vital motion, the impact tends either to
reinforce or to retard and damp it out. In the first case, the organism responds with
a minute, incipient motion, called by Hobbes an 'endeavour', to retain contact with
the helping motion or its source. In the case where the incoming motion hinders the
vital motion, the endeavour is away from the motion or its source. And so the effect
of any incoming motion impinging on the heart is 'nothing but motion or
endeavour; which consisteth in appetite, or aversion, to or from the object moving.
But the apparence [sic] or sense of that motion, is what we call delight or trouble
oj mind' (EW III, 42). Or, in still more ordinary parlance, pleasure or pain.
Now, as we saw before, man has very few innate appetites or desires for particular
things or sorts of things; Hobbes mentions only appetites for food and excretion
plus a few more which he finds too negligible to mention. Whatever else in
particular we happen to come to desire depends entirely on our experience and
constitution. And since no two men can be expected to share the same experience
and constitution, there is no natural uniformity of desire among men. Hobbes goes
still further. Even if two men did happen to share the same experience, still they
woul not have the same desires. Indeed, the same or similar experiences do not even
generate the same or similar desires in one man.

Because the constitution of a man's body is in continual mutation, it is impossible that

all the same things should always cause in him the same appetites, and aversions; much
less can all men consent, in the desire of almost anyone and the same object (ibid., 40-41).

This same chaotic individuality of response carries over into the passions, as we have
already seen, and into men's conceptions and into their language.
Conceptions come about, when incoming motions of sensation reach the brain
where they are retained in a manner about which Hobbes is not completely clear.
Here again the individuality and variability of experience results in a kind of chaos.

Seeing the succession of conceptions in the mind are caused, ... by the succession they had
to one another when they were produced by the senses, and that there is no conception
that hath not been produced immediately before or after innumerable others, by
innumerable acts of sense; it must needs follow that one conception followeth not another
according to our election, and the need we have of them, but as it chanceth us to hear
or see such things as shall bring them to our mind (E, 13).

One of the things that makes man superior to the animals, who have the same
problem, is that we can grasp the cause and invent words to act as markers helping
us keep our place and direction in trains of thought. But here again, a confusing
welter breaks out because

... there be many conceptions of one and the same thing and for every conception we give
it a several name; it followeth that for one and the same, we have many names ... And
again, because from diverse things we receive like conceptions, many things must needs
have the same appellation (ibid., 15).
148

And so words may be equivocal and beyond that they may be shaped into sentences
which may be false or meaningless, they may be invented and said over when there
is nothing for them to correspond to, or with no images in our minds; we may draw
inferences from chains of sentences fallaciously and so on through the whole
complicated litany of possible linguistic confusions Hobbes explores.
And so,

... if we consider the power of ... deceptions of sense ... and also how unconstantly names
have been settled, and how subject they are to equivocation, and how diversified by
passion, (scarce two men agreeing what is to be called good, and what evil; what liberality;
what prodigality; what valor, what temerity) and how subject men are to paralogism and
fallacy ... (ibid., 18),

if we consider all that, then we can see what. it is about the nature of men that
dissociates them. It is not that they are innately wicked or vicious, nor that they are
inherently competitive glory seekers. It is that they are irretrievably individuals in
their experience. And because they are individual in experience, they are individual
in their conceptions and in their speech. Their power of reasoning with words, which
gives them such an enormous potential advantage over animals, only further
dissociates them and provokes violent competition rather than fostering cooperative
harmony. And so, since men are by nature such radical individuals, they have no
natural ground for community; indeed, they have no natural ground even for
communication.
When Hobbes surveys the characteristics of man that make him different from
social animals such as bees and ants, it is to such factors that he appeals (EW II,
66-68; EW III, 155-157). In the social animals there is a natural harmony of
appetites in that the common good 'differs not from their private' good; whatever
their powers of communication may be, they lack the 'art of words ... whereby good
is represented as being better, and evil as worse than in truth it is'. Because they
cannot reason in words, 'they see no defect, or think they see none, in the
administration of their commonwealths'. Further they do not distinguish between
right and wrong (E, 80), and finally, their consent being naturally harmonious, they
do not compete for honor and preferment as some, though not all, men do.
And so what it is about men's natures that separates them and what lies at the
root of men's political difficulties is not some vicious, wolfish inherent nature. It
is rather man's radical individualism, radical because his indivuality extends to the
very roots of his knowledge and character.
When this is seen, Hobbes looks very different from the mythic figure we have
enshrined in our histories of political thought. For example, we can see that for
Hobbes there can be no practical problem of how men get out of the state of nature.
It is clear enough that if men ever fell into such a state, they would never get out
of it, for their lives there would not only be poor, nasty, brutish and short. They
would also be solitary. And not just in the sense that they would not live in cities,
 149

but more radically in that they would be isolated from one another by the
individuality of their conception and speech. For while men in such a state might
have words to use as markers for the things they wished to remember by themselves,
there would be no community of meaning or reference on which the use of signs
for communication could be founded.
This point merely reinforces what should have been obvious enough from
Hobbes's own account of his methodology, namely that the state of nature for
Hobbes is not a real state presenting men with practical problems, but what we
would now call an ideal limiting case as are the concepts of a pure inertial state or
a frictionless plane in physics. And Hobbes need no more provide a solution to how
men in the state of nature are to get out of it, than a physicist must provide us with
a way to get a body moving in a pure inertial state to curve. Practical solutions are
irrelevant to conceptual problems. Hobbes was not providing a recipe for men in
the state of nature on how to cook up a civil society, but rather he was attempting
to point out to men living in civil societies what they must understand and accept
about themselves and their social arrangements, if they were to avoid stepping onto
a very slippery slope on which they might slide ever closer to the state of pure chaos
which the state of nature conceptually represents. And so I am afraid the efforts
that have gone, and continue to go, into solving what is taken to be Hobbes's
problem of effecting a transition from the state of nature to a civil state, whether
embellished with game theory and prisoner's dilemmas or not, have little to do with
Hobbes, however interesting they may be in themselves.
One further example. Once we are disabused ofthe wolf-man thesis, the sovereign
function in Hobbes's political theory can also be seen in a clearer light. The
sovereign's function is not to impose a kind of order based merely on superior force
and an excess of terror. The sovereign function, given men's radical individuality
of passionate attachment and conception, is more fundamental than that. Because
of men's individuality they need some 'sovereign power to set forth and make
known the common measure by which every man knows what is his and what
anothers; what is good and what is bad, what he ought to do and what not, and
to command the same to be observed' (EW, 87). One of the primary functions of
the sovereign is to provide the necessary unity of meaning and reference of the
primary terms in which men try to conduct their social lives. Without this 'common
measure' social life would quickly degenerate toward a civil war of each against
each.
And, as an extension of this function, the sovereign must above all be a teacher.
Because men are open at birth and malleable by experience, the critical function of
the sovereign is to shape their appetites and wills into molds that support social
peace. He does this primarily by instructing them in the grounds and reasons
underlying the sovereign rights. This is necessary because, as Hobbes clearly
recognizes, a society cannot be maintained by force or terror, but only by the
cooperation of the people. This is most clearly spelled out in Chapter 30 of
150

Leviathan, 'Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative'. Here Hobbes points out
that it is against the sovereign's duty

to let the people be ignorant or misinformed of the grounds and reasons of his essential
rights, because thereby men are easy to be seduced and drawn to resist him, when the
commonwealth shall require their use and exercise. And the ground of these rights have
the rather need to be diligently and truly taught, because they cannot be maintained by
any civil law or terror oj legal punishment (EW III, 323, my emphasis).

And Hobbes did not think there should be great difficulty in doing this for, as he
puts it, 'the common peoples' minds ... are like clean paper, fit to receive
whatsoever by public authority shall be imprinted upon them' (ibid., 325).
As I have attempted to illustrate, Hobbes's political philosophy looks very
different when we see that it rests on a view of human nature which recognizes the
essential individuality of men rather than seeing it resting on a view of men as
vicious animals who must be controlled by terror. It is a less dramatic and exciting
picture, but a more significant one. For Hobbes introduces into modern thought the
problem of how the tensions between individual needs and rights and the necessary
requirements of social unity are to be resolved. In doing this he lays the foundation
for modern liberal democratic theory.
Hobbes has often been called a pessimist. But this too is extreme. What is
pessimistic in Hobbes is that given men's irremedial individuality, we cannot hope
for a utopia where laws backed by force will be unnecessary. The individuality of
men's constitutions and experiences will always producesome men who value glory
over more pacific goods. But there is a hopeful note in Hobbes as well. Because
man's nature at birth is open, to some degree his experiences may be guided and
consequently the set of his dispositions and appetites may be formed by society.
Education can make men fit for society, or at least, may bend its efforts toward
doing so, knowing it has some hope of success. And so there is hope, as education
for peace becomes more widespread, that the necessity of using force and fear will
decline as more and more men learn that the cooperative pursuit of peaceful ends
constitutes their individual good. And when Hobbes is freed from his mythic
identity. perhaps, as he once hoped, the reading of Leviathan may itself truly
contribute to that goal which Hobbes most fervently desired for all men; a secure
and lasting peace.
 151

NOTES

J. Eachard (London: Nath. Brooke, 1672), p. 3.

2 ibid., p. 31.
3 Even scholars who should know better are apt to misremember this passage when in need of a scare
phrase. See Willis Glover's casual misquotation when he refers to 'the anti-social aggressiveness of man
the arrant wolf', in 'Human Nature and the State in Hobbes', Journal oj the History oj Philosophy V,
(1966), p. 305. For a sampling of other scholars who misuse the passage 1 cite see John Laird, Hobbes,
(London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1934), Richard Peters, Hobbes, (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1956), and
F.S. McNeilly, 'Egoism in Hobbes', Philosophical Quarterly XVI (1966).
4 Cf. also EW III, xi-xii, 146, and EW II, 47.
5 Hobbes's project of constructing a science of politics makes better sense in this light. If men were
condemned by their nature to perpetual aggression against one another, such labor is certainly wasted.
Someone will surely try to seize power and reign and others will just as surely try to displace him,
interminably.
6 Cf. EW II, 7.
7 J. W.N. Watkins, Hobbes's System oj Ideas (London: Hutchinson Universal Library, 1965), p. 77.
There are a number of points about Hobbes's theory of the passions which might be made here if space
permitted. The fundamental mistake is to read this account of the various passions as though they were
phenomenological descriptions of intropectable states rather than as the reductive causal explanations
Hobbes intends them to be. On this question Watkins's section on 'Egocentricity' (pp. 75-80) is most
helpful. Also, see David Hume's remarks on 'Hobbists' in Appendix II on 'Self Love' in the Enquiry
Concerning the Principles oj Morals. Prior to Watkins Hume was about the only one to get this issue
right.
 153

10. METAMORPHOSIS OF THE IDEA OF RIGHT IN

THOMAS HOBBES'S PHILOSOPHY

Simone Goyard-Fabre

University of Caen, France

Hobbes is generally regarded as a political thinker, not as a philosopher of law. He

himself invites this assessment when he claims that he is the father of political
philosophy - which for him is the same as political science. Because his purpose is
scientific, he undertakes an examination of the foundations of Res pUblica. This
aspect of his thought has remained unnoticed, probably because his suggestions on
this point are not precise enough. Nevertheless, they constitute a very new intuition
concerning juridical notions.
I want to show that Hobbes achieves a radical transformation of the idea of JUS.
The word itself - JUS or RIGHT - is changed in meaning and takes on a new form.
In the first section, I shall present the philosophical requisites of this
metamorphosis. In the second, I shall show the mechanism whereby it works. And
in the third, I shall try to measure its extraordinary efficacy, though three centuries
have been necessary to decipher it.

1. Novel Philosophical Prerequisites in Hobbes's Philosophical Science

1.1

First, consider his definitions of RIGHT.

In De Corpore Politico (§6), Hobbes says: 'Right or Jus is a blameless liberty of

using our own natural power and ability'. Therefore, RIGHT is a right of nature:
'every man may preserve his own life and limbs, with all the power he hath'.
Leviathan (Ch. XIV) repeats: 'The right of nature is the liberty each man hath
to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature,
that is to say, of his own life'.
Hobbes adds in both texts that if a man has a right to the end, he also has a right
to the means necessary to reach this end; and that, without going against reason.
This definition alone is a program. It is a philosophical commitment. RIGHT is
natural right, jus naturale. It is individual; its source is in the individual's will. It

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science oj Natural Justice', ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhojj Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
154

results from a set of forces: it is a power or liberty: it is aimed at the preservation

of life; and it is in keeping with reason to adopt necessary means to this end.
Hobbes's connotations of the word RIGHT are so rich that we have to do with one
of the most important terms in his philosophy. Hobbes's desire for originality in this
matter is signaled by a double set of requirements, psychological and individualistic.

1.2

It is significant that Hobbes does not use the traditional notion of dikaion or justum
which denotes the universal order of things established by God. In Aristotle's
philosophy, for example, jus naturale participates in the world's harmony. But in
Hobbes's philosophy, natural right derives from human nature.
Moreover Hobbes refuses 'vain philosophy' and 'fabulous traditions' because
they are not science but only dreams expressed in absurd language. Because he
thinks of human nature from a physical perspective, he defines jus as a power in
human nature. Consequently, he gives a new meaning to jus naturale. It is nothing
other than a set of forces. This is to say that there is a perfect congeniality between
human nature and physics in general.
Thus Hobbes can use an analytical method in discussing human nature and in
shaping his political science. Indeed, the recent mechanistic science of Mersennne
and Galileo has taught him the importance of individual and atomistic elements.
And so he rejects the idea of human nature as an entity with general or abstract
features. Rather, it is a concrete and experiencable reality. It is the reality itself of
the individual. Hence, in harmony with the via moderna opened by Ockham's
nominalism, he defines right as a power which is an individual and singular
property. It is here that we find the roots of the metamorphosis of right.
In fact, the idea of justum, which was the centerpiece of a theory of right in
Aristotelian thought, is now eclipsed. Hobbes does not say, 'jus is 'quod justum
est'. According to him, suum cuique tribuere does not indicate the essence of right.
Not only is right a power or a strength, but it is each indivudual's own power.
Natural right is a specific quality of each individual subject. Right belongs to every
man. And we must note that the fiction of the state of nature or natural condition
of men is a consequence of a plurality of singular beings. They are human atoms,
each with a life of his own. They are individuals.

1.3

However, there is a paradox in this notion of an individual natural right. Such a

right has no juridical connotations. Hobbes insists that right is power, strength or
liberty. The meaning of these terms is the one that they have in physical science. So
 155

founded, right can determine neither mine nor thine, neither property, nor justice,
nor legitimacy, nor morality. It is mere conatus, an irreducible will to live.
Consequently, the first task of a Hobbesian political science is to evade the
greatest misery of a condition characterized by mere natural right.

2. The Mechanisms of the Metamorphosis of Right

The metamorphosis of right finds its raison d'etre in the misery and contradictions
of natural right.

2.1

According to De Corpore Politico (I, 21), in order to apprehend the essence of

natural right, we must 'consider in which estate of security our nature hath placed
us, and what probability it hath left us of continuing and preserving ourselves
against the violence of one another'. In Leviathan (Ch. XIII), Hobbes specifies that
his search for essentials is possible only by means of a methodological fiction which
consists in striking out all acquisitions men have gained by strength and ingenuity
within civil society. When there is no place for industry, navigation, agriculture,
science, arts, and so on, men's lives become 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and
short'. The problem is not to know whether this 'state of nature' is real or not. It
is to 'perceive what manner of life there would be, where there were no common
power to fear'. (Leviathan, Ch. XIII). Rigorous reasoning provides the answer:
Men would live according to their nature; they would obey the network of immanent
forces constituting human nature. This network of forces is the interplay of the
natural rights of individuals. In the state of nature, human life would be in perfect
conformity with right.
But, by nature, men are equal. From the equality of ability which accompanies
their equality of needs, men derive an equal hope of attaining their ends. Such
natural individualism does not mean the triumph of solipsism. It leads instead to
a coexistence which is nothing more than a confrontation of equal forces. This is
the great misery oj natural right. Because jus naturale is absolute in everyone, men
are enemies. In order to ensure his own life, each man endeavors to destroy or to
subdue every other (Leviathan, Ch. XXIII). This savage conflict, like a play of
mirrors, reinforces and reverberates to infinity the interactions among acts and
risks. It becomes a universal conflagration. It is the war of man versus man. Since
even 'the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest', either by secret
machination, or by confederacy with others, that war is merciless.
Even though the natural condition of man conforms to right, it fails to provide
him with any security. On the contrary, coexistence is a hell in which risk is
156

permanent and death always threatens. Fear and terror prevailing in the state of
nature come less from violence than from risks attending the invention of
instrumental powers. Human reason multiplies these augmented natural powers by
means of a cynical arithmetic. When the natural condition of men conforms to jus
naturale, it is lawless and is undermined by the horrible timor mortis insinuating
itself always in everyone. The perfidious and omnipresent image of death is the
sinister counterpart of natural right.
Therefore, when the individual is left to his own powers, he uses his right, or his
natural and instrumental strengths, in a struggle for life in which he is sure to be
subdued: homo homini lUpus. Natural right is for man the index of his misery. On
that point, Hobbes's individualism and naturalism are opposed to an Aristotelian
political ethics and to any Ciceronean jus naturale in metapolitics. For Hobbes's
philosophy, there is nothing left of the classical doctrine of jus naturale. The idea
of right is deprived of value because the idea of nature is devoid of all metaphysical
meaning. Nature itself has only the physical meaning of a mechanistic science.
Consequently, natural right cannot be defined by its quest for objective justum. It
is neither a moral possibility nor a juridical category. It is a raw fact, the primordial
datum of life: 'a necessity of nature', expressed in quantitative terms as physical
determination. In other words, it expresses a relation of forces which is irrelevant
to regulation and normalization. And when Hobbes identifies the power of natural
right with individual liberty , he does not indicate any ethical or metaphysical aspect
of right. Liberty is understood in its mechanistic meaning, which is merely the
'absence of external impediments' (Leviathan, Ch. XIV) in the exercise of the
individual's powers. In this context, natural right and war are twins. Polemos is at
home in the state of nature.

2.2

The collusion between universal war and natural right is so tight that where one is
present, the other immediately arises. In this dismal condition, Hobbes discerns
contradictions, which must be transcended. In seeking to transcend these
contradictions, Hobbes totally transforms the concept of right.
When we examine the relation between lex naturalis and jus naturale, the
contradictions inherent in natural right appear. This problem introduces a semantic
confusion which gives the terms lex and jus some very special meanings.
Lexicographical precision is necessary.

2.2a. According to Hobbes, it is a mistake to confuse jus with lex as a certain

tradition has done. RIGHT 'consisteth in liberty to do or to forbear'. LA W
'determineth and bindeth to liberty one of them'. 'So that law, and right, differ as
much as obligation, and liberty', which, says Hobbes, 'in one and the same matter,
 157

are inconsistent' (Leviathan, Ch. XIV). When law compels, it conveys a power
which is able to prescribe obedience and respect. A legal commandment must
constitute a sufficient motivation for acting. Hobbes, like Cicero, sees in the law
of nature an imperative order deriving from divine Reason. In Leviathan (Ch.
XXVI), he insists upon the divine origin and divine nature of natural laws. They
are consequently unwritten, immutable, eternal and universal. Like Saint Paul and
patristic philosophers, he says their content is in agreement with evangelical rules.
However, Hobbes is no traditionalist. Lex naturalis is not to be confused with
transcendent divine law. First, it need not be published (Leviathan, Ch. XXVI);
second, it needs no supernatural revelation. It is a moral law (ibid.) through which
God, by means of Reason, commands men. Natural law is 'a precept or general rule
found out by reason' (Leviathan, Ch. XIV). For Hobbes, then, lex naturalis is both
moral and rational. It is 'a precept ... by which a man is forbidden to do that which
is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving the same' (Leviathan,
Ch. XIV). This practical rule contained in the general move of reason is the first
step toward an anthropological teleology. Natural law is a deduction; it is a rational
construction, a sort of 'technique', as Polin says, turned toward the future in order
to avert its threats. Under these conditions, we might even wonder whether lex
naturalis is a true law, that is, an order or commandment. It is not a vox imperantis
(Leviathan, Ch. XV), a prescriptive or prohibitive rule. Hobbes says natural laws
do not always oblige in/oro externo, but in/oro interno (De Corpore Politico) IV,
13). 'They bind to a desire they should take place' (Leviathan, Ch. XV). Therefore,
though they are very often called laws, this term is inappropriate: They are 'but
conclusions, or theorems concerning what conduceth to the conservation and
defence of themselves; whereas law, properly, is the word of him, that, by right,
hath command over others' (Leviathan, Ch. XV). Natural law is the advice of
reason, not a juridical norm. It is not an imperative rule, but rather a tendency, a
'quality' of human nature. According to it, man can 'seek peace and follow it'
(Leviathan, Ch. XIV) and he can enjoy the 'ornaments and comfort of life' De
Corpore Politico, I, 12). Lex naturalis is the royal way to peace which condemns
the 'dark paths of sedition' (De Cive, Pref.).

2.2b. Accordingly, the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in natural right

become apparent in the light of natural law . Admittedly, the pre-social existence of
individuals abandoned to themselves is like a magnetic field in which instinct is the
dominating force, manifesting both the desire to persevere in life and the fear of
death. Thereby, numerous antinomies spring up in the state of nature where jus and
lex are at odds. For the one is a brutish strength and 'liberty'; the other determines
and obliges.
Thus, natural right, in itself is wholly vain; 'That right of all men to all things,
is in effect no better than if no man had right to any thing' (De Corpore Politico,
I, 10). Because rights are equal in all individuals, they annul themselves as soon as
158

they are used. They are like bare assertions of reason.

Moreover, natural right becomes effective if and only if the equality of strengths
or rights is transformed into the right of the strongest. It is the law of the jungle.
This is what happens in war when the victor is the one who has the fiercest blood
and the greatest power (De Corpore Politico, I, 13). There is a manifest
contradiction here. And it is the more obvious when that excess of power transforms
wariness into an attack. Then not only do prosecution and violence transform
enmity into rivalry, but attack becomes mastery and domination. Since offense
supplants defense, the strongest or the most audacious is right. Natural right is
diverted from its essential vocation. Primordial equality or rights, contradicted by
facts, is an illusion. The contradiction is blatant. The perspective is terrifying.

2.2c. If we now compare jus naturale with lex naturalis, we notice they are in
contradiction. The fundamental law of nature directs us to seek peace and to follow
it (Leviathan, Ch. XIV) as long as there is hope of attaining it. But natural right
leads to universal war. And even if natural law itself advises man to use all the
advantanges of war, its aim is solely defensive. It never commands or recommends
attack. This is an abuse of right. a perversion of power. The spirit of lex naturalis
is exceeded, indicating a distortion of law by right.
In this distortion, there is contradiction again. Natural right, in so far as it is
connected to natural law, ought to be useful for life. But here it gives rise to war
in which 'nature itself is destroyed and men kill one another' (De Corpore Politico,
I, 12). Here, the fundamental will to live does not conduce to life - to its essential
goal - but to death. While in this there is certainly no necessity, only, as Hobbes
says, ' a disposition' (ibid., 2), still the tragic shadow of death looms over the right
to live.
And so inconsistencies accumulate within the natural condition of men. Finally,
liberty - the exercise of the right of nature - signifies nothing more than license and
lack of determination in everyone. That liberty is a 'force which moves' is very odd.
It knows no limits, no marks, no references and no sanctions. Therefore, when
everything is permitted, then each is free. But right is a power which lacks power,
and liberty becomes chaos, a mere savage independence, and it is negative. This
liberty does not liberate. It has no efficacy.
How could reason countenance misfortunes, paradoxes and antimonies? The
contradictions of natural right induce man, because he is an homo rationalis, to
leave the n,atural state and abandon natural right.

2.3

The mechanism of this transformation is the covenant which institutes Res publica.
Let us show how the transfer of all the rights of all individuals to a single artificial
 159

man constitutes the driving force toward the metamorphosis of right.

It is a precept of reason to have recourse to all the means which reason can
conceive in order to avoid attack. One of these rational means results from an
elementary calculation: If everybody relinquishes his natural right to all things, and
if all men do the same, the antagonisms which generate war will disappear (cf.
Leviathan, Ch. XIV). This dictamen rationis is the mainspring for the institution
of the civil state, for the construction of peace and felicity, and also for the radical
and total transformation of right.
The operative function of yielding natural right is a crucial point in Hobbes's
mechanistic politics. He insists upon a semantic analysis of this notion. De Corpore
Politico said that to divest a right consists either in relinquishing it or in transferring
it to another man. Leviathan situates its analysis in a mechanistic context: 'To lay
down a man's right to any thing, is to divest himself of the liberty of hindering
another of the benefit of his own right to the same' (Leviathan, Ch. XIV). Thus,
the individual renounces his offensive and even his defensive power. However, when
a man relinquishes his natural right or when he transfers it to another, he does not
give any right or any power to anybody. Such power is, by nature, absolute. He
merely steps out of the way, and, by that means, reduces the obstacles which the
liberty of others confronted. But natural law adds a further condition. If I consent
to relinquish my right, others ought to consent likewise. The basic axiom of the
rational art by which man will be saved from a natural hell is that the liberty of each
individual towards others must remain equal to the liberty of others towards
himself. This balance of forces pays respect to the Biblical saying: quod tibi fieri
non vis, alteri non feceris.
We see that the covenant implies the voluntary and reciprocal yielding of the
individual rights of everyone. Moreover, rational computation requires that all
individuals (or at least the greatest number of them) grant their rights to a third
person, who, consequently possesses a power consisting of the sum of all others'
powers. This third person is Leviathan. Therefore, we see that if the covenant
implies bilateral and reciprocal exchange, it is in a very special sense. It is bilateral
in that individuals transfer their rights to an artificial person who is created by their
yielding. But there is no reciprocation between these two parties, between the party
which gives (the multitude) and the party which receives (Leviathan). Rather, the
reciprocation is among all the members of the multitude, just because the yielding
of natural right accepted by one must also be accepted for themselves by all the
others.
In this contractual arithmetic, both a transfer of rights and a true delegation of
power occur at the same time. Leviathan has received from all individuals a
formidable power and he is entitled to act on their behalf. He becomes a
representative of the multitude. His fictive person symbolizes a synthetic force
whose suggestive image is given by De Corpore Politico's frontispiece. In this
extraordinary power lies the 'essense of the Commonwealth' (Leviathan, Ch. XVII).
160

By birth, it is endowed with an enormous efficacy. It has a mortal god's power, and
it produces prodigious effects conceived by reasoning about the future.
Among these prodigious effects, the great Leviathan's sovereignty and authority
are the most spectacular. This sovereign's absolute power has sometimes been
understood as a very dangerous totalitarianism aimed at serving Stuart absolutism.
This charge is an anachronism which needs to be refuted. But here, we must examine
an effect of Leviathan's power which has remained obscure even though it
constitutes the prolegomena to juridical positivism.

3. Sovereignty and Metamorphosis of Right

The originative pattern of the Commonwealth by institution explains its own

political completion. The curve of causal thought generating civil power is of
exemplary clarity. The covenant confers on the majority's representative not only
the right to represent the multitude, but also the authorization to act and judge on
its behalf. By these means, the protection of individuals and peaceful coexistence
are assured. The theory of covenant is extended, according to rigorous logic, into
a theory of sovereignty. Thus, the exercise of sovereign power completes the
metamorphosis of right.

3.1

According to Hobbes's causal thought, sovereignty is an effect of the perfect

republican institution. It is summa potestas, a modern form of Roman majestas. It
is the power to give laws to all in general and for everyone in particular. Hobbes
recognizes in the sovereign's lawmaking will the source of all his powers. But he
differs from Bodin or Loyseau, who remained faithful to the traditional theory of
natural and divine right, for he renounces metaphysical explanation. He admits that
sovereignty is a political transformation into One. But, consistent with the
mechanistic inclinations of his philosophy, for Hobbes the sovereign gathers all his
powers from the members of the political body and becomes accordingly, a personal
and representative unity. Therefore, sovereignty for Hobbes testifies to a new
balance of forces in which the sovereign has only rights. His sole duty consists in
strengthening his power. His powers are consubstantial to his dignity, and are
essential attributes of his personality. Thus Leviathan is more than a power in the
State. He is the State's Power, and, in the same way, is indivisible and inalienable.
We can see that Hobbes, in this analysis, avoids anything theological or a priori.
Sovereignty belongs to the profane universe. It is born from an originative
democracy, and is a 'human establishment'. Vaughan sees in Hobbes's theory 'a
counterblast to the theory of divine right'. It is not by any means certain that the
 161

intention of Grotius or of Hobbes -or even later, of Locke - was polemical

respecting this point. Nevertheless, the dialectic between AUTHOR and ACTOR
(Leviathan, Ch. XVI) is developed entirely on a human level. This conception opens
the way to Jurieu, Puffendorf, Rousseau and Kant, for whom politics is a
fundamentally human affair with legislation its most powerful mover.
For Hobbes the legislative power of the sovereign is exercised in a
multidimensional field. It pretends to universality. Each act of the State, as each act
of the citizen, is regulated by laws - here, we must understand, by positive laws,
laid down by the sovereign's will. And the laws express the same necessity, whether
from Leviathan's point of view, which is to say de legejerenda, or from the citizen's
point of view, which is to say de lege lata. This necessity is perfectly rational. By
means of positive legislation, the sovereign power governs all men, rules over all
domains, knows no limitations. It is so complete a centralizing and unifying power,
that nothing is left to private initiatives.
But the most important consideration is not the extent of the legislative power.
It is that laws are laid down by the sovereign, in the exercise of his competency
which are normative patterns of behavior. At first, these parameters are the
functional form of Leviathan's juridical personality. But thereafter and chiefly,
they show that the legislative power creates a new right. It substitutes for pre-
political lack of law juridical rules, the obligatory characteristic which cannot be
transgressed without incurring civil sanctions. Thus is achieved a true revolution of
the conception of right.

3.2

At this point, it belongs to the law to define right. We mean now the citizen's right
- that civil right, which has nothing to do with the savage individual rights of the
natural state. In the civil state, law substitutes jus civile for jus naturale. This is to
say that positive right, which alone is authentically juridical, replaces non-legal right
found in the state of nature. For example, the right of property corresponds to
'rules' which the sovereign power as legislator has prescribed. The legislative power
of the sovereign is a Juris-lative' power. Right, which he determines, is defined by
law and subsumed under it. Like Kant, Hobbes could have written: <Right depends
on Law'. But law depends on right only insofar as 'juris-Iative' - or right-making
- power aims at common peace and determines as mine and thine nothing but what
is conductive to a peaceful existence. Indeed, civil law is 'contained' in natural law.
Hobbes defines a normative perspective whereby the juridical universe is sketched
as if it were a set of rules which prescribe, permit or prohibit. The function of these
norms is regulative. They define lawful and non-lawful, right and non-right, and
even good and evil.
In this point, it is clear that the form of the concept of right has changed. Jus
162

naturale was a power which amounted to no more than exercise of strength and
which originated in human nature. Jus civile is constituted by a network of rules
laid down by the sovereign's power of decision and determined by a teleological and
rational computation. Jus naturale was a pseudo-right, savage and anarchical.
Though it ostensively served the original will to live, paradoxically, it condemned
men to war and to death. But at this point jus civile is exactly determined in its
existence, in its contents and in its extent according to law. Its functions are to
regulate the life of citizens and to serve peace. This beneficial transformation,
however, is not attained without some costs. The exchange derives logically from
Hobbes's analysis. Whereas natural right was identified with 'liberty', civil law
imposes an irresistible coercion on all men. This aspect of Hobbes's thought has
often been mistaken: Hobbes was accused of being fauteur de despotisme and
contemptuous of liberty. Thus was form confounded with content. In this
confusion, the idea that coercion is the formal criterion of what is juridical was
overlooked. However, Hobbes had discerned - before Spinoza, Rousseau and Kant
- that man is more free in a state where he obeys laws than in nature where he obeys
only himself. Juridical coercion raises obstacles to all of those things which
themselves raise obstacles to liberty. Rather than oppressing, coercion liberates.
Thus, when Res publica is instituted, the metamorphosis of right occurs. All
rights now emanate from the State. Born from law, right has become essentially and
wholly positive right. A 'human establishment' like the covenant, right derives from
that will which presides over the Commonwealth and which cannot, without self-
negation, turn aside from a rational and teleological imperative. When Hobbes
asserts that the sovereign legislator's function is to create a juridical order aiming
at unity and peace, he works to generate juridical positivism by his insistence upon
the voluntary character of jus civile. In doing this, he opens a new path for juridical
philosophy. The power of renewal which his doctrine veils has been either unnoticed
or misjudged. Nevertheless Hobbes understood that the problem of the foundation
of the JUS TUM or JUS is the same as the problem of the essence of
Commonwealth.

3.3

This metamorphosis of RIGHT brings two innovations to the general theory of

right.
First, Hobbes proposes a theory of the sources of right which sweeps away the
traditional theory. Before Kant, he censures natural right, 'savage and lawless',
because it condemns man to inuria and unhappiness. Hobbes's voluntaristic origin
for the State, at the antipodes of Aristotelian naturalistic realism, is condensed to
one sentence: right is law. Here, the word RIGHT does not mean jus naturale,
which is opposed to law. It means jus civil, which only exists in the civil state by
 163

means of a persona civilis' decree. Therefore, if the word RIGHT is changed in

meaning, it is because right is seen as having a new source, arising from the Earth
rather than descending from Heaven. And, in the human world, reason is seen as
capable of palliating those stigmata from the Fall which are so obvious in man's
natural condition. In this way alone, through civil and positive right, can an
authentic right exist. Such a right is fundamentally human. Its maker is the
mechanism of the covenant set in motion by the teleological calculation which
produces it. The meaning of this new right is clear: Men ought to govern men. In
order to fulfill their duty there, men invent a juridical order within which they can
submit their lives to rules and norms.
Secondly, theform andfinality of right take on unexpected features. For Hobbes
not only humanized right, but with rigorous logic exposed the implications of giving
it this laical character. The humanization of right requires a revision of the notion
of just which is to say it concerns the very foundation of juridical doctrine. 'Where
there is no common power', writes Hobbes, 'there is no law; where no law, no
injustice' (Leviathan, Ch. XIII). Consequently, in the civil state, there is only what
is just by convention (Dialogue, p. 93) and 'injustice is the transgression of a statute
law' (ibid., p. 90). Hobbes, led by his logical process, goes farther: law is justice
itself (ibid., p. 78). Therefore, the idea of an unjust law is a contradictio in adjecto.
What is prescribed by the sovereign is, by definition, just in its form. What is
forbidden is unjust. Thus, civil law possess obligatory force. For from a political
point of view, the subjects' subordination to the sovereign expresses that connection
between obedience and command in which the essence of politics resides.
Afterwards and chiefly, from a juridical point of view, the ordering of civil laws
involves not only order, coherence and balance, but also efficacy. Law would be
vain, if it belonged only to an intelligible order. For this reason by means of its
metamorphosis, jus becomes a set of legal rules, the office of which is to regulate
public and private citizens' behavior by recourse to coercion. Obligatoriness confers
on the legal rules their juridical authenticity. Coercion is the criterion of the new
right. It means that legal right is made in order to be applied. Today, this idea is
a commonplace. But in the seventeenth century it was so new that it was not
understood. Hence the State-Leviathan was denounced and charged with oppressive
statism. Hobbes's readers did not understand that obligation towards laws implies
the transformation of everyone's right. Indeed, before law, right to all things was
individual but undifferentiated, uncertain, and inauthentic because it was not
guaranteed. In the civil state, law provides a distribution of property and
consequently a definition of the rights of each citizen; everyone is given his own
place in the Commonwealth. As early as Elements of Law, Hobbes had asserted that
'The profit of the Sovereign and Subject goes always together'. Though the
language is anachronistic, we can see in this statement the birth of those 'subjective
rights' which, in the doctrines of the nineteenth century, will mark the pinnacle of
individualism. The legality of the State-Leviathan teaches that the subjects' rights,
164

in order to be truly juridical, require a legal status. In the civil state, right bears the
mark of public order. Very early on, Hobbes foreshadows a reconcilation, in
Sittlichkeit, between individualism and statism.
From the point of view of juridical doctrine, Hobbes's procedure is doubly
prophetic.
On one side, Hobbes renews the relations between positive law and natura/law.
Before Kant or Fichte, he subsumes natural right under political right. This
subsumption is necessary in order to confer on the concept of right the juridical
characteristic which it lacked in the state of nature.
On the other hand, Hobbes gives a new meaning to obligation' and justice.
Recognizing that achieving the essence of Commonwealth requires reciprocal
relations between the public and the private order, he sees that individual rights
must necessarily be found in an objective order. In other words, subjective rights
must be the sole substance of civil law.
The innovations involved in this metamorphosis of the concept of right are so
radical that Hobbes - a philosopher too modern in a world too old - until recently
knew only succes de scandale.
 165

11. THE PECULIARITY OF HOBBES'S CONCEPT OF

NATURAL RIGHT

C.A.J. Coady

University of Melbourne

Hobbes's theory of natural right is generally held to be an important element in his

political philosophy and many scholars see it as marking a decisive moment in the
development of modern political thought. Leo Strauss, for instance, says of it, 'The
fundamental change from an orientation by natural duties to an orientation by
natural rights finds its clearest and most telling expression in the teaching of
Hobbes, who squarely made an unconditional natural right the basis of all natural
duties, the duties being therefore only conditjonal,.1 Given this background, it is
rather surprising that so few commentators have paid Hobbes's theory the close
attention that it surely deserves. Professor Goyard-Fabre's concentration upon this
issue both here and in her book2is thus all the more commendable but, while I agree
with a number of things she has to say in the course of her discussion, I feel that
its focus is insufficiently sharp and her central contentions about Hobbes's concept
of right strike me as misguided. In what follows I shall try to substantiate this claim
and also sketch the outlines of what I regard as a more adequate view of Hobbes
on natural right.
Let me begin by mentioning two points of agreement. She is surely correct to
stress the fact that Hobbes's understanding of jus naturale departs from an
important traditional construal of the expression and leads to a novel analysis of
the relation between jus naturale and lex naturalis. Hobbes himself is explicit and
insistent upon the point, criticizing his predecessors for the way they were
accustomed to 'confound' the terms Jus'and 'lex' both in their natural and their
civil aspects. As he puts it in Chapter 14 of Leviathan:

For though they that speak of this subject, use to confound jus and lex, right and law:
yet they ought to be distinguished: because RIGHT consisteth in liberty to do or to
forbear: whereas LAW determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that law, and right,
differ as much, as obligation and liberty: which in one and the same matter are
inconsistent (EW III, 117).

Secondly, I am in qualified agreement with her view that Hobbes's thought about
natural law has a more secular and earthly aspect than that of his major medieval
precursors, although caution is in order whenever we seek to minimize the

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science oj Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhojj Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
166

theological element in Hobbes's beliefs and arguments.

Both these points of agreement contain, however the seeds of disagreement for
I am uneasy with much that Professor Goyard-Fabre goes on to say by way of
elaborating them. I suspect that part of the difficulty arises from cultural and
linguistic sources since it is an unfortunate fact for our discussion of this topic that
the French expression 'Ie droit', like the Latin 'jus', contains much of the
ambivalence that Hobbes hoped to avoid by making (what the English language
easily allows) a sharp distinction between 'right' and 'law'. Whether Hobbes offers
an acceptable account of the distinction is indeed another matter but Professor
Goyard-Fabre is led, I think, to make his task seem even harder than it is by a
certain tendency to employ simplicity as a standard by which Hobbes's own account
is to be judged something like that very notion of right which Hobbes has rejected.
I think that this is partly what leads her to speak of the right of nature 3 being
confused with a certain sort of anarchic freedom and of contradictions inherent in
the right of nature and between the right of nature and the laws of nature (see
p. 157 and p. 158. I am not quite sure how she is using such terms as
'contradiction', 'inconsistency' and the like but I don't think that she demonstrates
that there are confusions or contradictions within Hobbes's theory; rather, she
seems to be emphasizing ways in which Hobbes's version of natural right does
indeed conflict with something like the traditional way of viewing the matter. On
the other hand, she sometimes means by the talk of contradiction and confusion no
more than Hobbes does when in The Elements of Law for instance, he says, , ...
he therefore that desireth to live in such an estate as is the estate of liberty and right
of all to all, contradicteth himself' (E, 73). This, however, involves no contradiction
or incoherence in the concept of a right of nature, as defined by Hobbes, it just
shows that men, having the nature they have (or were believed by Hobbes to have)
and being as equal as they are in a state of nature, can ultimately find no profit in
the general use of the right of nature and hence that civil life under the sovereign
is rationally preferable.
Professor Goyard-Fabre clearly thinks that Hobbes's natural right is something
wholly awful and useless; she speaks of 'the great misery of natural right' (pp. 155)
and treats it merely as 'a brutish strength' (p. 157), 'an irreducible will to live'
(p. 155), which 'expresses a relation of forces which is irrelevant to regulation
and normativity' (p. 156), and is thus quite devoid of any ethical dimensions.
While such reactions are perhaps understandable, they involve serious distortions
of Hobbes's thought on the topic of natural right. It is true that the situation in
which individuals all exercise their right of nature in a state of nature is, according
to Hobbes, an awful one but what is alarming about this is the general availability
of the right of nature to all humans (with the nature Hobbes believed them to have
in a state of nature'. The 'misery' then resides not in the right of nature itself but
in the situation or prospect generated by this conjunction of factors.
Indeed, outside such a context, the right of nature seems both coherent, useful
 167

and desirable, as Hobbes certainly thought. Let us recall Hobbes's definition of the
concept in Leviathan:

The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man
hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature;
that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own
judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto (EW III, 116).

In conjuction with other remarks of Hobbes (such as the general equation of rights
with freedoms) this passage is, I think, best interpreted as defining the primary
natural right as that of self-preservation but as allowing other natural rights if they
are consequences of this primary one. What Hobbes then calls, variously, the 'right
to all things' or the 'right of doing anything he liketh' or the 'right to all things'
or the right to everything' (ibid. III, 1l7-118) is a secondary right consequent upon
the primary right of self-preservation, as also is the right to one another's bodies
which is just an implication of the right to all things. It is important to make this
distinction because without it, or something like it, we can hardly make sense of
what it is that individuals surrender and what it is they keep in making the social
contract and entering into a civil state. What they give up is the right to all things
or, as Hobbes puts it in Chapter 17 of Leviathan (ibid. III, 158), the right of self-
government. What they keep is the primary right of self-preservation. This primary
right is, as Hobbes asserts, inalienable but some of the rights that are consequent
upon it in a state of nature may, and indeed must, be surrendered to bring about
a state of commonwealth in which they are no longer needed. Some others, closely
consequent upon the primary right are also kept such as the right to resist bondage,
imprisonment and wounding (ibid. III, 120), the right to refuse to accuse onself or
confess one's crimes (without assurance of pardon) (ibid. III, 128), and even the
right to refuse to accuse 'those, by whose condemnation a man falls into misery:
as of a father, wife or benefactor' (ibid. III, 128).
The right of nature, then, however dis functional in the state of nature, plays, for
Hobbes, an important part in the peaceful life of the State. It is not wholly replaced
by civil right or civil law as Professor Goyard-Fabre seems to think. In the first
place, as we have seen, the citizens keep their primary right of self-preservation and
certain rights consequent upon it and this entitles them, for instance, to resist
obvious and blatant assault even if it be from the sovereign himself. What they yield
is their right of general self-governance, i.e. the right to judge and act autonomously
in the matter of planning a life of self-defence and pre-emption. Secondly, we
should recall that the sovereign himself yields up nothing since he is not a party to
the social contract and so keeps all his natural rights. His keeping of these, although
not without its theoretical problems, is an important element in the strength and
viability of that great Leviathan, the commonwealth and, further, as regards the
utility of natural right, where the sovereign is an individual, his right to all things
may prove personally profitable as when, for instance, he seizes the estates of
168

someone he regards as danger to the public peace.

Goyard-Fabre also claims that there is a contradiction between the right of nature
and the law and this too I find puzzling. She says (on p. 156) 'If we now compare
jus naturale with lex naturalis, we can't help noticing that they are in contradiction'.
Here I think she means to point to the peace-attaining and peace-preserving
orientation of the laws of nature and to contrast these functions with the way that
the right of nature leads, in a state of nature, to war. But this contrast is at least
dubious in view of the specific inclusion by Hobbes of a reference to 'the sum of
the right of nature' within the second branch of 'the general rule of reason' which
sets up the first law of nature in Leviathan. Goyard-Fabre thinks that this has in
view only the defence of the individual (p. 154) whereas the right of nature
recommends attack but such a contrast is surely not intended by Hobbes since he
enjoins us here to understand the 'defence of self' precisely by reference to the right
of nature. Let me quote from Leviathan, Chapter 14:

... and consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason, that every man ought to
endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of attaining it; and when he cannot attain it, that
he may seek and use, all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule
containeth the first and fundamental law of nature which is to seek peace, and follow it.
The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend
ourselves (ibid., 117).

So far then is Hobbes from seeing a contradiction between the law of nature, or at
least the fundamental one, and the right of nature that he includes the latter within
the general rule of reason which established that fundamental law of nature. In
Leviathan, the right of nature is almost a part of the law of nature; in De Cive, it
is part of the law of nature (EW II, 16).
Hobbes's own intentions and beliefs are not decisive but they are relevant and I
am, in any case, unpersuaded that there is a contradiction between the injunction
to seek peace and the injunction to use war if peace is unattainable. There is, indeed,
a sort of psychological tension between the two and it may be argued that the history
of diplomacy and warfare shows that allowing for the possibility of a fallback resort
to war in the event of failure in diplomacy leads to less significant and intensive
diplomatic efforts to achieve and maintain peace but whatever the merits of this
hypothesis (and they need to be balanced against the claims of deterrence theory)
it seems implausible to hold that the co-existence of the two injunctions must lead
to war in all circumstances. I mention this unlikely thesis just because if it could be
established it might show something like a contradiction between the two
injunctions inasmuch as following the second injunction would make it impossible
to achieve the ends of the first and hence a rational agent who fully understood the
injunctions would be unable to pursue both. Yet it is highly implausible as would
be a parallel thesis about the injunctions, 'Seek to resolve disputes by mutual
agreement' and 'Where mutual agreement us unavailable have recourse to
arbitration' .
 169

I think that there may be in Professor Goyard-Fabre's paper a presumption that

any viable notion of right should be a fairly rich moral or legal notion as the
medieval 'jus' seems to have been and she sees Hobbes's 'metamorphosis' of right
as a progression from his having de-moralized the notion in the state of nature to
a re-moralizing of it in civil society through the authoritative will of the sovereign.
So she says,
... according to Hobbes, it belongs to the law to define the right. By this must be
understood the citizens's right, the civil right, which has nothing to do with the savage
individual right in a state of nature. In the civil state, the law (which is born from the
cession of individual natural rights) replaces jus naturale by jus civile, that is to say non-
legal right in the state of nature by positive right which alone is authentically juridical (p.
161).
I think one should tread cautiously here, for such notions as morality and legality
are themselves obscure enough, and we should be especially wary lest we impose
some inappropriate conception of morality of 'juridicality' upon a thinker like
Hobbes who may plausibly be regarded as attempting to prove a novel and, to his
mind, more secure foundation for something like a traditional morality. The
concept of natural right is part of this program and should be judged accordingly.
I shall return to the question of Hobbes's moral theory but let us first ask whether
Hobbes's notion of natural right is like 'our' common notion of a moral or legal
right and then whether there really is a 'metamorphosis' from a morally vacuous
or morally thin concept in a state of nature to a morally rich concept in civil society.
Certainly, Hobbes's idea of a right - especially, though not, I think, exclusively,
a right of nature - is divorced from many customary moral connections and not just
ones in the tradition he is explicitly rejecting. Those who think of right or rights as
morally rich notions would, I imagine, think that if someone had a right to do
something then others would typically have corresponding obligations not to
prevent or hinder his so acting. But a man may have a Hobbesian right without
others being obliged to respect it. This is certainly true in the state of nature; it is
true, moreover, of relations between, say, the sovereign and some citizen who has
broken the law and whom the sovereign is trying to put to death. The sovereign has
the right to kill him and the citizen has the right to resist. About civil rights I think
that Hobbes's commitments are less clear although, contrary to Professor Goyard-
Fabre, I think that he certainly wants to keep the same concept of a right as a
freedom or liberty to do or forbear. Goyard-Fabre is, I think, insufficiently sensitive
to the continuity of Hobbes's thought here for she goes so far as to claim that there
is no relation between jus naturale and jus civile. She says that where the former
is 'identified with liberty, civil right imposes on all men an irresistible coercion' (p.
XXX). In Leviathan, however, Hobbes defines civil right as 'that liberty which the
civil law leaves us' (EW III, 276) and his discussion of it closely echoes his earlier
discussion of natural right. Once more, he objects to the traditional conflation of
right and law:
170

I find the words lex civilis and jus civile, that is to say law and right civil, promiscuously
used for the same thing, even in the most learned authors; which nevertheless ought not
to be so. For right is liberty, namely that liberty which the civil law leaves us: but civil
law is an obligation, and takes from us the liberty which the law of nature gives us. Nature
gave a right to every man to secure himself by his own strength, and to invade a suspected
neighbour, by way of prevention: but the civil law takes away that liberty, in all cases
where the protection of the law may be safely stayed for. Insomuch as lex and jus are as
different as obligation and liberty (ibid., 276).

On this analysis, not only is civil right definitionally parallel to natural right but
even jus civile is still morally thin insofar as the civil law's leaving Jones free to play
his piano means that he has a right to play his piano but there is no entailment from
this that others have an obligation not to hinder him. Presumably, they cannot use
violence but there are more ways than one to silence a piano. Knowing, for instance,
that Jones finds it hard to play his piano if someone nearby is playing a harpsichord,
I may play the harpsichord to stop his playing the piano. It would seem that I have
the right to do so as long as there is no civil law that restrains me and where there
is such a law then I am deferential to his playing (at least, in foro externo) not
because I am morally bound by his having the right but by the relevant law. It might
be argued, I suppose, that I am already bound, even in the absence of written law,
by the Leviathan's fifth law of nature enjoining 'mutual accommodation' and
sociability but I doubt if this is so since the accommodation in question relates to
the other man's efforts at self-preservation and it would require a very ardent music
lover to claim so much. (Possibly, the eighth law against 'contumely' might do the
trick but I doubt it and, in any case, the example could be altered to deal with this
and still illustrate the point especially since it is the law of nature which constrains
me, if I am constrained, and not Jones's civil right.) Of course, I am not denying
that the content or range of civil right is different from that of natural right - the
existence of civil society guarantees that. Nor do I want to argue that Hobbes can
consistently carry through the analysis of civil rights in these terms (that is why I
said that the situation with civil rights was 'less clear') since I think that any analysis
of the sovereign's right to the obedience of the citizens is hard to make in terms
purely of liberty and the same may be true of more mundane rights, such as property
rights. No doubt there are ways of completing the analysis open to Hobbes; the
trouble is that such ways seem to cry out for supplementation in a fashion
inconsistent with Hobbes's official strategy. His explicit approach to rights and, in
particular, to rights in civil society embodies the spirit of the man who replies to
criticism of his behavior with the words, 'I've got a right to do it if I want to; there's
no law against it'. A sovereign's rights to obedience then amount to there being no
civil or natural laws against his exercising governing power and a citizen's property
right to there being no laws preventing his use and enjoyment of certain objects. But
there are at least two major problems with this analysis. In the first place it seems
to allow that there be others whom the law leaves free to govern the people (in
 171

potential conflict with the sovereign will), in the one instance, and to appropriate
and enjoy the objects, in the other. This is a consequence of the moral thinness of
the notion of right employed. Hobbes does of course think that it is wrong to
frustrate the sovereign's will - except in the limiting cases of self-defence - and that
there can be only one sovereign to enjoy the rights of governance. Moreover, he
deploys arguments to show as much. My point is, however, that, using Hobbes's
own definitions, the idea of the sovereign's possession of rights cannot figure
significantly in such arguments. A second, and related, difficulty is that the
sovereign's being free to use his own powers to govern and act unimpeded by legal
or contractual restriction or by the obstacle of others' exercising the right of nature
looks an insufficient account of his actual sovereign rights, especially as these
include a right to obedience, since he needs not only to be unimpeded by their
malevolence but positively aided by their co-operation. This is why Hobbes moves
in the Leviathan to the theory of authorization but this theory sits ill with the very
negative account of rights to which it is attached.
The force of these difficulties can be seen in the way that Hobbes himself talks
about rights in the chapter of Leviathan entitled 'Of the Rights of Sovereigns by
Institution' (ibid., 159 fL). Although, perhaps, it could be done, it would be very
strained to translate into the language of freedom from laws (or other restrictions)
the numerous rights there adumbrated - such as, the right to obedience, the right
of non-forfeiture of sovereign power, the right to be above accusation by subjects,
the right to judge doctrine, the rights of passing laws and deciding controversy and
so on. What would be so strained about any such attempt is that it would omit or
treat as quite secondary to the nature of the rights the fact that the sovereign's
freedom to act is created not merely by the absence of laws and impediments but
by certain guarantees and endorsements which give it moral support and ensure it
moral respect. The subjects are obliged by covenant and natural law to respect and
sustain the authorized sovereign's rights and it is in terms of these obligations, which
Hobbes, I think, sees as ultimately grounded in reason, that he argues his case for
the sovereign's rights. But here we are close to the quite different concept of a right
as a power or claim or entitlement which the law (or some other normative factor
such as covenant or morality or reason) positively supports rather than allows by
silence. Perhaps Hobbes is insufficiently attentive both to the possible links between
the notion of a right and the way the term 'right' is used in other contexts, e.g., right
behavior, right and wrong, and also to the varieties of types of right - he tends to
concentrate, in offering his definition, upon rights to act but the equation with
freedom from obligation looks less plausible as soon as we think of rights to have
or rights to general benefits (the right to education for instance). Many of the
sovereign's and citizen's rights fall into the latter category and hence seem to require
a morally richer interpretation than Hobbes can allow. Of course, a complete
typology of rights must be quite complex and, fortunately, it is not my task to
provide such detail here; for the elucidation of Hobbes's ideas in the area it is
172

enough to rely upon relatively non-contentious preliminary distinctions.

If Professor Goyard-Fabre misreads Hobbes's intentions with regard to the
formal continuities between natural and civil right, as I have argued, she also
overlooks, in her denial of any normative or moral aspect to the right of nature,
the way in which Hobbes's concept of natural right is at least connected with an idea
of rationality which has normative and even quasi-moral overtones and hence seems
to put some limits upon what can count as the exercise of natural right. This
connection is more prominent in the early writings than in Leviathan so that we
might even speak of a metamorphosis of the idea of right within Hobbes's thought
from a richer to a thinner notion although elements of the earlier view remain. There
are three aspects of this connection of right with rationality:
(a) The early definitions and explanations of right in both De Cive and the
Elements of Law link the concept of right reason or simply reason and make it clear
that this includes natural right. In De Cive, Hobbes says 'Neither by the word right
is anything else signified than the liberty which every man hath to make use of his
natural faculties according to right reason' (EW II, 9). The sentence before this
actually says that what is not contrary to right reason is 'done justly and with right'.
Perhaps the characterization 'done justly' is included by anticipation of the
discussion of natural law that is to follow and means 'not done unjustly' where acts
against natural law are here thought of as unjust; in any case, right is still defined
in terms of liberty but it is a liberty to act in accord with right reason. In the
Elements of Law, Hobbes similarly links right, and natural right, with the
operations of reason. As he specially puts it,

And that which is not against reason, men call RIGHT, or jus, or blameless liberty of
using our own natural power and ability. It is therefore a right of nature: that every man
may preserve his own ife and limbs, with all the power he hath (E, 71).

Hobbes's thought here is that the primary natural right of self-preservation is a

morally sanctioned freedom to act since it is in accord with rationality. In his later
writings, most notably in Leviathan, this insistence upon the connection between
right and reason is less prominent. This change may be connected with the
developments, noted by Goldsmith, whereby Hobbes moves from the conviction in
the Elements and De Cive that men could acquire 'private' rights, such as property
rights, in a state of nature, which could then be carried over to civil society, to the
predominant belief in Leviathan that such rights are only possible in civil society (see
E, xi-xiv).
(b) In his earliest thinking as registered in The Elements of Law, and, to some
extent, De Cive, Hobbes puts certain limitations upon the right of nature which
appear to be imposed on both rational and moral grounds. He treats the right of
nature as giving the freedom to do whatever one judges necessary for self-protection
but anything more than this is not only characterized as dishonorable but as, in
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certain cases, against the law of nature. He says, immediately after noting that the
state of nature is a state of war,

It is a proverbial saying, inter arma silent leges. There is little therefore to be said
concerning the laws that men are to observe one towards another in time of war, wherein
every man's being and well-being is the rule of his actions. Yet thus much the law of nature
commandeth in war: that men satiate not the cruelty of their present passions, whereby
in their own conscience they foresee no benefit to come. For that betrayeth not a necessity,
but a disposition of the mind to war, which is against the law of nature. And in old time
we read that rapine was a trade of life, wherein nevertheless many of them that used it,
did not only spare the lives of those they invaded, but left them also such things, as were
necessary to preserve that life which they had given them; as namely their oxen and
instruments for tillage, though they carried away all their other cattle and substance. And
as the rapine itself was warranted in the law of nature by the want of security otherwise
to maintain themselves; so the exercise of cruelty was forbidden by the same law of nature,
unless fear suggested anything to the contrary. For nothing but fear can justify the taking
away of another's life. And because fear can hardly be made manifest, but by some action
dishonourable, that betrayeth the conscience of one's own weakeness; all men in whom
the passion of courage or magnanimity have been predominent, have abstained from
cruelty; insomuch that though there be in war no law the breach whereof is injury, yet
there are those laws, the breach whereof is dishonour. In one word, therefore, the only
law of actions in war is honour; and the right of war providence (E, 100-101).

Hobbes here makes two important points by way of qualifying the idea that the right
of nature is beyond constraint. The first is that the right arises, as indicated in (a),
from the rational desirability of being able to defend and preserve ones's life, and
any serious damage done to others which goes beyond what the agent believes
necessary for his preservation and future well-being (rather than the momentary
satisfaction of passion) is against reason and the law of nature. Given that Hobbes
identifies morality with the laws of nature (see EW III, 146) this amounts to an
important moral restriction although typically the determination of whether some
action is necessary for self-preservation is, in the state of nature, left to the
individual judgment. The second point is rather more complex; it is the point about
dishonor. The idea of honorable and dishonorable conduct looms somewhat larger
in Hobbes's earlier writings than later and it has been plausibly argued by Strauss
that in his very early work Hobbes has a tendency to make a close connection
between honor and virtue, particularly aristocratic virtue, although his mature
philosophy represents a break with this tendency.4 In any case, the claim about
dishonor in the quoted passage amounts to saying that the man who engages in
cruelty leaves himself open to the inference that he is a weak man given to undue
fears and hence, on Hobbes's definitions, to the attribution of dishonorable
behavior. The magnanimous or honorable man will have a powerful motive then to
limit the exercise of natural right and if magnanimity and honor involve moral
consideration then this will be a moral limitation of the exercise of natural right.
Indeed the quoted passage, taken in conjuction with other remarks of Hobbes in
174

The Elements, strongly suggest that the law of nature requires honorable behavior.
In Chapter 17 of The Elements Hobbes says:

'The sum of virtue' is to be sociable with them that will be sociable, and formidable with
them that will not. And the same is the sum of the law of nature; for in being sociable,
the law of nature taketh place by way of peace and society; and to be formidable, is the
law of nature in war, where to be feared is a protection a man hath from his own power;
and as the former consisteth in actions of equity and justice, the latter consisteth in actions
of honor. And equity, justice, and honor, contain all virtues whatsoever (E, 95).

When we come to De Give, however, things have changed markedly and in the
passage which parallels the 'inter arma silent leges' passage quoted earlier from The
Elements he allows only that in wars between nations a certain reserve had been
customary in the past and was to be explained by the fact that men 'had regard to
their own glory herein lest by too much cruelty they might be suspected guilty of
fear' (EW II, 64). Except for the reference to 'too much' cruelty this is the point
about honor from The Elements but there is no explicit reference to honor in the
passage and it is denied outright that the practice was required by the laws of nature
or is relevant to the war of 'all men against all men' in the state of nature where
the laws of nature are said to be 'silent with respect to the actions of men' (ibid.
II, 64). There are, nonetheless, vestiges of the earlier doctrine in footnotes to
Chapter I and Chapter III. In the first, Hobbes allows that if a man pretends that
some action is necessary for his preservation when he really doesn't believe that it
is then his action is against the law of nature (ibid. II, 10); in the second, he
elaborates on the point, claiming that there are

certain natural laws whose exercise ceaseth not even in the time of war itself. For I cannot
understand what drunkeness or cruelty, that is, revenge which respects not the future
good, can advance toward peace, or the preservation of any man (ibid. II, 46).

In Leviathan such passages and sentiments have been eliminated, no doubt because
Hobbes became increasingly anxious to identify moral constraints with the
requirements of life in civil society and hence to picture even more starkly the lot
of those in a state 'Of nature. Apart from the basic idea that the right of nature is
founded on the rationality of self-preservation, all that remains of the earlier
thinking about restraints on natural right is a brief reference in Chapter 17 to cruelty
and the laws of honor and two passages in Chapter 15 which are primarily directed
towards behavior in civil society but have a faint echo of the earlier discussions. In
Chapter 17 Hobbes argues that in a state of nature, where there is no power erected
sufficient for security, the individual 'may lawfully rely on his own strength and art,
for caution against all other men'. He continues,

And in all places, where men have lived by small families, to rob and spoil one another,
 175

has been a trade, and so far from being reputed against the law of nature, that the greater
spoils they gained, the greater was their honor; and men observed no other laws therein,
but the laws of honor; that is, to abstain from cruelty, leaving to men their lives, and
instruments of husbandry (EW III, 154).

He goes on to add that the same situation now obtains between cities and kingdoms.
The status of the 'law of honour' and their relation to the laws of nature is left
entirely unclear. 5 In Chapter 15, Hobbes propounds as the seventh law of nature
that 'in revenges, men respect only the future good' (ibid. III, 140) and although
the thrust of this law is to moderate legal punishments by stressing deterrence and
reform rather than retribution, Hobbes does see it as prohibiting cruelty which,
being to hurt without reason, is against the law of nature because it 'tendeth to the
introduction of war' (ibid.). Perhaps this passage could be taken as showing that
Hobbes still held to his earlier view that cruelty in the state of nature is against the
natural law though the objection to cruelty here, that it 'tendeth to the introduction
of war', seems clearly to presume an existing state of peace and hence not a state
of nature. By contrast, in The Elements, the parallel objection is that the cruel act
betrays 'a disposition of the mind to war'. In any case, there can be no doubting
the change in Hobbes's general attitude even if it is harder to be sure of his precise
belief about the matter in Leviathan. The other reference in Chapter 15 that has
perhaps a faint echo of the earlier discussions of restrictions of the right of nature
occurs in the well-known in foro interno / in foro externo passage which,
significantly, is mainly concerned to establish that we are always bound by the law
of nature only in the sense that we are obliged to 'a desire they should take place'
but we are not thereby obliged to act unilaterally or without security to fulfill them.
In this context, Hobbes remarks also that

he that having sufficient security, that others shall observe the same laws towards him,
observes them not himself, seeketh not peace, but war; and consequently the destruction
of his own nature by violence (ibid. III, 145).

Again it is most likely that this is a reference to the obligation to conform behavior
to natural law within the secure framework of a Commonwealth but it might be
given an application to the state of nature as requiring some moral restriction upon
the right of nature. But if it is possible to argue that Hobbes's earlier position has
not been totally abandoned, it might be conceded that it has become less clear and
significant.
(c) The sovereign's position with respect to the right of nature also raises
interesting questions about moral limitations on the right of nature. The sovereign
has full use of the right of nature since he has entered into no covenant to surrender
it. In the terms of my earlier distinction, he keeps both primary and secondary
natural rights. Yet he hardly seems to be in a state of nature with respect to them;
it does not have the standard consequence of being a state of war. Indeed not only
176

do the subjects have obligations towards the sovereign by virtue of covenant but the
sovereign is said to have obligations towards them under the law of nature. In
Chapter 30 of Leviathan (ibid. III, 332-333), he is said to be thus obliged to provide
a safety that goes well beyond bare preservation of life by the making of good laws. 6
The sovereign's right of nature seems here restricted vis a vis his citizens for
although nothing he does can be unjust to them it can be against natural law and
hence iniquitous. Moreover, in one passage of Leviathan, Hobbes says that such
acts (the example is the killing of Uriah by David) do an injury to God! (ibid. III,
200). On the other hand, in striking contrast, there are passages which make the
sovereign's right of nature seem unrestricted, for example, the discussion of God's
sovereignty in Chapter 31 where God's 'right of afflicting men at his pleasure' is
said to arise naturally from his 'irresistible power' and some parallel is drawn
between this Divine sovereign right and the earthly sovereign's right of dominion
(ibid. III, 346).
Brian Barry indeed uses this passage to argue that Hobbes 'soon dropped' the sort
of restriction upon natural right that I have drawn attention to above and that, in
the case of the sovereign's exercise of natural right, in particular, the right must be
'unlimited' in order to maintain the sovereign's absolute authority.7 In fact, there
is no need for the sovereign's right of dominion to be unlimited by reason or natural
law since Hobbes's purposes are achieved by the fact that these limitations have no
consequences for the citizen's duty of obedience. Moreover, close attention to the
passage about the significance of 'irresistible power' shows that its message is rather
complex and its bearing upon the sovereign'S right of dominion rather different
from that supposed by Barry. Hobbes is, I think, mainly concerned here to deny
the idea that God's right of dominion derives from some requirement of gratitude
we owe God for creating us, (though he is also concerned to deal with certain aspects
of the theological problem of evil). His argument draws attention to the way in
which sovereignty might arise naturally (rather than by covenant) amongst men if
there were one man who had power irresistible. That one man would have no need
to surrender his right of ruling and all other men would necessarily obey him since
his power could not be resisted. As Hobbes puts it, 'there had been no reason, why
he should not by that power have ruled and defended both himself, and them,
according to his own discretion' (ibid. III, 346). He then argues that since God has
irresistible power he has the natural right of dominion, indeed 'the right of afflicting
men at his pleasure'. 8 Yet these two rights are not the same, nor does Hobbes's
analysis of natural right and his discussion of the duties of sovereigns allow him to
identify them. The case of the earthly sovereign whose irresistible power entitles him
to rule and defend himself and his subjects 'according to his own discretion' is
palpably different from the case of an omnipotent being who is supposed to have
the right of afflicting inferior beings at his pleasure. On the analysis discussed.
above, an earthly sovereign, no matter how powerful, has no rational entitlement
to do whatever he pleases to his subjects, he has only the right to exercise his
 177

discretion in doing what he deems necessary for his and their, perhaps commodious,
preservation. The earthly sovereign, either by institution or by irresistible power,
usually has little need to fear for his safety from his fellow men and hence no
rational warrant to afflict them at his pleasure. In the case of God, there is a very
real theological issue about how our ideas of rationality and morality can apply at
all to the Divinity. I cannot enter into this debate here but it is plain that Hobbes's
theological tendency is to treat such matters as being altogether beyond our
understanding. What Hobbes primarily wants from the discussion about irresistable
power is that we have a rational duty of obedience to God because reason dictates
'that there no kicking against the pricks' (EW II, 209). Properly understood then,
the discussion does not undermine the case for rational or moral constraints upon
an earthly sovereign's right of nature.
In summary, I should say that Strauss is wrong to see Hobbes's natural right as
'unconditional' , particularly if this means anything like Goyard-Fabres
understanding of it as a mere 'brutish will of life'. The most coherent view, i.e.,
the one which makes best sense of the various uses to which Hobbes puts the
term 'natural right', must acknowledge the grounding of natural right in reason and
. hence its close connection with natural law . Further, although the primary right to
self-preservation is unconditional in the sense that it is both inalienable and not to
be overruled by other rights or duties, and although it does playa most important
part in Hobbes's theory of civil society, as we have seen, nonetheless, the secondary
'right to all things' is clearly restricted and conditioned by the perceived necessities
of self-preservation and can not only be alienated by the contracting citizen but
restricted, in the case of the sovereign, by the requirements of natural law . Thus far,
Hobbes's notion of natural right can be seen as placed within a normative, and even
moral, framework. This is not to deny however its peculiarities as a moral notion.
These stem, it seems to me, from two sources. One is Hobbes's attempt to identify
right, in general, with a type of freedom and the other is his conception of reason.
The identification of right with freedom leads as we have seen to a negative idea
of right lacking some customary moral implications and making for difficulties in
characterizing some of the rights Hobbes's overall political theory requires.
Whether any such equation of rights with freedoms can be made to work will
depend crucially upon the theory of freedom underlying it. Whatever the ultimate
merits of the distinction between negative and positive freedom, so influentially
discussed by Isaiah Berlin,9 it is clear that there are more and less morally loaded
understandings of freedom and Hobbes usually deploys one with the lightest such
loading, namely, the absence of impediments to action. Indeed very often these
impediments are understood as mere external physical constrictions upon action or
even motion and yet at other times they are meant to include the restraints of
obligation which Hobbes does indeed picture as a kind of force or necessity but
which is clearly very different from chains and locks. When talking of rights as
freedoms Hobbes thinks of the right holder as primarily free from the impediments
178

of law and obligation yet when such a person yields up his right and thereby
undertakes an obligation there is plainly a sense in which he is still free to act against
that obligation. Hobbes never resolves this difficulty and I am not sure that he can.
Even if we gloss over the problem and allow impedimennts to include obligations,
we will have an account of rights that places them in the category of the morally
indifferent. Our rights may be broadly construed as the freedoms our obligations
allow. This leaves little or no room for the idea of rights as morally warranted and
hence requiring respect, and perhaps support, from others; though on different
conceptions of freedom the identification might generate rights that are so
warranted.
On the face of it, the connection of right, especially natural right, with reason
should open the way to a richer notion. In De Cive, Hobbes says, 'Neither by the
word right is anything else signified, than that liberty which every man hath to make
use of his natural faculties according to right reason' (EW II, 9). I say that this
connection, on the face of it, opens the way to a richer notion because the reference
to right reason introduces a positive, normative element into the definition of right.
Indeed, I have argued that this leads to certain restrictions upon the supposedly
unconditional nature of natural rights. Nonetheless, despite the De Cive reference
to 'right reason', Hobbes often operates with an idea of reason which is highly
individual and even subjective; this allows one man to have a right which no other
man has an obligation to respect and indeed the exercise of which others may have
a right to prevent. So, in the state of nature, it seems that an individual is
legitimately ('blamelessly') exercising his natural right of self-preservation if he
attacks and kills other people whom he believes to be a threat to his security no
matter how mistaken or irrational his belief may be when viewed objectively.
Interestingly, in Leviathan, Hobbes does not allude to 'right reason' in connection
with the right of nature but makes it clear that in the state of nature, 'everyone is
governed by his own reason' (EW III, 117) and hence has a 'right to every thing'
he deems necessary for his own preservation. This means that if I believe that you
constitute a threat to my life (though you don't) then I attack you by right but, far
from being obliged to respect and facilitate my right, you have the right to resist
and obstruct since you are actually under threat. If we had rights only where they
were grounded in an objective 'right reason' then we would say of the above
situation that I had no right to attack you, though my behavior might be 'blameless'
depending upon the nature of my mistaken judgment, and hence, although you have
a clear right to defend yourself, the question of your having to respect my right does
not arise.
This issue of the role and nature of reason takes us to the heart of Hobbes's moral
theory, itself a complex blend of elements usually thought of as disparate and even
incompatible. The theory combines a subjectivist view of the moral vocabulary with
a natural law theory of social morality, a kind of positivism about law and justice
and what seems to hover between a rationalist and a 'speech act' account of the
 179

moral obligation involved in covenanting. 1o That Hobbes makes this mixture so

palatable is a tribute to his genius but I am not persuaded that such a brew can be
swallowed with safety and I think that one of its most serious deficiencies is its
unavoidable reliance upon an equivocal and unstable concept of reason.
Fortunately, perhaps, for the reader's patience and my capabilities, I cannot expand
upon this suggestion here.
Finally, let me return to my initial points of agreement with Professor Goyard-
Fabre and simply suggest that the anthropological perspective she finds in Hobbes
and which she sees as marking him off from his predecessors is not as striking a
difference as she believes. Certainly, Aristotle has an anthropology and it is central
to his ethics. Hobbes indeed in Leviathan criticizes him and the other Greeks for
precisely this: 'Aristotle, and other heathen philosophers, define good and evil by
the appetite of men ... ' (ibid. III, 680); 'Their moral philosophy is but a description
of their own passions' (ibid. III, 660). Even Aquinas is as much concerned with
man's actual nature as with God's relation to it in his discussions of ethics. Indeed
there are some strikiJg parallels between his discussion of natural law and that of
Hobbes. For one instance, Aquinas bases his analysis of natural law upon man's
natural inclinations as understood by reflection and finds a basic inclination to self-
preservation (shared by all substances) which issues in a first precept of natural law
aimed at the preservation of life. 11 The sixteenth century Thomistic theologian
Francisco Suarez, translated Aquinas's point into to language of rights in
'anthropological' terms that strikingly foreshadow some of Hobbes's expressions;
according to Suarez, 'the right to preserve one's life is the greatest right of all' 12
and even entitles a citizen to use lethal violence in defence of himself against the
unjust attack of a ruler. No doubt it depends a bit on what one means by
anthropology but what is, I suggest, most distinctive of Hobbes, in contrast to his
predecessors, is not his wanting a picture of man at the center of his ethic but the
actual picture which he there presents.

NOTES

Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 182.
2 Simone Goyard-Fabre, Le Droite et La Loi Dans La Philosophie De Thomas Hobbes (Paris:
Librairie C. Klincksieck: 1975).
3 I follow Hobbes in using the terms 'right of nature' and 'natural right' pretty much
interchangeably.
4 Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (University of Chicago Press, 1952). His
argument runs throughout the book but is summarized at pp. 113-115.
5 In this same passage, however, there is a parenthetical remark which seems to imply that there
may be occasions even in the state of nature when it is possible to practive overt conformity to the laws
of nature and this may be another relic of the earlier position. The remark is bracketed in the Oakeshott
edition but is merely within commas in the Moleworth and for illustrative convenience I shall follow
180

Oakeshott here: 'Therefore notwithstanding the laws of nature (which everyone hath then kept, when
he has the will to keep them, when he can do it safely) if there be no power erected, or not great enough
for our security; every man will, and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art, for caution against
all other men' (EW III, 154).
6 This quite explicit insistence by Hobbes is surprisingly ignored by some commentators, including
for instance, Strauss, who says, 'Hobbes doctrine of sovereignty ascribes to the sovereign prince or to
the sovereign people an unqualified right to disregard all legal and constitutional limitations according
to their pleasure'. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 193.
The obligations cited in the text seem to impose clear limits on the sovereign's right, although not ones
the subject can invoke, and to restrict his freedom to act as he pleases.
7 Brian Barry 'Warrender and his Critics', Philosophy Vol. XLII, No. 164 (1968). (Reprinted in
Maurice Cranston and Richard Peters (eds.) Hobbes and Rousseau (New York, 1972). Cf. the argument
of the footnote 12 on pp. 44-45 of the reprinted version and p. 134 of the Philosophy text.
8 A point noted by Barry, op. cit., but taken by him to show that God is an 'incidental beneficiary'
of Hobbes's desire to give the sovereign unlimited natural right. I think it more likely that the attribution
of the right of dominion to God should be understood negatively as indicating our rational obligation
to obey God's power irresistible and that the sovereign, if anyone, is meant to be an 'incidental
beneficiary' of this point about rational obligation. Barry's general position on obligation would
preclude him from taking this line, or, at least, from being comfortable with it, since he treats this sort
of rational obligation as involving a 'secondary sense' which is of minor importance in the understanding
of Hobbes, especially the Hobbes of the Leviathan (cf. Barry, op. cit, pp. 58-64 and pp. 128-132). I
cannot here discuss Barry's complex and subtle argument but will merely record my view that his attempt
to downgrade the way in which natural laws and rational considerations about self-preservation etc.
oblige produces a distorion of Hobbes's thought. I hope to give this matter th.e detailed consideration
it deserves on another occasion.
9 Sir Isaiah Berlin, 'The Concepts of Liberty' in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford, 1969). See also
Berlin's comments in the introduction to this volume, especially pp. xxxvii-xxxiii.
10 I am referring here to the idea that our covenants oblige us simply because to incur any obligation
is part of what it means to covenant. The early part of Chapter 14 of Leviathan (see EW III, 118-1l9)
can, I think, be interpreted in a way that makes it quite close to John Searle's view of the obligatoriness
involved in promising (cf. John Searle, Speech Acts [Cambridge, 1969), Ch. 8). On the other hand, if
we concentrate upon the 'absurdity' argument, in that same discussion, there are, as A.E. Taylor noticed
and made too much of, distinct similarities with Kantian rationalism. For Taylor's claims see A. E.
Taylor, 'The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes', reprinted in K.C. Brown (ed.), Hobbes Studies (Oxford,
1965).
II Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1a 2ae, 94, 2.
12 Fransisco Suarez, A Defence of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith Book VI, Ch. IV, in Selections
From Three Works of Francisco Suarez S.J., Classics of International Law (Oxford, 1944), p. 709.
 181

12. THOMAS HOBBES: THE MEDIATION OF RIGHT

Gary B. Herbert

Loyola University of the South, New Orleans, Louisiana

Rights have always been a Janus-faced measure of moral action. One's rights are
reminders that his welfare is always potentially in conflict with the welfare of others.
They serve as principles of alienation, and the invocation of one's rights is a latent
declaration of war. One might liken the man who invokes his rights to the Biblical
Adam who, having eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was
awakened by that act to the bleak aspects of his surroundings. An enlightened Adam
knows that the Garden of Eden is a paradise only for a man of very few, exceedingly
simple wants. That knowledge alone is sufficient to transform paradise into
purgatory (cf. EWIII, 194). In much the same way, enlightened reflection upon the
human condition, illuminated by a sense of one's rights, is a prelude to distress and
despair. Untempered, such enlightenment can awaken the serpent in man. It can
coax him into exaggerating both his needs and his claim to rightful satisfaction of
those needs.
There is no theory of human nature in the history of philosophy that is more
notorious for depicting the contentious character of natural rights than Thomas
Hobbes's theory of the state of nature. It is unfortunate for our understanding of
Hobbes's philosophy that his perception of the dilemma confronting man in the
natural condition is oftentimes diluted by the superimposition of post-Hobbesian,
unrealistically sober and moral conceptions of natural right. The primacy of natural
right implies the fundamental priority of the natural individual; it suggests to
Hobbes that, though man may be a social animal, it is an unsociable sociality that
he enjoys. One's own welfare precedes and preconditions his loyalty to civil society
(EW 11,5).
Hobbes's doctrine of natural right goes far beyond merely declaring the self-
interested character of human thought and behavior. His concept has a dialectical
dimension to it. Natural right exposes the dialectical character of human desire and,
consequently, the contradictory character of rational self-interest. The problem
Hobbes sets for himself is the mediation of natural right, that is, the satisfaction
of need and desire in ways that are not ultimately self-destructive. Traditionally,
Hobbes has been understood to turn that function over to the social contract. What
is not always realized by Hobbes's readers is that natural right cannot be fully

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science oj Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus NijhoJJ Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
182

recognized in, or mediated by mere political association.

Perhaps the most important backdrop necessary for understanding Hobbes's
theory of natural right is its classical counterpart, the political and moral theory of
antiquity, both Greek and Christian. The ancients, as Hobbes understood them,
tended to rely upon the naked appeal of moral virtue itself to subdue the perversities
of man's private inclinations. They failed to come to grips with the fact that man
is by nature a private animal whose first concern is always for himself. Hobbes
believed that they did not take into account the modest appeal that moral ideals have
for them. When men are threatened, their natural inclinations are to forget the
dictates or moral education and ignore the social conventions that may have
governed their behavior previously. The more primitive forces of fear and desire
become authoritative.
Hobbes's political theory represents a rejection of ancient moral philosophy, but
not merely because the appeal of virtue is ineffective in subduing the egostic
impulses that govern behavior. In fact, the appeal of virtue is occasionally effective.
But when it is, it is only because it has become a partner to passion. Virtue tends
to become vicious. It has an almost unlimited capacity for serving as the conduit
of desire. This capacity virtue has for subordinating itself to human passion led
Hobbes to the conclusion that traditional moral theories are 'hermaphrodite
opinions' (ibid. II, xiii), partly right, insofar as the appeal of virtue is more lofty
than the urgings of desire, but also partly wrong, because moral theories too easily
justify contention, bloodshed and war. In the name of virtue, and for the sake of
moral ideals, men are coaxed into sedition. In the name of justice and righteousness
they thrust themselves back into that condition in which 'there is perpetual war, of
every man against his neighbour .. .' (EW III, 201).
Hobbes takes his philosophical bearings not by the highest virtues or excellences
one might associate with man, but by his lowest common denominator, his most
natural and irresistable urges. We are told by Hobbes that all men by nature have
a right to seek their preservation and augment their well-being. Since one's
preservation depends in part upon his success in augmenting his condition, in
acquiring more than merely what is needed for his immediate preservation (EW III,
322), the concerns are really contrary modes of the one natural concern for self.
Every man has a natural right, by implication, to whatever he judges will be
necessary for his survival. Of course, no man really knows what will be necessary.
No one knows which of an uncountable variety of 'unforeseen mischances' will
befall him in his future. He must prepare for them all. His natural right to seek his
preservation transforms itself, in principle, to an unqualified right to everything
whatsoever. Natural rights becomes abstract, indeterminate, infinite. In such a
situation there are no moral limits to what a man can rightfully do. One should not
be surprised that the human condition, as Hobbes conceives it, degenerates in
principle (long before it does in practice) to a condition of war.
This does not mean, of course, that men will battle one another tooth and claw
 183

at their every meeting. After all there is much more to violence than mere physical
engagement. Hobbes explains that,

... as the nature of foul weather, lieth not in a shower or two of rain; but in an inclination
thereto of many days together: so the nature of war, consisteth not in actual fighting; but
in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.
All other time is PEACE (ibid. III, 113).

The inclination to provide for oneself even at the expense of others, and to see
others as a threat to one's own welfare simply because they must act on the same
private inclinations, is the defining characteristic of Hobbesian war. The inclination
is not something acquired or learned. Were it acquired, moral reeducation might
eradicate it and make perpetual peace a possibility. Rather, Hobbes says it is an
impulse received 'from the uncontrolable dictates of necessity .. .' (EW II, ii). He
says that it is

... found even in the embryo; which while it is in the womb, moveth its limbs with
voluntary motion, for the avoiding of whatsoever troubleth it, or for the pursuing of what
pleaseth it (EW I, 407).

The foetal impulses to avoid what is troubling and to pursue that which is pleasing
are, in effect, the contrary modes of the one endeavor, or eonatus, that characterizes
living beings, i.e. survival.
It is passion - human fear and desire - that puts men in the natural condition;
but it also lifts men out of the state of dumb immediacy, making man an historical
animal. Hobbes tells us that impressions made of things desired or feared are
stronger and more permanent (EW III, 13). Fear and desire are aids to mnemonics;
and because of memory, men can begin to direct themselves toward the future. They
become intentional. They acquire a history.
There is no thought in Hobbes's account of man that does not in some way
express the foetal impulse of man to preserve his life and to augment his well-being.
Insofar as life is motion, the good of life will be the accentuation of that motion.
To say that this endeavor of man is natural is to say that man cannot deviate from
it as the governing principle of his actions. Apparent deviations from natural
necessity only reveal the self-contradictory character of acting on that natural
necessity, i.e. of acting on natural right.
The difficulty involved in recognizing the natural rights of men arises in the fact
that preservation depends on man's sensivity to needs that are not immediate, needs
that may arise in the future. A man's success in providing for his welfare depends
on his ability to anticipate needs that may never actually occur. By making
preparations for the satisfaction of so many future needs, men are led to do things
that, ironically, make them appear to be threats to the welfare of others. The
visibility of one's concern for his own future well-being induces observant others to
184

act in ways that will jeopardize his well-being. His efforts to 'assure the power and
means to live well' (ibid., 86) invariably arouse the suspicion and the enmity of those
whose intentions he suspects, and in the process he creates the very threat to his
welfare that he wants to protect himself against.
The unfortunate problem is that, by the right of nature, one's private opinions
are the only available authority for determining whether the various powers and
advantages he could acquire are, in fact, necessary to his future welfare. Because
every man's judgment is fallible, Hobbes says, it is reasonable for every man to
anticipate and to err on the side of preparedness. Right reason paradoxically
encourages men to go beyond the bounds of right reason. To not anticipate
conceivable threats to one's welfare and to compensate for them would be foolish.
To anticipate them, on the other hand, is to compensate in ways that will make one
look threatening to those others whom he perceives as possible threats to himself.
A relatively modest desire to live well, Hobbes says, cannot be assured without the
acquisition of more (ibid., 86). The result is a self-vitiating dialectic of desire. The
more man tries by his natural efforts to escape the natural condition, the more
inescapable the natural condition becomes. The result is an irrepressible drive, 'a
perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only in death'
(ibid., 85-86).
It was to characterize this conception of human nature that Hobbes introduced
the doctrine of natural right. The logic of the dilemma produced by his concept is
expressed in terms of the brutality of a pre-political condition, but it is implicit in
every condition, from the most practical to the most intellectual. Hobbes argues that
every man possesses the natural right to seek his preservation simply because it is
natural. He maintained, in effect, that whatever a man can reasonably do, he can
do with right (EW II, 8-9). Hobbes clearly did not argue that natural right is an
uncomplicated moral standard which all men ought to acknowledge. Hobbesian
natural rights imply no reciprocal obligations. Natural right is nothing other than
the natural inclination, or endeavor, exhibited by all natural bodies to remain in
motion. Since the characteristic motion of man is life, the natural endeavor of man
is to remain alive. Inclination is visible in living beings as need. And the
consciousness of need in themselves by men is desire. When one's desire is for
satisfaction of what one believes to be a vital need, the urge to satisfy that desire
is what is meant by right. The dilemma men face in the state of nature is not a result
of the fact that there are no moral laws to follow, but that it is the nature of
unmediated self-interest to be self-contradictory.!
One risks musunderstanding Hobbes if he takes the problem of unmediated self-
interest to be merely a matter of pacifying the savage, i.e. mitigating the destructive
side-effects of excessive desire. Natural right, conditioned as it is by the limits of
man's ability to know what is necessary for his own survival, is sufficiently
indeterminate so as to be practically unlimited. To merely mitigate the extravagance
of his desire would be to leave him in the natural condition. For that, Hobbes has
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no desire. The problem is that the act of pursuing one's unlimited right in the
natural condition inevitably creates a condition in which the right is least likely to
be satisfied. In short, natural right is self-contradictory. Its idea is compromised,
even contradicted by the very act of pursuing it. The problem, then, is to mediate
natural right, i.e. to find a way to make the idea of natural right recognizable in
the conditions it creates and the satisfactions it pursues. Politically, the problem is
to show how civil right is the realization, or extension, of natural right, not its
annihilation.
Unfortunately, natural right cannot be recognized in its mere political extension.
Because no sovereign can guarantee a man against sickness, natural catastrophe,
bad luck, etc., we must provide for both political and extra-political mediation of
right. It is always possible that a man may perceive (even correctly perceive) that
his present safety is incompatible with further loyalty to sovereign authority. That
man will be thrust back into the natural condition - i.e. the self-destructive situation
in which he is placed when he takes his own needs and desires as the principles of
action. How Hobbes addresses this dilemma and provides for the multi-faceted
mediation of right we will now examine.

1. Natural Law

Hobbes never discusses the right of nature without shortly thereafter introducing a
discussion of natural laws. Presumably, natural law is intended as the one avenue
which men might take to escape the miserable situation created when they act on
unmediated natural right. Hobbes defines the 'law of nature' as 'the dictate of right
reason, conversant about those things which are either to be done or omitted for
the constant preservation of life and members, as much as in us lies' (ibid. II, 16).
We should know already that by 'dictate of right reason' Hobbes does not mean
to refer to some sort of moral rationality. Certainly the objective of natural law does
not appear to be any moral priority that would invalidate man's selfish concern for
his own survival and well-being.
Thus Hobbes's theory cannot be legitimately shown to have had its roots in the
Christian tradition of natural law that preceded him, and which turns on a
conception of man in which reason is either prior to, or at least is separate from
desire. Natural law, as Hobbes develops it, is only the politically reasonable
extension of natural right. Natural right refers to man's concern for his own
welfare, a concern that excludes all authority external to himself, that of God
included. His theory, therefore, represents a conceptual rejection of natural law
theory, not its seventeeth century development. Admittedly, Hobbes does associate
the natural laws with God's commandments, but the association is oblique and
sounds much more like lip sevice to a conventional wisdom that would be dangerous
for him to ignore. He writes,
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These dictates of reason, men used to call by the name of laws, but improperly: for they
are but conclusions, or theorems concerning what conduceth to the conservation and
defence of themselves; whereas law, properly, is the word of him, that by right hath
command over others. But yet if we consider the same theorems, as delivered in the word
of God, that by right commandeth all things; then are they properly called laws (EW, 147;
cL, 253).

Hobbes's definition of natural law was obviously written with considerable caution,
and for good reason. He was living in a time of religious persecution. I would
suggest that it is unreasonable to take everything Hobbes said at its face value,
especially since he contradicts himself, oftentimes very obviously. Even more
important is the fact that his own safety is jeopardized by what he writes, and he
tell us that rational men dissimulate in such situations (which he dissimulates by
calling it 'discretion') (ibid., 59; cf. 64). The natural laws contain no meaningful
reference to God, except to say that covenants with Him are impossible. Natural law
is, in effect, the self-consciousness of natural right, struggling to escape the self-
destructive consequence of its unmediated extension. The first two laws, really, tell
the whole story. They are:
(1) 'that every man, ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtainig
it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use all helps, and advantages
of war' (ibid., 117), and
(2) 'that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far-forth, as for peace, and
defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things;
and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other
men against himself' (ibid. III, 117-118).
The laws of nature do not so much resolve the problem of Hobbes's natural man
as they provide a juridical expression for it. This is evident in the fact that the second
law of nature follows only from the first half of the first law. The first law
disjunctively advocates peace and, when that does not seem possible to men who
are inherently suspicious, it advises them to wage war with regard only for the
advantages that war will provide. Where peace is not possible, the second law of
nature does not follow. In short, the contentious character of natural right is
expressed in the first natural law; it is absent in the second. The second law seems
to have abstracted from the internally self-contradictory character of self-interest
still visible in the first. The problem for students of Hobbes's political theory might
well be expressed as the problem of getting from the prudential advice of the first
law of nature to the more categorical advice of the second.
Hobbes seems to suggest we can avoid the impasse created by the mutually
antagonistic character of human self-interest, i.e. the indeterminate character of
natural right, simply by appealing to the enlightening capacity of fear to coax each
man into surrendering his natural right to everything. A mutual surrender of rights
would take the form of a contract, to which men would become parties. One
wonders how fear can bring about a contractual agreement. The mystery remains
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because the natural suspicion each man must have for every other has not yet been
relieved. Hobbes admits that mere words will not demonstrate faithfully a man's
intentions (EWII, 19). It must seem odd to Hobbes's readers that, after portraying
human nature as he does, he says that 'faith only is the bond of contracts' (ibid.,
25). He augments that statement with an emphasis on man's capacity for perceiving
his self-interest correctly. We are told, 'whosoever therefore holds, that it had been
best to have continued in that state in which all things were lawful for all men, he
contradicts himself' (ibid., 12). The state of nature is a condition of misery that no
man can coherently prefer. Following the Socratic observation that 'no man can
know the good and not desire it', Hobbes remarks, 'of two evils, it is impossible
not to choose the least' (ibid., 26). Unfortunately, it is not easy for man to know
with certainty which of two evils is the least. It is ignorance in such matters, not
merely natural right or desire, that generates the natural condition.
Hobbes's reference to faith as the only bond of contracts can only have meaning
in the light of this concern with rational self-interest. Keeping faith is a vital part
of the credibility of future offers one might find it advantageous to make. That is,
it may be in one's interest to contract with another on some future occasion and so
it would not be in his interest to discredit his future contractual efforts by acts of
bad faith now.
The obvious difficulty with a dependence upon faith is that it once again stumbles
over the all too natural combination of human suspicion and human ignorance.
Those whose best interests might be served by keeping faith will not necessarily see
it that way. Self-interest is not always enlightened. While there may be a need for
pre-contractual trust as the antecedent of contractual association, there is no reason
to expect men to trust one another without some prior guarantees of their safety.
One needs a sovereign to guarantee the safety of those who, once confident of their
security, will be able to contract with each other in good faith to select a sovereign!
The vicious circularity of the logic is hard to escape.
There is, of course, one obvious solution to the problem of entering into a first
contract that is suggested by Hobbes. Civil society can have been originally
generated by acquisition, i.e. by conquest, rather than by institution (cf. EW III,
Ch. 20). The fact that commonwealth by acquisition is dealt with by Hobbes along
with paternal dominion suggests that it is more natural. And, Hobbes says,
sovereignty by acquisition (conquest) is not different in its consequences from
sovereignty by institution. Most importantly, if a society is established by
acquisition, the need for pre-contractual faith is eliminated. Finally, the identity of
sovereignty by acquisition and sovereignty by institution suggests that conquest does
not necessarily imply a violation or right. I am sure that many would take issue with
Hobbes on this, with some obvious justification. Nevertheless, it seems to have been
Hobbes's position. It is also debatable whether any society has ever come about by
voluntary political association, i.e. institution. Most likely, the account of
sovereignty by institution is Hobbes's way of making sovereignty by acquisition
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look more acceptable. Regardless, the identity of acquisition and institution does
not resolve the problem of keeping civil society intact and keeping men peaceful in
their intentions toward one another.

2. Mediation of the Decivilizing Aspects of Right

Scattered throughout Hobbes's writings are references to the forces that tend
toward cancelling the civilizing influence of fear and making the social contract
likely to fail. Those forces - all extensions of man's natural right - become effective
when men recognize that their needs are greater than contractual association can
provide for. One needs protection from more than just one's neighbor. The forces
- needs, rights - which can easily loosen one's contractual ties, must be mediated
if man is to be able to maintain his civil associations.

3. The Abuse of Sovereign Power

The most immediate and obvious threat to a Hobbesian civil society is the threat
posed by a tyrannical sovereign. Why will a Hobbesian sovereign not abuse his
absolute authority? Hobbes's answer to this question is simple,. even if it is not
altogether acceptable to us today. The sovereign alone of all those in civil society
is not a party to the social contract. He alone remains in the natural condition,
unable to enjoy the most important benefit of civil society, i.e. the guarantee of
security. His relationship to his subjects is entirely natural. As sovereign, he retains
his unmediated right to provide for his preservation by availing himself of any
means to that end he sees fit. Should he threaten the security of his subjects,
however, they will have no recourse but to appeal to their own natural right to
preservation. On the other hand, if he provides for their safety and guarantees them
'all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger,
or hurt to the commonwealth, shall acquire to himself' (EW III, 322), he will have
served his own interest as well. Acting on his politically-mediated self-interest, the
sovereign will be transformed into a paragon of moral virtue. The pacification of
his subjects is the one thing that keeps him from falling back into the miseries of
the natural condition. He need only avoid the illusion-begetting arrogance that all
too often accompanies absolute authority. For this, however, he needs the assist of
natural reason.
Hobbes tells us that the sovereign must be able to read mankind in himself (ibid. ,
xii). What he means by this is made a bit clearer, perhaps by his remark that
'naturally the best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes' (ibid., 689).
The best of men, i.e. the most benevolent and considerate, read into the actions of
others intentions similar to their own. They are, consequently, easily deceived.
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Hobbes admits that reading mankind correctly is harder than any other task. It
requires a knowledge of human nature itself, which can only be gotten by taking
oneself as the key, and then only if one has read himself correctly. Hobbes claims
to provide the ingredients necessary to the education of the sovereigns in his
Leviathan.
It is interesting to observe that, sandwiched between chapter twenty-four of
Leviathan on The Nutrition and Procreation of a Commonwealth and chapter
twenty-six on Civil laws is a chapter on Counsellors. That is, Hobbes's treatment
of the rights and enjoyments of the public and his treatment of the laws governing
the distribution of enjoyments are mediated by a chapter concerning the education
of sovereigns. The chapter addresses the education of the sovereign regarding his
own interest and, incidentally but not unimportantly, the reciprocally related -
almost symbiotic - interests of his subjects. Most especially, the chapter concerns
itself with the selection of good counselors who cannot be 'bribed by their own
interest', whose interests are consistent with those whom they counsel (ibid., 245).
Hobbes does not offer examples of good counselors, but who is there better than
himself at enlightening sovereigns? After all, the education of those who are 'to
govern a whole nation' (ibid., xii; cf. 357) is the objective he has established for
Leviathan.

4. The Uncivil Character of Revenge and the Love of Glory

The pacification of sovereigns is not the end of the threats to contractual association
not relieved by fear. Of especial importance is the fact that subjects may on occasion
prefer to risk their lives and jeopardize peace than suffer insult or shame. 2 The
desire for revenge, when accompanied by hope of success in satisfying that desire,
will lead men into acts that are inevitably self-destructive. It is a desire associated
with an excessive concern for glory which some men exhibit, which coaxes them into
sedition. Desire for glory is the one cause of war Hobbes mentions in chapter
thirteen of Leviathan that he does not also identify as a cause of peace (ibid., 112,
116; cf. 283). The fear of death does not always moderate this passion simply
because men who are so moved overestimate the possibility of success.
I believe Hobbes's doctrine of natural equality is intended to explain this
tendency. The theory does not prove - and is not intended to prove - that men are
by nature equal. If that were its intention, it would be a terrible argument. What
it does prove is that men are capable of perceiving themselves as the equals, or even
the superiors, of those who are, in fact, superior to them, either in strength or in
intelligence. 3 Men are proud (vain), they love recognition (glory) and hence are
easily insulted. The resentments they harbor are the latent conditions of a warfare
not always resolvable by an appeal to a counterbalancing fear of death.
Hobbes's successor in political theory, John Locke, resolved this problem in his
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Second Treatise on Government merely by recasting human nature in such a way

as to make men appear more tractable. 4 Locke's natural man is not plagued by
needs that are indeterminate or by desires that are inherently contentious. The
infinite character of human desire attributed to men by Hobbes, i.e. the desire to
preserve oneself and to augment his well-being against any and every conceivable
threat that might arise in the indeterminate future, is abandoned by Locke. Locke's
account of the passions omits, for example, the desire for glory Hobbes, on the
other hand, maintained that the desire for glory, or for reputation, is an integral
part of human nature. It is inherently contentious since, if every man has glory, then
no man has it. It can be acquired only at the expense of the glory of others. The
struggle for recognition implies a latent warfare which, like the Hegelian
master/slave dialectic to which it is the antecedent, can never be resolved. If that
is, indeed, part of man's natural make-up, then civil association alone will never
make man entirely peaceable.
By abstracting from man's desire for glory, and by concentrating only on those
threats to well-being that have their origins in the scarcity of those commodities
necessary to life, Locke makes man look more tractable. The Lockean state of
nature is not a state of war when there is natural abundance. Locke's natural man
in the midst of natural abundance is good. It is only scarcity that transforms his
state of nature into a state of war. Presumably, socially created abundance will be
sufficient to recreate the original condition of peace. Locke's argument turns out
to be the philosophical defense for democratic liberalism.
Hobbes portrays man as an enigmatic creature, a creature sufficiently self-
interested to be fundamentally interested in reputation and glory. Hence, he is more
easily insulted and shamed, and more provoked into violence by the threat of insult.
It has been argued by some of Hobbes's readers that a love of glory could not be
a characteristic of man in the natural condition since glory depends on social
recognition. The criticism is not really damaging. Hobbes's natural condition is not
a condition of complete social ignorance and mutual isolation. Men in that
condition are social; they are not 'sociable' however. The prerequisites of assuring
one's safety and well-being cannot permit it.
In both De Cive and Leviathan, Hobbes recommends (oddly enough) the use of
religion which, if properly cultivated, is influential with 'the greatest part of
mankind'. I believe this explains the otherwise peculiar fact that a chapter on
religion has been inserted by Hobbes between his two chapters in Leviathan
concerned with the natural condition - chapter eleven on Manners (i.e. the manner
of human behavior in general, not the social graces) and chapter thirteen on The
Natural Condition. (We shall return to the issue of religion again shortly.)
For those whose desires are mediated neither by religion nor by sovereign
authority (e.g. the English gentry who rebelled against the authority of Charles I),
Hobbes offers the enlightening influence of his doctrine of natural equality. The
doctrine, we have already seen, proves not that men are by nature equal, but that
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they are never at a loss for finding ways to perceive themselves as equals, if not
superiors, even to their superiors. The illusion of physical equality can be created
by associating with others or by secret machinations. Of course, any equality so
generated would be social, not natural. Its necessity presupposes a prior inequality.
Likewise, the illusion of intellectual equality can be obtained by a liberal use of
ridicule, by simply not listening or, best of all, by the simple agency of censorship.
The corollary to the proof that a man is not necessarily inferior to his superiors
is the more humbling thought that he is also not necessarily superior to his inferiors.
The doctrine provides persuasive rhetoric which is supposed to encourage those who
seek glory and who are most vulnerable to insult and shame to be contented with
equality. His proof for natural equality contains the message that if we do not admit
our equality, we will all, by the brutishness of our situation, be reduced to equality
in those aspects of our situation in which we are least equal, e.g. in our ability to
reason. One might debate the effectiveness of Hobbes's solution or combination of
solutions to this threat to civil association and the mediation it provides for the
excesses of natural right so conceived. At the very least, its effectiveness would
depend on Hobbes's ability to make himself heard by (and influential with) those
whose interests include a desire for glory and reputation. Hobbes has a suggestion
for this too, one which involves restructuring the universities. We will get to that
matter shortly.

5. The Seditious Character of Religion

Still another force that threatens the pacifying influence of fear, according to
Hobbes, is the force of religion, even though, under the proper circumstances,
religions can contribute to the mediation of natural right. Hobbes is aware that the
force of religious doctrines can easily frighten men into violation of the laws of their
country. He suggests that if the 'superstitious fear of spirits were taken away ... '
(by which he means spirits whose authority challenges that of sovereigns) 'men
would be much more fitted than they are for civil obedience' (ibid., III, to).
Religious doctrines invoke powers which no sovereign can guarantee men against,
invisible agents that are responsible for natural calamities, such as famine and
pestilence. Religion becomes a kind of second contract, a contract men make with
the incomprehensibility of nature. It is a contract intended to innoculate them
against the calamities brought on by an uncooperative environment. Of course,
religion cannot eliminate all inconveniences any more than civil society can. 'The
condition of man in this life shall never be without inconveniences '(ibid. , 195). But,
just as the inconveniences of the state of nature are greater than any endured in civil
society, so also pre-religious calamities are greater and more threatening because
man is promised no (post-biological) avenue of escape from them. The Christian
believer, on the other hand, is promised salvation. The promise of salvation can
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make the threat of sovereign anger less menacing and men more willing to rebel.
Hobbes's suggestion to this threat is the subordination of religious doctrines to
political authority. Scriptural interpretation, he suggests, ought to be a power
transferred to sovereigns. At the same time, he insists that the sovereign's authority
is subordinate to God's word. 'For, whosoever hath a lawful power over any
writing, to make it law, hath the power also to approve or disapprove the
interpretation of the same' (ibid., 380) This has the interesting - albeit circular -
effect of making the sovereign's fiat a form of devotion! He has interpretive
authority over that to which his authority is subordinate.
To better control the passions of the divines who preach religious doctrines, and
on whom the pacification of the masses partially depends, Hobbes proposed
restructuring the universities which provide divines with their education. Hobbes
also provides us with an elaborate Biblical exegesis sufficient, he thinks, to make
his own political theories palatable as the basis of a university curriculum (ibid.,
713).

6. The Uncivilizing Effect of Natural Catastrophes

Hobbes's procedure for making religious authorities politically more compromising

would probably work. In fact, it has worked. But it is not obvious that it would
secure men against 'invisible powers' that threaten them and over which no
sovereign has authority or power. I refer here to natural catastrophes. Panic terror
in times of crisis makes the great majority of men bad citizens and unreliable
subjects. Hobbes's solution to this problem is perhaps the most remarkable of his
mediations, insofar as it involves the philosophical project of the seventeenth
century to make man 'the master and possessor of nature'. 5 The faith of the
seventeenth century was founded on the possibility that philosophical science could
become the great benefactor to man where other 'invisible agents' of his welfare
have obviously failed. The benefits of science can conceivably do what God himself
has failed to do, i.e. reduce the threats to man in his hostile environment
Hobbes's expectations from philosophical science were not modest. One reason
for his expectations was his perception of philosophy as a preeminently natural
enterprise. The useless contemplation of eternal truths - the medieval preoccupation
- was rejected. Philosophy was now to be reg rounded on nature. Man's concern for
knowledge is grounded upon his fear of violent death, which is, in turn, an
expression of his natural right. The philosophical pursuit was not a task for reason
that is liberated from the passions. Rather, man's fear of the natural calamities that
could conceivably befall him propels him into philosophical inquiries (at least, when
fear is not mediated by religious doctrine). Philosophical inquiries, presumably, will
lead to discoveries and creations that will enable men to control their environment,
:to make themselves the masters of nature, the measures of all things.
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It is fear that exposes man to the limitless hostility of nature, according to

Hobbes. Unless he fears, man will not perceive nature as it is. His well-being is not
the intended objective of natural forces. Men understand that best during those
times that they suffer misfortunes that could not have been averted, even if
foreseen. Fear provides man with an access to the absence of purpose or
benevolence in nature. Reason does not emerge in proportion to man's liberation
from passion. Rather, it depends on passion for its becoming more than useless
speculation.
The greatest fears of men expose not only the unresponsiveness of nature, to
human need and desire. They also reveal the possibility of a limitless self-assertion,
the possibility that, in the absence of an omniscient, omnipotent God, man might
impose the image of his own need and desire on nature, making himself the true
measure of all things. In fact, Hobbes recommends that men strive to imitate the
creation (EW III, xi; cf. EW I, Epistle to the Reader). He tells us that 'to know ...
(any) truth is nothing else, but to acknowledge that it is made by ourselves' (EW
II, 303). The limitless indifference of the universe opens the way to what he calls
an 'indefatigable generation of knowledge' (EW III, 45). At its zenith, this passion
is represented by what Hobbes calls the 'spirit of gravity', and its objective is 'the
great and master-delight' (EW IV, 56). Philosophy, understood this way, becomes
the grand project to make man the master and possessor of nature. Philosophical
theories become the historicist projections of human will onto nature undertaken
not with detachment and not out of benevolent concern for humanity, but out of
self-love and a desire for 'the great and master-delight' that accompanies great
achievement.

7. The Self-Mediation of Philosophical Desire

This account of the mediation of right is conspicuously incomplete if it does not

allow in some way for the mediation of philosophical science itself. If the
philosophical project to acquire mastery over nature is the dialectically generated
outcome of Hobbes's account of natural right (since philosophical thought becomes
the paradigm form of the human concern for preservation and augmentation of
well-being), a likely conflict of authority still exists. The philosopher-scientist
cannot subordinate the authority of reason to moral, theological or political
authority - not privately at least - without abandoning philosophical science. Where
conflict exists, mere lip-service to public doctrines rarely resolves the problems it
creates. The project of the philosophical scientist is nofmade politically responsible
by contractual association, by religious conviction or by the pacifying rhetoric of
doctrines (such as the divine rights of kings, the doctrine of natural equality or the
doctrine of human rights). In a sense, the philosophical scientist is always outside
the social contract. He is the modern counterpart to Plato's cave-dweller who
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escaped, but who was forced to reenter and live in the cave, except that what lies
outside the Hobbesian cave is not immortal truth and The Good but, rather, the
malevolent indifference of nature and, more specifically, the dialectically generated
and self-destructive opposition of man to man in the absence of the cave's authority.
Leaving the sociability of the cave is not a philosophical undertaking; it is an act
of sedition.
The problem is that the authority of the cave compromises the scientist's effort
to establish dominion over nature at the same time that it protects all men (the
scientist included) from the malevolent effects of nature. The problem can be solved
politically, of course, by censorship or by management of the sciences. History
shows us, however, that such solutions are never more than temporarily effective.
More often than not, it is technological science that subtly manages government.
The fact is, the investigations of philosophical science can be damaging to the
theological doctrines and social myths that galvanize a people into a society. By
threatening to expose its mythic foundations and salutary lies to critical examination
(for example, by showing that a doctrine of the divine right of kings or, for that
matter, the natural right of each has no basis in nature), philosophical science
threatens the foundations of civil society itself. The result is civil distrust, the latent
warfare of subject against sovereign all over again.
Part of Hobbes's solution to this problem was to redefine the civil structure of
society in such a way that scientific and philosophical progress is no longer a threat
to it. He provided for this, we have seen, through the secularization of civil society
(sub-surface, at least) and the education of sovereigns. But these measures in
themselves are not sufficient to guarantee the welfare of civil society. Philosophical
science itself must be morally and politically responsible. It cannot be made so by
any external authority without degenerating to something less than philosophical
science, i.e. without becoming ideology. The only alternative is the self-regulation
of philosophical science.
Hobbes was certainly clear in conveying his opinion that the pursuit of
philosophical discoveries and the maintenance of political order need not be
mutually exclusive. What has escaped students of Hobbes so far is how he perceived
their reconciliation. Some light may be shed on the issue, I believe, if one remembers
that philosophical and scientific desire is an extension of man's natural right, his
indominatible will to survive. Hobbes would appear to have suggested that
philosophical and scientific desire is politically self-mediating. Unlike the natural
and civil expressions of man's desire for survival, it does not culminate in political
excess. If, as Hobbes says in Leviathan, the sciences are small in power (EW III,
75), it is only because philosophical scientists do not seek public recognition. Only
the scientist knows that the insight of the general public is not sufficient to serve
as an accurate index of the significance and worth of philosophical science.
Consequently, he will not extend himself to compete for public recognition.
In an instructive passage near the end of Leviathan, Hobbes takes a somewhat
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different approach to this same point. He claims that power cannot be preserved
by the 'suppression of the natural sciences'. The power at issue is that obtained from
the political expansion of ecclesiastical authority. The natural sciences are
apparently a threat to it. Hobbes writes,

For there is none should know better than they, that power is preserved by the same
virtues by which it is acquired; that is to say, by wisdom, humility, clearness of doctrine,
and sincerity of conversation; and not by suppression of the natural sciences, and oj the
morality oj natural reason ... (ibid., 697; emphasis mine).

The phrase, 'the morality of natural reason' must seem to many to be an odd phrase
to find in Hobbes's Leviathan. It might be argued that natural reason, as Hobbes
conceived it, is anything but moral. To the extent that reason is natural, it does not
appear to produce any theory of moral obligation. On the other hand, to the extent
that reason is moral, it does not appear to be derivative from nature, at least not
from Hobbesian nature.
By 'natural reason' here I do not believe Hobbes means merely the political
reasonablenness generated by men who have fled the natural condition for the
greater security of civil association, though this is certainly included in the idea. It
refers, I believe, to the self-mediating character of philosophical and scientific desire
in those philosophical and scientific few who are truly capable. It is with them in
mind that Hobbes makes the occasional oblique references that have puzzled
Hobbes scholars for decades, references to men who are naturally moral and
generous. In Leviathan, Hobbes says,

Of all passions, that which inclineth men least to break the laws, is fear. Nay, excepting
some generous nature, it is the only thing, when there is appearance of profit or pleasure
by breaking the laws, that makes men keep them (ibid., 285; emphasis mine).

Apparently, some generous natures will remain lawful even when profit or pleasure
could be obtained by breaking the laws, and even when there is no threat of
retaliation or punishment. Hobbes does not say openly who these generous natures
are. He does say that their virtue is 'a generosity too rarely found to be presumed
on, especially in the pursuers of wealth, command, or sensual pleasure; which are
the greatest part of mankind' (ibid., 128-29). Since it is not a virtue to be expected
in those who pursue either command or wealth, it is not the characteristic virtue of
either sovereigns or aristocrats. Again, Hobbes writes,

That which gives to human actions the relish of justice, is a certain nobleness or
gallantness of courage, rarely found, by which a man scorns to be beholden for the
contentment of his life, to fraud, or to breach of promise (ibid., 136).

Many of Hobbes's readers have disregarded these comments because they appear
to be irreconcilable with Hobbes's general theory about human nature. After all,
196

in the natural condition force and fraud are the two cardinal virtues! Strauss was
on the right track, I believe, in tracing Hobbes's statements to the influence of
Descartes, specifically, to the notion of generosity in his Passions of the Soul. 6
However, Strauss dismissed the idea because it seemed incompatible with the
mechanistic materialism which he took to be authoritative in Hobbes's philosophy.
Strauss's conclusion is required, however, only if one stays close to the traditional
mechanical interpretation of Hobbes. That may not be necessary. 7 In fact, in the
last analysis, Hobbes is probably not a mechanist at all.
Another avenue for explaining away the magnanimous few who can exempt
themselves from the egoistic necessities of nature has been to argue that they
represent 'a kind of second nature imposed upon men by their own wills', and that
the event 'is like the emergence of ethics, of civilisation, and indeed of
disinterestedness .. .'.8 Hobbes, it would seem, arrived, partially and prematurely,
at the Hegelian idea of the ethical life (Sittlichkeit), where the individual's private
identity has been submerged in the life of the state, where right has been thoroughly
mediated with law and, finally, where absolute selfishness and total selflessness have
been identical. 'The external unity of the law-abiding citizen', according to this
account, 'has become the internal unity of the moral person,.9 Those who interpret
Hobbes this way have to accept the prerequisite of the interpretation as well, i.e.
that Hobbes did not stay with the doctrine of psychological eg0ism. 10
The difficulty with this interpretation is that it is not compatible with Hobbes's
natural philosophy, with his account of the passions or with his very clearly stated
systematic intentions to ground moral philosophy on his natural philosophy. The
right of nature governs every natural event, even though it becomes self-conscious
and political only with man. No man can alienate Hobbesian natural right, not even
voluntarily, especially not for the sake of the disinterested judgments of a deontic
morality. It is natural, therefore reasonable, therefore right, for every man to
concern himself first and foremost with his own private well-being.
The point of the argument here is that it is not necessary to purge Hobbes of his
egoism and its counterpart in his physics Cconatus') via a remedial reinterpretation
in order to explain Hobbesian generosity. The 'generosity too rarely found to be
presumed on' is the result of the self-mediating character of philosophical desire.
The philosophical and scientific few, Hobbes thought, will be aware of the civil
prerequisites of their own philosophical and scientific undertakings, and will not be
interested in political power and prestige. But they will find it in their interest to
promote political stability and respect for sovereign authority. Like Plato's
philosopher, whom necessity returns to the cave, they recognize that it would be a
tragic mistake to arbitrarily release all citizens from the salutary convictions
(political and religious doctrines) that make them morally respectable. Mere realease
from such chains is not, in itself, enlightenment. In providing a solid groundwork
for the commonwealth, the philosophical scientist makes possible the leisure which
is the prerequisite of his own labors. Incidentally, but not unimportantly, he makes
 197

possible (or at least he does not disrupt) the peace which all men perceive as an
integral part of their own natural interests.
The generous natures to which Hobbes refers, then, are not paragons of moral
virtue in any sense other than a philosophically conceived self-serving one. Because
of the advancement of the philosophical project, philosophically science generously
benefits man in a way that mere political association does not. The moral and
political virtue of those engaged in this project is restricted to the fact that their
desire is not translatable into a concern for social or political power. This does not
mean that the philosophical scientist exhibits a selfless moral generosity, only that
the justice and generosity he practices does not depend on the selflessness of his
actions or his intentions.
What is required of the philosopher scientist is that he be able to influence
sovereigns, both to make their rule enlightened and also to create a safe environment
for science within civil society. For this, Hobbes seems to admit, he has neither
method nor mediation. He did not explain very well how philosophical scientists
might effectively gain the attention of sovereigns in order to put theory into
practice. The effort depends on a sovereign first becoming reasonable enough to be
interested in the force of reason. We are not told how one might convince a
sovereign that civil philosophy is a study worth undertaking, i.e. that it is in his
sovereign interest, if he does not already see it. Hobbes did suggest - perhaps too
confidently - that, were a sovereign so inclined, were he fortunate enough to receive
a copy of Leviathan, and were he rigorous enough not to be diverted by the advice
of counselors bent on judging the merit of philosophical science by, say, its
theological orthodoxy, it would be possible. In this regard, he wrote,

And now, considering how different this doctrine is, from the practice of the greatest part
of the world, especially of these western parts, that have received their moral learning
from Rome and Athens; and how much depth of moral philosophy is required, in them
that have the administration of the sovereign power; I am at the point of believing this
my labour, as useless, as the commonwealth of Plato. For he also is of opinion that it
is impossible for the disorders of state, and change of governments by civil war ever to
be taken away, till sovereigns be philosophers. But when I consider again, that the science
of natural justice, is the only science necessary for sovereigns and their principal ministers;
and that they need not be charged with the sciences mathematical, as by Plato they are,
farther than by good laws to encourage men to the study of them; and that neither Plato,
nor any other philosopher hitherto, hath put into order, and sufficiently or probably
proved all the theorems of moral doctrine, that men may learn thereby, both how to
govern, and how to obey; I recover some hope, that one time or other, this writing of mine
may fall into the hands of a sovereign, who will consider it himself, (for it is short, and
I think clear), without the help of any interested, or envious interpreter; and by the
exercise of entire sovereignty , in protecting the public teaching of it, convert this truth of
speculation, into the utility of practice (ibid., 357).

Hobbes, then, had only hope, not a scientific procedure, for making his theory
persuasive with sovereigns. He offered no suggestion for the conversion of his
198

theory into practice other than to say it would be possible if men were sufficiently
interested and able.

8. Summary and Conclusion

What I have tried to suggest in the foregoing is that unmediated natural right is not
a moral attribute appended by Hobbes to an otherwise mechanical description of
man. It is the dialectical structure of desire itself, the foetal impulse man receives
from nature to preserve himself and to augment his well-being to the point where
no unanticipated need or threat to his welfare will ever arise. Because of its
indeterminacy, unmediated natural right leads inexorably to the condition of war.
It is not a condition that man can extract himself from by a simple appeal to reason.
Right reason itself counsels men to anticipate future needs and compensate for them
at the same time that it is unable to state with precision what those needs will be.
Consequently, reason paradoxically encourages men to go beyond the bounds of
right reason. It is reasonable to be unreasonable, to anticipate needs that may never
arise and, hence, to make oneself a potential threat to the welfare of others. who
will 'by the uncontrollable dictates of necessity' have to reciprocate. Given the
diverse nature of the threats men can perceive to their welfare and the
polymorphous character of human desire, political association,' by itself, cannot
satisfy the demands of natural right and resolve man's dilemma. Men need health;
they need security against everything from social slights to natural catastrophes. A
social contract cannot provide guarantees so extensive as to provide for such needs.
I have suggested that there is no single solution proposed by Hobbes for rescuing
men from the natural condition. Rather, Hobbes proposed a series of mediations
through which natural right must be led. Both political and extra-political mediation
of right must be provided for. Because the political mediation of right (the
establishment of civil society and production of peace and security thereby) may
ultimately be incompatible with the extra-political mediation of right (the unlimited
extension of philosophical and scientific power over what appears to be a hostile
universe), they, too, must be mediated. That mediation can be provided only by
philosophical science itself, and only with the completion of the philosophical
project to reconcile man with his environment. Men must learn to 'imitate the
creation' (EWI, xii), to remake nature in man's own image. Civil society is the first
step - but only the first step - in man's reconstruction of nature. In it, human nature
is restructured in such a way as to make the conquest of nature a possibility.
Hobbes's philosophy and political theory carries with it some dangerous
implications, to be sure. To the extent that our own society is governed by the logic
of Hobbes's thought, it shares those implications. Philosophy has been portrayed
by Hobbes, and by the seventeeth century in general, as the rational project to
remake nature in man's own image, to transform it into something no longer
 199

indifferent to human need. However, human need is not restricted to actual need
here and now, but is proportionate to man's perception of his need. The self-
justifying implication is that there are no rational or moral limits to what man can
rightfully do with nature. Hobbes's theory makes him the precursor to the
Nietzschean conclusion that, in principle at least, 'everything is permitted'. 11
Hobbes showed the self-vitiating character of the dialectic this logic promotes at
the social and political level. It is for us to perceive what he apparently did not
perceive, the self-vitiating character of the dialectic generated at the philosophical
and scientific level. Philosophical desire as Hobbes portrayed it, as desire for
mastery over nature, is not altogether self-mediating. The generosity promised by
the philosophical project carries within it the seeds of a new kind of submission,
submission to the tyranny of a functionalized rationality. If philosophical mastery
has emerged in contemporary times as technological rationality, then technological
rationality has access to the same self-justifying logic as its seventeenth century
counterpart. All advancements in man's conquest of nature are perceived as
progress, and are proclaimed innocent. If there are dangers implicit in that
conclusion (and I believe there are), they can be attributed to the seventeenth
century faith in the notion self-mediation of right, the notion that man's conquest
of nature will be indisputably benign.

NOTES
Strictly speaking, Hobbes had no moral theory. His thoughts about the moral obligations we
might have toward others, i.e. the obligation to see that their needs are satisfied, were expressed best by
G.W.F. Hegel, when he wrote, 'that all men should have a competency for their needs is a well-meant
moral desire, but without any moral objectivity'. The Philosophy of Right, article 49.
2 ' ... all signs of hatred, or contempt, provoke to fight; insomuch as most men choose rather to
hazard their life, than not to be revenged' (EW III, 140; cf. EW II, 38; E, Ch. 9, art. 6).
3 Cf. my 'Thomas Hobbes's Counterfeit Equality', The Southern Journal of Philosophy vol. xiv,
no. 3 (1976).
4 Cf. John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, ed. Thomas P. Peardon, (New York: The
Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1952).
5 Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, E.S. Haldane
and G.R.T. Ross (eds.), vol. i, sec. 6 (Cambridge: University Press, 1967), p. 40.
6 Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1952), p. 56.
7 Cf. my 'Thomas Hobbes's Dialectic of Desire', The New Scholasticism Vol. L, No.2 (Spring,
1976).
8 K.R. Minogue, 'Hobbes and the Just Man', in Hobbes-Forschungen, eds. R. Koselleck and R.
Schnur (Berlin, 1969), p. 170.
9 ibid.
10 ibid., p. 162.
11 Friederich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (New York: Random House, 1969), Third
Essay, sec. 24, p. 150.
IV. GENERATING THE COMMONWEALTH
 203

13. HOBBES, REVOLUTION AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF

HISTORY

Philip J. Kain

University of California, Santa Cruz

1.

When coming to the study of Hobbes's political philosophy one is confronted by

several puzzling elements. I wish to take up three of them. The most bothersome,
perhaps, is Hobbes's claim that there is no significant difference between
sovereignty by institution and sovereignty by acquisition. Both can be legitimate and
can be so for the same reason, namely, the consent of the subjects.
One also wonders how to take Hobbes's concept of the state of nature. Is the state
of nature to be taken as an actual, pre-social, and primitive historical period - the
way Locke sometimes understands the concept?l Hobbes does speak of 'American
savages' and of the early Germans as examples of people in a state of nature (EW
II, 114; also E, 73). Yet for the most part he does not seem to employ the concept
in this way. Among these people, as well as in earliest history generally, small family
monarchies, Hobbes says in several places, were the norm. 2 The concept of a state
of nature might also be understood in a second sense; it could be taken to refer to
fully socialized individuals at those moments when the security of well enforced law
is either absent or ineffective. This would be the case, Hobbes suggests, when
traveling the highways or even when alone at night in one's home (EW III, 114; EW
II, xv, 6m.). The concept might also be understood in a third sense. It could refer
to the relationship that holds between any two sovereigns, between sides in a civil
war (EW III, 115; EW II, xv, 6m.), or between a sovereign and some individual in
a state of nature. Here too there would be no common power regulating and
enforcing relations between the different parties. This sense, while not at all
incompatible with the preceeding, is nevertheless different from it in that all the
parties would not be individuals and they might well be quite unequal in power. The
concept of a state of nature might also be understood in a fourth sense, as simply
an abstract fiction which serves as the criterion for justice and legitimacy. Thus an
actual law or institution would be just if and only if it can be argued that individuals
in such a fictitious state of nature would have consented to the law or institution.
As social contract theory develops this fourth way of understanding the concept
comes to predominate. We find the beginnings of this notion in Rousseau and we

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science oj Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhojj Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
204

find it fully developed in Rawls. 3 At first sight we do not seem to find Hobbes
employing the concept in this way. I hope to show how we do.
I wish to take up one last difficulty. On Hobbes's view, does moral obligation
exist in the state of nature or not? Hobbes scholars disagree sharply over this issue.
Some argue that there is no moral obligation in the state of nature 4 and that moral
obligation does not arise until the sovereign establishes it. However, it is difficult
to explain how such obligation could arise at this point. Other scholars argue that
there is moral obligation in the state of nature and that if there were not there would
be no basis upon which to establish moral obligation to the sovereign. 5 Each side
in this dispute ends up arguing (or at least implying) that certain of Hobbes's
statements are to be taken as fundamental and that others are to be discounted. 6
I find it impossible to deny that we simply do find contradictory statements in
Hobbes's writings. For example, in Leviathan especially, we find many passages in
which Hobbes holds that there is no moral obligation in nature. It is not just that
obligation is ineffective or that the validating conditions for obligation are absent;
the problem goes much deeper than this. Unaided human reason is incapable of
deciding right and wrong. Hobbes says, 'for want of a right reason constituted by
nature' we must either set up an arbiter or come to blows (ibid. 111,31, 146; cf. EW
II, 268-9; EW I, 74). We even have no 'notion' of right and wrong without a
common authority (ibid. III, 115, 130-1, 251; cf. EW IV, 253). This is so because
there is no common rule of right and wrong to be gotten from the object itself (ibid.
III, 45). Notions of right and wrong, good and evil, are simply subjective reactions
based upon passions, and passions differ considerably between men. Even the laws
of nature, Hobbes argues at several points are not properly laws until the sovereign
commands them; it is the sovereign that obliges us to obey them (ibid. III, 162,253).
Nor is it Hobbes's position that the sovereign discovers right and wrong in nature
and then simply declares and enforces it; the sovereign actually makes, constitutes,
right and wrong:

the makers of civil laws are not just only declarers, but also makers of the justice and
injustice of actions; there being nothing in men's manners that makes them righteous or
unrighteous, but their conformity with the law of the sovereign (ibid. III, 559; cf. EW II,
151).

On the other hand, there are passages in which Hobbes makes it quite clear that
there is moral obligation in the state of nature. Hobbes tells us that the law of nature
is the moral law and that the validity of civil law is based upon the law of nature
(ibid. III, 146, 271, 323-4; EW II, 49, 190, 200; E, 95). Hobbes also admits that
individuals as well as the sovereign can violate the law of nature and are answerable
to God for such violations (ibid. III, 200, 312, 332; EW II, 9-lOm., 80m., 83).
Hobbes also holds that we are obliged to perform our covenants in the state of
nature if the other side has already performed his part. For example, if taken as a
prisoner of war or held up by a robber and then released upon promise to pay a
 205

ransom, we are, Hobbes holds, obliged to pay this ransom (ibid. III, 122-3, 126-7;
EW II, 23-4; E, 78-80; EW IV, 442-3). Further, Hobbes explicitly holds that the
laws of nature a/ways oblige in the internal court of conscience. 7
If Hobbes contradicts himself in this way, the question to raise is why. Rather
than try, as others have, to resolve this contradiction, perhaps we should simply try
to untangle it and to understand it. If we can discover why Hobbes contradicts
himself we might discover something interesting about his thought. Perhaps the
reason for this contradiction is that Hobbes, to achieve his purpose, is driven to
draw incompatible conclusions from the concept of a state of nature. Along these
lines I would like to suggest that the three puzzling elements noted might be seen
as intimately related in the following way. The theory of sovereignty by acquisition,
employing the concept of a state of nature in the third sense discussed (between
sovereigns), is Hobbes's model for how political bodies actually and historically
come into being. But sovereignty by acquisition depends for its legitimacy upon the
working out of a scientific deduction of sovereignty by institution. The latter theory,
employing (for the most part) the concept of a state of nature in the second sense
discussed (between individuals), is a totally unhistorical fiction. It serves as the
abstract criterion for the legitimacy of sovereignty by acquisition, i.e., it operates
in the fourth sense discussed above. For the theory of sovereignty by acquisition to
work, there must be moral obligation in the state of nature, most obviously an
obligation to perform covenants. On the other hand, whether or not Hobbes relies
upon the existence of moral obligation in nature when discussing sovereignty by
institution (which can be and has been debated), in order for him to realize his
scientific intentions. i.e., to give a necessary deduction of an absolute sovereign by
institution, he must assume that there is no moral obligation in the state of nature.
By understanding the interconnection of Hobbes's thought in this way the germ of
a philosophy of history will emerge, as well as, we hope, an explanation of Hobbes's
lack of consistency. On the other hand, a more deeply submerged difficulty
(concerning Hobbes's attempt to rule out the legitimacy of revolution) will arise.

2.

Let us take up sovereignty by institution first. Hobbes's theory of sovereignty by

institution per se can be distinguished at least in thought from the scientific
deduction of this theory. This is so because a theory of sovereignty by institution
need not be presented as a necessary deduction. One might simply assume, as Locke
or Rousseau do, that for some reason individuals decided to quit the state of nature
and to institute society, not that they had to. 8 Since I think that Hobbes's scientific
deduction requires the absence of moral obligation in nature, we must investigate
to what extent sovereignty by institution can be understood without assuming such
obligation. To the extent that it cannot be so understood the theory and the
206

deduction will be in contradiction. Let us see, then, to what extent it is possible to

outline an argument by which Hobbes might, without presupposing moral
obligation in the state of nature, deduce a sovereign who establishes such obligation.
Hobbes begins with principles taken from his mechanistic model of natural
science. Human appetites (and aversions), like all sense perceptions, ideas, and
indeed all causal relations, are determined· externally by the motion of objects (ibid.
III, Iff., 39, 42,: E, 42-9; EW I, 115, 120, 124, 390-1, 401, 407, 510), and there
is nothing in the object which could be a source of common rules of morality. Each
individual has a purely subjective and mechanical reaction to the object, a reaction
which may well, due to differing constitutions, be different for each - what is good
to one man can be evil to another (ibid. III, 41, 61,146; EWII, 47, 96; E, 29, 49).
Further, human will, for Hobbes, is only the last appetite or aversion in
deliberation; it is not an independent faculty (ibid. III, 18-19; EWII, 123; E, 61-2).
Under these conditions moral obligation is impossible.
Given these principles, conditions of scarcity, and Hobbes's further view that all
individuals in the state of nature are equal, rational, and concerned with their own
self-preservation, the social contract can be necessarily deduced. Conditions of
scarcity plus the fact that reactions are subjective, given a normal concern for self-
preservation, will produce conflict and selfishness - selfishness in the sense of an
increased need to concern oneself aggressively with self-interest and security (ibid.
III, 85-86, III, 142-3; EW II, 8; E, 71). Given this conflict together with the wiew
that all are roughly equal in strength (ibid. III, 110-1, 140-1; EWII, 6-7, 12), there
is only one possible way out - to establish through agreement a common power that
will end the conflict. If some were superior they might hope to sift to the top and
establish society (end the conflict of the state of nature) in this way. If men are
equal, this is illusiop. Further, each is also forced to desire a way out. Since the
conflict is between equals, each will be threatened, and since motivated by a concern
for self-preservation, will fear for his security (ibid. III, 113; EW II, 6-8). Given
the ability of each to rationally calculate his self-interest, the pressure of this
situation will eventually force individuals to see the need for long-run security and
a social contract instead of immediate security through aggression (which in practice
means insecurity). The laws of nature, as Hobbes states them, are simply a
description of the steps by which the calculation and the realization of this long-run
self-interest will work itself out. 9 Reason is a tool employed by the passions in this
drive toward security.
It is still possible, however, that not everyone will be driven to this common end.
There could be exceptions because reactions are subjective and different. 1o But at
least some would end up fearing all and so contract. Those who do not would risk
being left in a state of nature (now in the third sense) vis-a-vis this new political body
with its vastly increased strength. Many who were not motivated to join at first will
be so now. Those who do not join are simply left weak and isolated in the state of
nature (ibid. III 139, 162-3; EW II, 74). So far this explanation has been purely
 207

descriptive. Nothing prescriptive has been introduced.

The next question is how, if at all, moral obligation to the sovereign can arise.
In the first place the social contract establishes a single authority that issues uniform
commands, common rules of behavior. Without them individuals would differ and
fight. Next, the single authority enforces these common rules so as to cause a similar
reaction on the part of each - fear of punishment. Notice that the reaction of each
is still externally caused, but that now there are common rules and the reactions of
each are at least similar. There is also a further difference between these sovereign
induced reactions and those of an individual in the state of nature. Hobbes argues
that the sovereign is an artificial or public person, an office. His power derives solely
from his ability to use and direct the power of his subjects (ibid. III, 158; EW II,
69). As a private person he has no more power than anyone else. For Hobbes, the
acts of the sovereign are, in the first place, simply the acts of his subject and, in
the second place, even the sovereign's power to channel and direct these acts derives
from the original consent of the subjects. Thus the official acts of the sovereign are
our own acts. He is our representative. Whether we agree or not, it is evident that
Hobbes thinks he has shown that the subjects are self-determined, that all laws
which a subject must obey are self-authorized (ibid. III, 148-51; EW II, 158). We
thus have enforced, self-authorized, common rules and similar reactions to them.
Hobbes wants to go even further. He wants to argue that the commands of the
sovereign oblige not merely as prudential calculations of self-interest, but that they
oblige in conscience. For Hobbes, simply acting in accordance with the law is not
enough. It is clear that our intentions must also be in accordance with the law.
Further, Hobbes comes quite close to arguing that one must act for the sake of the
law. He says that the law should be obeyed because it is law and that the just man
should 'be delighted in just dealing' (ibid. III, 135-6, 144-5,277; EW 11,33,46-7,
97, 197; EWIV, 374). Hobbes tries to deduce such full-fledged moral obligation by
picturing the political body as a fragile structure ready to collapse back into the state
of nature if laws are not obeyed. Subjects thus have a very simple choice: the
security of well enforced, self-authorized law or the suffering and chaos of the state
of nature. Insofar as rational calculation of self-interest led individuals to the social
contract they would' frustrate their interest if they allowed themselves or others to
contradict that decision by disobeying the law and thus to raise the threat of a return
to the state of nature. To both will and not will a self-authorized law would be
absurd, and thus not to will it, Hobbes says, could not be taken as the individual's
true will (ibid. III, 119-20; EW II, 30-31; E, 82). If the subjects do not obey the
law at all times, if they only obey it when prudential calculations of interest so
dictate but not when they think they can get away with it, they invite disaster. Each
expects this total obedience from others for his own security. Hobbes argues that
a consistent interest in one's own security drives each to require of all and of himself
total commitment to the law (ibid. III, 132-4, 141, 260, 703; E, 92-3).
On this interpretation, Hobbes has not gotten beyond a prudential calculation of
208

self-interest to always obey the law. He has certainly not deduced an obligation to
act for the sake of the law or to delight in the law. Indeed, in places he even admits
that to delight in something illegal (while not intending to carry it out) is neither a
sin nor a crime (ibid. III, 277). Hobbes has at most shown that the acts which a
subject intends to carry out, due to fear of consequences, should accord with the
law. Indeed to deduce acting for the sake of the law from self-interest (as Hobbes
understands self-interest) would be to deduce moral prescriptions from non-moral
premises. l1 However, it is not at all clear that Hobbes sees this distinction or sees
that he has not deduced an obligation that amounts no more than a prudential
calculation of interest. As we noted earlier, there are passages in which Hobbes does
hold that the laws of nature constitute moral obligations. Why then, it might be
objected, don't we just argue that Hobbes bases moral obligation to civil law upon
moral obligation to natural law (the third of which is to abide by contracts)? One
might argue that since one has contracted, and since contracts oblige morally, one
is morally obliged by the civil law even in opposition to self-interest. This alternate
interpretation is very tempting, but aside from the fact that there are those passages
that deny the existence of moral obligation in nature there is another very important
reason why Hobbes must avoid this line of argument.
Hobbes wants to work out a science, or for him the same thing, a philosophy,
of politics. By this he means that by beginning with clear definitions gotten by
analysis of experience he can deduce (much as you deduce in geometry) the necessity
of the body politic (EW I, 65ff., 387ff,; E, 25-26; EW III, 35-7, 52-3, 71-3).
Having sketched this deduction above, we must now notice that the success of this
project is imcompatible with the existence of moral obligation in the state of nature.
If, in the state of nature, men could know right and wrong, were morally obliged
by it, and acted upon it, then, as Hobbes correctly argues, no political body would
necessarily result. There would simply be no need for an authority to create and
enforce common rules of behavior. Men might well be content to remain in nature
(EW III, 155). Why should they leave it? There would certainly be no necessity to
do so and thus no science of politics.
We might, however, consider a more complex assumption, e.g., that men know
right and wrong and are morally obliged in the state of nature but do not frequently
act morally either due to self-interest or due to errors in judgment. A theorist other
than Hobbes might argue that to the extent that men know their moral obligations
in nature they would possess the criteria by which to judge if and when civil laws,
made by a sovereign, were in conflict with natural moral law, and thus situations
could arise in which they would have an obligation to disobey the sovereign, perhaps
even a democratic sovereign. This is to say that subjects would have an obligation
higher than that to the sovereign. The sovereign if it were monarchical would be
limited; if it were democratic, it could be divided. For Hobbes this would be to say
that the sovereign would not be the single, highest authority, which is an absurdity
because that is exactly what it means to be sovereign (ibid. III, 179,312-3; EWII,
 209

88, 153-4; E, 117, 144-5) If everyone always agreed on moral questions, there
would, as we have said, be no reason to leave the state of nature in the first place.
I do not wish to suggest that moral obligation in the state of nature would pose
problems for Hobbes's theory of sovereignty by institution in the sense that such
obligation would require that the sovereign be limited. As we shall see, Hobbes can
easily get around such problems. The problem here is quite different; it concerns
the necessity of a scientific deduction. If moral obligation exists in the state of
nature, even though individuals do not always act morally, would they consent to
an absolute sovereign in the first place? Moral obligation would not have to be
created, but simply arbitrated and enforced. Individuals in such a state of nature
might well be willing to do nothing more than establish an arbitrator with just
enough (i.e., limited) power to enforce his decisions. Where do we find motivation
for anything more? Hobbes would think this a serious error - an attempt to limit
or divide sovereignty and an invitation to civil turmoil (ibid. III, 172, 175,311-313,
316; EWII, 95-6). But to argue that individuals in a state of nature would see this
would require that we include far more complex presuppositions in our notion of
the state of nature. Individuals would almost have to be political scientists who had
reflected upon the causes of success and failure in political bodies and had come to
the same conclusions that Hobbes had. Lacking science, their moral capacity as well
as their interest (fear of too powerful a sovereign) would most likely lead to some
form of limited government. As we shall see, in certain, places, Hobbes himself
admits that such limited government is quite possible. To insure that individuals in
the state of nature would not make this mistake it would be necessary to presuppose
not just moral disagreement but the absence of morals. This seems to be the only
premise that would make ncessary the scientific deduction of an absolute sovereign.
This last set of presuppositions might be modified even further. It might be held
that since individuals who can know their moral obligations in the state of nature
do not always agree on them, government would be necessary not simply to
arbritrate but as an institution capable of bringing individuals into real moral
agreement in the way, for example, that Rousseau's general will unerringly brings
about agreement on truly moral laws. In other words, this institution would insure
that errors in moral judgment did not occur and that agreement would follow on
these grounds. Hobbes's epistemological principles would not allow for this. No
one, the sovereign or anyone else, has access to objective truth. The sovereign is an
arbritrator who has the power to command arbitrarily; he does not establish truth
(ibid. III, 706; EW II, 151; EW IV, 329, 340-1). Aside from the fact that
sovereignty would again be limited, real moral agreement would be impossible.
To deduce a stable civil body, the sovereign must be absolute. To be absolute,
the sovereign must constitute right and wrong at least to the extent that the subjects
can have no ground from which to judge the sovereign unjust. Further, the
sovereign must be such that it is impossible for him to injure his subjects. The
sovereign must be an office such that his acts are the acts of the subjects. Thus if
210

injury were done it would be done by the subjects (ibid. III, 147-9, 157-8, 199-200,
203, 235). If no one is in a position to argue that civil law is at odds with natural
law or that they have been injured by the sovereign, there is no possible ground for
legitimate civil disobedience or revolution. This is one of the main conclusions
Hobbes wants to reach (ibid. III, 160; EW II, 150-3; E, 168-9, 170-1).

3.

At the end of this paper I will argue that, despite Hobbes, all of the necessary
conditions for a right to revolution are in fact given in his theory of sovereignty by
acquisition. But for the present let us simply try to discover what would be required,
within Hobbes's system, to establish such a right. It would be necessary that the
subjects have a source of moral obligation independent of the sovereign's
commands. They must have a ground for judging civil law against moral law, the
law of nature. Were Hobbes to admit, or to the extent that he does at times admit,
that there is moral obligation in the state of nature, he seems to open himself to this
possibility. But this alone would not be enough to establish a right to revolution.
Hobbes has other arguments in reserve. He argues that if the sovereign were
deposed, subjects would immediately return to a state of nature - a war of each
against all. The sovereign is the essential principle of civil coherence as if he alone
holds a bag of marbles; if he loses his grip they fly in all directions. In other words,
Hobbes has almost no social theory, only a political theory.12 To establish a right
to revolution one must have a social theory, a theory which explains the possible
coherence of society, of individuals, apart from the political sphere. 13 For Locke
the concept of property and property interest explains this coherence. For Marx it
is the concept of class and class interest. The more coherence that one finds among
individuals in society (apart from the political sphere), the less power one need
concede to the political sphere (the government). For Marx the political state will
wither away. For Hobbes, the almost total absence of social coherence requires that
the goverment be sovereign and thus that goverment be absolute. 14
In order to argue that the government must be the sovereign, Hobbes, in
Leviathan, conflates two contractual stages into one social contract. In Rousseau
we find two separate contracts, one by which individuals are constituted as a people
and a second by which the people then establish a government. 15 The result of this
is that the citizens remain sovereign and that the government becomes their
employee. In Leviathan each contracts with each, not to form a people, .but to
establish a sovereign (ibid. III, 158; EW II, 68, 91). Thus there is no contract
between the sovereign and a people which could limit the sovereign's power; indeed
there is no independent people that might constitute an authority alternative to the
sovereign.
The argument that these two contracts occur at once makes more sense if we
 211

examine De Cive and the Elements of Law, where Hobbes argues that the social
contract first results in democracy. In those texts the act which constitutes a
multitude into a people appears indistinguishable from the act which constitutes the
people as a govermental power (or sovereign). No second act is necessary to
establish government - which for a democracy would mean that as a second step
the people would decide that the majority will rule. But this is not a second step;
it was already established in the first act and it was even implied, Hobbes argues,
in coming together to consider the question of a social contract in the first place
(EW II, 96-7; E, 109, 119; EW III, 162-3).
In De Cive Hobbes takes democracy to be the basic constitutional form.
Aristocracy and monarchy derive from this basic form. They do not arise directly
from an original contract, but do require a second act. The people must transfer
sovereignty either to a smaller group or to one person, who then, strange as it may
sound, becomes the people. The people need not be sovereign, but the sovereign is
always the people. Sovereignty constitutes the multitude as a people and represents
them. However, the people may retain sovereignty while simply delegating the
function of government to others for a limited period of time (ibid. II, 99, 103-4,
105, 140, 158; E, 118-9, 120-1, 122). Here the sovereign and the government would
be separate.
If one admits that the people can be sovereign, it is then possible to argue for the
legitimacy of revolution. In fact, in De Cive, Hobbes admits that some revolutions
are legitimate:
If in a democratical or aristocractical government some one citizen should, by force,
possess himself of the supreme power, if he gains the consent of all the citizens, he
becomes a legitimate monarch; if not, he is an enemy (ibid. II, 94-5).

In Leviathan this argument is simply missing. There Hobbes does not think the
people can be sovereign. They would inevitably be divided. If the people are not
sovereign, then even granting the possibility of social coherence and of moral
obligation independent of the sovereign, disobedience remains illegitimate. Since the
sovereign's acts are the subject's acts, Hobbes argues that they cannot hold the
sovereign responsible for violations of moral principles. Just as an individual cannot
be held to be obliged to himself because he is free at any moment to release himself
from the obligation, so the sovereign, because he is the representative, because he
is the people, can release himself from any obligation at any time. If the sovereign
violates a law of nature he is of course answerable to God but not to anyone else,
in particular, not to his subjects (ibid. II, 83, 98). Thus to argue the legitimacy of
revolution, besides the need to presuppose an independent moral standard and
social coherence, it would also be necessary to show that the sovereign was not the
legitimate representative of the subjects, that his acts were not their acts.
This argument (that the sovereign can release himself from any obligation) also
allows Hobbes to free the theory of sovereignty by institution from certain
212

contradictions noted earlier. In different places, as we have said, Hobbes argues

both that there is and that there is not moral obligation in the state of nature. If
the sovereign can release himself from obligations, then, insofar as Hobbes
sometimes holds that there is moral obligation in nature, any conflict between this
obligation and civil law would evaporate as soon as the sovereign is legitimately
established. Proceeding along these lines one might focus on those passages where
Hobbes does assume moral obligation in nature, takes this obligation as the ground
for obligation to civil law, and thus holds that there is after all no problem of
moving from non-moral premises to moral prescriptions involved in the theory of
sovereignty by institution, and even further, holds that, since the sovereign is free
to release himself from obligations as he sees fit, he does in effect decide which laws
(including laws of nature) do and which do not oblige his subjects. Thus for all
practical purposes he does create (not just discover and enforce) the subjects's
obligations.
This approach, of course, will not explain why Hobbes sometimes assumes such
obligation in nature and sometimes does not. Nor does this sort of interpretation
overcome the difficulties which moral obligation poses for a scientific deduction of
the civil body. The fact that the sovereign can release himself from obligation after
the social contract establishes him as sovereign does not affect the fact that moral
obligation in nature would hinder the very deduction of an absolute sovereign in the
first place.
Hobbes does contradict himself concerning the existence of moral obligation in
the state of nature. One can discuss this as a contradiction within the theory of
sovereignty by institution or as .'l contradiction between this theory and the theory
of sovereignty by acquisition (or one could, of course, do both). Whether, as a
contradiction within the theory of sovereignty by institution per se (leaving aside the
separate issue of a scientific deduction of this theory), the contradiction can be
overcome, we leave open. Instead we wish to concentrate on this contradiction as
one between acquisition and the scientific deduction of institution. The reason for
this will soon become apparent.

4.

While ambiguous for sovereignty by institution, moral obligation in the state of

nature is a necessary assumption for the theory of sovereignty by acquisition. Here
there is no possibility of leaving it out. Hobbes cannot deduce moral obligation to
the conqueror unless he assumes its prior existence in the state of nature.
Hobbes says very little about sovereignty by acquisition. He merely argues that
there is no significant difference between it and sovereignty by institution. Thus, all
that he has argued concerning the latter is true for the former (EW III, 185-6, 190;
EW II, 111-12). The legitimacy of sovereignty by acquisition is not based upon
 213

force, but, like sovereignty by institution, requires a compact. It is just that

individuals are not driven to contract with equals by fear of those equals. Instead,
all of the conquered fear one man and covenant with him as weak to strong. 16
After the covenant the conqueror establishes common rules of behavior and
enforces them. Hobbes does assert that each authorizes the actions of this sovereign,
but the only explanation of this assertion occurs in his discussion of sovereignty by
institution and it will not work for the conqueror. Though the conqueror is the
representative of his own subjects, thus his acts are their acts, he is not necessarily
so for the conquered. His power and his acts do not derive from ordering and
directing the acts of the conquered, but from ordering and directing the acts of his
own subjects against the conquered. This would be so except in the unusual case
where the conquered actually preferred the conqueror to their own sovereign and
were trusted enough to be integrated into the conqueror's administration of power.
In the normal case the conquered would not be self-determined and the laws
commanded by the new sovereign would not be self-authorized.
Though the conquered may well be obliged to obey the conqueror due to
prudential calculations of self-interest (to avoid death or imprisonment), they would
not be morally obliged to obey him when circumstances allowed their interest to
dictate otherwise, and they would certainly not be obliged to him in conscience.
Hobbes is forced to assume that there is moral obligation in nature .. The ransom
example is crucial here. Just as you are obliged to pay the ransom because the
highwayman has completed his part of the covenant (by releasing you), so since the
conqueror has completed his part of the covenant (by which Hobbes understands
that the conqueror does not imprison or kill you) you are obliged to fulfill your part,
to obey the conqueror. This obligation, at least in De Cive and the Elements of Law,
is based upon a prudential calculation of interest. If ransoms were not paid,
highwaymen would be fools to trust anyone; they might simply kill their captives
- which would not be in your self-interest if ever caught again. In Leviathan,
however, Hobbes omits this explanation based upon self-interest. One might argue
that in Leviathan the obligation is moral rather than prudential. At any rate,
Hobbes also holds that the laws of nature (the third of which requires abiding by
contracts) always oblige the internal court of conscience. Without such moral
obligation the theory of sovereignty by acquisition would collapse.
Each potential subject can easily foresee that in the event of altered circumstances
it would be possible, and indeed self-interest would demand, renewed struggle
against the conqueror. Thus one's long-term self-interest would be opposed to
closing off these future possibilities by taking on at present a binding moral
obligation to the civil laws of the conqueror. Such obligation might be established
if a compact had actually occurred between conqueror and conquered. However,
if the theory of sovereignty by acquisition is a model for actual history and not an
abstract fiction, a serious problem arises in that such explicit contracts rarely occur
in history. What about a tacit compact? If obligation and long-term interest are at
214

odds (while only obligation and one's interest in immediate security are in
agreement, i.e., if one has conflicting interests), how can it be convincingly argued
that such a compact has occurred? To even begin to argue that a tacit compact has
in effect occurred it must (at the very least) be shown that in opposition to long-term
self-interest the conquered are morally obliged to compact. That is the point of the
ransom example and of the need to have moral obligation in the state of nature. 17
To summarize our findings to this point: if Hobbes holds that there is no moral
obligation in nature he cannot argue for an obligation to obey the conqueror nor
can he derive an obligation to the sovereign by institution (i.e., dt;rive moral
prescriptions from non-moral premises), though it is not clear that he sees this latter
difficulty. If he does assume moral obligation in nature he might explain obligation
to the sovereign by institution but the scientific deduction of this theory becomes
impossible. At the same time while the assumption of moral obligation in nature
seems necessary in order to argue for an obligation to the conqueror, as we shall
see, it leads to certain other problems - it provides the ground for a right to
revolution.

s.
We might ask why Hobbes does not just abandon the theory of sovereignty by
acquisition, since, besides being counter intuitive, it requires assumptions that are
at odds with his scientific deduction of sovereignty by institution. One answer is that.
sovereignty by institution is a pure fiction. Hobbes's deductive method, like any
geometrical deduction, he says, does not give you the actual generation, but simply
one of the ways (preferably the shortest) by which the thing might have been
generated (compare EW II, 109 with EW I, 91ff.; cf. EWI, 66, 312, 388; EW III,
195-6). In political theory such a method allows you to deduce a theoretical
construct and its legitimacy. It does not give the generation of an actual political
body. Sovereignty by acquisition, on the other hand, is a model for what can and
has occurred in actual history. Earliest history, Hobbes says in many places, was
a state of war between small family monarchies. Great monarchies arise out of these
through war, conquest, and rebellion (D 159-163; EW III, 82; EW II, 84n., 129,
177; E 140-1; EW V, 183-4).
Well, then, why doesn't Hobbes abandon the attempt to give a scientific
deduction of sovereignty by institution? Then perhaps he could assume moral
obligation in nature without contradiction. The answer is that he would not be able
to demonstrate the legitimacy of sovereignty by acquisition. In trying to work out
a theory of sovereignty by institution without a scientific deduction demonstrating
its necessity, one would only be able to assume that for some reason or other
individuals in the state of nature did decide to institute government, not that they
had to. Since Hobbes argues for the legitimacy of acquisition on the ground that
 215

there is no significant difference between it and institution, it follows that it would

not be necessary to accept an actual conqueror unless there were an abstract
necessity to institute not just government but an absolute sovereign. If it could be
argued at the level of abstraction that individuals might have decided not to institute
either a government or an absolute sovereign (which, given the existence of moral
obligation in nature, we have already argued would be quite possible), then real
individuals would be free to decide against an actual absolute sovereign, in
particular the conqueror. To argue that individuals would have an obligation to
abide by the civil laws of the conqueror, it must be shown in the abstract that
individuals have no alternative but to establish an absolute sovereign, that there is
no significant difference between this particular sovereign, (the conqueror) and a
legitimate one (as described by an abstract theory of legitimacy), and, as a third
step, that a tacit compact had in fact occurred (which again would mean assuming
moral obligation in nature and thus contradicting the deduction). In our preceeding
section we argued that a tacit compact was necessary, we did not argue that it was
sufficient, to establish sovereignty by acquisition. A mere obligation to fulfill
covenants, even a moral obligation, would not be enough. Such obligation alone
could not establish the other party's legitimacy. ,For example, your obligation to pay
ransoms certainly does not establish the legitimacy of highway robbery. Legitimacy
must be established independently. Thus all three steps are necessary, especially if
the covenant is merely tacit.
There is one more possibility. Could Hobbes abandon both his attempt at a
scientific deduction as well as his whole theory of sovereignty by institution? He
could not do this because it would be impossible to argue the legitimacy of an actual
historical occurrence without some sort of abstract theory of legitimacy.
In other words, the two theories of sovereignty should not be taken as alternative
views set side by side. The two are inseparable. In order to connect fact and right,
actuality and legitimacy, history and philosophy (or science), both theories are
required. There are two kinds of knowledge for Hobbes: science and history (EW
III, 71; E, 24-5, 176). Sovereignty by institution is the abstract, fictive, and
deductive science of right and legitimacy. Sovereignty by acquisition is the factual
historical model for the way things actually occur. Hobbes, and this is part of what
makes him a significant modern theorist, does not accept the view (implied perhaps
in Plato and Rousseau) that political theory either discusses fact or right - one or
the other but not both. To accept such a dichotomy would mean either analyzing
the dynamics of power struggles (and perhaps offering some advice on how to
succeed in them), or abstractly characterizing the just society in utopian fashion
(utopian at least in the sense that no explanation consistent with principles of right
would be given for how to actually realize such a society). Hobbes attempts to
connect these two sorts of theory - an abstract theory of legitimate institutions and
a theory of their historical realization. Acquisition is legitimate if there is no
significant difference between it and institution. Laws and institutions that actually
216

originate through conquest are legitimate if and only if they are the sorts of laws
and institutions that would be agreed to in a fictional state of nature such as that
described in the theory of sovereignty by institution.
Hobbes wants to link fact and right by linking history and philosophy (or
science), an attempt which Kant, Hegel, and Marx take up and develop much
further and with much greater consistency. Hobbes was limited by the fact that his
model for philosophy (or science) was deductive and fictional and by the even more
important fact that he had no notion of how to find and explain a directedness in
historical development. Thus he has no philosophy of history in the sense of Kant,
Hegel, or Marx. He can only connect a historical model to a philosophical deduction
in the way that we have outlined. Despite the fact that even this project is fraught
with contradiction, Hobbes's insight does anticipate these later theorists.

6.

We have said that the existence of moral obligation in the state of nature is necessary
for one theory but poses serious problems for the other. Further, I would like to
show that all of the conditions required for a theory of legitimate revolution within
Hobbes's system, so thoroughly eliminated by the theory of sovereignty by
institution, are given in the theory of sovereignty by acquisition.
First, it is clear that for the theory of sovereignty by acquisition to work there
must be moral obligation in the state of nature. Secondly, we have argued that the
conqueror is not the representative of the conquered, and thus, since his acts are
not the acts of the subjects, he cannot dissolve obligations simply by releasing
himself from them. Thirdly, Hobbes cannot argue that it is impossible for the
conqueror to injure his new subjects on the ground that his acts are their acts, nor
could he so argue on the ground that there is no compact between them to be
violated. There is such a compact here as there was not in the theory of sovereignty
by institution. Hobbes could only argue this point on the ground that the conqueror
has completed his side of the covenant (by not imprisoning or killing his new
subjects) and thus is obligated no further. But it seems quite unacceptable to hold
that the sovereign can complete his side of the covenant by such a limited set of acts.
To argue that the conqueror cannot injure his new subjects, it would be necessary
to hold that he must continue to behave in this restrained way. Indeed in De Cive,
though he denies it in Leviathan, Hobbes admits that if at some later point the
conqueror imprisons you, he voids your obligation (EWII, 128-30; EWIII, 188-9,
190). Thus the subjects are in the position to judge the sovereign's acts, they could
find that they are unjust, and they could have an uncancelable moral obligation to
oppose them. Fourthly, in the theory of sovereignty by acquisition the units that
make up the state of nature might well be political bodies, not, as would ordinarily
be the case in sovereignty by institution, merely individuals. Thus, even granting
 217

Hobbes's denial in Leviathan that the people can be sovereign (though even more
obvious if this possibility exists as in De Cive) , the conquered could remain a
coherent body while rebelling. To throw off the conqueror would not necessarily
result in a bag of marbles plunging in all directions. The result would not necessarily
be the chaos of a state of nature between individuals, rather quite possibly the
reassertion of a state of nature between two different political bodies.
If sovereignty by institution is an abstract fiction and if sovereignty by acquisition
is a historical model which actually describes the origin of all political bodies
(Hobbes says, 'there is scarce a commonwealth in the world, whose beginnings can
in conscience be justified' (EW III, 706), then Hobbes's system could yield a right
to revolution in almost any political body.
Indeed if one is to link fact and right, history and philosophy, without ending up
with either a utopia or a mere analysis of power struggles, it is difficult to imagine
how to avoid a theory of social transformation that would call (at least under certain
circumstances) for a theory of civil disobedience or revolution. One must have some
way to explain how history moves toward right rather than simply assume that the
two will always fit neatly.

NOTES

1 1. Locke, Two Treatises oj Government, ed. P. Laslett (New York-Toronto: Mentor, 1965), p.
378.
2 Both 'American savages' and the early Germans actually belong under the third sense in which
(as we shall see) the state of nature can be taken; see EW III, 82, 114-5.
3 J.J. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin oj Inequality in The Political Writings oj J.J. Rousseau,
ed. C.E. Vaughan (New York: Wiley, 1962), I, p. l36, p. 141. J. Rawls, A Theory oj Justice (Cambridge:
Harvard, 1971), pp. 12-l3.
4 See M. Oakeshott, 'The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes' in his Hobbes on Civil
Association (Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 95-1l3. Also J.W.N.
Watkins, Hobbes's System oj Ideas (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 76, 82-3, 86-7, 150ff.
5 See A.E. Taylor, 'The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes' in Hobbes Studies, ed. K.C. Brown

!
(Cambridge: Harvard, 1965), 4lff. Also H. Warrender, The 'J,litical Philosophy oj Hobbes (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 7ff., 28, 63, 98-9, 102. -
6 For a more balanced view (though different from mine)f see S. Moore, 'Hobbes on Obligation,
Moral and Political: Parts I-II' in Journal oj the History oj Philosophy IX-X (January 1971-January
1972), pp. 43-62, 29-42. I

7 Cf. Warrender, op .. cit., pp. 53-79.

8 Locke, op. cit, p. 375; Social Contract in Rousseau, on. cit., II, p. 32.
9 Hobbes says that the laws of nature are not really laws bpt rational conclusions or theorems that
dispose, even compel, men toward security (EW III, 133-5, 1471,253; EW II, xvii, 44,49-50; E, 82, 93;
EW IV, 284-5). See also L. Stephen, Hobbes (London: MacMillan, 1904), pp. 208-9. It is true that in
several places Hobbes also says that the laws of nature are more than theorems of reason, they are
actually laws, if understood as divine laws 'delivered by God in Holy Scripture' (DC, EW II, 49-50).
This would seem to imply that they oblige morally. But in general Hobbes's discussion of God is to be
taken as an appendage, i.e., he discusses theological issues in order to show that the laws of nature (and
218

his political theory in general), which are independently established, are not contradicted but confirmed
by Scripture (EW II, vii, 50-1; E, 95). Further, Hobbes holds that Scripture can only oblige us if so
commanded by the sovereign (Liberty, Necessity, and Chance in EW V, 179). There are even laws of
nature that precede the writings of Scripture (EW II, 113-4; E, 130-1).
10 For Hobbes, passions (e.g., fear or desire) are the same in all men. But due to differing
constitutions, the way in which men are affected by objects as well as what specifically is feared or desired
in the object, can be different for each; see EW III, xi, 28, 41, 61; EW II, 48.
11 See Watkins, op. cit., p. 76; also R. Peters, Hobbes (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956), pp. 170-1.
It might be argued that Hobbes neither needs nor attempts to deduce moral obligation as something more
than an obligation based upon self-interest. It might, for example, be argued that rule egoism (long-term
self-interest as a principle which decides general rules - and which can even be found in the state of
nature) is sufficient. But in places Hobbes certainly wants more than this; secondly, even this sort of
obligation in the state of nature, as we shall shortly see, would hinder the scientific deduction of an
absolute sovereign; and finally, as we shall see in our discussion of sovereignty by acquisition (section
4.), Hobbes needs more than this - individuals must have an obligation in opposition to their long-term
self-interest.
12 See Stephen, op. cit., pp. 213-4.
13 See E, 175. Hobbes does admit the possibility of factions established by agreements or contracts;
see EW, III, 223; EW II, 176.
14 The sovereign must even decide his own successor; see EIf1II, 181.
15 Social Contract, op. cit., II, pp. 31-32, 65.
16 EW III, 185, 189,204,254,703-5; EW II, 109-13; E, 105, 128. A covenant is distinguished from
a contract in that for the former at least one party does not actually perform but only promises to do
so in the future; see EW II, 20; E, 77-8; EW III, 121.
17 EW III, 189,703; E, 126; EW IV, 423. Oddly enough, in the ransom example it is one's long-term
interest as opposed to one's immediate interest that makes for obligation.
 219

14. THOMAS HOBBES FROM BEHEMOTH TO LEVIATHAN

Herbert W. Schneider

This survey of the three versions of natural law composed by Thomas Hobbes
indicates the rapid and radical responses made by him in Paris to the revolutionary
ideas and events in which he became involved in rapid succession. He had begun
in England in 1640 with a conventional exposition of the natural laws or the moral
order conceived in terms of the cardinal virtues and vices. He arrived finally at the
'Science oj natural justice'. The primary aim of this survey is to show how the term
'natural justice' as Hobbes invented it is a carefully defined, technical name for a
carefully constructed and expounded system of jurisprudence, based on natural
science of cause and effect.
His patron, the Earl of Newcastle, suggested that he, a young classical scholar,
write an essay on the principles of law. In May 1640, just before the closing of the
Short Parliament, Hobbes finished this essay, entitled Elements oj Law Natural and
Politic. He hurriedly distributed a few copies of the manuscript among friends, and
then fled to Paris.
The book has two parts: 1) Concerning Men As Persons Natural, 2) Concerning
Man as a Body Politic. (E, xiv). It is evident that as early as 1640 Hobbes was
alarmed by the chaos in Great Britain which threatened to ruin the body politic by
anarchy. This 'war of all against all' to which he later gave the monstrous title of
Behemoth, seemed to him more of a radical ruin than the international wars then
raging.
In this elementary essay, Part 1 is a standard social psychology: human passions,
human reason, human conduct. It is only after this long, psychological analysis of
men as natural bodies, that Hobbes begins his analysis of natural right and natural
law, as follows:

Since men by natural passion are diverse ways offensive one to another, everyman
thinking well of himself, and hating to see the same in others, they must needs provoke
one another ... it is therefore a right of nature that every man may preserve his own life
'" Every man by nature hath right to all things, that is to say, to do whatsoever he listeth
to whom he Iisteth (E, 71-72).

Hobbes admits later that from a practical point of view this right of each to all

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 19B7, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
220

amounts to little more than saying that no man has a natural right to anything. But
Hobbes insists on maintaining this natural right for theoretical reasons. Since the
first Law of Nature is that 'a man must divest himself of his natural right', this way
of formulating the Law of Nature implies that a man must possess a natural right
to something, if he must divest himself of it. The way is then open for 'transfering
rights', and thus bargaining can take the place of 'the war of all against all'. For
bargaining leads to contract, and contract leads to obligation and morality.

For where liberty ceaseth, there beginneth obligation (ibid., 78).

The list of obligations or natural laws is then given in terms of the classical cardinal
virtues and vices, all of which are said to be based on 'right reason'. A few examples
follow:

Every man is obliged to stand to, and perform, those covenants which he maketh. The
breach of covenant is UNJUST. (ibid., 82). Nature hath ordained the law that everyman
acknowledge another as his equal. The breach of this law is PRIDE (ibid., 88). It is also
a law of nature that men allow commerce and traffic indifferently to one another (ibid.,
87).

For this law of nature Hobbes refers to Thucydides, who claimed that the breach
of this law was the cause of the Peloponnesian War. Hobbes had been translating
Thucydides, and admired his judgments about the Greek war. Hobbes made the
same judgment about the wars of his day.

The sum of virtue is to be sociable with them that will be sociable, and formidable to them
that will not ... Equity, justice, and honour contain all virtues whatsoever (ibid., 95).

Part 2 of the book, 'On the Body Politic' summarizes in a conventional way the
various types of bodies politic, beginning with Democracy as the most elementary.
The book is clearly intended to be a conventional formulation of the accepted
principles of law and order. (One exception is his Law of Free Trade, which appears
to have been a particular interest to Hobbes's patron, as well as to young Hobbes,
the translator of Thucydides.)
In Paris Hobbes found himself to be quartered in the Oratorian Priory
administered by Marin Mersenne, who made of it not only a refuge for religious
reformers, but also a center of scientific and philosophical discussion and debate.
Almost immediately Hobbes was stimulated to take part in the current controversies
and to adapt his psychology and theory of natural law to his Parisian environment.
In place of the traditional dualism which conceived man as a union of physical
matter and eternal spirit, he would write a scientific theory of man in three volumes:
De Corpore, De Homine, and De Cive. He had been working with a neighbor of
his in the Priory, Gilles Per sonne de Roberval, Ramus Professor at the Royal
 221

College in Paris, who was a specialist in mathematics and optics, and who was
studying the works of the Oxford Franciscans - Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and
William of Ockham. They became involved in the geometry of optics (perspective
geometry and lenses). Hobbes hoped to put the geometry of optics into his Volume
I, De Homine; instead he was haunted by this optical geometry for the rest of his
life, without getting it in shape for publication. Shortly before his death he
published some of his experiments in perspective geometry and reflection of light
in lenses. The volume on De Corpore became complicated by discussions on
method. But De Cive was soon ready for publication in both Latin and English. The
choice of Civis and Civil Society, in preference to a Latin equivalent of 'Body
Politic' turned out to be quite significant. It led Hobbes to put the emphasis on the
ethics of contract among individuals in commerce prior to any analysis of the moral
law as administered by the dominion of civil societies. Hobbes begins the book with
only a brief chapter on human nature. Instead there is a long, detailed analysis of
the ethics of contract as it develops in commerce. It may be well called a bourgeois,
commercial ethics. The chief reason assigned by Hobbes for the founding of civil
communities or cities is fear that some of the contracts made commercially may
need coercion to make them valid.
The creation of civil society and dominion is not by a 'social contract'. What
Hobbes calls 'a community of wills' empowers a 'lord' or a 'council' or 'court' to
enforce contracts or obligations made privately. The power to enforce the natural
law of contract is called 'Dominion'. Thus, in De Cive a moral order of contractual
obligations is developed commercially, not under civil law, and the political power
or dominion is exercised by a 'lord' or 'court'.
By 1651 Hobbes had made an English version of De Cive (entitled Philosophical
Rudiments of Government and Society), which was enlarged by abundant
footnotes, adapting it to British society and to a State Church.
Within six years (1657) Hobbes was ready to present himself and his philosophy
to Cromwell and to what he hoped would be a British Commonwealth. The
Leviathan presents a new theory of legitimate government. The Laws of Nature now
playa central role in the structure and authority of the commonwealth. The Social
Contract is a contract very different from those of commercial ethics. It implies an
idea of natural justice that has legal precision. The definitions of the laws of nature
now apply legally to government. They now formulate legal obligations of contract
to citizens, and moral obligations to the government. The ten or more natural laws,
though verbally similar to the conventional virtues are now conceived as both
natural and civil maxims of prudence. Their violation brings the natural
consequences of conflict, breaking the peace and security of the commonwealth.
The science of these maxims of prudence is a natural science of cause and effect.
The government is most in need of this science, for it has been given the obligation
of maintaining peace and security. Rebellion is not a right; it is the natural
consequence of misgovernment. This jurisprudence is based on the natural science
of justice and peace.
222

Most noteworthy perhaps is what is omitted in the Leviathan. Unlike the earlier
versions of natural law by Hobbes, in the Leviathan there is a complete rejection
of class society, both in language and in theory. The old command that men must
regard one another as equals is at last taken seriously. The Leviathan is without any
vestige of feudalism and aristocracy. The ethics and jurisprudence of the Leviathan
became the predecessor of the doctrines of the 'enlightened' Scottish moralists of
the eighteenth century, Adam Smith and Hume, who praised the beauty of
commercial society and morals.
Hobbes was not only bourgeois, he was an anti-separatist Puritan, loyal to the
Church of England, but a reformer scornful of Canterbury and its bishops, whom
he accused of talking and thinking like little Popes, and who in turn accused him
of atheism. Like practically all of his contemporaries, he was extreme ley intolerant.
The last book of the Leviathan, on the Catholic 'kingdom of darkness', may have
been the first one he wrote. It is strikingly similar to the final essays of William of
Ockham. This last book of the Leviathan, as well as the one which precedes it on
'A Christian Commonwealth', were crucial personal concerns of Hobbes. Though
they are now ignored, they were by no means an appendix.
Hobbes was delighted when, after the death of Cromwell, his fellow-exile,
Charles II returned as king, but he was bitterly disappointed when Charles II refused
to be backed by the will of the people and claimed divine right, like the other
Stuarts.
I cannot help wishing that Hobbes had lived a few years longer to witness The·
Glorious Revolution of 1688. He would have been amused, perhaps irritated, to see
a Dutch Prince and his wife, Mary Stuart, share the throne as a curious kind of
Leviathan but he would have rejoiced at the founding of the British
Commonwealth, created informally by 'The Grace of God' and formally by 'The
Will of the People'.
 223

15. COVENANT: HOBBES'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

AND HIS POLITICAL SYSTEM 'MORE GEOMETRICO'

Klaus-Michael Kodalle

Universitat Hamburg

1. Introduction

In Hobbes's theory there seems to be a fundamental contradiction between

determinism and choice of norms. Does Hobbes acknowledge self-determination in
respect of norms? Or does he opt for a compelling system of philosophic
determinism in nature which defines liberty a~ absence of external impediments?
Does he pay attention to the difference between those actions which man performs
and those which he is allowed to do? Between the fact of obedience and the validity
of laws? Between the explanation of facts and the foundation of ought-sentences?
Does Hobbes identify power and right? Has Hobbes's theory built-in precautions
against the excessive use of sovereign power? The problematic aspect of any
foundation of right by power, and the corresponding groundlessness of obligation
seems to be affirmed by Hobbes's appeal to the omnipotence of God: omnipotence
is to serve as the origin of obligation and the basis of God's dominating relationship
to man. This looks like power being the principle measure and ground of right. For
even if Hobbes could demonstrate that the natural laws are commanded by God,
he stilI had to prove that these commandments oblige man in a legitimate and moral
sense. To go back to the will of God does not, as such, guarantee the normative
character of natural laws. Even if, in any way, one could succeed in proving that
we ought to abide by the commandments of God, the problem of self-determination
would not be eliminated: there is no possibility of contravening the commandments
of an omnipotent God.
No doubt due to incoherences in his theory, Hobbes has provoked questions like
these. In this paper I wilI suggest a way of reading Hobbes so that we eliminate the
apparent or real incoherences, reject the fatal deterministic components and,
following these readings, comprehend how far the normative self-constitution of
free subjectivity - as self-restriction and self-expression - establishes the modern
state, and at the same time, limits the execution of power. In addition, I want to
show the importance in Hobbes's theory of historical elements, which Hobbes
himself placed at the periphery of his political system.

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-0/0-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
224

2. The Idea of Foedus/Covenant - Its Place in the History of Human Thinking

As a consequence of the Reformation and its reconsideration of the sources of faith,

a high estimation of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament, permeates the
sixteenth and seventeenth-century theory of politics and social reality, and
structures the behavior of man and his self-interpretation in state and church. The
religious idea of covenant becomes the center of preaching, especially in the
reformed confessions; it is rooted in the ordinary consciousness of the 'common
man'.
In the 'Zeitgeist' the natural law idea of contract and the religious consciousness
of covenant are very closely interconnected and cannot be separated in an abstract
manner. The contemporary theology of joedus ('federal-theology') had used
juridical terminology. And Calvin, as is well known, had used the term 'mutua
obligatio' to indicate both the joedus between God and the people, and the relation
between government and subjects. This may serve as a clue for our thesis that in
the concept of 'covenant' the naturallaw-contractarian and the federal-theological
elements are unified. The secular theory of contract could become important in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries because it drew its psychological affirmation
and vigor from the mind-dominating biblical idea of covenant.
But in the concrete historical situation the fundamental religious idea of covenant
existed, in the minds of people only in a perverted from. All groups who referred
to the covenant and claimed the absolute truth of the Bible as obligatory in theory
and practive, ignored the real particularity of their own interpretations. In the
movement to form the world according to the will of God, they 'forgot' their own
finitude and incompleteness; they were unable to restrict their 'absolute' ambitions,
convinced that they acted in concord with God. Politically, individual groups
demanded that political power should be submitted to their special churches' ways
of defining the common welfare. They refused to accept, in politics, the historically
established pluralism of such options, which included the claim of absolute
legitimation. This implies the denial of freedom of conscience.
Hobbes, confronted with this situation, argued that the different separatist
denominations dejacto deprived the idea of covenant of its spiritual intention which
would save the state from antagonisms. These groups only made use of the federal-
theological vocabulary as a fitting demagogical instrument to better legitimate their
specific design of constitutional political order, which they wanted to institute
against the will of others. Theology in this political function becomes ideological
and a sort of blind reflection of what Hobbes called 'state of nature'. Behind
Hobbes's critique of this 'kingdom of darkness' stood the decisive question: how
is it possible, under such conditions of confessionalized, separatist religious truth,
to speak of 'the' people of God? By posing this problem, Hobbes attacks the roots
of any faith which is presumptuously convinced of its own 'purity' and which,
therefore, ignores that its own being is infused by 'evil'. Not recognizing that reality
 225

is a 'mixture' of good and bad, people can not comprehend that, by their blind,
fanatic treatment of others who do not conform to their ideology, they do not
realize the idea of covenant but rather act against its real sense. Traditionally, they
ignore the fact that the false prophets in Israel also referred to the covenant!
Simplifying the complicated context, Hobbes declares: everybody who claims to
usurp political institutions in the service of the present kingdom of God, acts in
favor of the kingdom of darkness (EW III, Ch. 44).
Historical experience forces Hobbes in his theory to fight against those 'potestates
indirectae', which darken the clear relations of responsibility and submit the
individual to heteronomous influences. Hobbes's rejection of all attempts to enforce
or obtain surreptitious political domination by theological jurisdiction, cannot be
clearer and more distinct. But now this is decisive for the whole of Hobbes's
political theory: he appealed to the central religious idea which was entangled and
perverted in the antagonism of particular political interests, and, by revealing its
universal meaning, demonstrated that this universal idea can be comprehended and
developed as the source of concrete reason in human interactions. In this way
Hobbes established his political theory, including his critique of religion, not
beyond the level of consciousness, but at its focal point. Hobbes's creative genius
proved itself by taking up the most universal concept in the diffuse antagonistic
situation and turning it against the spirit of separatistic usurpation. His procedure
is more appropriate to the biblical claim than all other theological attempts to
disclose the sense of the religious covenant. That is to say, in an antagonistic
historical situation, in which reason through its own capacity, is unable to show a
way out, covenant provides the postulate of practical behavior, which, under the
specific historical circumstances, takes shape in a fundamental decision, and allows
a new start toward healing disrupted reality. This idea of covenant provides the
movens of a practical philosophy, which reflects truth structurally as reconciliation.
In its practical consequences, this means overcoming the false path of dogmatic
exclusion and self-preservation, which gains strength only by fighting against others
and by transforming them into total enemies.
In the Holy Scripture Hobbes found such structures described, and he could
verify them in his own present experience. Insofar as the consciousness of covenant
and its inherent obligations vanishes, the order of common life breaks down. This
can be best observed through the symptomatic fact that there is no consciousness
of the necessity of acknowledging a sovereign power (ibid., 469).
The distortion of the covenant and the consequent overlooking of the necessity
to acknowledge a sovereign power shows, by its resulting injustice, ex negativo, that
the existence and integrity of the highest power de facto derives from the
commitment of individual citizens to participating in a communicative structure of
truth, which is at least explicable in religious categories:

... not knowing themselves obliged by the covenant of a sacerdotal kingdom They
226

regarded no more the commandment of the priest nor any law of Moses, but did every
man that which was right in his own eyes, and obeyed in civil affairs such men, as from
time to time they thought able to deliver them from the neighbor nations that oppressed
them ... (EW III, 413).

3. 'Covenant' and 'Contract' - The Foundation of Political Order

The term 'covenant' makes understandable the transition from the state of nature
to the institution of commonwealth. It makes evident the basic relationship between
religious-substantial and historical truth on the one hand, and conditioned
constructive truth, i.e. scientific truth on the other. (Hobbes distinguishes 'absolute
knowledge', which is <knowledge of fact' from 'conditional knowledge', which is
the 'knowledge of the consequence of one affirmation to another' (ibid., 71).
The terms joedus' and 'pactum' characterize two distinct dimensions in
'covenant'. <Pactum' means a mutually balanced partnership, whereas joedus'is
based on a unilateral gift, or grace, on the part of God, who, voluntarily, binds
himself to a promise. Hobbes says: 'If any man convey some part of his right to
another, and doth not this for some certain benefit received, or for some compact,
a conveyance in this kind is called a gift or free donation' (EW II, 19). <Foedus' (of
God and man) and 'pactum' are two moments which mutually refer to one another.
Hobbes speaks of 'an institution by pact, of God's peculiar sovereignty over the
seed of Abraham' (EW III, 398). Naturally, no individual and no people can evade
the infinite power of God Almighty. In comparison with such necessarily
heteronomous determination, the one to whom God's offer of covenant is directed
gains the chance of being free to decide about his future, the chance of becoming
autonomous, which - as Hobbes concluded from the Bible - is the consequence of
God's dynamic mediation in human life, not of eliminating God from human
existence. Hobbes translates the offer of the God of the Bible:

All the nations of the world are mine; but it is not so that you are mine, but in a special
manner: for they are all mine, by reason of my power; but you shall be mine, by your
own consent, and covenant ... (ibid., 399).

According to Hobbes this covenant is the basis upon which the commonwealth is
founded. It is perverted whenever the covenant relationship God-man/God-people
is made to function as an alibi for political and social injustice - as in the religious
civil war in Hobbes's time or in the economic exploitation reported in the Bible and
in our times. In these situations the breaking of covenant and its betrayal manifests
itself in social practice. Hobbes paraphrases the decision for the covenant of the
people with God as 'the regulation of their behaviour, not only towards God their
king, but also towards one another in point of justice' (ibid., 400). That means no
 227

practice of separation, no practice of purity of an elected group of the just, as

propagated by the Puritans, who did exactly this by appealing to the covenant most
loudly and enthusiastically. Life in accordance with the idea of covenant realizes
itself only in the horizon of a future fulfillment (cf. Hobbes's eschatological
christology). Life within a 'mixed' reality is demanded: 'we may manifestly gather
that there will be no local separation of God's subjects from his enemies, but that
they shall live mixed together until Christ's second coming' (EW II, 256). With
many quotations from the Bible, Hobbes emphasizes again and again the obligation
of the covenant to aim at reconciliation in an antagonistic reality, instead of
separating the chaff from the wheat - a practice which is always repressive.
God Almighty always has man in his infinite power; our interpretation of the
meaning of covenant as a communication between God and man, presupposes that
God - by his present word - documents the self-withdrawal of his quasi-natural
power and sets man free to decide (including the chance of deciding against God,
too). In this appreciation of freedom lies the differentia specifica between
obedience, in the sense of natural reason, and obedience, in the sense of a covenant
between God and a man, which is based on the consent of man (ibid., 228). The
God of reconciliation does not compel obedience but rather concedes to man both
possibilities, i.e. trust (fides) and betrayal, 'for faith only is the bond of contracts'
(ibid., 25). 'Covenant' is against the natural inclination of man, who, 'by nature',
indeed, tends towards a betrayal oftrust(cf. ibid., 21-22) which results in the loss
of welfare and salvation, indicated, for example, by injustice and war. Both trust
and betrayal realize themselves in the decisions which fundamentally determine
history.
If the decision to renew the integrity of life by responding to the idea of covenant
lasts and proves to be the guiding principle of people's life and thinking, then and
only then will prosperity and salvation result. Under no conditions is the future
totally open to the dispositions of man. Therefore Hobbes says:
No man, by his compact obligeth himself to an impossibility ... Covenants ... oblige us
not to perform just the thing itself covenanted for, but our utmost endeavor; for this only
is, the things themselves are not, in our power. (ibid., 23).

This mediation between the origins of faith and trust and present life-orientation,
is the fundamental condition preventing sovereign power from being reduced to
abstract, lifeless theory on the one hand or terrorism on the other. Without the
fundamental and existential disposition of covenantlfoedus, which results in faith
and truth, society would not survive.
Covenant!foedus is not only a common element of biblical religiosity unifying
men; it implies, of necessity, the attribute of universality and the corresponding
practice of reconciliation. And because of the implication of universality, Joedus'
can function as the basis for the abstract theory of contract-decision. The idea of
covenant!foedus, integrated in life, is the guarantor of universal concrete reason.
228

This substantial truth is the background of the discussion of the formal juridical
theory of contract, which has to explain the constitution of the state. Hobbes has
seen 'that men call not only for peace, but also for truth' (EWIII, 711). This insight
transcends the theoretical framework of the formal system of political science.
The formal condition of justice is defined by Hobbes in the third law of nature:

that men perform their covenants made .. , And in this law of nature, consisteth the
foundation and original of justice ... and the definition of injustice, is no other than the
not performance of covenant (ibid" 131).

In the state of nature everybody fears that the other party to the contract might not
fulfill his obligation. By creating the institution of a coercive power, this fear will
be overcome as the coercive power 'compels men equally to the performance of their
covenants, by the terror of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect
by the breach of the covenant' (ibid.).
It is not difficult to recognize the insufficiency of this argumentation. Individuals
vegetating in a permanent state of anxiety in the state of nature shall integrate
themselves into a constellation of power, the stabilizing element of which is, again,
fear. But this means at least that fear becomes the permanent motor of the state of
nature. Obviously the 'fear of the power which compels the fulfilment of the
contract' is based on the permanently existing subjective intention of individuals to
break the contract; i.e. a continuing disposition which results in the state of nature.
In fact, Hobbes insists that those dispositions and factors which are representative
of the state of nature, are latently present in the civil state too. The distrust of people
in the commonwealth is a good example of this latency. If nothing but pure fear
would be effective, people would be living in security only as long as the state of
nature is present in their memory.
The reasonableness of a generally obliging order must be sustained by a
continuing historical authorship, and by a corresponding spiritual intentionality of
the subjects who constitute the commonwealth. Only if the fluctuation of immediate
physical experience is transcended in this way, can the civil state be transformed
from a momentarily created product of want and distress to one of reasonable
continuity.
The spiritual element at the root of the state-institution, which we called
'intentionality', and which may overcome the disruption and alienation of man, is
situated in Hobbes's formal-systematic construction as the idea of a 'social
contract'. On this idea depends the possibility and reasonableness of explaining the
act of state foundation in the context of the formal system more geometrico. Also
connected with this element of the theory is the development of a state-preserving
'mentality', a subjective disposition which cannot be deduced more geometrico, but
which is necessarily since, otherwise, the institution of commonwealth would
disappear as suddenly as it was created. Although power may be fundamentally
necessary for the functioning of the state, power alone cannot preserve the state,
 229

be it a logically constructed or a despotic one. Power as such is not constitutive for

the state. Why else should Hobbes maintain that even those states which were
created by despotic violence require people to behave as though they had entered
into a contract? (ibid., 185-86). In this case, we find confirmed our interpretation
of the two dimensions of covenant (joedus/pactum) , because, here, Hobbes is
establishing a very clear connection between obedience and guaranteed freedom
(ibid., 705). Short-term stability compelled in a despotic manner, i.e. by total
negation of liberty, will, in the long run, be answered by a continuing latency of
insurrections. Hobbes makes a clear distinction between contracts of dominion, in
this sense, and master-slave relations, which are not founded on contract, i.e. on
trust and faith (jides), freedom and obedience (cf. EW II, 109-10).
The historically continuous element of spiritual disposition (worked out by us) is
more important for the reasonable functioning of a state organization than the
abstract momentary act of decision (original contract) within the system more
geometrico. In discussing the original contract, we can elaborate the desolate
consequences of an a-theological interpretation of Hobbes. The original contract is
different in its quality from contracts made within a state order. The original
contract is not made under the fundamental condition of contract as such, namely,
the political institution of power, legitimately threatening sanctions to breakers of
contract. It is this institution which will be created by the original contract (ibid.,
109). If everybody is to rely on his individual power in order to preserve his security,
and if others are <a priori' potential enemies - in other words, if distrust is
dominant, how, then, can the act of state constitution which manifestly presupposes
faith and trust on the part of the contracting parties be imagined? According to
Hobbes, in the state of nature distrust and suspicion are reasonable; how, then, can
this act of decision for the insitution of commonwealth be realized? These
incoherences can only be eliminated, if we succeed in comprehending the
commonwealth as a <creatum' rather than a 'creator' of the necessary trust and
faith.
In the immanent context of the system more geometrico there is no way out of
the dilemma. If we want to comprehend how the construction of contract-theory
can be successful, we have to consider Hobbes's concept of a historically actual
God, whose being transcends the definitions of a God Almighty, provoking fear in
man, thereby ensuring obedience to the laws of nature, (as 'commandments of
God'). How, in a world of treachery, suspicion, discord, distraction and disunion,
shall faith and trust become so dominant that fear and despair are overcome and
unity is realized? Hobbes declares:

Wherefore I deny not that men (even nature compelling) desire to come together. But civil
societies are not mere meetings, but bonds (joedera), to the making whereof faith and
compacts are necessary (EW II 2 (footnote» ... he that is tied by contract is trusted; for
faith only is the bond of contracts (ibid., 25).
230

Subjected to the state of nature, to the particular decisions of the separate

individual, reason itself needs healing. Reason cannot draw itself out of a swamp;
in its individualized, reduced instrumentalization it totally depends on different
appetites and on particular measures: 'They are ... so long in the state of war, as
by reason of the diversity of the present appetite, they mete good and evil by divers
measures' (EW II, 47-8). But this situation is not purely a reflection of the
historical, contemporary consciousness of Hobbes's times. Covenantlfoedus - this
biblical idea of reconciliation - was actually powerfully forming the religious
convictions of man during this time. In this spiritual force Hobbes discovered the
possibility of resolving the dilemma of 'pure' reason. To this force Hobbes
attributed the mediation between substantial religious truth, motivating and
impelling people in the religious civil war, on the one hand and the rational political
construction of a power-calculus, which Hobbes invented to cope with the trouble
and disorder of his time, on the other.
In this historical situation, many Christian denominations explicated the central
point of their faith in the form of a theology of 'Covenant'. Hobbes reclaims this
central conviction, which is the medium of understanding and interpreting God and
reality in relation to the self, and delivered it from its entanglements in the struggle
for particular social interests.

4. A Concept of God Related to Practice

A priori God's

right of ruling, no covenant passing between, rises only from nature ... that is to say, from
fear or conscience of our own weakness in respect of the divine power, it comes to pass
that we are obliged to obey God in his natural kingdom (ibid., 209; 336).

Reason has insight into the real power-relations. If we abstract from spiritual
penetration and transformation, this absolute power of God is efficaceous through
nature: 'this power of God, which extendeth itself not only to man, but also to
beasts, and plants, and bodies inanimate' (EW III, 344).
Man's historically developed self-consciousness has transcended the image of God
as an omnipotence beyond human comprehension. By making surrender to the
absolute power (natura naturans) an object of our thinking, we presuppose the
reservation of the self, the estrangement of modern consciousness. The right of God
derived from his laws of nature directs itself necessarily to a subject capable of
appreciating these laws.
Although knowing that the laws of God are laws of peace, people fall into conflict
and war. Therefore, when speaking of God's acting in history, we have to take into
consideration that human experience, which, in the Christian religion, is called
 231

'peccatum'/sin. It is this self-experience which makes it necessary to speak - with

Hobbes - of the 'prophetical kingdom' of God, meaning that the metaphysical idea
of God as an absolutely necessary, yet unfathomable will - the coincidence of God
and natura naturans - does not explain adequately the structure of the self-
manifestation of God. Hobbes refers to the story of Job and its fundamental
questions, 'why evil men often prosper, and good men suffer adversity ... by what
right God dispenseth the prosperities of this life' (EW II, 346). The God of the Bible
is at once the God of covenant!foedus, and the God of omnipotent, quasi-violent,
irresistible intervention. It is the experience of destructive antagonism, corrupted
human nature (signified by the term 'sin') that leads to Hobbes's thesis 'that man's
heart without the Grace of God, is uninclinable to good' (EW V, 11).
This historical experience with a contingent situation with 'no way out'
(peccatum) shows that man must refer to the omnipotence of God. But how may
man regain the freedom he lost by his own fault? This is imaginable only in view
of the vision of the biblical God, who, in his manifestation, is self-retiring and self-
hiding, a structure explicated as the dialectic of deus revelatus and deus absconditus.
Hobbes exemplifies this structure by retelling the history of the prophet Jonah (EW
V, 12ff.). The 'manifest will' of God is a source for and an aid to man's decisions
in particular historical situtaions. According to the concept of liberty, people may
comprehend the reason of God's comman,dment and yet refuse to take
'corresponding action. Hobbes gives a trivial example: if a man is hungry, he is free
to eat or not to eat; but to be or not be hungry is not a possible matter for choice
(cf. EW V, 34).
God's manifest word - God's hidden will: this dichotomy is an articulation of the
attempt of human reason to understand the fact that God, who, per definitionem,
is not alterable by man's will and action, does not impose his will on man, but rather
gives him a chance to play his role as a responsible subject, forming his destiny
through his own decisions.
This is an important structure. The metaphysical definitions of God - identity of
liberty and necessity, of change and constancy - are only approximations. God's
manifestation can only be discussed in the communicative possibilities of finite
human beings, and, because of this, any manifestation of finitude is always a
manifestation of hiddenness as well: 'when God speaks to men concerning his will
and other attributes, he speaks of them as if they were like to those of men, to the
end he may be understood' (EW V, 14).
Speaking about God is always mediated and 'broken' by finite human self-
understanding and human needs, which cannot be eliminated. This must be applied
especially to the differences of 'will' and 'commandment' in God.
For Hobbes, Jesus Christ is the extraordinary historical manifestation of the
actual presence of covenant reconciliation (cf. EW III, Ch. 47). ' ... Christ was sent
to make a covenant between God and men; and no man is obliged to perform
obedience before the contract be made' (EW II, 259). The substantial truth' Jesus
232

is the Christ' is the ground, the ratio essendi, of political order. Starting with the
real political struggle and developing a pragmatic-political answer, the substantial
truth is situated at the end of Hobbes's system: the sovereign has to exercise his
power by breaking the militance of the churches which act as parties in the civil war.
He can do this by compelling them to recognize their common central truth, i.e.,
'Jesus Christ', and by reducing the importance of their differences, declaring them
unimportant for salvation and thus of secondary interest. By this neutralization of
the convictions which were the content of the bloody struggle of one denomination
against another, Hobbes described the possibility of liberty of faith and conscience.
This development of theory is coherent, if we take it as a pragmatic prescription for
political events. But this process is not yet comprehended: for who, in the religious
war, could convince individuals and churches that they were not losing the truth of
their life by acknowledging such a construction with its relativizing of decisions
about what is, and what is not essential for eternal salvation?

5. Faith and Knowledge. Truth as Substantial and as Formal-Systematic

Hobbes offers this definition:

Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed:
Religion; not allowed: Superstition. And when the power imagined is truly such as we
imagine: True Religion (EW III, 45).

This formulation answers the political challenges, but it still veils the fact that
Hobbes makes a precise distinction between natural and biblical religion; their
function in relation to politics is fundamentally different. In an abstract perspective,
the two manifestations of religion seem to be identical; Christian and pagan politics
have the same objective: peace. The telos of reason is 'obedience, laws, peace,
charity, and civil society' (ibid., 99). The differentia specifica concerns the role,
function and value of the individual subject.
The roots of natural religion - including ignorance - are functionalized and
manipulated in pagan politics; by developing its mythical content religion is
instrumentalized and submitted to social power-establishing strategies (ibid., Ch.
45). Hobbes unmasks this natural religion as being primarily a legitimation of
domination, a peace-favoring narcotic. Contrary to this, Hobbes calls the Christian
religion the 'true' one, because it rejects the ideological abuse of ensuring peace by
basing it on heteronomous strategies of social practice. While pagan religion creates
fear and dependence in the ignorant, Hobbes stresses Christianity's impetus towards
enlightenment, namely, the mutual penetration of knowledge and belief.

But the acknowledging of one God, eternal infinite, and omnipotent, may more easily be
derived, from the desire men have to know the causes of natural bodies, and their several
 233

virtues, and operations; than from the fear of what was to befall them in time to come
(EW III, 93).

The appearance of a supernatural interference of God in the sphere of nature

vanishes in this perspective. Fear of God is not eliminated, but its dominant role,
so typical of superstition, is eliminated (EW II, 227). While the representatives of
pagan politics acted 'according to their own invention', those of biblical religion
refer to 'God's commandment and direction' (EW 111,99). The religion of fear, as
part of politics, is to submit to the modern concept of ideology; in biblical religion,
where there is central concern about the covenant between God and man, politics
is subjected to the practical maxims of the religion of covenant (ibid, 104ff).
of covenant (ibid., Ch. 12, 76ff).
The imperative of knowledge pervades the religious doctrine: ' ... which
relevation a man may indeed have of many things above, but of nothing against
natural reason' (cf. ibid., 360). If religion were to ignore this, it would be
discredited. Referring to the biblical covenant, Hobbes tries to insure the
fundamental truth of the political system against the doubts that a political science
more geometrico is possible: 'But supposing that these of mine are not such
principles of reason; yet I am sure they are principles from authority of Scripture'
(ibid., 325).
Natural reason is identified with 'the undoubted word of God' (ibid., 359).
'For though there be many things in God's words above reason ... yet there
is nothing contrary to it' (ibid., 360). To this insight corresponds the
limitation of the capacities of reason: Hobbes warns of attempting a rational
explication of those religious truths which transcend principally the capacities of
finite ratio. According to Hobbes, finite scientific ratio is only concerned with
consequences, not with facts, therefore it has to retire, when confronted with so-
called 'absolute truths'. The political decision also is bound into the critically
purified relation:'1 never said that princes can make doctrines or prophesies true or
false; but I say every sovereign prince has a right to prohibit the public teaching of
them, whether false or truth' (EWIV, 314). In this quotation the term 'true' refers
precisely to the sphere of substantial truth and not to that of formal rightness and
political decision: truth as truth and the use of truth are to be clearly distinguished
(EW IV, 252).
The political system has in no way become meaningless through this foundation
in terms of philosophy of religion. But its position has indeed changed. It is the
affirmation of the idea of biblical covenant which makes plausible conditions for
the possibility of actualizing faith and trust. This is the necessary background of
liberty of decision and of limiting egocentricity. Therefore, it is the idea which
delivers the foundation of constructive political science. Only on this ground is man
granted the space of a meaningful, i.e. rational, use of his own natural power. If
man, in his destructive practices, refuses the offer of God, he denies his
234

responsibility and makes himself a victim of the irrational power of God, a victim
of his own 'fatal' operation through 'blind' nature. If man so gambles away his
reponsible liberty, then the relapse of political order into the state of nature - be
it in the form of war, be it in the form of terrorism or total manipulation by rulers
- is inevitable. This relapse can be called a 'natural' effect, in the same sense as
Hobbes refers to the 'natural' punishments for breaking the laws of nature (EW III,
356).

6. No Heteronomous Disposition. Consequences for Sovereign Power

In the philosophy of religion the constitution of subjectivity is comprehended. This

has clear consequences to which too little attention is paid within the rational
construction of the political system. In the pure method more geometrico,
individuals have to function like building blocks which fit smoothly into the
constructed commonwealth. There would be no chance of resistance against being
compelled into heteronomous relationships.
In my interpretation the derived character of state functionalism becomes evident
in the faithful subject: 'for men's belief, and interior cogitations, are not subject
to the commands, but only to the operation of God, ordinary or extraordinary'
(ibid., 273).
In consequence of his explication of Christian faith, Hobbes sees himself forced
to make a very significant distinction - that between (state-and-church) obedience,
and faith. This distinction contains the possibility of autonomous self-
determination, because these two factors, which are correlated, cannot be
identified. Their relation is a strained one; may we call it a 'broken' relation?
Without this existential distinction the subject would have lost his chance of self-
determination to the overwhelming political or natural powers. Hobbes supposes a
spiritual capacity in man, which is per se immune to a strategy of external
manipulation and therefore not open to ideological misuse. Considered the other
way 'round, this 'power' enables man to unmask ideological perversions of religion.
'Faith is a gift of God, which man can neither give nor take away by promise of
rewards or menace of torture' (ibid., 493). In this context it is comprehensible that
Hobbes is referring emphatically to Jesus Christ, 'who never accepteth forced
actions, ... but the inward conversion of the heart; which is not the work of laws,
but of counsel and doctrine' (ibid., 565). The following highly important conclusion
can be drawn from this:

A private man has always the liberty, because thought is free, to believe or not to believe,
in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what
benefit can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend or countenance them, and
thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies! (ibid., 436-37)
 235

Concrete definitions and specifications of the dimension of free self-determination

are chosen by Hobbes out of the sphere of religious truth, in spite of the fact that
it was in his times the most controversial:

... and so we are reduced to the independency of the primitive Christians, to follow Paul,
or Cephas, or Apollos, every man as he liketh best. First, because there ought to be no
power over the consciences of men, but of the Word itself, working faith in everyone,
not always according to the purpose of them that plant and water, but of God himself,
that giveth the increase. And secondly, because it is unreasonable in them, who teach there
is such danger in every little error, to require of a man endued with reason of his own,
to follow the reason of any other man, or of the most voices of any other man, which
is little better than to venture his salvation at a cross and a pile (ibid., 696; regarding his
insistence on liberty and tolerance, see also EW II, 316ff).

The acknowledgment of the sentence' Jesus is the Christ' as the only truth necessary
for salvation publicly stablizes and fixes this substance of liberty against the
ecclesiastical and confessional authorities and their ambition for power, on the one
hand, and against possible arbitrary acts of a despotic sovereign on the other.
Where such a basis is lacking, the pure moral reclamation of one's own conscience
is in danger of degenerating into an apology for political anarchy. In this sense
Hobes carries on his controversy in the name of law as the 'public conscience'
against 'such diversity, as there is of private consciences, which are but private
opinions' (EW III, 310ft). Hobbes fights against the subjectivistic mind but,
nevertheless, he propagates the obligation 'in foro interno'. For example: a law is
passed by a sovereign which, in its consequences, has a destructive effect on the
preservation of the state; a responsible citizen, realizing this fact, is expected by
Hobbes not to take personal advantage of the situation by acting - implicitly -
against the common interest, although he could refer to formal legality in defense
of an egocentric action. The ambivalence within the problem of 'conscience'
corresponds to the ambivalence of conscience itself: on the one hand, it may be
superior to all objective social and political constellations, and, on the other, it may
be a morally masked non-moral reflection of existing social interests and
conventions.
The self-limitation of sovereign power to the sphere of external actions is
expressed by the public affirmation of the sentence 'Jesus is the Christ'; the liberty
of conscience thus gets an 'objective' support (also cf. ibid. 342-43). It is certainly
wrong to say Hobbes had restricted the sovereign's power of external action in the
belief that thinking in itself is not open to manipulation and compulsion. Hobbes
knew very well the possibilities of inquisitions penetrating the mind by physical
force and undermining its integrity (ibid., 684).
Hobbes's respect for the integrity of religious subjectivity goes so far as to give
preference to private worship as opposed to the public one (ibid., 343-44). Public
worship may be 'simulatus vel ambitiosus', private worship is 'pietates sincerae
236

signum ... ; quam enim Uli, qui a nemine videtur, nisi ab eo qui simulationem etiam
violet'? (De Homine, Ch. 14/8., 123.) Private worship owns greater moral dignity.
Principally, this non-functional, indisposable subjectivity is the proper 'field' in
which substantial truth is present outside the historical constellations of power. On
this is also based the truth of the rational organization of commonwealth and the
sovereign's decision in questions of religion: people do not have to believe in the
sentence that Jesus is the Christ

for the doctor's or the Church's, but for Jesus's own sake. For that article was before the
Christain Church (Matt. XIV, 18), although all the rest were after it; and the church was
founded upon it, not it upon the Church (EW II, 311).

Hobbes did not shrink from giving some hints for a 'law' of resistance which is
based on religious reasons! Should a sovereign, e.g., command intolerable religious
practices, certain people may feel obliged to oppose this 'in respect of other
Christians' consciences' (EW III, 656). His understandable fear of civil war
prevented Hobbes from elaborating these intimations. Nevertheless, we find in De
Cive an interesting variation: the substantial truth of believing in God, including
public religious practice, is a priori, not alienable in the original contract of
constituting the state. Consequently, Hobbes denies the sovereign power the right
to negate or eliminate substantial truth, which was never at its disposal. For
example, in the kingdom of God idolatry is explicitly forbidden (and quasi-religious
forms of worship or adoration of the representatives of sovereign power naturally
fall under the same restriction) ... 'though commanded by princes, yet must they
be abstained from' (EW II, 224).
The anti-elite impulse of Hobbes's theory in various ways affects the definition
of 'good' laws. A good law has to be 'needful, for the good of the people, and
withal perspicuous' (EW III, 335). Both claims are by no means necessary as far as
the logical-political system more geometrico is concerned: the sovereign may decree
laws which do not meet these intentions. 'By a good law, I mean not a just law: for
no law can be unjust' (ibid.). Apart from a sovereign's obligation to restrict a
subject's sphere of liberty as little as possible (EW II, 179), the prerequisite of
perspicuity has special importance. Hobbes supposes that, in the long run, an
individual will only accept necessary restrictions of his expanding free will without
opposition so long as he is informed of the meaning of law, i.e., of its necessity:
'The perspicuity consisteth not so much in the words of the law itself, as in a
declaration of the causes, and motives for which it was made' (EW III, 336). All
forms of blind command are destructive. Loss of liberty is to be compensated by
increasing insight. A sovereign who fails to establish common knowledge about the
laws among those who are affected by them is himself responsible for wrong
behavior on the part of the subjects due to ignorance. 'To be severe to the people,
is to punish that ignorance, which may in great part be imputed to the sovereign,
 237

whose fault it was that they were no better instructed'. (ibid., 337).
But clearly, an ignorant mass can be better manipulated than a number of
thinking individuals. A sovereign will only be interested in abolishing ignorance
without further delay, if - historically speaking - people's consciousness has
developed to such a point that to prolong the state of ignorance needs to have an
explosive effect on the community:

For neither almost is any man so dull of understanding as not to judge it better to be ruled
by himself, than yield himself to the government of another (EW II, 39), ... for nothing
is more apt to beget hatred, than the tyrannizing over men's reason and understanding,
especially when it is done, not by the Scriptures, but by the pretence of learning, and more
judgment than that of other men (EW IV, 264).

The sovereign has to increase the capacity of insight in the citizen, who, on his part,
will have to accept that the rules and regulations are by reason adapted to his
specific historical situation. The subject verifies his reasonable identity with the
whole of the community; otherwise the functional system of politics would lack any
spirit of life. When citizens are kept informed, they are in a position to decide
reasonably in favor of the state incorporating common reason. 'Weak' individuals
will not follow their insight but take the contingent influences of custom and
example as guiding rules of their behavior (EW III, 91-92); they depend on leaders
as bell-weathers and if these stumble they will fall with them. Apparently, the
mentality of an authoritarian personality is bound to endanger the stability of the
state (cf. ibid., 293-94). If such dangerous and blind dependence on authorities is
perpetuated, instability would be firmly established;

for, in this situaiion the citizens appeal from custom to reason, and from reason to
custom, as it serves their turn; receiving from custom when their interest requires it, and
setting themselves against reason, as oft as reason is against them ... (ibid., 92).

The qualified capacity of decision of the individual establishes a critical relationship

towards institutions: 'For if all the churches in the world should renounce the
Christian faith, yet is not this sufficient authority for any of the members to do the
same (E, 132).
The obligation of conscience by the laws of nature, accepted as commandments
of God, concerns the institution of the sovereign as well as the citizen. Contrary to
the state of nature, there is no longer any legitimate reason - not even for the
sovereign, and not for him in particular - to exercise his universal natural right
against the meaning of the natural laws.
The common interest of sovereign and subject can be laid down in principle
without difficulty; but at what point in a paricular historical situation the
boundaries are transgressed and sovereign or subject lacks the fundamental
disposition through which they participate in the common substance of truth and
238

responsibility, cannot be decided a priori. If, however, by their attitude, citizen or

sovereign hurt the spiritual coherence of what we called the consciousness of
covenant, all is lost - no matter how much the interdependences are demonstrated
more geometrico. Therefore, it is only of secondary importance that -out of the
immanence of his political system - Hobbes did not give the subjects any
instruments of control nor the right to withdraw from the contract. The physical
experience of the contract of peace being deprived of its contents, will suffice in
practice: 'But to hurt another without reason, introduces war, and is contrary to the
fundamental law of nature' (c. EWII, 38, 188). By abusing his power the sovereign
may provoke a regression into the state of nature.

7. Conclusion

We have reconstructed the mediation of formal-emancipatory thoughts and

religious consciousness in Hobbes's philosophy. In the following centuries this
configuration did not work. History remained fixed on a 'dialectic of
emancipation', on a formalistic logic of domination which caused immeasurable
bloodshed. The reason of commonwealth was continually undermined by perverse
forms of politics. Hobbes still wanted to elaborate those substantial 'forces'
constitutive for the subject as creator of state-organization. But, already in his time,
these resources had deteriorated so that philosophy had to attempt anew the'
coherent mediation between the longing for truth as existential participation in a
common universal sense (incorporated in religious enthusiasm) and the
commandment of peace and justice (made understandable by the scientific
construction more geometrico). Historical development did not follow the path of
peace and reason: truth - as publicly acknowledged and individually affirmed
religious universality - was deprived of its power. And this process of formalization
has continued up to the present. It is reflected in growing irrationality and increasing
eruptions of the regression which Hobbes described as a 'state of nature' or as
despotism without the benefits of obligatory self-limitations institutionalized by
Joedus et pactum.
V. JUSTICE AND EQUITY IN THE COMMONWEALTH
 241

16. HOBBES ON EQUITY AND JUSTICE

Larry May

Purdue University

Most contemporary readers of Hobbes's works are shocked by his reduction of

justice to mere legality. If we want to know if we have acted justly we need merely
ask, 'have we obeyed the law'? This is shocking because it implies (and Hobbes
elsewhere states explicitly) that there can be no unjust laws. If such a statement were
made today we would be inclined to view the person making the statement as an
absolute legal positivist, namely, someone who believed that morality did not
overlap with legality. I shall argue that Hobbes is not such an absolute legal
positivist because he had a much narrower conception of justice than we have, but
also a wide notion of equity or fairness which did provide for a moral basis of
criticizing the law, and is perhaps closer to our notion of justice than what Hobbes
called justice.
Further I shall argue that equity, not justice, is the dominant moral category in
Hobbes's political and legal philosophy. I will begin by analyzing a number of key
passages in Hobbes corpus, mainly from Leviathan and A Dialogue Between a
Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England, where both equity and
justice are contrasted with one another. If Hobbes sees equity as the dominant
moral category overlapping the political authority of the law-making sovereign,
then his brand of positivism is less absolutist than is generally thought to be the case.
At the end of this paper I attempt to show some of the contemporary implications
of Hobbes's views, interpreted in the light of his pronouncements on equity and
natural law generally.
Let me first set out some background considerations about Hobbes's political
philosophy as it related to his concept of law. For Hobbes there were two possible
bases for limiting the sovereign law-making power. First, since the sovereign did not
have any strictly 'legal' duties imposed on him (because he was not a contracting
party in the constitutional contract establishing sovereignty) his duties must in some
sense or other be 'natural' duties. In De Cive Hobbes clearly articulates what this
means:

Now all the duties of rulers are contained in this one sentence, the safety of the people
is the supreme law (EW II, 166).

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
242

Hobbes then defines the term 'safety' in its broadest sense to include considerations
of enrichment and liberty as well as the obvious considerations of defense. This duty
is derived from the fact that the sovereign, by accepting his authority and power as
a 'free-gift', assumes the responsibility of guaranteeing peace for his subjects (since
this was the reason why the gift of sovereignty was bestowed in the first place). I
have elsewhere called this duty a constitutional limitation, since when the sovereign
fails to abide by it, the contract consituting the commonwealth is dissolved.
The second type of duty stems from the dictates of reason (the laws of nature)
which led men to submit to the ruler. The prime law of nature is that of Equity.
Equity places a limitation on the exercise of rulers hip instead of on the right of
rulership. The sovereign is restricted from propounding laws which are either
unreasonable, superfluous or arbitrary. He is thus bound to certain standards of fair
proceedings which are firmly rooted in Hobbes's concept of civil morality.
Apparently equity provides us with the moral wedge we can drive between Hobbes's
seemingly severe terms of the constitutional contract. Merely because the
sovereign's laws cannot be called unjust does not mean that they are immune to all
moral valuation. In what follows we shall see to what extent Hobbes allow this
moral wedge to be driven into his positivistic legal scheme.
Before beginning the exegesis a few words should be said about the term 'equity'
itself. Aristotle employed the word to mean a particular type of justice, making
corrections for the anomalies that arise when general rules are applied to unusual
circumstances. The Roman use of the term started as an elaboration of Aristotle but
later came to apply to any action properly brought before the praetor, and these
were generally all procedural matters. But in Tudor England, lawyers and
philosophers began to ask:

whether equity is a principle of justice transcendent and distinct from the law (legal
justice) or whether it is of the same substance as the positive one, but expresses the spirit
rather than the letter of that particular law: I

By Hobbes's time, equity was given an increasingly wide scope such that many
philosophers virtually equated justice and equity, often linking the two concepts
together as an inseparable pair (this is still a common practice in contemporary
Anglo-American jurisprudence). Further complicating the issue was the fact that the
Lord Chancellor's Courts of Equity came to have such wide jurisdiction by the 17th
century as to be virtually indistinguishable from the common law courts. In the
second part of this paper we shall see how this confusion might have affected
Hobbes's use of the term. It will be clear, though, that Hobbes did distinguish the
domains of justice and equity, and in his moral philosophy made equity his
cornerstone.
 243

1. The Early View: Leviathan, Chapter 15

At the beginning of Chapter 15 of Leviathan Hobbes discusses the third law of

nature: 'that men perform their covenants made' (EW III, 130). This is the specific
law of nature that led men out of the state of nature. It is also the basis for the very
thin role of justice in civil society for Hobbes.

And in this law of nature, consisteth the fountain and original of justice. For where no
covenant hath preceded, there hath no right been transferred, and every man has a right
to everything; and consequently no action can be unjust. But when a covenant is made,
then to break it is unjust; and the definition of injustice, is no other than the not
performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust, is just (ibid. III, 130-131).

According to this definition, the actions of the sovereign law-maker can never be
said to be unjust, for he made no covenant with any man. Since whatsoever is not
unjust is just, it would seem that all the sovereign's actions, no matter how unfair,
should always be called just. But Hobbes does not make this claim; instead he says
that:

before the names just, and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power
(ibid.).

Since there is no coercive power over the sovereign himself, his actions cannot be
called unjust or just. The coercive power of the sovereign creates the situation where
the terms 'justice' and 'injustice' can be applied; but since the sovereign stands
outside of this situation, the terms which he legitimizes cannot be used on himself.
Thus, while legality and justice are correlative notions, neither properly applies to
the sovereign law-makers who, by definition, stand outside of the law.
There is, though, another and more subtle reason why the sovereign's actions are
neither just nor unjust. The rule that we must perform our covenants is the rule of
justice, according to Hobbes. This rule is derived from the general rule of reason
stating that 'we are forbidden to do anything which is destructive of our life'. But
the sovereign, in his capacity as an artificial person, does not make promises nor
covenants nor does he even have a natural life which he must preserve by acting
justly. It is true that he may be bound by these considerations in his capacity as a
natural person, but that strictly does not concern him as a sovereign. Thus, in his
sovereign (artificial) capacity he cannot be accounted just or unjust.
Subjects on the other hand are clearly bound by the dictates of the natural law
concerning the performance of their covenants. In the sphere of civil society the
boundaries to man's freedom are called laws. In vivid imagery Hobbes draws the
analogy between natural chains and artificial chains which restrict free action.

But as men, for the attaining of peace, and conservation of themselves thereby, have made
244

an artificial man, which we call a commonwealth; so also have they made artificial chains,
called civil laws, which they themselves, by mutual covenant, have fastened at one end,
to the lips of that man, or assembly, to whom they have given the sovereign power; and
at the other end to their own ears (ibid. III, 198).

The key here is that men have placed these chains upon themselves by their own act
of covenant. That is, they have chosen to restrict their own freedom by creating a
sovereign for the express purpose of propounding these artificial 'chains'. These
self-imposed chains in fact often conflict with a particular person's will to do
something. But since we have voluntarily imposed these barriers upon our own
actions, it makes no sense to claim that we should fight against them. Likewise, it
would make no sense to say that any of these chains or laws are unjust.
Hobbes returns to the issue of justice when he seeks to establish the authority of
the law-maker by reference to covenant. In promising to act in accordance with the
laws propounded by the sovereign, we have declared that it is our will to so act.
Barring any impediment (for instance an accident which makes us mentally
incapable of obeying the laws) our actions should conform to what we have willed.
It is thus reasonable to say that when our actions do not conform to what we have
promised, we have acted unjustly. And when a habit of breaking our promises has
been established, then it is reasonable to say that we are unjust.
At the end of Chapter 15 of Leviathan Hobbes gives one of the clearest
articulations of his conventionalist view of morality, of which the above 'thin'
theory of justice is a part.

For moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good and evil, in the
conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names which signify our
appetites and aversions; which in different tempers, customs and doctrines of men are
different ... (ibid .. III, 146).

This claim that what is good changes from society to society distinguishes him from
the philosophers of the natural law tradition. If, as Hobbes says, the natural law
is 'immutable' and 'eternal', then what is good should also be unchanging if Hobbes
were an adherent of natural law philosophy. But, of course, Hobbes does not draw
this conclusion. Instead he asserts that the good, even though it is tied to the
immutable natural law, is constantly changing 'in the conversation, and society of
mankind'. Thus, while admitting the natural law advocates' premises, Hobbes
refuses to admit their conclusion. The reason for this is that Hobbes, again and
again, claims that the laws of nature, immutable ang eternal though they be, are
only pseudo-laws.

These dictates of reason men used to call by the name of laws, improperly: for they are
but conclusions or theorems concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defense
of themselves; whereas law, properly, is the word of him, that by right hath command
over others (ibid. III, 147).
 245

Moral philosophy for Hobbes is the science concerned with the changing notions of
the good, which is relativized because the good merely stands for what is the subject
of our desire. Moral philosophy is not concerned with the so-called 'principles of
natural morality and natural law'.
Here we might first raise the question: are there any principles of natural morality
that Hobbes carries over into his positivistic scheme of civil law? As initially
formulated, equity is merely the dictate of reason stating that 'if a man be trusted
to judge between man and man ... he deal equally between them' (ibid. III, 142).
This is the eleventh law of nature and its principle of equality of treatment is
generally derived from the same source as the other laws of nature. From this
description one would think that this law of nature is no different from the others
propounded by Hobbes. Yet, as we shall see, this law is singled out and given a
higher status than the others when Hobbes discusses the duties of the sovereign. The
reason for this seems to be that equity, unlike all the other laws of nature, applies
only to those men who are 'trusted to judge between man and man'. Already the
addition of the element of trust takes this law of nature out of the realm of the state
of nature. Hobbes makes this explicit when he adds that without this law 'the
controversies of man cannot be determined but by war' (ibid.). Since the state of
nature is properly that realm where people are in a constant state of war and where
no trust is even reasonable, this dictate of reason is not appropriate in that state.
It is the only law of nature which must await the institution of a judge and positive
law before it is made effective. Thus it is that principle of morality which can only
be applicable in civil society. It is also clearly addressed to a sovereign-like figure,
'a judge', and therefore it is meant to be applied directly to that sovereign and not
to those natural men who are striving to find their way out of the state of constant
war. For further substantiation of this point, ·let us turn briefly to that section of
Leviathan where civil morality and equity are discussed.
At the end of Chapter 28 Hobbes says that he is next going to speak 'of what laws
of nature the sovereign is bound to obey'. But Hobbes does not specifically address
this issue until Chapter 30 when he says that the prime duty of the sovereign is the
safety of the people. As in De Cive Hobbes defines this duty in a very broad way:

And this is intended should be done not by care applied to individuals, further than their
protection from injuries, when they still complain; but by a general providence, contained
in public instruction, both of doctrine and example; and in making and executing of good
laws, to which individual persons may apply their own cases (ibid. Ill, 322-323).

Remember that Hobbes had previously said that the duties of the sovereign are all
linked to the preservation of the 'safety of the people' and later Hobbes was to say
that the sovereign is not bound except by equity. Hobbes links the safety of the
people and equity in his analysis of why the sovereign should make and execute good
laws. Hobbes had previously shown that it was impossible that a legitimately
246

propounded law could ever be called unjust, since the law defined what was just.
But Hobbes went on to claim that a just law and a good law are not the same, for
all laws are just but not all are good. 'A good law is that which is needful for the
good of the people .. .' (ibid. III, 325). Hobbes thus defines a 'good law' in terms
of the principles of equity, and carefully distinguishes it from just laws. Equity
becomes the cornerstone for evaluating laws as good or bad, and is thus the prime
natural law to bind the sovereign.
In general Hobbes does not spell out how equity comes to be the pre-eminent law
of nature in the civil morality of Leviathan. Only in A Dialogue, much later in
Hobbes's life, is this brought out in any detail.

2. The Later View: A Dialogue Between a Philosopher and a Student of the

Common Laws of England

At the end of his life when he wrote A Dialogue Hobbes no longer spoke of the state
of nature and the corresponding notion of natural right. He spoke exclusively of
civil right and law, with the singular exception that he continued to speak of certain
natural law considerations. In this work Hobbes continued his reduction of justice
to legality: 'A Just Action is that which is not against the Law', (D, 72) but filled
out his moral concepts by specifying more clearly the nature of Equity. At the
beginning of the dialogue (which has only two participants: a Lawyer and a
Philosopher) the 'Lawyer' says that if statute law is taken away all that would
remain is 'Equity and Reason, Laws Divine and Eternal, which oblige all men at
all times in all places ... '(ibid., 56). This reference by the 'Lawyer' to the laws of
nature is not meant to be interpreted necessarily as Hobbes's own position.
Nonetheless, we can get a sense for which terms are carried over from Leviathan,
and how the context of discussing these terms comes to change. First, Hobbes is
concerned only with the laws of nature relating specifically to law-making, that is,
to equity and justice. Second, Hobbes discusses these subjects only in respect to
actions not covered by the statute laws, or when the statute law did not exist (in
times of civil war or international disputes). He is not concerned, as he was in
Leviathan, to speak at length about the hypothetical state of man's existence before
he entered society. Also, Hobbes is addressing himself not to natural lawyers but
to common lawyers. This means that he is more concerned with the actual basis of
limiting the law-making authority, for instance through the courts, than with the
strictly theoretical basis of limiting sovereignty per se.
In this work Hobbes makes his position on justice extremely clear when he has
the 'Philosopher' say

it is manifest that before there was a law, there could be no Injustice, and therefore Laws
are in their Nature antecedent to Justice and Injustice ... (ibid., 72).
 247

Since sovereignty is antecedent (or at very least co-temporaneous) to the

establishment of civil law, it follows from the above remark that sovereignty also
must be antecedent to justice and injustice for Hobbes.
Hobbes also clarifies the distinction between justice and equity in his Dialogue:

the difference between Injustice and Iniquity is this; that Injustice is the transgression of
a Statute-Law and Iniquity the transgression of the Law of Reason (ibid., JO).

This conclusion follows from Hobbes's analysis of the different functions of the
Courts of Justice and the Courts of Equity in English law. The court of the King's
Bench was the court where one brought a dispute on a matter covered by a paricular
statute. The court of Chancery (one of the courts of Equity), on the other hand,
was a separate court to which one appealed if there was no statute governing a
disputed matter or if the application of the relevant statute was thought to be
inappropriate. Considerations of justice were matters of positive law proper,
whereas considerations of equity were matters of 'reason' , that is, matters of natural
law. Before we examine what Hobbes meant by equity and reason, let us turn briefly
to see what one legal scholar, W.P. Baildon, said about the development of these
courts prior to Hobbes's time.

The Court of Chancery became necessary because it was found that the Courts of
Common Law were, from various causes, frequently unable to do justice to suitors. This
might result from two classes of reasons: (I) from the inelasticity of its principles and
practice; or (2) from the peculiar situation of the parties in cases which could otherwise
have been dealt with at Common Law. 2

Hobbes shows us that he was aware of some of these historical distinctions in the
following exchange between the 'Lawyer' and the 'Philosopher'.

Lawyer. Seeing all Judges in all Courts ought to Judge according to Equity, which is
the Law of Reason, a distinct Court of Equity seemeth to me to be unnecessary, and but
a Burthen to the People, since Common-Law and Equity are the same Law.

Philosopher. It were so indeed, if Judges could not err; and that the King is not Bound
to any Law but that of Equity, it belongs to him alone to give Remedy to them that by
the Ignorance or Corruption of a Judge, shall suffer damage. (D, 70).

This exchange shows that Hobbes knew that there was a special function given to
the Courts of Equity, and that the function was different from that of the standard
common law courts. It also shows that Hobbes realized that equity placed a certain
duty on the king to make sure that his laws were fairly administered and applied.
The Court of Chancery was the proper domain of the King's first minister, the
Chancellor. When Hobbes's mentor, Francis Bacon, was Lord Chancellor he sought
to establish the independent authority of the Court of Equity over the common law
248

courts. The Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Edward Coke, fought a vehement
struggle with Bacon on this issue, and ultimately lost the battle. In Hobbes's time
the Court of Chancery was an extremely strong court which had unusual power,
much like that of the old Court of Star Chamber, to be used for political purposes
as well as for strictly judicial ones. Hobbes later suggests that Equity is the proper
place to bring a complaint against the King's law and possibly even against the King
himself. Since this court is administered by the King's own minister, it is
questionable what efficacy such an action could have. Whether this is really what
Hobbes had in mind is not terribly clear, as we shall see, but it is clear that Hobbes
felt the King bound by equity in a way which he could not have been bound by
justice.
At one point in the Dialogue Hobbes addresses the claim that equity entails 'that
a man's conscience should be allowed to prevail over the law' in certain cases. It
is claimed also that this is based on the provisions of certain statutes. Hobbes has
the 'Philosopher' counter this claim by showing that these are statutes which do not
set equity above the law nor the law above equity. Instead these statutes merely
showed how equity and law combine to set rules of proper legal pleading (cf. ibid.,
86-88).
Equity for Hobbes is the concept governing legal interpretations and judgment.
Hobbes is particularly careful to distinguish between Edward Coke's view that
equity could 'cancel' the King's laws and Hobbes's own view that equity could only
'correct' the meaning or grammar of the laws.

It cannot be that a Written Law should be against Reason: For nothing is more
reasonable, than that every Man should obey the Law, which he hath himself assented to;
but that is not always the Law which is signified by Grammatical Construction of the
Letter, but that which the Legislature thereby intended should be in Force; which
Intention, I confess, is a very hard matter many times to pick out of the words of the
Statute (ibid., 97).

One type of equity proceedings is then the reasonable review of a particular law in
order to ascertain if the true intent of that law has been properly expressed in the
opinion of a common law court. This is because

there is a necessity of a Higher Court of Equity than the Courts of Common-Law, to

remedy the Errors in Judgment given by the Justice of Inferior Courts ... (ibid., 94-95).

After examimng several statutes which concern jurisdictional disputes between

Courts of Equity and Courts of Common Law, Hobbes is led to conclude that
equity also concerns those cases brought by men who claim to have been grieved
by the courts of common law. But these equity proceedings are not properly brought
against the law so much as for an elucidation of the law. The King appoints his
Chancellor to hear these cases because it is the King, as maker of the law, who must
 249

be the one to interpret or change his own pronouncements:

for no one can mend a Law but he that can make it, and therefore I say not that Equity
amends the Law, but the Judgments only when they are erroneous (ibid., 101).

Hobbes comes to the conclusion

that Justice fulfills the Law, and Equity interprets the Law and Amends the Judgments
given upon the same Law (ibid.).

Thus Hobbes has shown that justice applies to subjects and concerns whether they
followed and thus fulfilled the law, and equity applies to the judges or kings and
concerns whether they have correctly interpreted or applied the law.
We are now able to see why the actions of the law-maker can never be against
justice but may be against equity. His actions cannot be unjust because justice
concerns fulfilling the law and the maker of the law cannot be said not to fulfill his
own law since he is not subject to it. On the other hand, his actions may be against
equity if he does not properly interpret his law in a manner consistent with the intent
which he had originally expressed through the law, or in a manner consistent with
his duty to act for the good of the people. Equity, as the only relevant law of reason
binding the law-maker, also dictates that he must follow certain rules of fairness in
administering and applying his laws. To act otherwise is to err, and the subject may
then go to court to show that an error was made and should be corrected. This
becomes the only legitimate means the subjects have of challenging the law-maker.
They cannot challenge a law itself, because to do so would be to challenge the
justness of the law, but they can challenge the interpretation, administration or
application of that law in their own case, that is, its equity.
This curiously rigid use of the words 'justice' and 'equity' was certainly not
common at Hobbes's time. Hobbes uses these words in this peculiar way because
he wishes severely to limit the ability of the subject to challenge the law on moral
grounds. His approach is to restrict the realm of morality which is applicable to the
law-maker, by reducing moral challenges to questions of fair proceedings, that is,
to strictly formal questions. But his purpose is not, as is sometimes said, to eliminate
the possibility of any moral criticism of law.

3. Conclusions

If my interpretation is correct two major questions remain:

(a) did Hobbes hold equity over justice in his legal philosophy, and
(b) how does this view influence our understanding of Hobbes, (certainly the first
of the modern legal positivists) and generally our understanding of the relation
between morality and the law?
250

First, let us recall why Hobbes thought men should submit to the law-maker to
begin with. Hobbes tried to show that, starting from this goal of self-preservation,
it is reasonable for people to accept the sovereign's authority and thus to limit their
freedom if the sovereign can guarantee the kind of protection they couldn't get
otherwise. The agreement to allow an entity to curtail our liberty continues to be
reasonable unless our self-preservation is again threatened. Short of this, it is never
reasonable to challenge the law-maker's authority because such a challenge would
undermine the law-maker's ability to provide the safety we seek. It was this
consideration which caused Hobbes to say that all laws, properly propounded, are
just. They are always just because their goal, the safety of the commonwealth, is
always just.
On the other hand, we saw in Leviathan an admission by Hobbes that laws are
not always good ones. While it is not always reasonable to challenge the
interpretation or even the existence of law, the judgment of the goodness of a law
is based on a much wider standard than that of the justice of a law. Goodness of
laws and of legal judgments is determined with reference to the moral standards of
equity.

The things that make a good judge, or good interpreter of the laws, are first a right
understanding of that principal law of nature, called equity, which depends ... on the
goodness of a man's own natural reason, and meditation ... (EW III, 269).

While Hobbes never clearly draws this distinction, I believe that the texts we have
considered support the conclusion that there are two types of moral limitations
which the principle of equity places on law-makers.
First, Hobbes explicitly states that the law-maker and the judge are restricted
from interpreting laws in an inconsistent manner or from applying laws in an
arbitrary or unequal way. This limitation, albeit a strictly formal limitation on the
administration of the laws, is grounded in the natural law principle that judges (and
law-makers) treat people equally, and then administer the laws in a manner which
allows the people to know what they are required to do to act legally. Thus, the first
limitation on law-making is a moral limitation in the sense that it emanates from
Hobbes's general views on equality and fairness.
Second, Hobbes explicitly states that laws cannot be unreasonable in the
Dialogue, and implies that laws also cannot be capricious or superfluous (D, 150,
151-2, 166). It seems to me that these limitations, which are also to follow from the
principle of equity, are substantive limitations on what the law-maker can declare
to be law. These are again moral limitations of equity in the sense that the law-
makers are restricted from acts which threaten the safety of the people and thus
violate the law-maker's duty to provide security for the subjects who have sworn
obedience to him. I admit that Hobbes never explicitly claims that his limitation
gives rise to the ability of the subjects to challenge the law directly; but I think it
 251

is fairly clear that Hobbes saw this limitation as binding the law-maker in a moral
way, at least in his conscience.
Thus, Hobbes did allow an important overlap of morality with legality. There was
a clear moral restriction on the law-maker and it concerned the fair administration
of the law. Fairness itself (as many recent legal theorists have been quick to point
out) cannot be inferred from a strictly positivistic account of law; yet most people·
would admit that a legal system must, above all else, remain fair. Hobbes recognized
this problem and allowed the moral wedge of equity to be driven into his legal
positivism. Without this natural law principle, people would have no basis for
settling disputes about interpretation of the laws (especially when these laws
conflict). True to his own emphasis on prudence Hobbes could not allow this
uncertainty because such disputes could jeopardize the acceptance of the whole legal
order - which in turn might throw the people back into a state of war. The law-
maker's first duty is to prevent such a return to the state of nature. Thus Hobbes
came to link equity with the sovereign's duty to uphold the safety of the people, by
among other things protecting the people from themselves. By implication then, the
law-maker could not even declare laws which might jeopardize that security.
For Hobbes there is an important difference between those natural law principles
which are necessary for civil law to function (such as equity), and those natural law
principles which merely lead men toward civil society. Hobbes felt that his
contemporaries were foolish in insisting that all aspects of liberty be safeguarded
against the crown. 'Safeguarding liberty' (in the name of natural justice) as it was
defined in 17th Century England, was often quite inconsistent with securing safety
against either foreign invasion or civil war. But this does not mean that the sovereign
should be given absolute control over his subjects. For this would also risk civil war.
There must be some visible limits to the sovereign's power in order that the subjects
see the legal system as both

(a) necessary for their safety and

(b) fair, that is, not arbitrary and not without appeal when the laws excessively
interfere with the subject's liberty.

The principle of equity provided such a limitation on the authority of the sovereign
law-maker. Attending to Hobbes's statements concerning equity will reward us with
a picture of Hobbes much more palatable to our contemporary tastes and also much
closes to the true picture of Hobbes himself. 3
252

NOTES

Stuart E. Prall, 'The Development of Equity in Tudor England', The American Journal of Legal
History (1964) p. 1. Prall provides a truly excellent account of the debates on the meaning of equity just
prior to Hobbes's time.
2 W.P. Baildon (ed.), introductory notes, The Publications of the Selden Society (1896) Select Cases
in Chancery 1364-1471 10 (London, 1896) p. xxi.
3 I would like to thank the following for their constructive criticisms and suggestions on various
drafts of this paper: Martin Curd, William McBride, Richard Hiskes and Lilly Russow.
 253

17. COMMENTARY ON PROFESSOR MAY'S 'HOBBES ON

EQUITY AND JUSTICE'

William Mathie

Brock University

Larry May claims that we shall arrive at a happier and more accurate understanding
of Hobbes's legal, political, and moral philosophy when we grasp the importance
of equity and its relation to justice within that philosophy. Once we have recognized
the role of equity in Hobbes's teaching, he believes we shall no longer regard him
as a simple legal positivist. The remarks that follow are intended to question neither
May's claim as to the importance of Hobbes's notion of equity nor his denial that
Hobbes is a legal positivist. What will be questioned is May's account of what equity
is and of how exactly it is related to justice. Although 'equity, not justice is the
dominant moral category in Hobbes's political and legal philosophy' (p. 241)1 and
the 'prime law of nature' for Professor May, it is for him a category Hobbes added
to his system (p. 251). Thus according to May, Hobbes would be guilty as accused
of legal positivism and moral relativism had he not 'added' this category. Equity
is, indeed, 'a moral wedge' Hobbes 'allows to be driven into his positivistic scheme'
(pp. 241, 251). I hope to show that equity is a fundamental category in Hobbes's
teaching for reasons other than those furnished by May and, further, that equity
is not added to Hobbes's system but rather is so related to justice that one may
almost speak of Hobbes's notion of justice as deriving from his teaching on equity.
May thinks Hobbes's political and legal philosophy is rendered 'much more
palatable' when we recognize the place of equity in it (p. 251). If the relation of
justice to equity is as I argue, one can go further. On the interpretation I propose
we may see in Hobbes's treatment of justice and equity amajor contribution to that
transformation in political philosophy which distinguishes our own from the
premodern understanding of justice itself?
May suggests that Hobbes would be rightly regarded as a 'strict', 'absolute' or
even 'absolutist' legal positivist were it not for the fact that he has an account of
equity as well as a teaching on justice (pp. 241). This suggestion must fail if, as I
argue below, the notions of justice and equity are conceptually inseparable, but I
think one might question the identification of Hobbes as a pure legal positivist even
without explicit reference to equity. Certainly Hobbes hopes to make it impossible
for us ever to speak of an unjust law, but it is important to see that he attempts this
by arguing the necessary coincidence of civil and natural law and not by destroying

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
254

the latter notion as a standard. Hobbes's position, even as May states it, can be
distinguished from that of John Austin - 'if the law maker's authority is legitimate
there can be no unjust laws made by that law-maker' (p. 241). For both, law is a
kind of command, but for Austin once we have distinguished a command from the
expression of a wish by the fact that the former is accompanied by an effective
threat or sanction, we need only add that a law, unlike a decree, is general in subject
matter and addressee; for Hobbes, on the other hand, having distinguished
command from counsel we must go on to consider the source of the command and
the legitimacy of this source. Laws are laws and we are bound to obey them as soon
as they are recognized as commands of the sovereign, but it is an already constituted
moral relationship between subjects and sovereign that makes this so, and not the
mere possession by the sovereign of the capacity to 'punish' our disobedience. 3
May speaks of Hobbes's justice as having a 'thin', equity a much wider, role. This
is unexceptionable so far as the distinction points to the narrow content of Hobbes's
notion of justice (p. 244) but May also connects this 'thinness' to Hobbes's
'relativistic view of morality' (p. 245). For May, it seems, the theory of justice is
'thin' because developed within Hobbes's argument that good and evil are only
names signifying our appetites and aversions which differ among men and even for
the same individual over time, and that reason does not lead us to a common
definition of the good. That the laws of nature are 'only pseudo-laws', he
apparently views as a further consequence of this moral relativism. Here we may
only observe that the laws of nature are less than laws until they become commands
of the sovereign, not because Hobbes is a relativist, and that justice must be
understood not only within the denial that there is a common notion of the good
but also as a response to that lack. One could almost say that justice alone
overcomes the relativity of good and evil, for Hobbes sometimes speaks as if the
only true morality consists in justice as obeying law:

In the same manner as men in playing turn up trump, [andjas in playing their game their
morality consists in not renouncing what they have made trump so in our civil
conversation our morality is all contained in not disobeying of the laws (EW V, 194).

In any case equity has a much wider role in Hobbes's teaching, according to
Professor May. Although it is introduced as only one of some nineteen laws of
nature it is seen by May to enjoy a distinct and higher status because it is applicable
only to those trusted to judge, necessary to the peaceful resolution of human
controversies, effective only when judge and positive law are instituted, i.e. within
civil society, and addressed to the sovereign. Do these considerations suffice to
establish that equity has a unique status? Athough Hobbes does say that human
controversies would not be determined but by war without this law of nature he says
at least as much concerning the second, third, fourth, and ninth laws. If equity,
unlike justice, is addressed to the sovereign, so are the laws requiring gratitude and
 255

forbidding revenge. Nor is it clear that this law is peculiarly applicable only in civil
society; the same might at least equally be said of justice.
In order to see that equity does have a peculiarly important status in Hobbes's
teaching it is necessary to recognize that equity is something more than what Hobbes
states as a rule for arbiters in outlining the eleventh law of nature in Leviathan. That
equity is more than this is suggested by Hobbes's remark in the twenty-sixth chapter
that the laws of nature 'consist in Equity, Justice, Gratitude, and other morall
Virtues on these depending' (EW III, 253). Since 'justice' and 'gratitude' G\re clearly
and fully set out by the third and fourth laws of nature, we may begin to suspect
that all other moral virtues constituted by the remaining laws of nature are closely
linked, or even reducible, to that of equity. Certainly the twelfth, thirteenth, and
fourteenth laws which are to guide the sovereign in assigning 'mine' and 'thine' are
explicitly identified as corollaries of the law of equity. Much more may be claimed
on the basis of Hobbes's treatment of the laws of nature in the Elements and De
Cive, however. In De Cive Hobbes says that equity as a quality to be desired on the
part of arbiters is derived from the immediately previous law which requires that
we demand no right against others we do not grant others against us; the same rule
has become part of the second law of nature in Leviathan (EW II, 40; EW III, 118).
This same law of equality of right is, moreover, explicitly identified as a
consequence of its predecessor which forbids pride, or enJOInS our
acknowledgement of natural equality (ibid. II, 39). What precisely is equity, then?
In the Elements Hobbes says, that as justice is that habit by which we stand to
covenants, so equity is 'that habit by which we allow equality of nature' (E, 94).
If equity as a law of nature is ultimately the requirement that we acknowledge
natural equality, its relation to justice must be something other than that of an
additional consideration. That relationship is perhaps adumbrated by the way
Hobbes orders the laws of nature in Leviathan, for here the rule that we should
acknowledge equality of right precedes the rule of keeping covenants. Again,
arguing in De Cive that distributive justice would be better called equity, Hobbes
concedes that 'justice is a kind of equality' and in the Elements he observes that
'injury, which is the injustice of actions, consists ... in the inequality that men
contrary to nature and reason, assume unto themselves above their fellows' (EW II,
34; E, 34). Equity, on the present analysis, is a name for that quality Hobbes speaks
of, in concluding his treatment of the laws of nature, as a frame of mind in which
men may know all that is required of them by the laws of nature (EW III, 144-5).
If, unlike justice, equity is a quality required of the sovereign it is also to be looked
for in all subjects in their mutual dealings. Is it not also that quality of men in the
state of nature that designates men as 'modest' or 'moderate'?
The role of equity in civil society as a standard against which the sovereign's
performance of his office may be measured is correctly but only partly indicated by
May's observation that equity may indicate what Hobbes means by 'good laws'.
Equity also requires of the sovereign an equal treatment of subjects of whatever
256

rank in his law courts, that innocent subjects not be punished, and that those guilty
of 'injuring' fellow subjects not be pardoned without the consent or compensation
of those they have injured. Equity also requires an equal sharing of the tax burden
and the rules for distribution derived from it constitute a formal justification for
the distribution of property in the commonwealth.
Finally, the significance of equity in the judicial interpretation of laws is again
understated by Professor May. Equity requires in his view only that law as it is
interpreted and applied be consistent with the original intention of the legislator and
that the laws be equally administered. We should observe, however, that according
to Hobbes all laws need interpretation and that the legislator is not necessarily he
who originally devised or made the law by commanding it but the present sovereign
who can be understood to command it now. The intention of the law is thus the
intention of the present sovereign at the moment of intepretation, or even the
understanding of this intention possessed by the sovereign's servant on some
particular bench. How can the servant know his sovereign's intention? In the
twenty-sixth chapter of Leviathan we are told that he may always suppose this
intention to be equity 'for it were a great contumely to think otherwise of the
sovereign' (EW III, 267). Proceeding on this supposition, the judge may supply a
reasonable sentence on the basis of the law of nature if the word of the statute law
does not authorize one. Accordingly, Hobbes names 'a right understanding of that
principal Law of Nature called Equity' first among those qualities 'that makes a
good judge' (ibid. III, 269). If May rightly regards Hobbes's use of the words
'justice' and 'equity' as 'peculiar' or novel, it is not so clear that this usage follows
from a wish 'to limit severely the ability of the subjects to challenge the law on moral
grounds' (p. 249). It is true that Hobbes wants to preclude a challenge to the justice
of the law and that the traditional notion of equity in the discussions of Aristotle,
Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Christopher St. Germain had had at least a tendency
to become just such a challenge, but it is equally important to observe that equity
is in important respects a wider and more fundamental notion than justice itself for
Hobbes.

NOTES

References in parenthesis not otherwise identified are to May's essay in this volume.
2 For a more complete statement of this interpretation see W. Mathie, 'Justice and Equity: an
Inquiry into the Meaning and Role of Equity in the Hobbesian Account of Justice and Politics', Ch. 18
in this volume.
3 A similar argument is presented by Brian Barry, 'Warrender and His Critics' in M. Cranston and
R.S. Peters (eds.), Hobbes and Rousseau (New York: Doubleday, 1972). p. 54.
 257

18. JUSTICE AND EQUITY: AN INQUIRY INTO THE

MEANING AND ROLE OF EQUITY IN THE HOBBESIAN
ACCOUNT OF JUSTICE AND POLITICS

William Mathie

Brock University
St. Catharines, Ontario

In order that he might 'show us the highway to peace ... (and) teach us how to avoid
the close, dark, and dangerous by-paths of faction and sedition' Thomas Hobbes
substituted his own teaching on sovereignty and the liberty and duties of subjects
for the traditional treatment of conflicting claims to rule as a question concerning
the relative justice of those partisan claims.! To accomplish this substitution it was
necessary that Hobbes replace the traditional account of justice with his own
'Science oj natural justice' within which he might show that 'there are no
authentical doctrines ;;oncerning right and wrong, good and evil, besides the
constituted laws in each realm and government' (EW II, xi-xiv). Through the
operation within political life of his own revolutionary reconstruction of politics,
Hobbes seems to have hoped to restore that 'golden age' which existed before
Saturn was expelled, as he was when Socrates foresook all other parts of philosophy
for the civil science. In that earlier age simple subjects still desired the preservation
of that authority whereby they were themselves preserved and rulers 'kept their
empire entire, not by arguments but by punishing the wicked and protecting the
good' (ibid. II, xii). Yet, either because political philosophy having come into the
world, the simple identification of 'ones own' as 'the good' was no longer possible,
or becasue he did not fully approve this identification, or the veneration of the
ancestral to which it points, Hobbes's teaching does not furnish a simple restoration
of the conditions that existed before private men 'desired to prostitute justice ... to
their own judgments and apprehensions'. If Hobbes demonstrates that justice and
the civil laws of any commonwealth can never conflict and that subjects may never
justly seek to alter the established sovereign power, it remains the case within his
teaching that princes must 'sue for '" the supreme power', albeit with Hobbes as
advocate. If Hobbes's restoration resembles the simplicity of the age he laments, as
justice is reduced to its most economical dimensions - the just is the lawful, and the
lawful always just - the resemblance is only partial.
In his several writings it would seem that Hobbes chiefly addresses not princes but
subjects, or those who might instruct subjects, and he does not simply exhort those
subjects to the performance of their duties. He rather seeks to demonstrate the
necessity of the absolute sovereign representative by a deduction that proceeds from

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
258

the equal and universal right of self-preservation. Nor is equality of right merely the
premise from which Hobbes's teaching is developed; rather it is through Hobbes
teaching that the securing of the largest possible equal liberty becomes the object
of modern politics. 2 To see how this may have come to be we shall examine the
Hobbesian account of equity and of the relations among equity, law, and justice.
To indicate the novelty of this account we shall also look briefly at the classical
treatment of equity in relation both to justice and law. Through the comparison of
these accounts we hope to arrive at a more adequate understanding of the nature
and dimensions of the Hobbesian innovation.

1. Equity as a Standard for the Sovereign's Performance of Office

That subjects may not justly dispute or seek to alter the location of sovereignty or
sensibly accuse the sovereign of injustice is among the best known and least liked
of Hobbes's claims. What is less commonly noted is Hobbes's admission that
subjects 'may justly complain' when the sovereign acts inequitably.3 Equity is a
standard to which the sovereign should recur in the performance of his office; it is
equally a standard to which subjects may appeal in assessing that performance.
Though the sovereign can ever injure subjects because he that does 'anything by
authority from another, doth therein no injury to him by whose authority he acteth'
he can be guilty of breaches of equity (EW III, 163). Other than seeing that false
doctrines that might endanger his sovereign power are refuted and preserving that
same power intact, the doing of equity is the chief duty of the sovereign (ibid. III,
171-175, 179-181). Further, the sovereign can fully recognize equity without in any
way reducing his power and right as sovereign; the recognition of equity by the
sovereign will engender the continuing consent of most subjects to the sovereign's
rule.
Among the powers which must be assigned to the sovereign for the sake of peace
is that of prescribing 'the rules, whereby every man may know, what goods he may
enjoy, and what actions he may do, without being molested by any of his fellow-
subjects ... (which) men call propriety' (ibid. III, 165). It is, to be sure, a false
teaching tending rowards the dissolution of the commonwealth that each 'private
man has an absolute propriety in his goods; such as excludeth the right of the
sovereign' (ibid. III, 313). Subjects do have a right to their property 'that excludes
the right of every other subject' but they have this right only from, and by reason
of the existence of, the sovereign power; the right to individual property could only
have taken the place of the right of all to all things through the creation of civil
society, i.e. by the transfer of this right of each to everything to the sovereign (ibid.
III, 313; II, vi, 157-158). Yet we must distinguish between this right and its proper
exercise. Though the exercise of this right establishes that meum and tuum without
which justice as the rendering to each of what is his own could have no place, there
 259

is guidance for the exercise of this right in equity. Thus it is required by equity that
the sovereign as one trusted 'to divide right to others' not favor 'one more or less
than another'; permit the common use of what cannot be divided proportionally to
the number of users; and allow the use of what can neither be divided nor enjoyed
in common either alternately or by one only, proceeding by lot in determing who
shall have its use or the first turn to use it (EW II, 40-41; EW III, 142-143; E,
89-90).
This dividing of right in accordance with equity is according to Hobbes, what men
have previously and improperly called distributive justice. Equity is the correct
name for this kind of distribution both because this division as an act of the
sovereign can be neither just nor unjust and because it must consist always in the
division of right in accordance with natural equality or the sovereign's recognition
of 'the equality of persons in the making up of society' (ibid. II, 39). To see the
significance of the Hobbesian teaching that the property of individual subjects
proceeds from a distribution of the sovereign governed by equity we might note, in
the first place, that classical political science did not in fact view the property
arrangements of existing political communities as derived from, or immediately
open to criticism on the basis of, distributive justice. Thus, for Aristotle,
distributive jusctice can only apply to the allocation of goods which are, prior to
tpeir division, common possessions of the community; it does not apply to the
redistribution of goods already possessed by individuals and it is dubious whether
one can properly question any particular pattern of ownership as failing to accord
with distributive justice. 4 Aristotle examines the advantages and disadvantages of
private and public ownership of estates as well as a proposal for the equalization
of citizens' possessions but he does not assess these as more or less agreeable to
distributive justice. 5 Again, in doubting the oligarchic notion of justice, Aristotle
questions not the unequal sharing in wealth as such but the claim that shares in the
community should be altogether proportional to one's wealth. 6 Ancient political
science does not treat existing property arrangements as if they did, or could, rest
upon distributive justice.
To say that ancient political science neither justified nor condemned existing
property arrangments by direct appeal to distributive justice is not to say that that
teaching uncritically accepted any or all such arrangement - as noted, Aristotle does
assess alternative modes of property holding, and extreme inequalities of wealth are
severely criticized by both Plato and Aristotle. What rather distinguishes this from
the Hobbesian account, and is reflected in the refusal to treat existing property
arrangements as a matter of distributive justice, is the fact that the central ambiguity
in the notion of justice in relation to property is not theoretically resolved in such
a manner that its resolution could become a basis for the justification (or rejection)
of all property claims. Thus, if justice requires that each retain or regain what is his
own, we may ask, as Socrates does in the most famous ancient investigation
'concerning justice', whether a man's own is what he happens to possess under the
260

laws and circumstances of a particular society or, rather, what will benefit him. If
justice requires that each obtain his own in the latter sense it may require both a
radical communism, that abolishes even the private family, and the rule of that few
or one able to discern what will most benefit the soul of each.? We may now,
however, simply abandon the ordinary view of one's own as what one happens to
possess under the law as a consequence of this analysis for it is an investigation
which equally reveals the near-impossibility of realizing such an arragement; not
only are the 'paradoxical' conclusions of this analysis obtained through 'the
disregard of, or the abstraction from a number of most relevant things' but, as well,
the justice so secured is still incomplete inasmuch as the philosopher himself must
forego at least part of 'his own,.8 The ancient account thus preserves the ambiguity
of one's own and accordingly distinguishes, as the Hobbesian account does not,
between that arrangement of property appropriate under 'wished for' conditions,
or within a 'city in speech', and that which is suited to most actual circumstances
where we may not ignore what we can abstract from in speech. Similarly, that
account distinguishes between what is appropriate when a new political community
is being founded and what modifications might be justified within an existing
community.9 Although, or even because Hobbes's rules of equity will permit a
radical inequality of possessions, the distinction between the founding of a new
community and the appropriate treatment of property arrangements within an
existing society loses all importance. Every present distribution is to be understood
as justified by its derivation from an original dividing of right that was at once
sovereign and equitable (EW III, 233-235).
As equity should guide the sovereign in the prescription of those rules of 'mine
and thine' that create (private) property so it must also instruct Hobbes's sovereign
in apportioning the public burden through taxation among his subjects. To the
extent that the rules of equity as these govern the sovereign division of property
permit a great inequality of possessions in civil society and poverty is a potent cause
of sedition, a proper exercise of the sovereign'S right to raise revenues for the
defense and governance of the commonwealth is of particular importance (EW III,
181; EW II, 159-160). Though it is a false opinion that attributes poverty or
prosperity to the form of the commonwealth's government, safety from this cause
of dissolution requires not only the public refutation of this opinion but also the
equitable imposition of the public burden for the commonwealth's well-being (EW
II, 173). We have suggested that the sovereign's full recognition of equity in his
actions 'does not reduce but rather strengthens his own power; unlike justice as
traditionally understood the standard of equity supports the peace of the
commonwealth. Nowhere is this more evident than in the treatment of equitable
taxation. to 'To remove ... all just complaint, it is the interest of the public quiet,
and by consequence it concerns the duty of the magistrate, to see that the public
burthens be equally borne' (ibid.).
According to Hobbes, the sovereign can only discharge this duty under the law
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of equity through the imposing of a tax upon consumption. Taxation of this kind
must be preferred, in the first place, to any attempt to rely upon public lands as a
source of revenue not only because it is impossible to set a limit in advance to what
'emergent occasions' may require of the public purse but also because the provision
of public land for the support of the commonwealth must tend rather to its
dissolution whenever the sovereign power falls into hands that are 'too negligent on
money, or too hazardous in engaging the public stock into a long or costly war' (EW
III, 236). We must, indeed, expect the latter to occur as we may not conceive of 'any
representative ... free from human passions, and infirmities' (ibid. III, 236). As a
reliable and continuing mode of taxation the tax upon commodities is also
preferable to the raising of public money by irregular impositions or the farming
out of those revenues (ibid. III, 319-320). That taxation should be upon
consumption is derived from the law of nature requiring equity in accordance with
the following considerations. Men should contribute to the support of the
commonwealth proportionally to the benefits they receive from it, equally so far as
they derive equal benefit from it, as they do to the extent that that benefit is their
own security. Some however would seem to derive an additional benefit - 'some get
greater possessions, others less; and again, some consume less, others more' (EW
II, 173-174). If the benefits of the commonwealth are not equal it may be asked
whether men should pay more according to their greater wealth or greater
expenditures. Hobbes answers that the taxing of wealth is 'against equity, and
therefore against the duty of rulers' while the taxing of consumption is 'agreeable
to reason, and the exercise of their authority' (ibid. II, 174). The tax on
consumption is equitable because everybody pays it, it is a reasonable measure of
the 'contentments of life' men enjoy by reason of the commonwealth, and it does
not penalize the 'frugal and industrious' as would a tax on wealth (EW III, 334).11
This kind of taxation is agreeable to the authority of rulers because it is paid
'undiscernably' and least troubles the minds of those who pay it through
comparison with the imposition upon their neighbours (E, 181-2).
Equity, finally, requires of the sovereign the equal administration of the laws 'to
all degrees of people'. The sovereign must thus see that injuries done 'the poor and
obscure' are no less redressed than those done the 'rich and mighty'; equity requires
that none may hope to do injury with impunity. So too, though the sovereign may
pardon offences that 'concern the commonwealth only', he may not 'without breach
of equity' pardon any offence done against another private man 'without the
consent of him that is pardoned; or reasonable satisfaction' (EW III, 332-333).12
Though it is, as we have seen, a false opinion to suppose that subjects have a right
in their property against the sovereign, the present distinction suggests that equity
does require of the sovereign that he respect the various properties of his subjects
and indeed uphold those rights in his courts of law so far as the controversy there
is confined to the respective rights of subjects. 13 In any case, all subjects are to
receive equal treatment in the court of justice of the commonwealth for the
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sovereign should recall that the inequality among his subjects as it proceeds from
the operation of his own power has no place in his presence. Rather, the honour
of the great is to be valued solely 'for their beneficence and the aids they give to
men of inferior rank' and their misdeeds are 'not extenuated, but aggravated by the
greatness of their persons .. .' (ibid. III, 333). The. punishment of innocent subjects
is also forbidden by 'the law that commandeth equity; that is to say, an equal
distribution of justice .. .' (ibid. III, 304).

2. Equity, Law, and the Interpretation of Law

We have seen that equity generates those principles that should guide the sovereign's
distribution of meum and tuum, determines the mode of taxation upon which the
public revenue must depend, prescribes an equal treatment of the sovereign's
subjects in his courts and that only guilty subjects be exposed to the sword of
punishment. If the operation of equity in these matters suggests a positive role for
equity in the direction of the sovereign's performance of his office, we must turn
to Hobbes's account of equity in its relation to law and the interpretation of law
in order to gauge the true nature and full dimensions of that role. The Hobbesian
treatment of equity as a basis for the interpretation of the laws occurs within an
exposition of law itself. 14 As it is Hobbes's consistent and avowed aim to show that
'no authentical doctrines concerning right and wrong' exist apart from the laws as
these are laid down in each commonwealth, so his exposition of law is conspicuously
addressed to the connected tasks of asserting the authority of civil law and reducing,
or eliminating, the claims of judges or lawyers to a special wisdom, through their
profession of law, which might support a judiciary independent of the civil
sovereign. Through our analysis of Hobbes's account of law we hope to indicate the
emergence of a novel and powerful role for equity within Hobbes's teaching in spite
of, or even because of, his continuing devotion to these tasks.
We may begin our examination of Hobbes's thematic account of law in Leviathan
by noting that Hobbes proceeds by setting oilt a definition of law which has as one
of its implications that the law of nature and civil law contain each other and are
of equal extent. 15 Hobbes observes that he is, like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and
others, concerned not to show 'what is law here, and there; but what is law' and
claims that if we see truly what law is we must also acknowledge its perfect authority
(ibid. III, 251-253). As we have already suggested Hobbes cannot or will not restore
that simple respect for law that existed prior to the emergence of philosophy.
Hobbes's claim that justice must always require the obedience to the civil laws by
any commonwealth and his denial that these civil laws can ever be unjust is to be
distinguished both from the prephilosophic identification of one's own as the good
and from that superficially similar account of law that results from the positivist
denial of the existence or significance of natural law. 16 Hobbes rather preserves
 263

'what is by nature' as a standard, and justice as a law of nature, while attempting

to show that this standard can never conflict with the laws laid down in any
commonwealth.
Hobbes defines law in general as the command of him 'whose command is
addressed to one formerly obliged to obey him' and civil law as the command of
the civil sovereign addressed to his subjects; civil law is distinguishable from law
generally only as it 'addeth ... the name of the person commanding' (ibid. III, 251).
The definitions of law in general and civil law are indeed so closely conne~ted that
we may wonder whether the definition of the former is fully satisfied by any instance
other than that of the civil law. However this may be, we must observe how
Hobbes's definition serves at once to show what law is and to demonstrate its
authority. Law is, in the first place, a species of command. As such, it is most
importantly to be distinguished from counsel; the reason for our obeying a
command is not like counsel 'taken from the thing itself which is advised' but rather
consists in the very person or will of him who commands (EW II, 182-183; EW III,
240-241; E, 186). As law is not counsel but command, its status and authority does
not depend upon any consideration by those subject to it of that which it
commands; though civil law must be clearly promulgated it does not depend upon
the pleasure of those to whom it is addressed. As the fact that law is a species of
command severs our subjection to it from any consideration of its. content, so, in
the second place, the fact that law is the command of him whom we have previously
covenanted to obey establishes the true basis for our obedience of it. Our obligation
to obey the civil law was created by that covenanting which established the civil
sovereign - the 'laws tie us fast, being obliged' (ibid. II, 185). Our obedience of laws
as commands of the sovereign is thus only an instance of that law of nature
enjoining our performance of covenants as what is necessary to the obtaining of
peace. Hobbes's definition of law establishes the perfect authority of the laws of
every commonwealth by showing that the necessity of our obedience of them is
derived from 'the single dictate of reason advising us to look to the preservation and
safeguard of ourselves' (ibid. II, 44; D, 58).
It follows from the definition of law, Hobbes claims, that 'the laws of nature and
the civil laws contain each other and are of equal extent'; as the laws of nature are
the law of reason it follows that there cannot be a conflict between reason and the
civil laws. The laws of nature may be said to be contained in the civil laws in the
sense that they become 'actually laws' only through the ordinances of the civil
sovereign and through the setting out of punishments for those who violate them;
only the exercise of sovereign power can overcome the diversity of private
judgments and make the laws of nature binding. Though the laws of nature become
effective only through the civil laws, still what is required by the civil laws was
implicit in the laws of nature as no civil laws anywhere could ever make pride,
ingratitude or injury, lawful (ibid. II, 46; III, 145). Conversely the civil laws are
contained in the laws of nature as 'justice, that is to say, performance of covenant
264

and gIVIng to every man his own, is a dictate of the law of nature' (EW III,
253-254).
Though Hobbes properly compares his concern for what law is with traditional
political philosophy, it is equally important to see how he departs from that
tradition in defining law, so as to remove all doubt as to the authority of every civil
law. In De Cive Hobbes wrongly supposes Aristotle to have defined 'law simply
speaking' as 'a speech limited according to the common consent of the city declaring
everything that we ought to do' and criticizes Aristotle for confusing a city with a
multitude and command with both consent and counsel as, also, for giving as a
definition of 'law simply speaking' what could at most be a definition of civil law ,
since neither the divine laws nor laws of nature could ever have sprung 'from the
consent of men' (EW II, 183-185).17 Though it is true that Aristotle like Hobbes
denied that the science of legislation could be learned from a collection of the
various laws that have been made, his own attention to the science of politics, of
which laws are a product, did not lead Aristotle to a definition of law 'simply
speaking'. It would seem, rather, that if Aristotle's investigation of 'what law is'
uncovered the elements necessary to an adequate understanding of law, that same
investigation may also have revealed the grave difficulty of ever defining law so as
to preserve all of those same elements. If law may be said to have 'a compelling
power while being a reasoned speech proceeding from a kind of practical wisdom
and intelligence' it cannot be supposed that its 'power' is coextensive with the
practical wisdom or intelligence realized in any particular law. 18 On the contrary,
law's power to secure obedience has no other basis than habit which has become
effective over a long period of time. 19 An adequate understanding of law must, on
this account, lose sight neither of law's force through habit nor of law's aim as
expressed in the realization of complete virtue in relation to others. As the former
is not a direct function of the latter no unequivocal definition of law is possible that
does not sacrifice one or other of these qualities. Law is a reasoned speech reflecting
a kind of wisdom or intelligence, but the various laws of the various human
communities express this wisdom to a greater or lesser extent, and the best of laws
are not simply expressions of wisdom for 'reasoned speech and teaching is not
sufficiently strong in all cases'; since 'passion seems not to be governed by speech
but by force' the lawgiver may be compelled to impose penalties and pain upon
transgressors and to banish the incorrigible altogether. 20 As the moral virtues are
acquired through habituation we can obtain them only through the guidance of
others; the laws are an especially valuable source of this guidance since they 'can
enjoin virtuous conduct without being invidious' whereas we hate other human
beings when they oppose our impulses. 21 Yet the laws habituate us to the moral
virtues to a greater or lesser extent as they are more or less carefully devised. Again,
we should ignore neither the law's aspiration as realized in carefully devised laws
nor the worth of even very imperfect laws as a source of moral habituation.
The general character of Hobbes' rejection of such a treatment of law as this may
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be conveniently seen in the objections his 'Philosopher' raises against the definition
of law furnished from Coke to Bracton by the 'Student of the Common Laws'.
According to that definition <Lex est sanctio justa, jubens honesta, and prohibens
contraria' (D, 69).22 This definition is objectionable, in the first place, because it
supposes that the distinction between what is 'honest' and 'dishonest' makes a
command a law, whereas it is agreed by the Philosopher and the Student that we
can only know what is sin through the law. In the second place, the law so defined
concerns itself with honesty and dishonesty, terms ultimately deriving from a
concern for honor; in fact, law ought not to be concerned with honor but exclusively
with justice and injustice (ibid.). Finally, and most importantly, the definition
quoted implies that a statute made by the sovereign could be unjust whereas 'there
may indeed in a statute law made by men be found iniquity but not injustice' (ibid.,
69-70). Like the 'Aristotelian', this definition of law by the professors of the
common law suggests that civil law may be more or less law, and so more or less
deserving of our obedience, as it is more or less correctly devised. 23 If the authority
of the law resides in the justness or reason of the law, reason may give rise to a claim
against the authority of civil law on the part of those who believe themselves to most
fully possess it.
The particular claim against which Hobbes is especially concerned to defend the
authority of the civil laws is that made out by those students of the common law
who hold that law can be against 'right reason' and understand by reason here 'an
artificial perfection of reason, gotten by long study, observation, and experience'
(EW III, 256). According to this view, the authority of the law of England resides
in its wisdom or excellence which could only have arisen as it did through the
exercise of 'Legal Reason' in 'many Successions of Ages ... by an infinite number
of Grave and Learned Men' (D, 61-62). Though such a view does not subject the
law to 'any private reason' it does subordinate the law to that 'highest reason' of
the lawyers and so establishes the basis for a judiciary independent of the civil
sovereign as perhaps also for the notion that one might distinguish force and justice
as 'two arms of the commonwealth; the first whereof is in the king; the other
deposited in the hands of parliament' (EW III, 256).
This claim of legal reason is of course unimpressive to Hobbes; long study may
only 'increase, and confirm erroneous sentences; and where men build on false
grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruin' (ibid.). Certainly those who
have studied the law with equal time and diligence are not found to agree in 'reasons
and resolutions'. Nor need it be supposed that if others had applied their reason to
the laws these others would be any less capable for judicature than Coke who was,
in any case, not a jurist because of the excellence of his reason but 'because the King
made him so' (D, 62). Indeed, Hobbes suggests the claim of 'greatest reason' on the
part of those who have studied the laws is rendered questionable precisely because
the pretended basis of their reason 'were Laws before they Studied them, or else it
was not Law they studied'. Above all, however, the case for legal reason as 'summa
266

Ratio' rests upon a 'foolish opinion ... of lawyers concerning the making of laws'
(EW III, 255). The Law of England was not made by 'a Succession of English
Lawyers or Judges' but rather by 'a Succession of Kings; and that upon their own
Reason, either solely, or with the Advice of the Lords and Commons ... , without
the Judges or other Professors of Law' (D, 62). Laws were made laws by those who
had sovereign authority and if they are laws now this in only because they continue
to express the will of the (present) sovereign' (cf. EW III, 254-255). Those trusted
to apply or interpret the laws of the commonwealth have authority to do so not
because they possess 'legal reason' but only because they can claim to express the
will of the sovereign (ibid. III, 257).
Hobbes's attack upon legal reason is, of course, not a denial of the reasonableness
of civil law but only of the lawyers' understanding of this reasonableness - Hobbes's
'Philosopher' and 'Student' apparently agree 'if it be not Reason ... it is not Law'
(D, 61). All civil laws must be reasonable as we may understand the necessity of
statute laws, and their obedience, as dictates of reason or recognize that there can
be no 'Universal Reason agreed upon in any Nation, besides the Reason of him that
hath the Sovereign Power' (ibid., 67). If civil laws must always be reasonable in this
way, is it yet possible that those same laws may in another sense be more or less
reasonable? As we shall see, though Hobbes denies the pretensions of the students
of the common law, he subsequently acknowledges the need for the interpretation
of all law and seems to grant a massive role for equity in that interpretation. To see
the basis for this teaching we may usefully recur to Hobbes's discussion of the
foolish opinion of the lawyers concerning the making of law.
In Hobbes's Dialogue his 'Lawyer', in a statement not disputed by the
'Philosopher', suggests that we must distinguish between the 'devising' and the
'making' of laws. Rational reflection upon that situation without law in which all
things are common and therefore in which there is 'Encroachment, Envy, Slaughter,
and continual War of one upon another' shows the necessity of a distribution of
'meum' and 'tuum' through statute laws. The partiality of most men further
suggests that those laws must be 'armed' if they are to be more than a dead letter.
Obedience of laws must either be compelled by the existing arms of the conqueror
where the commonwealth is created by submission or, where a Nation has chosen
some man or assembly to govern them by laws, the Nation must furnish this man
or assembly of men with the arms necessary to compel such obedience. As the
'Lawyer' concludes:

Tis not, therefore the word of the Law, but the Power of a Man that has the strength of
a Nation, that makes the Laws effectual. It was not Solon that made Athenian Laws
(though he devised them) but the Supreme Court of the People; nor, the Lawyers of Rome
that made the Imperial Law in Justinian's time, but Justinian himself (ibid., 58_59).24

Though this remark of Hobbes's 'Lawyer' does not deny but even reasserts
Hobbes's claim that the sovereign must be acknowledged as the sole law-maker, by
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distinguishing 'making' from 'devising' it also serves to remind us of another sense

in which laws might be more or less reasonable and of the need for some source of
this other kind of reason. In the context of Hobbes's attack upon the claims of 'legal
reason' we may hardly suppose that Hobbes would urge his sovereign to seek such
aid as Justinian sought, nor does Hobbes's teaching in general seem to include
provision for any such role as that played by Solon in Athens. In seeking a
resolution of this question we might note that Hobbes's 'Lawyer's' argument is at
variance with Hobbes's own repeated teaching in one important respect. Though his
'Lawyer' acknowledges that the laws must be armed he would seem to suppose that
a people might proceed from the devising of laws to the creation and arming of some
one or assembly that would make those laws effectual just as Solon devised those
laws that then became effectual through the will of the Athenian people. At the very
least, Hobbes's 'Lawyer' appears to becloud Hobbes's own doctrine that a
multitude may only become a people through action creating a sovereign
representative who is thereby also a law-maker (EW II, 65-66; 75). If we recall the
latter teaching but suppose that Hobbes also intends the distinction between the
devising and making of law to stand, we must consider whether Hobbes may not
have supposed that the task performed by Solon before his laws became effectual
might not be performed after the law-maker and even the laws are established. In
any case, we may bear this possiblity in mind as we turn to Hobbes's treatment of
the interpretation of law.
Examining Hobbes's treatment of the interpretation of laws we must be struck
by the fact that, though Hobbes is concerned to eliminate the chain to autonomy
of the students of the common law and to establish that the sovereign who is sole
legislator must also be 'Supreme Judge', he does not deny that the interpretation
of laws is an omnipresent necessity. Men must generally know who is legislator and
the laws themselves are to be known through clear promulgation or 'by the light of
nature' in the case of unwritten laws. Since, however, it is not the letter but the
intention or meaning of the law that is to be obeyed this intention must also be made
manifest, as necessary, through that 'authentic interpretation of the laws' which is
authentic precisely because it is made by those appointed to do so by the sovereign
(EW III, 261-262). Indeed, according to Hobbes, all written and unwritten laws
need interpretation. Though the unwritten law is clear to impartial reason it has
'become obscure' because most men are blinded by partiality. Written laws, whether
brief or lengthy, because of the 'divers significations' of words, are equally or even
more in need of interpretation (ibid. III, 262).
All courts must, on Hobbes's view, deal with cases and controversies that concern
both written and unwritten laws though it would seem at first that they must proceed
differently as they are called upon to interpret each kind of law. Hobbes's treatment
of the interpretation of unwritten law is a continuation of his polemic against the
legal reason of the common lawyers. As such, it is in part an argument against the
rule of precedent decisions. A basis for that argument is afforded by Hobbes's
268

principle that unwritten laws are 'all of them laws of nature' and so must be such
as are 'agreeable to the reason of all men' (ibid. III, 258). As the long use of statute
law does not constitute the authority of that law except as the sovereign's present
silence implies his consent, so customs are to be accounted law only as they are
reasonable - 'it is not the Custom but the Equity that makes it Law' (EW III,
254-255; D, 96). In all acts of judicature not involving statute law judges are called
upon to interpret the law of nature or judge what is equitable in the case before
them. As every 'judge subordinate' or 'sovereign' may err in judgment of equity and
as judgment is authentic only because it is not 'private sentence' but given 'by the
authority of the sovereign', no exercise of judgment should be determined by
previous judgment of equity. 'No man's error becomes his own law; nor obliges him
to persist in it' (ibid. III, 264).
As unwritten law can be nothing other then the law of nature as determined by
reason or equity, no custom or presumption in law can establish as law whatever
is contrary to equity. It was, for example, a part of the common law according to
Sir Edward Coke that a man accused of a capital crime who should flee in fear of
partial judgment must forfeit his goods even though he be subsequently acquitted
of that capital crime. Though judged innocent he must lose his goods for 'the law
will admit no proof against the presumption in law, grounded upon his flight' (ibid.
III, 265). For Hobbes this rule is contrary to equity as it entails the punishment of
the innocent. Judges who act upon such a 'presumption in law' refuse to do justice
as they refuse to hear proof; further should the 'presumption in law' actually
eatablish the fact, it would be unreasonable that punishment should consist in the
loss of goods for if the act is capital the punishment must be the same. Because such
a rule as Coke states is contrary to equity it is, Hobbes says, 'no law of England'.
Would this same argument from equity apply against the same rule were it not based
upon 'presumption in law' but itself set out by statute? Though Hobbes
acknowledges that 'a written law may forbid innocent men to fly and then may be
punished for flying' it must be noted that this statute could no more than the
common law be justified by the presumption that flight is proof of guilt. We must
consider whether the test of reason in equity has any application in the
interpretation of statute law. 25
As we have noted, statute law, no less than unwritten law, needs interpretation
and must receive that interpretation by those same subordinate judges who must
determine what is equity where the latter law is at issue. If the need for
interpretation of the written laws is grounded in the inevitable ambiguity of words
it would seem that this task of interpretation cannot be adequately performed by
any mere attention to words, for

no written law, delivered in few, or many words, can be well understood, without a perfect
understanding of the final causes, for which the law was made; the knowledge of which
final causes is in the legislator. To him therefore there cannot be any knot in the law,
 269

insoluble; either by finding out the ends, to undo it; or else by making what ends he will
... which no other interpreter can do (EW III, 262-263).

Though the interpreter of statute law should seek out the literal meaning of that law
this is not to be found in 'the bare words' but in the intention of the legislator (ibid.
III, 267). Further, the intention of the legislator must always be supposed by the
interpreter to be equity 'for it were a great contumely for a judge to think otherwise
of the sovereign'. Though he should not furnish a sentence against the law, a
subordinate judge may quite properly supply 'a reasonable sentence ... if the word
of the law do not fully authorize' it. 26 Indeed, he may be led from a consideration
of the 'incommodity that follows the bare words of a written law' to a recognition
of the 'intention of the law'.
If the magnitude and character of the role Hobbes allows for equity in the
interpretation of unwritten and even statute law seem at first surprising it should
be observed that the provision of this role is not only consistent with, but is even
founded upon, Hobbes's demonstration that the sovereign is sole maker and judge
of the law. Recalling the distinction between the 'devising' and 'making' of law we
see that law is made effectual, i.e. made simply, by that sovereign power that
compels obedience of it. The intention of statute law is, accordingly, not to be found
in the intention of him or them who first devised its words or even in the will of
that possessor of sovereign power who first upheld it but in the will of him who now
is sovereign. So far as those who now interpet the law be properly authorized to do
so by the present sovereign, their interpretation of the law based on equity has
perfect authority at least so far as the case before them is concerned. As all laws
must be interpreted, Hobbes's teaching may be said to issue in the supreme rule of
equity. Though what Hobbes himself writes is without authority, be it ever so true,
and becomes law only by the sovereign power, Hobbes's own teaching on the role
of equity in the interpretation of law prepares for this same authorization as the first
quality to be found in 'a good judge, or good interpreter of the laws Is ... a right
understanding of that principal law of nature called equity .. .' (ibid. III, 263, 269).

3. Aristotelian and Hobbesian Equity

In order to arrive at a more precise understanding of the nature and novelty of the
role Hobbes set out for equity as a guide to the performance of the sovereign office
and in the interpretation of law we may usefully turn to the Aristotelian treatment
of the equitable. We cannot hope here to furnish a complete account of the ancient
or Aristotelian teaching on equity or of that larger set of consideration to which that
teaching on equity would seem to belong. Still a sketch of the treatment of equity
in classical political science may serve to indicate the direction of Hobbes's
departure from the traditional account.
270

Aristotle's account of equity within the treatment of justice in the Nicomachean

Ethics has the form of a response to a difficulty or perplexity pertaining to the
relationship of the equitable and the just. Equity and the equitable man are
sometimes praised as if the 'equitable' were synonymous with the 'good' and,
sometimes, as if equity were something other than and superior to justice. Do we
not deprecate justice if we praise equity as something good yet contrary to what is
just? The resolution of this difficulty is to be found in the fact that 'the equitable
while better than one sort of just thing is itself just'; it is not better than justice in
the sense that it belongs to a different and better genus than justice. 27 The just thing
to which the equitable thing is superior, is the lawfully just thing, i.e. the equitable
thing is better than that which is just as being in accord with the law. The equitable
is a correction of the legally just thing. The error resulting from the application of
the law which the equitable corrects is not, or need not be, an error in the law itself
or a mistake by the legislator. Such errors arise, rather, simply because the law must
'speak universally' or require the same acts and conduct of all those it addresses;
it may therefore enjoin what is inappropriate under certain specific circumstances
or for some of those whom it addresses. As the error equity corrects lies in the fact
that the law-maker only speaks universally the determination of the equitable thing
requires saying what the law-maker himself would have said were he present in these
circumstances. The equitable thing determined in this way is, accordingly, 'just and
better than one kind of just thing, not better than the just simply but better than
that missing of the mark which occurs because of speaking simply'. 28
As the equitable is a correction of the 'legally just', we shall better understand
its nature if we recall the aim of that which it corrects. What warrants our speaking
of the lawful as the just is that the law, to a greater or lesser extent as it is
'formulated rightly or at random' , aims at the promotion and exercise of all of the
moral virtues. Justice as the lawful is complete virtue at least in relation to our
fellow citizens. Though we may doubt with Aristotle whether many lawgivers have
in fact had this as their deliberate end and must surely acknowledge that no lawgiver
would have it as his exclusive concern, we may hardly hope to understand the legally
just or its correction by equity while ignoring this aim.
We noted previously the refusal of ancient political science to define law by
resolving it into anyone of those elements that are necesarry to its understanding.
The Aristotelian treatment of equity seems to reflect this same refusal. Law can best
furnish that guidance necessary to inculcate the moral virtues because men do not
resent the restraint upon their desires by law as they do that of another human being
even though that human being 'does this rightly,?9 However the same universality
of law that makes its rule less invidious limits the extent to which law may achieve
its principal aim with precision. It was apparently the view of ancient political
science, as expressed by the 'Eleatic Stranger' of Plato's Politicus, that no simple
and unchanging rule drawn from political science could adequately enjoin what is
at once noblest and most just and for all. The 'Stranger' compares lawgivers to
 271

gymnastic trainers who 'hold that there is not time to specify and enjoin precisely
what is fitting for the body of each, and think it is necessary to create an order
beneficial for the bodies of most men most of the time' .30 As a trainer must assign
equal labours for unequal bodies so the lawgiver 'enjoining for herds with respect
to justice and contracts among one another, will never be able to render precisely
what is fitting for each one while commanding all collectively.31 Even a wise ruler
will recognize the necessity of law because no one could sit beside each of those he
must rule ordaining precisely what it is proper for each person to do on each
occasion and therefore will provide written instructions lest they forget his original
injunctionsY Though it is surely necessary, ruling by law is always inferior to that
which it 'imitates', the discretionary ruling of the scientific statesman who knows
in every circumstance what will benefit the souls over whom he rules.
Though Aristotle does not suggest that we should understand the ordinary
exercise of equity to constitute that discretionary rule of the wise which ruling by
law replaces, the examples he furnishes seem always to entail a precise response to
specific circumstances which the law because of its universality must ignore. 33 The
equitable is for this reason better than the legally just but not better than what is
'simply just'. Though we may perhaps speak of certain rules as belonging to equity
- e.g., that we should look to the intention rather than the stat~ment of the law,
consider the deliberate choice rather than the act, or recall benefits we have received
rather than those we have conferred - equity is not simply the sum of these rules ..
Nor are these rules of equity reducible to some single universal principle; it would
seem, rather, that we may best understand equity as the work of the equitable
human being.
Equity according to Aristotle is 'a certain kind of justice and not a different
disposition altogether'. 34 The justice of which equity is 'a certain kind' is not,
however, that justice which is a particular virtue which Aristotle terms fairness or
equality, but rather the just as the lawful, or justice as complete virtue; thus
Aristotle sometimes speaks of equity as if identical with moral virtue simply. 35
Equity is no more than the just as the lawful, to which it belongs, a specific, or
particular, virtue or disposition. Fairness of equality as a distinct moral virtue
regulating a particular motive, the desire for gain, and concerned with particular
objects-honour, possessions. or security - is, in fact, identified by contrasting it with
the just as the lawful for the latter is concerned with all those things that belong to
moral virtue and lacks any such single motive. 36 Perhaps it is because equity like
justice as the lawful presupposes the possession of all of the specific moral virtues
that Aristotle speaks of its possessors as few rather than numerous. 37
On the Hobbesian account of the moral virtues although we may continue to
speak of equity as a quality entailing possession of the other moral virtues, this is
no longer to say that equity presupposes these, but rather that it is their very
foundation - for Hobbes, men are not capable of equity so far as they are possessors
of the several moral virtues; they are rather possessors of these virtues if and because
272

they are equitable. We may begin to see this if we consider the account of justice
and equity which belongs to Hobbes's attempt to furnish a 'science of virtue and
vice' by going beyond men's ordinary approval and blame of various qualities
displayed by others to the true ground of this praise and blame. The moral virtues
as virtues are those qualities of men that are conducive to their collective
preservation, or the dispositions to obey those various theorems deducible by reason
from the right of self-preservation (EW II, 47-49; EW III, 146-147). All moral
virtue is contained in justice and equity, for those other human qualities sometimes
praised as virtues, such as courage, prudence, and temperance, are conducive to our
own preservation only when it is we or our fellow-citizens who possess them (L W
II, 116-18). The justice and equity of others are always to our benefit and therefore
always to be praised as moral virtues.
Justice in this 'moral philosophy' is chiefly and almost entirely understood as the
keeping of covenant, for 'injustice is no other than the not performance of
covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust is just' (EW III, 131). As the most
important keeping of covenant consists in obeying the laws as commands of him
whom we have covenanted to obey, we may say that justice is for Hobbes as for
Aristotle the obedience of law, but we must note that justice so understood has
become for him one specific moral virtue. The 'just man who delights in just
dealings and endeavours' obeys the law because it is the command of the sovereign
whom he has covenanted to obey and for no other reason - his will is 'framed' by
the justice rather than the apparent benefit of his action (EWII, 32-33). That a man
should be just, and not merely perform just actions because he fears punishment
or seeks some advantage, is only to be explained by reference to 'a certain nobleness
or gallantness of courage ... by which a man scorns to be beholden for the
contentment of his life, to fraud, or breach of promise'. Justice is accordingly not
much to be relied upon since such 'generosity' is rarely found among 'the pursuers
of wealth, command, or sensual pleasure: which are the greatest part of mankind'
(EW III, 128-129, 136). Although we may doubt whether Hobbes has succeeded in
obtaining an account of the essential character of justice as a specific virtue and of
its cause or motive wholly consistent with his understanding of justice as a dictate
of reason directed towards self-preservation, we must see that he does here seek a
foundation for justice as a particular moral virtue. In any case, for Hobbes as for
Aristotle the just is the lawful; for Hobbes, however, the keeping of covenant of
which law-obeying is the most important instance is the whole of justice understood
as a distinct virtue.
Again for Hobbes, as for Aristotle, the 'grasping' or encroaching of the
pleonektes is an act of vice and his laws of nature include a prohibition of this vice
(EW II, 38-40). For Aristotle our blame of the ploenektes or grasping man as unjust
reflects the understanding of justice as a particular moral virtue, and Aristotle's own
analysis of justice as a particular virtue, concerned with our share of those things
generally understood to constitute 'good fortune', proceeds as a reflection on this
 273

'blame'. For Hobbes, the virtue corresponding to this vice is not justice but equity. 38
Equity, or the acknowledgment of natural equality is, moreover, a foundation of
the other moral virtues in the sense that to acknowledge our equity by nature is to
know what is required of us by all of the several laws of nature. It is thus to equity
that Hobbes appeals when he defends his teaching against the charge that the laws
of nature constitute 'too subtle a deduction' to be expected of all men 'whereof the
most part are busy in getting food and the rest too negligent to understand' (EW
III, 144-145). The summary of the laws of nature, that one should 'do not that' to
others, 'one would not have done' to oneself is a rule knowable to anyone if 'when
he doubts whether what he is doing now to another may be done by the law of
nature or not, he conceives himself to be in that other's stead'.
What we have claimed to be true generally of the relation of equity to the moral
virtues, may be specifically confirmed in the case of justice. Thus, although Hobbes
denies the traditional understanding of commutative and distributive justice, he
acknowledges that 'the injustice of actions Consists ... in the inequality that men
(contrary to nature and reason) assume unto themselves above their fellows' (E, 84).
Injury or the injustice of actions derives from the assumption of those who do injury
that men are not equal by nature - the Fool's surmise that it could be reasonable
to violate his covenants secretly, presupposes his natural superiority as an ability to
delude the other (EW III, 134). Hobbes acknowledges finally that 'justice is a
certain equality, as consisting in this only; that since we are all equal by nature, one
should not arrogate more right to himself than he grants to another, unless he have
fairly gotten it by compact' (EW II, 34). Justice, or keeping of covenant, as it is
required by Hobbes's third law of nature in Leviathan is founded upon the dictate
of the second law of nature that 'a man ... be contented with as much liberty against
other men, as he would allow other men against himself' (EW III, 118; II, 39-40).
The novelty of the Hobbesian teaching on justice and equity becomes apparent
when we observe the altered relation between justice and equality in his account. For
Aristotle fairness or equality (as this is the meaning of justice as one particular
moral virtue) is related to the just as the lawful as a part to the whole of which it
is a part; thus 'all that is unequal is unlawful though not all that is unlawful is
unequal,.39 Equity as the correction of the just as the lawful has accordingly no
exclusive or special relation to fairness or equality but must rather be related to the
aim of law in promoting all of the several virtues. The relation of the just as the
lawful to fairness, or equality, is almost precisely reversed in the Hobbesian
account: complete moral virtue is identified by Hobbes with fairness or the
acknowledgment of equality; obedience of the law is only one kind or part of this
wider virtue. 4o
For Hobbes and Aristotle as for many others equity is that to which appeal is
made in the interpretation or 'correction' or supplementing of the letter of the law.
That to which appeal is made in equity has, however, become a very different thing
for Hobbes. As we have seen Aristotelian equity is a correction of the just as the
274

lawful which seeks to do as the lawgiver himself would have done were he faced with
the circumstances under which the law he devised now operates. If, finally, the
appeal to equity be understood as an appeal beyond the wisdom of the actual deviser
of a particular law, as it seems to be understood by Aquinas and writers more nearly
contemporary with Hobbes, this appeal is directed by the aim of the just as the
lawful, the realization of the several moral virtues. 41 For Hobbes, on the other
hand, equity is at once that to which appeal is made in the interpretation of the laws,
a standard for the performance of the sovereign's office, and 'that habit by which
we allow equality of nature' (E, 94). As the interpreter of law is allowed or even
required to suppose always that the legislator intended equity, the appeal to equity
becomes an appeal to what has been called 'natural public law' .42 Equity is no mere
'complement' or perfection of the just as the lawful; it is rather the very foundation
of justice as the lawful.
It was according to Hobbes the mistake of Aristotle to make natural inequality
a foundation of his political science; whether men are equal by nature or not they
must be acknowledged such, as they are within Hobbes's own political teaching.
Equity as the habit of acknowledging this natural equality, or demanding as one's
own right only what one will admit to be the right of others, becomes the
fundamental moral virtue, a rule for the guidance of public policy, and a powerful
instrument for the interpretion of law. What was for ancient political science a
recognition of the limited capacity of ruling through law to obtain the highest aim
of ruling and law, becomes a principle more universal or fundamental than law
itself. Equity for ancient political science barely pointed beyond the primacy of the
various regimes as it suggested that the simply good man might not result from the
education that belongs to political science. Equity becomes, in the teaching of
Hobbes, the basis of a new political order fully realizable in any time and place and
even invulnerable against all internal causes of dissolution, because that order is
founded on the consent of men who are by nature equal and allows men to pursue
a commodious existence through their own industry within a structure recognizing
that same equality.

NOTES
I For a general treatment of this substitution see Harvey Mansfield Jr. 'Hobbes and the Science of
Indirect Government', American Political Science Review LXV (1971), pp. 97-110 and W. Mathie,
'Justice and the Question of Regimes', Canadian Journal of Political Science IX (1976), pp. 449-463).
2 Compare, e.g. the first of John Rawls's two principles of justice - A Theory of Justice
(Cambridge, Mass,: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 60 - with the statement of Hobbes's second law
of nature in Leviathan (EW III, 118).
3 Professor Larry May is to be commended for having noted the role of equity in his essay, 'Hobbes
on Equity and Justice' in this volume, though I have argued in my 'Commentary ... .' on his essay that
he has incorrectly stated the relation between justice and equity and therefore underestimated the
importance of the latter notion.
 275

4 EN 113Ib2S-30. See also W.F.R. Hardie, Aristotle's Ethical Theory (London: Oxford, 1965), pp.
190-191 and D.G. Ritchie, 'Aristotle's Subdivisions of 'Particular Justice", Classical Review (May
IS94).
5 Politics 1262b37-1263b29, 1266a26-1267b22. See also W. Mathie 'Property in the Political
Science of Aristotle' in A. Parel and T. Flanagan (eds.), Theories of Property (Waterloo, Canada:
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1979), pp. 2S-29.
6 Politics 12S0aS-12SlaS.
7 Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964), p. 69.
S See also Xenophon, Cyropaedia 1.3.17.
9 See e.g. Plato Laws- 736C-E as also Rousseau, Du Contrat Social 1.9.
10 Thus Dudley Jackson concludes his treatment of 'Thomas Hobbes's Theory of Taxation' with the
remark that we see in this theory the attempt to reach a conformity between prudential maxims and moral
rules. Political Studies 21 (1973), pp. 175-IS2.
11 See also Jackson, op. cit., p. 179.
12 See also John Locke, Second Treatise 2.11.
13 For the development of this and another major implication of the present distinction see (D, 27).
14 We shall be guided here mainly by the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviathan though also by A
Dialogue and those chapters of De Corpore Politico, and De Cive which parallel the Leviathan
treatment. Though the role of equity in the laws of nature is in some respects more explicit in these earlier
works than in Leviathan the role of equity in the discussion of law is much more fully developed in
Leviathan and the Dialogue.
15 It may be noted that the order of Hobbes's exposition is quite different in A Dialogue where the
argument that the sovereign is sole legislator and judge precedes the definition of law (D, 6S-69).
16 Compare, e.g. John Austin's account of law as a species of command where command is
understood as the signification of desire accompanied by the capacity of he who commands to do evil
to the commanded if he does not obey. The 'obligation' to obey law or any other command varies only
with the efficiency of the sanction, indeed, the obligation is identical with that sanction. Province of
Jurisprudence Determined, Lecture I (London, IS32).
17 The definition Hobbes criticizes is to be found in the prefatory letter to the Rhetoric to Alexander
at 1420a25-27 which is now generally believed to be spurious. On this point see E.M. Cope, An
Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric (London: Macmillan, IS67) p. 401. As to whether one may speak
of an Aristotelian definition of law see Sir Ernest Barker, Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, (New
York: Dover, 1959), pp. 321-337 and Huntington Cairns, Legal Philosophy from Plato to Hegel
(Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1949), pp. 93,95.
IS EN IISOa21-22.
19 Politics 1269a20-25.
20 EN 1179b 23-24, 2S; l1S0aS-IO.
21 EN l1S0a 23-24.
22 Hobbes translates 'Law is a just Statute, Commanding those things which are honest, and
Forbidding the contrary'.
23 Reference here is to the definition Hobbes attributes to Aristotle. Aristotle's own account may
be said to avoid this implication just as it does not issue in a definition of law. There is indeed an
Aristotelian case for obedience to very imperfect, though not all laws, constituted by the following
considerations: even laws framed at random may habituate those who obey them in the moral virtues
to a certain extent; the rule of law comprises a kind of authority more effective than rational argument,
less brutal than mere constraint; and the aurhority of law is created and preserved by a habit of
obedience.
24 My emphasis. On the importance of this passage, see Cropsey's comment (D, 20).
25 Consider also Hobbes's 'Philosopher's' treatment of seven kinds of treason identifiable by the
light of natural reason (D, 102-103). As Joseph Cropsey points out three of the acts so identified are
276

not recognized by statute while one instance mentioned in the same discussion is treason only because
it is so recognized by statute. 'The Philosopher has become increasingly willing to consider the
disjunction between reason and the Statute law ... ' (D, 33).
26 Though Hobbes adds that a judge should 'respite judgment till he have received more ample
authority' in a difficult case, he offers no example or further discussion of such an appeal whereas he
does offer two illustrations of the supplying of reasonable extensions by altering or augmenting the bare
words of statute law.
27 EN 1137b8-1O.
28 EN 1137b24-26; EN 1129bll-30.
29 EN 1180a23. It should be noted that Aristotle does not say the laws do this rightly.
30 Politicus 294D-E.
31 ibid. 294E-295A.
32 ibid. 295C-E. See also Rousseau Du Contrat Social 2.7.
33 Art oj Rhetoric 1374b2-20.
34 EN 1138a3.
35 EN 1180a24.
36 EN 1130a33-b5.
37 Politics 1308b27.
38 In the Elements oj Law (E, 89) after noting as in Leviathan that what men call distributive justice
'is properly termed equity', Hobbes continues that the breach of this law is what 'the Greeks call,
1rAEOVd·'c¥ [pleonexia], which is commonly redered covetousness, but seemed to be more precisely
expressed by the word encroaching'.
39 EN 1130bI2-15.
40 Occasionally Hobbes refers to the man who tries to square his actions with all the laws of nature
as a 'just man' (EW II, 47;EWIII, 145-146). By this terminology Hobbes would obtain a comprehensive
and particular sense of justice but the content of these would remain the reverse of the Aristotelian
notions.
41 Thus Christopher St. Germain in his important Dialogues between the Doctor oj Divinity and the
Student oj the common Law (1530-1531) continues to ground the need for equitable judicature in the
fact that 'since the deeds and acts of man, for which laws have been ordained, happen in diverse matters
infinitely, it is not possible to make any general rule of law, but it shall fail in some case' (Bk. I, Ch.
16) and to suppose with Aristotole that 'the intent of a maker of a law is to make the people good, and
to bring them to vertue' (Bk. I, Ch. 4). See Sir William Holdsworth, A History oj English Law (London:
Methuen, 1945), IV, p. 280; V, pp. 266-269. See also Stuart E. Prall, 'The Development of Equity in
Tudor England', American Journal oj Legal History VIII, pp. 1-19, for a consideration of the treatment
of equity by St. Germain, Plowden, and others in the century preceding Hobbes's contribution.
42 Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1953), pp. 190-192.
VI. HOBBES TODAY
 279

19. THE LEVIATHAN, OLD AND NEW *

Isabel C. Hungerland

University of California, Berkeley

Both Rawls (in his well known book, A Theory of Justice) and Harsanyi (in a series
of articles and a book, Essays on Ethics) have shown that theories of morality may
be looked at, very profitably, as theories of rational behavior (or theories of rational
choice in the sense employed by economists in so-called game theory and decision
theory). 1 Rawls, taking traditional contract theory as affording a model for rational
choice, develops a deontological theory in contrast.to Classical Utilitarianism, the
main modern teleological theory of moral principles. Harsanyi, employing a very
similar model of rational choice, works out a very plausible kind of Utilitarianism.
It is Rule Utilitarianism as contrasted with Act Utilitarianism and it employs the
principle of average utility, which requires us, if we are to act morally, to act so as
to maximize not the total, but the average utility per capita of our society. In non-
technical terms, the 'utility function' of each member of society expresses the value
he attaches to his various objectives, or ends. 2
I shall later examine the concept of 'model' used in rational choice theory. Here
it will suffice to say that models depict fictional situations and represent the persons
involved as possessing idealized rationality; and that such models are used for the
discovery and elucidation of principles that then, with certain additions and
modifications, can be 'applied' to the real world. 3 I shall point out, as I go along,
how failure to distinguish between model and real world has led not only to
misinterpretations of Hobbes but also to a number of persistent confusions in
ethical theory.
My main thesis is that Hobbes's account of the State of Nature,4 the Laws of
Nature, and the establishment of a civil state, provides a model for a theory of
morality - viewed as rational choice theory - which has certain unique philosophical
advantages. 5
I shall list below, with brief comment, the philosophical advantages of Hobbes's
account of morality. It should be remembered, however, that Hobbes's system is
a tightly knit one, and that the full import of each feature listed is not evident until

• The title indicates that I do not intend, as Collingwood did, to re-write the Leviathan, but rather
to stress implications and applications which have been neglected and need stressing today.

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. ISBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
280

the whole model, and the system developed from it, are before us.
(a) Hobbes's model (State of Nature and the Social Contract) has the feature,
unique among theories of morality, of deriving the nature and need for the moral
point of view from the assumption of mere rationality (in the narrow sense of
means-ends 6 rationality and consistency) together with mere egoism on the part of
the parties to the social contract.
Now, any theory of human behavior will contain the concepts of .egoism and
rationality. Theories (Rawls and Harsanyi, not to mention the other traditional
theories) which take the concept of morality as distinct from and irreducible to these
other common concepts are obviously less simple theories. So, if Hobbes's theory
can explain all the phenomena that the less simple theories can explain, his is the
better one.
(b) Hobbes's system, though basically a teleological one (the basic obligations,
or 'oughts', cannot be defined independently of what people desire, i.e. the 'good'
for human beings), contains, nevertheless (in his theory of contract), another,
deontological kind of obligation (sense of 'ought' definable independently of the
'good,).7 Accordingly, Hobbes's theory does not fit into the old textbook
dichotomy - teleological vs. deontological (illustrated, so Rawls supposes, in
Harsanyi vs. Rawls). Nor is Hobbes's theory, I believe, just a case of what Rawls
calls a 'mixed theory', i.e. an eclectic mixture of two logically independent notions.
Rather, I hope to show, Hobbes provides a consistent, tightly knit, and more
comprehensive theory of obligation than either teleology or deontology can provide.
(c) Hobbes's 'death-aversion' principle (basic to this account of human
behavior) affords a plausible and simplified way of dealing with a difficult problem
faced by all moral theorists. The problem is that of determining the content of moral
rules - rules that are 'for the good (or advantage) of everyone alike' - in the face
of the vast diversity of human desires and aversions.
Rawls and Harsanyi deal with this problem in different ways. Rawls, in working
out his concept of justice, avoids most of the difficulties of inter-personal
comparison of aims and preferences by his doctrine of 'primary social goods' -
rights and liberties, powers and opportunities, income and wealth. 8 These social
goods are plausibly assumed in Rawls's model to be wanted by all members of
society, whatever their individual life plans and aims. However, Rawls adopts the
so-called 'maximum' principle which evaluates social institutions in terms of the
interests of the least advantaged members of society and, as Harsanyi shows, leads
to paradoxical results. 9 Harsanyi's solution, on the other hand, requires each moral
member of society to undertake a vast complexity of interpersonal comparisons.
Hobbes's death-aversion principle - describable also in his system as a power-
seeking principle of homeostasis - accommodates a simplified version of primary
social goods and does not require the maximum principle. I shall, of course, in
developing this point be adding to the application of the 12th, 13th, and 14th Laws
of Nature a more modern version of economic justice in the real world than Hobbes
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could have envisaged - hence, the reference to a 'New Leviathan' in my title.

Furthermore, Hobbes's early version of Physicalism makes him alone among
moral philosophers in systematically relating psychological concepts to biological,
and biological concepts to those of physics. (He also considered the similarities and
differences between human behavior and that of the 'lower' animals.)
(d) Finally, this scheme of Hobbes's Physicalism, together with the
assumptions, in his model of the egocentric and rational nature of man gives a
philosophical framework for an impressive new version of Darwinian theory. 10 This
version, based on the bio-chemical behavior of genes, pictures animals (including
man) as egocentric in Hobbes's sense. The older ethology which assumed behavior
aimed at the survival of the species is replaced by a simpler assumption of pure
'selfishness' on the part of all animals (including man). Also, since these ethologists
employ some of the concepts and mathematical techniques developed in game and
decision theory, Hobbes's models and principles provide a unified philosophical
basis for a very grand scheme of explanation.
For this occasion, I shall develop in some detail an account of only the first two
advantages listed above, namely: the explanation of moral behavior in terms of
egoism and rationality alone, and the theory of obligation which successfully
combines teleological and deontological elements. Moreover, since, as I have said,
Hobbes's system is a very tightly knit one, I shall have to interrupt my exposition
of the first advantage to expound the main features of the second. Finally, on this
occasion, for the sake of brevity, I shall often use examples (including a model
example of my own) instead of detailed exposition.
In Hobbes's model, the need for reasonableness (the consideration of the good
of others as equal in weight to one's own) is derived from rationality (the ability to
calculate means and consequences correctly and to will the means to a desired end,
or good) together, of course, with the principle of man's natural equality (absence
of a super-race) and his egoism (in a non-truistic sense).11 Hobbes's account of
reasonableness, which he equates with the Golden Rule for the benefit of those who
can't follow 'subtle deduction', is given in the following passage .

... which sheweth him Any man, that he has no more to do in learning the Laws of Nature,
but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own, they seem too heavy, to put
them into the other part of the balance, and his own into their place, that his own
passions, and self-love, may add nothing to the weight; ... (EW III, 144-145).

One could say that the Rule makes plain a viewpoint from which a man may judge
the reasonableness of kinds of social behavior. I shall call the viewpoint thus made
plain, 'the equal weight viewpoint', and employ, for short, 'E.W. viewpoint'. It is
not a God-like viewpoint. One's own human self is there, and weighed in, but
equally with others.
Nor is the viewpoint properly described as 'impersonal'. This term, from ordinary
language, has led to needless puzzles in ethical theory. How can the viewpoint of
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a person be impersonal, or how can a 'subject', be 'objective'? Harsanyi's

'impartial' is a less confusing term than 'impersonal', but Hobbes's metaphor of the
scales gives us, I believe, a less misleading terminology than 'impersonal',
'impartial' or 'objective'. There is, however, an interesting connection between
Hobbes's notion and the notion found in game theory (and used by both Harsanyi
and Rawls as involved in the moral point of view) of an ideal hypothetical situation
where individuals do not know what their position and status will be in a society,
i.e. where they have 'choice under uncertainty'.
We should note carefully that the advice to be drawn from the Hobbesian model
is not and could not be 'Look after No.1', for each agent is bound by his nature
to do so. Rather, the advice is: 'You live in a world inhabited by others essentially
like you, i.e., just as intent as you are in looking after No.1, and just about as able
to kill or injure you as you are to kill or injure them. So, if you don't take these
circumstances into account, and assume the E. W. viewpoint in your adoption of
strategies, you are almost certain to end up badly, that is, have a life that is (' ...
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'). There is the extremely important proviso,
of course, that the rational agent is called upon to act reasonably, if and only if,
others do so likewise. In the model, since all are fully rational, and shared
knowledge 12 of this and other relevant matters is assumed, all will accept the basic
precept of making Peace, not War. There are two points to note here in passing.
First, in model terms, Hobbes does introduce after the model establishment of the
Commonwealth, one ideally irrational agent, who is bound to be detested and
chased out of the ideal civil state for his irrational unreasonableness. Second,
Hobbes's State of Nature model is not, as Rawls and others have said, 'a classical
case of the Prisoners 'Dilemma of Game Theory'. For, built into Hobbes's model
are the means whereby the non-cooperative game that is the State of Nature can be
transformed into the cooperative game that is civil society. There is no dilemma! 13
Employing some convenient contemporary terminology,14 the connection
between morality and advantage (or good) to the agent established in the model is
this: moral rules (strategies) are those that are for the advantange of everyone alike,
provided that everyone abides by them, that is, everyone will do better if everyone
is moral, though some giving up (sacrifice) on the part of each is demanded. The
giving up (sacrifice) must be less than the disadvantages that would ensue, if one
didn't along with everyone else, follow the strategies. As important, I believe, as the
Hobbesian proviso, is his notion that the rational strategies hold in foro inferno,
though not in foro externo, everywhere and always. Warrender has shown that this
notion amounts to much more than an injunction for a pious, unexpressed wishing
for peace on the part of rational men. 15 A reading of all the relevant passages in
Hobbes's work shows that friendly (non-warlike) postures and gestures are
demanded even in warlike circumstances, that we are, by reason, required to show
possible or actual aggressors that we desire peaceful relations with them, and that
we exhibit this sort of behavior in every way that does not, according to our best
judgment, compromise our own safety.
 283

I shall here introduce a model example of a situation which calls for moral rules.
(Ideal establishment of civil society is assumed in the example.)
Imagine, then, a community of fully rational agents, all adult (non aged) and all
male. (If one prefers one may imagine a female group. What is important is that
all have the same needs and abilities.) They are faced with a temporary but severe
shortage of some important commodity, unless rationing is imposed. Under the
rules, everyone will get an equal share, less than he would like, but everyone will
be better off under rationing than if no rationing were imposed. Each is egoistic as
well as fully rational and ready to bop over the head anyone who cheats. Mutual
knowledge of one another's intentions and plans is aasumed. So, everyone
conforms.
I propose to show that Hobbes's presentation of the rules of morality as the best
strategy for the rational egoistic agent can be maintained, with appropriate changes,
for the real world.
What factors, then, must we take into account, what changes in the picture are
called for when we attempt to apply the principles discovered in the model to the
real world?
The most important factors to consider are the following:
(A) The difference in needs and abilities, and so on, arising from sex and age
differences, and differences in occupations. If the commodity were part of diet, then
pregnant women, infants, and the elderly might need more of it than others to have
an equal chance of survival. If the commodity were fuel for cars, doctors would
need more than others, to serve the community, and so on. In brief, the Kantian
notion of the universalizability of moral rules holds for the model, but not for the
real world. The requirement there is that moral rules must be general, that is, they
must hold for relatively similar persons in relevantly similar situations. (One can't
help wondering if all those pages written about the puzzles concerning the Kantian
notion couldn't have been dispensed with if someone had noted that the Kantian
moral agents were model creatures, sexless, ageless, occupationless and hence,
motiveless, except for the motive to be rational!)
Another way of putting the same point in this. The E. W. viewpoint, discovered
in the State of Nature model, must be modified for model civil communities and
a fortiori for actual societies. The various needs and responsibilities arising from
different abilities and functions, must be taken into account in formulating rules
that are for the advantage of everyone alike.
(B) The various limitations on the rationality of agents, even after we have
elimitated from consideration, the psychotic, the psycho-pathic, the extremely
neurotic, and the retarded. These limitations include: (a) the obvious one of fairly
low ability in correctly calculating the consequences of our actions and in perceiving
inconsistencies in beliefs held simultaneously; (b) the various interferences with
these abilities made by the sort of emotional disturbances that the Freudians have
called attention to. Implicated in most of these disturbances is our enormous
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capacity for deluding ourselves, for believing what, for the short terms we want to
believe and (c) the factor stressed by Hobbes and called by him 'weakness of the
imagination'. This factor, I think, has been neglected by philosophers because of
preoccupation with the Aristotelian concept of akrasia, 'weakness of the will'.
Imagination is part of perception, in the full sense, and many 'nice', apparently
normal persons commit acts which they subsequently deeply regret because they
'didn't realize (see, perceive)' what they were doing. 16
(C) The absence of complete shared knowledge of one another's intentions,
purposes, actions.
(D) The phenomenon of 'free riders' - those who, counting on the fact that the
majority are obeying the moral rules, look after No.1 by, as secretly as possible,
not obeying them. Writers on the topic usually have in mind as the typical 'free
rider', individuals, acting alone, who, though they may commit felonies, don't
belong to the criminal societies that operate by violence; both inside and outside
prisons. But both types, the lone con-man, and the Mafia-like groups, prey upon
the legal society.
(E) The fact that the model agents are not only much more rational than real
agents, but also more clearly egoistic in a non-truistic sense of egoism. In order to
distinguish truistic from non-truistic, I have coined the following terms: self-Own
interest, self-Other interest, and self-All interest. (I employ 'interest' as a technical
term to cover anything from a non-emotional concern with something, to what
might be called love.) The prefix 'self' reflects truistic egoism, a doctrine which is
not without its usefulness. It serves to remind us that there is no point in advising
any agent (including oneself) to do anything, if the agent has no interest of any sort
in doing it. The terminology also helps to make plain that 'selfishness' is a second-
order attribute. We do not call a man 'selfish' if he tries hard to be healthy, wealthy,
and wise, or if he dedicates his life to developing his talent as a painter,
mathematician, athlete, actor, and so on, though these interests are all self-Own
interests. A person is selfish if, when his self-Own interests conflict with interests
of other persons, he never or seldom is willing to make any compromise or
adjustment. Benevolence, generosity, and so on are examples of self-Other interest.
Self-All interests are those we have as members of some community; they do not
exclude an agent's self-Own interest, but include it along with the self-Own interest
of other agents.
(F) Finally, the fact that in the real world we find ourselves members of various
communities, a family, a church, a nation, and so on. There is no complete State
of Nature for any of us.

My account of advantage (a) of Hobbes's theory is not yet complete. His theory is
complex and tightly knit. If one strand is missed, the whole is misrepresented. But
it will make clear the direction in which my exposition is heading to take a brief look
at how my model example of rationing would apply to the real world. The situation
 285

could be this. Even with the limitations on rationality, the majority, aware of the
advantage to each, conform (at least most of the time!).
Those who do conform do not want the violence and other hardships imposed by
membership in the criminal society of boot-Ieggers, or the constant fear of being
found out and hence loss of 'society' of the lone con-man. It is in these conforming
agents' self-Own interest to take the self-All viewpoint, and to adopt the strategy
that is best for each alike, in the way indicated.
In order to complete the account of advantage (a), I must discuss advantage (b).
The capacity of Hobbes's theory to maintain a self-Own account of the origin and
nature of morality depends upon his notion of what it is to be a member of a
community, and this in turn involves his distinction between two senses of 'oblige',
the teleological sense and the deontological. So, to these important distinctions and
their interrelationship in Hobbes's theory, I now turn.
In a well-known passage, preliminary to the definition of 'contract' as 'The
mutual transferring of Right', Hobbes writes as follows about Obligation, Duty,
Injustice .
... when a man hath in either manner abandoned, or granted away his Right; then is he
said to be OBLIGED, or BOUND, not to hinder those, to whom such Right is granted,
or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that he ought, and it is his DUTY, not to make
voyd that voluntary act of his own: and that such hindrance is INJUSTICE and INJURY,
... : the Right being before renounced, or transferred. So that injury, or injustice, in the
controversies of the world is somewhat like to that, which in the disputations of Scholers
is called absurdity. For as it is there called an absurdity, to contradict what one maintained
in the beginning: so in the world, it is called injustice, and injury, voluntarily to undo that,
which from the beginning he has voluntarily done (ibid. III, 119).

In the same passage, Hobbes goes on to discuss the conventionally accepted 'Signs',
whereby a man declares that he has granted away a right. These signs may be either
words or actions.
This passage, along with Hobbes's dictum that no man is obliged but by some
act of his own, has led to a variety of puzzles about Hobbes's theory of the so-called
'source of obligation'. For, it is clear from the quoted passage that a man who
contracts to do something has thereby obliged (bound) himself. But how, then, do
the laws of nature oblige, or bind? The second law seems to oblige us to take on
contractual obligations, the third to keep our contractual obligations. The obliging
of the laws must be prior to, more basic than the obligations acquired by contract.
Are there here two senses of 'oblige' or 'bind', and if so, how are they related?
The answer to this kind of puzzle is clear enough if one looks at Hobbes's account
of voluntary actions, or motions. These are contrasted with 'vital' motions, such as
the circulation of the blood, and breathing, and are exhibited in walking, speaking,
moving any of our limbs, 'in such manner as is first fancied in our minds' (ibid.
III, 38). There are, of course, difficulties in making the distinction within Hobbes's
system, but these do not concern me here. The class of voluntary motions coincides
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roughly with what, in ordinary speech, we call today a man's 'actions' and with
what psychologists call 'purposive behaviour'. Voluntary actions are, for Hobbes,
subject to a motive explanation, a type of explanation that implies some kind of
means-end relationship, some good for himself that the agent foresees in the action.
(I shall presently elucidate further the notion of motive explanation.) The generic
sense of 'to be obliged' was for Hobbes as it is for us, 'to be in some way rationally
bound'. The concept of obligation, with this sense, has application throughout the
class of voluntary actions. Within this field of application there are at least two ways
of being rationally bound, and hence, at least two specialized senses of uses of the
concept of being obliged. First, a man in willing an end is rationally bound to will
the means. (I shall indicate this means-end application of the concept by the
subscript m as in 'obliged m '. Now acts of contracting, of committing oneself to do
something, are a subclass of voluntary actions. As such they are subject to motive
explanation and the principle of being obliged to will the means to the end willed.
However, the subclass also exhibits the special kind of rational binding that only
acts of contracting create. There is, then, within the subclass, a second special
application of the general concept of obligation, or a second specialized sense of
being rationally bound. (I shall indicate this application of the concept by a
subscriptc, as in 'obliged c'.) But there is no logical puzzle about the two
applications of the concept of being rationally bound. Suppose a man says, 'In
order to live peacefuly with her, I was obliged to take on the obligations c of
matrimony'. There is nothing odd or puzzling about his use of 'oblige'. We
distinguish easily between the considerations appropriate to obligem and obligee.
Taking a look at the wife, we may wonder, 'Why did he think that marriage was
the only means of peaceful cohabitation'? Or, if we should notice his failure to keep
obligations, we may ask if these are circumstances which justify the annulling or
temporary suspension of the obligations of the marriage contract. This question
concerns what I shall call the Hobbes-Warrender theory of Validating-Invalidating
conditions of covenants and contracts. I so call the theory because although it is in
the Leviathan, it lay there, neglected, until Warrender extracted it from the
intricacies of Hobbes's system of politics, and made clear its structure and import.
It may be briefly summarized as follows.
Contract is, we have seen, a species of voluntarary action. This species may be
defined in terms of conditions that must be met if the action in question is to be
successfully performed. (These conditions can also be stated as rules which are
constitutive of the nature of the action, and which, so far as they are rules,
presuppose community acceptance.) Some conditions, if not met, make a contract
invalid ab initio; others, if not met, make a contract invalid subsequent to its
successful performance, and, in certain cases, the circumstances in question,
'suspend', rather than annul the obligations incurred by one or other or both of the
contracting parties. The obligations may be said to be suspended, rather than
annulled, because, if the conditions which need to be met are later met, then the
 287

obligations are again in force without a new contract.

There is another important part of Hobbes's theory of contract that Warrender
calls attention to in the following comment: 'The general pattern which emerges ...
is that of a series of kingdoms in which or in some of which any particular individual
may be a citizen,.17 Warrender's insight might be put in this way: the concept of
being a member of a community of some sort is central to Hobbes's ethical theory.
The so-called contract theory of the state is a theory, as Rawls has shown, not
an antiquated fairy tale of how civil states came into being. In Hobbes's version of
this theory, the subsystem of concept, that is the theory of voluntary action, is
related to the subsystem that is the theory of obligation, through the central notion
of what it is to be a member of a community, or social group. To be sure, some
of Hobbes's nomenclature is antiquated and obscuring. It should be kept in mind
that the family is treated by Hobbes along with 'Commonwealths by Acquisition'
and 'Dominion Paternal' is acquired not by generation, but by contract' ... from
the Child's Consent, either express, or by other sufficient arguments .. .' (ibid. III,
186).
The notion of the nature and role of a member of a community that Hobbes
works with can, I suggest, be elucidated briefly as follows.
Actions of commitment to be a member of a community are voluntary acts. They
presuppose that some interest of the agent is satisfied by the act. Commitment,
however, may be effected, not in a single 'express' action, but through a variety of
actions. The committing of oneself (the joining, the becoming a member), is the
taking on the obligations. Moreover, among the conditions which must be met if
a man is to play the role of a member, is the assuming, on certain questions
concerning the good of each member of the group, of the E. W. viewpoint. What
questions these are obviously depends on the nature of the community. We have
seen that the acts of commitment that bind (or oblige us) are voluntary acts,
presupposing that some interest of the agent is satisfied, that is, that he has reason
to believe that some advantage or good will accrue to him from so acting. Since
teleology vs. deontology is often discussed in terms of what is called (perhaps
miscalled!) 'moral motivation', I turn now to what is today usually called Hobbes's
'theory of motivation'.
The words are not those of Hobbes, nor does the word 'motive' occur frequently
in his writings or as a carefully defined important one, although the 'principle of
sufficient motive' is attributed to him by Warrender, and this attribution is accepted
by Watkins. The word 'motive' does, however, occur in a very important passage
in the Leviathan and it seems to be this occurrence that has suggested to War render
the 'principle of sufficient motive'. In this passage, Hobbes argues as follows that
not all rights are alienable.

Whensoever a man transferreth his right, or renounceth, it is either in consideration of

some right reciprocally transferred to himselfe; or for some good he hopeth for thereby.
288

For it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good
to himself. And therefore there be some rights, which no man can be understood by any
words, or other signs, to have abandoned, or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down
the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he
cannot be understood to argue thereby, at any good to himselfe (ibid. III, 119-120).

Hobbes gives more examples of his point, and then adds (emphasis added):

And lastly the motive, and end for which this renouncing, and transferring 0f right is
introduced, is nothing else but the security of a man's person, in his life, and in the means
of so preserving life, as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a man by words, or other
signs, seems to despoile himself of the end, for which these signes were intended, he is
not to be understood as if he meant it ... (ibid. III, 120).

What Hobbes is saying here can, I think, be put in this way. The transferring of
rights, which is part of the act of contracting, is a voluntary act (purposive behavior)
and would, within Hobbes's system, have no explanation (a piece of purposive
behavior without purpose), if it were taken to be an act of laying down the right
of resisting those who attempt to kill the agent, or wound him, and so on. Now,
there is nothing in Hobbes's casual and occasional use of 'motive' which is
inconsistent with, in fact there is much to suggest the widely accepted contemporary
elucidation of 'motive' as, a term which is employed to explain an act, not by
pointing to a certain kind of factor as present in the phenomenon, but by seeing the
act as fitting into a certain sort of pattern, as being in this way, explained. For
example, to say that A's motive in killing B was revenge, is to explain the act by
indicating that it fits into some such pattern as the following:
(1) B had done an act that A considered an injury
(2) A killed B, intentionally (it was murder), in order to get even with him.
(3) A has the sort of dispositions (personality and character) that demand and
are satisfied by 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'.
A motive explanation, then, in brief, indicates a certain explaining combination
of circumstances, purpose, and disposition (or in my terms, interests). So, the
'principle of sufficient motive' amounts to the requirement by Hobbes, that men's
actions are explainable within his system. IS
The italicized phrase is important, for two reasons. First, 'motive' is a term of
common-sense, and the explanations given by reference to motive are of a relatively
nonsystematic, common-sensical sort, and contain no reference to recondite
entities, like the smaller parts of matter. Hobbes did attempt to sharpen and
systematize the common-sense terminology that enters into political theory
('contract', 'covenant', for example), but his motive explanation for the act of
contracting that institutes civil society is still, of course, on the kind of semi-
common-sensical level that the social sciences continue to occupy. Now, common-
sense - at least of the modern Western world - would indeed be puzzled as to how
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to give a motive explanantion for an act that a relatively normal agent claims is an
act of contracting never to defend himself against bodily attack and the deprivation
of the 'means of so preserving life as not to be weary of it' .
We are now in a position to see how in Hobbes's theory, what is true in both
teleological and deontological ethics is saved, while what is lacking or false in each
is corrected.
Teleology, like deontology, recognizes only one sense of what is a moral right
action (or of what is our moral duty, or what we morally ought or are obliged to
do) and defines that in terms of contributing to, or being productive of the good,
or of the most good. ('Good' is, of course, defined independently of 'right'.)
Teleological theories differ according to their differing account of the good. In
Greek classical philosophy Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics presents a form
that has been influential through the ages; the good is defined as the moral agent's
own happiness, which is taken to be a certain kind of activity of the psyche. That
activity is exhibited when the various parts of the psyche, the irrational and the
rational, are functioning harmoniously and properly, or in accordance with
excellence. Such functioning constitutes a realization of an agent's own nature as
a rational and desiring creature. (A certain length of life and amount of good
fortune are also required.) The Aristotelian teleology is, then, egoistic in that it is
in an agent's self-Own interest to perform the right actions that are productive of
his happiness.
There are two truths, I think, embodied in this form of teleology. First is the truth
in truistic egoism, namely, that unless one can convince an agent that certain sorts
of actions are advantageous to him in the sense that some interest of his will be
satisfied by performing the actions, it is pointless to require him to perform them.
And the strength and basic nature of our self-Own interests is the second truth
embodied in non-truistic forms of teleological egoism: Aristotle, however, had no
notion of the principle of the equality of man, and cheerfully accepted the inequality
of women and the slavery of his time. His picture of the ideal moral agent, the
proud, snobbish, 'magnanimous' man is to most of us today repellent.
Utilitarianism (the main modern form of teleology), whether of the Act or Rule
variety does incorporate the principle of the equality of man, but does not share in
the truths mentioned above. Both varieties identify the moral point of view with that
of an impartial spectator, but give no explanation of what would motivate any agent
to adopt such a viewpoint. Moreover, both forms are unable to explain why our
moral intuitions tell us that a single action (e.g. breaking a promise, doing bodily
harm to another) is wrong considered in itself apart from its consequences.
Deontology has several varieties, but the moral theory of Kant has dominated the
field. The view usually (though perhaps mistakenly) attributed to him is that the
consequences of an action in producing good (whether for the agent or others) has
nothing to do with its moral rightness. A moral man is one who performs his duty
for duty'S sake alone. 19 But this doctrine leaves us without any explanation of moral
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action. Ogden Nash in his Kind of an Ode to Duty (a wonderful parody) makes a
fine comment on this defect. Nash's Ode ends, 'When Duty whispers Lo, thou
must,' this erstwhile youth replies I just can't'. On the other hand, Deontology does
accord with our strong moral intuitions that some actions are 'just wrong' regardless
of their consequences in satisfying the interests of the agent or others.
Teleology and Deontology, then, pull our intuitions apart. The way in which they
do so, and a clue as to how Hobbes's theory integrates the two are contained in the
following passage from Rawls:

(It should be noted that deontological theories are defined as non-teleological ones, not
as views that characterize the rightness of institutions and acts independently from their
consequences. All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account
in judging rightness. One which did not would be irrational, crazy.) Justice as fairness is
a deontological theory in the second way. One that does not interpret the right as
maximizing the good. For if it is assumed that the person in the original position would
choose a principle of equal liberty and restrict economic and social inequalities to those
in everyone's interests, there is no reason to think that just institutions will maximize the
good. (Here I suppose with Utilitarianism that the good is defined as the satisfaction of
rational desire.) Of course, it is not impossible that the most good is produced but it would
be a coincidence. 2o

This passage contains a number of confusions common to modern ethical theory.

First, the confusion of or failure to distinguish between the model and the real world
to which it is applied. Second, an assumption of synonymy of 'productive of the
most good possible' and 'maximizing the good'.
The phrase 'maximizing the good' with its mathematical connotation, suggests
that there is a quantity, or quantities, of satisfaction that can be increased, without
limit, like the number series, ordinal or cardinal. But excellence or happiness cannot
be maximized - and in the case of many human goods, 'enough is enough'. Now
in Hobbes's theory, 'productive of the most good possible' would mean a social
arrangement productive of the most good for each member alike (or for the
advantage of each member alike). And 'good' and 'advantage' are, of course,
essentially linked to the agent's basic interests. In my model example of the
rationing regulations, the arrangement is just (or fair), in Rawls's sense and it is
precisely so because it is, in the way made out, 'productive of the most good'. When
we apply the rationing model to the real world we get the split that Rawls wrongly
attributes to the mistakes of teleology. Let us assume the regulations are fair, and
that they concern gasoline rationing and are applied to an American community,
part of whom have love-affairs with their cars and part of whom are young adults
ardently devoted to 'cruising'. Such citizens are very different from the ideally
rational agents of the model. The frustrations in the real world will produce a split
between the fairness of the regulations and 'the most good possible' produced. In
the real world a less equitable distribution of gas might produce more satisfaction
among those rationed. But the split is not between two irreconcilable theories, the
 291

split is (a) one between ideally rational people and those who are not; and (b) a split
between the notion of the most good possible for everyone alike, and the notion of
a total sum of goods. Third, the passage takes no account of the following different
sorts of consequences. Obviously, if an institution or law is intended to right certain
wrongs but has the opposite consequences, only a crazy person would ignore this.
So, for institutions, and so on, the intended consequences (statable in terms of the
'purpose' of the institutions) cannot be ignored. Further, the consequences of a
single case of a certain sort of action may be neutral, neither good nor bad (for
example, littering or walking across a lawn) but if performed by all or most in a
given society would have consequences that would be judged bad by all or most. 21
Finally, it should be remembered that agents are (for obvious reasons) held
responsible only for the normal and intended consequences of actions performed.
The 'intended' puts certain spatial and temporal limitations on the consequences for
which we are responsible and the 'normal' rules out our responsibility for the
interference of the chance or accidental interference of causal chains other than the
one the agent initiates. 22 (It should be added here that an agent also may make
himself responsi~le for actions he 'authorizes' in others, provided that the others
keep within the limits of the authorizations. This notion is of great importance in
Hobbes's account of sovereignty.)
The flaw in Act Utilitarianism is that it can be used to justify an act like killing
another person if the normal and intended consequences would increase the general
good (satisfaction). For example, it could be used to justify a surgeon killing one
patient, in fairly good health, in order to save the lives of two others, one in need
of a heart transplant, the other of a kidney transplant. 23 Rule Utilitarianism is in
a better position since it would obviously have bad consequences if the rule
governing the surgeon's action were made a general social practice. But even Rule
Utilitarianism does not account for our strong, and I think, basic moral intuition
that some actions (and intentional killing is the paradigm case) are wrong regardless
of their consequences and wrong in every single case, not just when everybody does
it.
In this intuition lies the appeal of deontology. It has been well described as 'an
intuition looking for a theoretic foundation'. Hobbes's theory, I believe, affords
that foundation. I shall begin by considering less serious wrongs than killing.
For Hobbes, as we have seen, any act that is a breaking of a valid contract, that
is, of a failure to perform an obligation, is wrong, and, in the special way made out,
irrational. So, in our model, any single act of cheating in rationing matters is a
morally wrong act. Let us remember that in the model the becoming of a citizen and
the taking on of obligations is presented as an explicit conscious single action. In
the real world, as we grow up we gradually become aware that we have, in various
'tacit' ways committed ourselves to be members of various communities. And,
assuming that we do fully mature as rational agents, we become aware of the
normative nature of morality. If Hobbes is right, the fully rational agent will heed
292

both the proviso, that others do so likewise, and the teleological precept to strive
for peace not war, in foro in tern 0 everywhere and always, 'For it can never be that
war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it' (ibid. III, 145). A fully rational creature
(one in Hobbes's view gifted with a lively imagination) will come to regard himself
as a member, in Hobbes's sense, of the human species, that is, as having committed
himself tacitly to so act. The difference I am indicating here is subtle, but does, I
think, concern what might be called 'stages in moral development'. 24 In any case,
Hobbes's theory, I have tried to show, gives a theoretic basis for that strong
intuition of the deontologist in all of us, that a single act of intentional killing
considered in itself is in some sense wrong everywhere and always, even on the
battlefield. It would be well to remind ourselves here that this part of Hobbes's
theory is closely connected with that other part according to which a rational citizen
will do his best not to be found in the battlefield unless he is convinced that his doing
so is in his self-defense. Those who chanted during the Vietnam War, 'Hell, no, we
won't go!' could appropriately have waved aloft a copy of the Leviathan.
I do not, on this occasion, have space to show how the Hobbesian theory
accommodates all the various duties and obligations that modern moral theorists
discuss and classify.25 But any survey of the various moral obligations and their
interrelationship in Hobbes's theory must keep in mind the following matters:
First, the distincion, so often neglected by moral theorists, between model and its
application to the real world. 26
Second, the very important distinctions made by Warrender in the following
passage, distinctions which, of course, are made in the theoretic model:

The civil law and the authentic interpretations of natural law made by the sovereign do
not cover the whole field of law, and where these official enactments are not or cannot
be applied, the individual subject is still under a necessity to interpret natural law for
himself, ... There are thus, two different styles of natural law , both of which bear upon
the obligations of the citizens. 27

Third, the fact that, on Hobbes's theory, not all obligations would be moral
obligations; and that while the breaking of any valid contract is wrong, the basic
contract for moral theory is the one establishing the civil state, and the basic
'kingdom' of which we are members, is that established by the 'irresistable'power
of the 'incomprehensible author of Nature', that is, the human species. The natural
kingdom of God is that '... wherein he governeth as many of Mankind as
acknowledge his providence, by the natural dictates of right reason; .. .' (ibid. III,
345). The Laws of Nature, then, prescribe the basic rational strategies for all human
beings, situated and endowed as they are, in the social actions that concern the
means of preserving a life worth living. In the model civil state, the sovereign
(whether one man, an assembly, or all citizens) takes these strategies as his guide
in governing. The strategies are very general and in their application to the real
world would receive different specifications depending on the culture, economic
 293

situation and perhaps genetic make-up (the so-called 'gene pool') of the population
concerned. This generality of Hobbes's theory is one of its scientific virtues.
In conclusion, I should like to say that it is no wonder that Hobbes's scheme is
beginning to be filled in by those social scientists and biologists who work with the
methodological and mathematical techniques associated earlier with the physical
scientists. Hobbes alone among philosophers of his time turned to Galileo and the
Paduan School for his ideas and rejected as useless for understanding the world the
prevalent metaphysical concepts (the concepts of spiritual substance, the Christian
God as substance and first cause, and so on). Those concepts were an unhappy
analgam of Greek ontology and Christian theology. He also rejected the prevalent
logic - the schoolmen's doctrine of the syllogism. That doctrine was a debasement
of the work of Aristotle, and Hobbes quite rightly advised his readers to look not
to the doctrine of the syllogism, but to mathematics for their logic. Elsewhere, I
have tried to show that Hobbes's Logica contains a theory of signification and of
reasoning which is highly original and very relevant to contemporary work in these
fields. Here I have tried to show that the same sort of virtues are present in the
Leviathan. That work has been for too long considered the property of political
philosphers who have no or little interest in the methods of science and
mathematics. It is high time Hobbes's main philosophical insights in moral theory
were rescued.

NOTES

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, 1971). For the sake of brevity on
this occasion, I shall refer to the Harsanyi articles by Roman numerals as follows:
I. 'A Bargaining Model for Social Status in Informal Groups and Formal Organizations', Behavioral
Science Vol. II, No.5 (September, 1966).
II. 'Individualistic and Functionalistic Explanations in the Light of Game Theory: The Example of
Social Status', Problems in the Philosophy of Science (1968).
III. 'Rational - Choice Models of Political Behavior vs. Functionalist and Conformist Theories',
World Politics Vol. XXI, No.4 (July, 1969).
IV. 'Can the Maximin Principle Serve as a Basis for Morality? A Critique of John Rawls' Theory',
The American Political Science Review Vol. 69 (1975).
V. 'Advantages in Understanding Rational Behavior', in Butts and Hintikka (eds.), Foundational
Problems in the Special Sciences (1977).
VI. 'Rule Utilitarianism and Decision Theory', Erkenntnis II (1977).
VII. 'Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior', Social Research Vol. 44, No.4 (Winter 1977).
2 See, for the general outlines of his version of Utilitarianism, Harsanyi, II, pp. 308-309; V, pp.
320-323; VI, pp. 26-27; VII, pp. 628-629 and 636-638. Note, especially, in VI his mathematical proof
of the non-equivalence of Rule and Act Utilitarianism.
3 Popper, in his The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1959) pp. 442-456
discusses in an illuminating way, the legitimate and illegitimate uses of 'imaginary experiments'. The
legitimate uses are (with appropriate reservations) the heuristic, the critical, and expository. Any version
of contract theory (as well as any versions of economists' theories of rational decision, games, etc.)
294

employs imaginary experiments in Popper's sense of the term. (Fictious entities, idealization, contrary
to fact suppositions, etc., are involved.) Rawls in his account of 'the original position' is clearly
employing an imaginary experiment in legitimate ways viz., jis use of heuristic - the discovery of the basic
principles of justice; and expository - the elucidation of their nature and content. What Rawls, as I see
it, is trying to do in his imaginary experiment (among other things) is to ascertain what factors are
relevant and what irrelevant in deciding in a rational way on the basic principles of justice.
4 Rawls and others have mistakenly called Hobbes's State of Nature 'a classic case' of the Prisoner's
Dilemma. As we shall see later, it is not. See Rawls, op. cit., p. 269.
5 It is important to distinguish between the philosophical and the mathematical parts of general
rational choice theory, since Hobbes's views relate only to the philosophical parts. Harsanyi has written
illuminatingly about the distinction as follows: 'This common method that these normative disciplines
use represents a unique combination of philosophical analysis and of mathematical reasoning. In each
case a movement from the primary definition of rationality, given by a set of axioms or a constructive
decision model to its secondary definition. A more convenient form for practical application and further
analysis is a straightforward mathematical problem. But the discovery of an appropriate primary
definition is always essentially a philosophical - that is, a conceptual problem ... These are definitely not
areas for people who prefer their mathematics without any admixture of philosophy, or who prefer their
philosophy without any admixture of mathematics'. See VII, pp. 624-30. Hobbes's philosophical
contributions, we shall see, concern the basic models and principles involved in developing ethics as a
branch of a theory of rational behavior.
6 Harsanyi subsumes the concept of means-end rationality under a wider one. See III, pp. 515-16.
His account has an obvious theoretic advantage, but for purposes of this paper, I shall not expand on
this point.
7 Independently, in contrast to the Utilitarian definition of a single sense of right actions as those
that maximize the good Harsanyi, following Harrod, does indeed distinguish 'duties of special
obligation' from 'duties based on the cumulative good consequences of the general observance of certain
rules', see Mind 67 (1958), pp. 305-316 and his book, p. 33. But this notion is not developed further
in later writings.
8 Rawls, op. cit., pp. 62ff; pp. 92-95.
9 See Harsanyi, IV, pp. 594-597.
lO See The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins, and On Human Nature, by Edward O. Wilson.
11 Hobbes's 'demonstrations' require, of course, the assumption of a number of noncontroversial
factual assumptions, e.g. that men can kill one another.
12 I use 'shared knowledge' here in the sense of Stephen Schiffer's definition of 'mutual knowledge'
in his book Meaning (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 30-3l. Roughly, if A and B are to mutually
know that p, not only must both A and B know that p but A must know that B knows, and B know
that A knows, and A must know that B knows that A knows, and so on.
13 To make the point plain, imagine the following model of Hobbes's State of Nature model. Three
men, of roughly equal strength, are cast up on a desert island of limited natural resources. Each possesses
a club for weapon, and they have shared knowledge both of one another's ideal rationality and egoism.
The best strategy for each alike would be along the following lines. By mutal consent, the clubs are
thrown into a common pile, a sovereign is chosen by lot, with agreement to rotate it by lot, every year,
and the sovereign is allowed to appropriate the clubs for enforcement of rules, for the good of each alike.
For the difference between cooperative and non-cooperative games, see Harsanyi, II, p. 311.
14 See Kurt Baier, The Moral Point of View, (Cornell University Press, 1958) pp. 187-213 and 'The
Social Source of Reason', Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol.
51, NO.6 (August 1978), pp. 707-773. See also David Gauthier, 'Morality and Advantage',
Philosophical Review Vol. 76 (October 1967), pp. 460-475. Both Baier and Gauthier persistently
disregard the distinction between model and application to the real world. Gauthier attempts to clarify
Baier's account of the nature of moral principles, and employs examples from Game Theory Strategy
 295

in this attempt. But he seems not to understand the 'modeling technique' . Both books and both articles,
however, have a number of valuable insights into moral theory to which I am in various general ways
indebted.
15 Howard Warrender, The Political Philosophy oj Hobbes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp.
52-79 passim .
16 In a recent television program, on Child Abuse, filmed in California, several pairs of parents who
had been guilty of severe physical abuse of their children appeared to tell the audience that they hadn't
'realized' what they were doing . All parents were middle-class, quite well educated persons without any
hint of mental illness, in brief, apparently ' nice' persons. On another program, a middle-aged man, an
affluent engineer, who had been arrested for sexual abuse of his children, appeared and gave voice to
the same 'excuse'.
17 Warrender, op. cit., p. 174. See also Joseph Tussman, Obligation and the Body Politic (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp. 23-57 .
18 Note that a motive mayor may not be a justifying reason . For example, self-defense is normally
a justifying reason for killing, but revenge is not. See John Ladd, 'The Desire to do One's Duty', in
Hector-Neri Casta.neda and George Nakhnikian, (eds.), Morality and the Language oj Conduct,
(Wayne State University Press, 1965), pp. 301-345.
19 Judy Baker, at the University of California, Berkeley, is working on a dissertation on Kant's
theory of morality that contains some very interesting new approaches . In discussing the problems of
moral motivation she considers the difficulty in understanding Kant's notion that the objective
determination of the will by respect for the moral law is prior to its subjective determination, the latter
including feelings and awareness of various sorts. She suggests that there is an analogy between Kant's
notion and the fact that we may commit ourselves to something without being aware of it till later, that
is, the committing ourselves can be prior to the awareness that we are committed. The latter sort of
awareness has relevance to Hobbes's theory of contract.
20 Rawls, op. cit. , p. 30. Note that his use of 'Rational desire' in connection with Utilitarianism is
compatible with the statement in the following paragraph' ... In Utilitarianism the satisfaction of any
desire has some value in itself which must be taken into account in deciding what is right'. For his notion
of 'rational desire' see pp. 409 ff.
21 The so-called Generalization Argument deals with this sort of consequence. For a very good
account of the argument see Baier, op. cit. , pp . 208-213.
22 This account, of course, does not answer all questions and there are puzzles about how we
distinguish 'sins of commission' from 'sins of omission', but I cannot discuss these matters further here.
23 Bizarre examples such as this must be used with caution or the results are sophistical dilemmas.
It should always be remembered that no moral theory could possibly have a detailed prescription as to
how to meet all situations in life. Nor is a theory supposed to have prescriptions covering weird or
fantastic situations.
24 The difference I have in mind here might be illustrated as follows . Suppose I, armed with a rifle,
encounter a savage-looking Indian, armed with a bow and arrow, in the wilds of the Amazon. I know
that Indians of one tribe there do their best to kill any stranger on sight. So, I am prepared, in self-
defense, to kill the Indian if he threatens my life with his probably poisoned arrow. But the way in which
I regard the distasteful act would differ according as I think of it as a wrong (in joro in tern 0 ) action,
wrong because bad jor everyone alike but necessitated by the partial State of Nature situation in which
I am placed, or as additionally wrong (in joro interno) though necessitated, because I have committed
myself to be a member of 'the natural kingdom of God', that is, of mankind. I find that people who
have some such commitment are those who are concerned with the fate of men in the far distant future;
the other group are those who tend to be unable to concern themselves with any persons beyond their
grandchildren.
25 See Rawls, op. cit., p. 109.
26 The common neglect of this distinction especially among political scientists is displayed in the
296

usual criticism of Hobbes's doctrine of sovereign power. For example, Richard Peters writes, ' ... it is
possible for a constitution to be framed, as in the U.S.A., with the express intention of there being no
overall sovereign in Hobbes's sense'. Hobbes (Penguin Books, 1956), pp. 224-225. But Hobbes's point
is that in theory, any assembly instituting a civil state must decide on a sovereign power, which, if
sovereign, must be single and supreme. That power in the U.S.A .. is the amending power exercisable by
the legislatures of V. of the States. We could in theory as Jefferson once remarked that we should, rewrite
the Constitution every 20 years!
27 Warrender, op. cit., p. 146.
 297

20. HOBBES AND MACROETHICS: THE THEORY OF

PEACE AND NATURAL JUSTICE

Howard Warrender

University of Sheffield, UK

In commemorating the tercentenary of Hobbes's death we are prompted to the

reflection that there are few of the classic authors in political philosophy who have
stood so well the test of time in maintaining their relevance to the continuing
political scene. And indeed the mid~twentieth century has been more generous than
most of its predecessors in recognizing the importance to be attached to his works.
A great deal more debate can arise, nevertheless, if we enquire more precisely what
in Hobbes's doctrine is still relevant and why . .In this paper I attempt some answer
to this question. I am concerned to advance Hobbes's claim to have contributed to
what I have called the field of macroethics, and consider in particular two of the
principal items of that contribution, his theory of peace and his theory of natural
justice. 1

1. Is Hobbes's Doctrine Amoral?

When I made my first acquaintance with Hobbes's Leviathan, the author had long
since outlived his reputation as a heretic or the 'monster of Malmesbury' or the
corruptor of youth, and had graduated to the status of an amoral philosopher. On
such an interpretation which had been generally prevalent for many years, the
essence of Hobbes's position was that he had taken the notions of natural law and
the social contract, historically the stock-in-trade of philosophers who had been
concerned to set limits to political authority, and had converted them to the defence
of political absolutism. The implication followed that these concepts had no role in
his doctrine other than to sink under a reductio ad absurdum, or perhaps like the
tail of a rocket to enable his theory to take off, only to fall back as obsolescent
philosophic equipment. The other side of this account was to emphasize that
Hobbes had produced political obligation out of a mixture of power and self-
interest. And while these elements could no doubt be manipulated with varying
degrees of sophistication, they nevertheless resolved indelibly into non-ethical
components. His functionalist account of sovereignty with its justification of de
facto government was regarded as tending to the same end. It followed also that

C. Walton and P. Johnson (eds.), Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'. [SBN 978-94-010-8060-6
© 1987, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Kluwer Academic Publishers), Dordrecht.
298

Hobbes's State of Nature and hence the condition of man outside civil society was
a moral vacuum, and that morality was essentially the creature of the state, deriving
both its content and validity from the prescriptions of the political sovereign.
Now it must be admitted that Hobbes does a great deal to encourage such an
attitude to his doctrine. The whole style of Leviathan presents the demeanour of a
'tough' philosopher stepping into the new world of 'Realpolitik'. His account of
man, egoistical and asocial, relentlessly self-seeking, dominated by passion, greed,
suspicion and competitiveness, pushed into society by nothing more elevated than
fear of death, and his own death at that, all seems part of such a picture. Values
are subjective, there being 'no rule to be found in the things themselves'. On the
free-will issue Hobbes is determinist. Many of his most famous statements,
moreover, seem to leave little ground for any recognizable form of moral
obligation: 'Covenants without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to
secure a man at all' or 'Power irresistible justifies all actions', for example, would
appear difficult enough to square with an ethical interpretation. Similarly, the
charge that morality is the creation of the political sovereign might be held to be
amply supported from the extensive domain Hobbes granted to the civil law. Many
of the disputed issues of his day, ship-money, the prayer book, the levying of
troops, as well as the wider problems of constitutional rights or the place of the
church, he met by consigning to the civil law and hence the command of the
sovereign the whole field of property rights, marriage and divorce, and the outward
profession of religion, as well as judicature, peace and war, and less contentious
matters.
There are good reasons, nevertheless, why we should hesitate in accepting this as
an adequate statement of Hobbes's position.

2. The Case for an Ethical Interpretation

Before we look more closely at the detail of Hobbes's system, it is pertinent to make
two preliminary observations.
(a) The entire question of an amoral political philosophy is based upon
extremely dubious assumptions, and in crediting Hobbes with such an intention or
enterprise we may be claiming for him an achievement of the impossible. It is far
from clear that any significant political position can be stated which is not also an
ethical position, though it may take a great deal of application to winkle out the
relevant ethical standpoint and we may well shrink from it once discovered.
Certainly as applied to human affairs and given the wide range Hobbes covered, his
system should be entered for higher stakes. To describe it as amoral is simply a
confession of laziness, cowardice or philosophic ineptitude; there must be some
appropriate ethical basis upon which it is either moral or immoral.
(b) Ignoring for the moment the style of Hobbes's theory to consider its global
 299

objective: the general purpose of Hobbes's doctrine appears to be the preservation

of men in multitudes; not the preservation of a particular man, not a particular
group, class, culture or nation, but the whole human race. On the face of the matter
Hobbes's objective is ethically both highly important and commendable. Nor
should this be obscured by the fact that our moral preoccupations are often with
more personal and minor affairs, unless indeed we are to put ourselves in the absurd
position of the hunter in the jungle, who failed to see an elephant because he was
standing beneath it.
On closer inspection we find that none of the positions attributed to Hobbes on
a might/right or power/self-interest interpretation turns out to be ultimate. And all
Hobbes's key statements in this respect, set out so boldly, are qualified in the small
print which follows them.
The remarkable title-page of Leviathan shows the state as a huge and awesome
military figure; yet he is made up of and supported by a multitude of small men.
No one saw more clearly than Hobbes the peculiar and transitory nature of political
power. It is ultimately power over men's minds, and if the small men for some
reason withdraw their support, the whole edifice collapses. Indeed Leviathan was
written to enlist the continuance of such support.
Irresistible power obliges according to Hobbes, but we discover later that only
God has such power, and that less power does not oblige, which puts a different
complexion upon the whole situation. Similarly, it is not conquest itself that gives
the right to govern, but on Hobbes's submission it is the covenant of the vanquished
and then only if he is trusted and not kept imprisoned or shackled. And so it is at
every turn. Hobbes's State of Nature is not a moral vacuum; not all covenants are
void in this condition (otherwise indeed the political covenant which erects civil
society could not itself be validly generated). Nor is the sovereign absolute. As
against the constitutionalists it may be appropriate enough to speak of Hobbes's
sovereign in this way, but it is only a relative or approximate description. For a true
theory of absolutism it is necessary to look earlier to the divine right and legitimist
philosophers, or later to Rousseau and Hegel. In Hobbes, the absolutism of the
sovereign is qualified - by the individual's right to self-defence, to run away in
battle, not to accuse himself, not to kill his father nor even the sovereign if
commanded so to do; it is further qualified by the subject's right when (in his own
opinion) the sovereign has lost the power to protect him to contract himself under
a new political agency, or qualified perhaps even by the duties of the sovereign
(though owed to God). Again, the sovereign is entitled to settle the outward forms
of religion, but these are irrelevant to the salvation of the subject for this depends
upon grace and inner belief. Death, moreover, is evil and salvation good, but this
is not because the sovereign has so decided or the civil law so defined them. The
sovereign in fact cannot dominate the entire ethical field, nor can he generate
himself.
Nor is the civil law self-sufficient. In spite of the considerable domain Hobbes
300

assigned to this law, he realized that upon his theory it could not sustain itself.

But that sin which by the Law of nature is Treason, is a transgression of the natural, not
the civil law ... But if some sovereign prince should set forth a law on this manner, thou
shalt not rebell, he would effect just nothing. For except subjects were before obliged to
obedience; that is to say, not to rebel, all law is of no force; .. .' (EW II, 200-201).

Or again,

'For a civil law, that shall forbid rebellion, ... is not, as a civil law, any obligation, but
by virtue only of the law of nature, that forbiddeth the violation of faith; which natural
obligation, if men know not, they cannot know the right of any law the sovereign maketh
(EW III, 323-324).

Thus, when all allowance has been made for the injunctions of the civil law, political
obligation depends ultimately upon an obligation to obey a law beyond this, the
natural law.

3. Natural Law in Hobbes's doctrine

Far from being a piece of obsolete equipment, natural law forms the basis of
Hobbes's political and ethical system. 2
The concept of natural law has had a long and varied philosophic history, but
may be sufficiently summarized as denoting: a body of prescriptive principles
relating to human conduct, capable of being discovered by all men of right reason,
applicable to all men (regardless of nation, race, religion, historical period, etc.) and
superior to the positive law of individual states.
Hobbes's laws of nature fall under this definition, comprising a rationalistic ethic
that underlies his whole account of man both in the state of nature and in civil
society. The means for men to escape from their intolerable pre-political condition,
the global obligation thereafter to obey the sovereign and the hypothetical
termination to such obedience (when the subject's life is menaced, for example, or
the sovereign has lost the power to protect him) are all underwritten by the basic
obligation of the individual to obey natural law as interpreted by himself. The
sovereign therefore does not create morality in any fundamental sense but his own
position is the result of the operation of a rationalistic ethic that both precedes and
sustains him. Hobbes clearly innovated, it is true, in that his laws of nature do not
impose limitations upon political authority but assist in its generation and
continuance. He has also performed the useful function of giving to the concept a
formal or minimalist interpretation. 3
Hobbes does at times suggest that the laws of nature derive their authority in their
capacity as commands of God. But these laws in any event are regarded by him as
 301

eternal and unchangeable (even by God) and so we can if we prefer it, take his
system as beginning simply with a body of self-evident rational principles. 4 The laws
of nature enjoin the seeking of peace and Hobbes further articulates some twenty
specific laws (requiring us to keep covenants, show gratitude, avoid cruelty, pride,
drunkenness, etc.) as principal means to this end. All these laws on his view fall
under the rubric 'do as you would be done by' and are subject to the basic right
of the individual to defend himself against a manifest threat to his life or means of
living.
Hobbes has apparently produced a theory of peace which assumes neither
pacifism, nor altruism, and if viable such a theory is evidently of considerable and
continuing significance. Before we can evaluate his achievement, however, it is
necessary that we should be much clearer concerning what may be termed Hobbes's
ethical style. It is often protested that given Hobbes's account of human psychology
and other features of his doctrine, the obligation to obey natural law can be only
a rational and not a moral obligation, and by consequence his entire system comes
down to a matter of prudence or expediency but not morality. This type of objection
does not admit of a simple answer, but the following considerations are pertinent.
(a) Against the charge of expediency in Hobbes's system must be set its
universality. Hobbes's laws of nature are related not to the preservation of a
particular man or group, but to the preservation of men in general. A particular
man may preserve himself on occasion by the most dubious means (force or fraud»
and he may on Hobbes's theory be entitled to do so. But self-preservation in Hobbes
is a right not a duty. It is not what makes actions obligatory, but what exempts the
individual from actions that would otherwise be obligatory. The laws of nature,
however, enjoin us to seek peace, keep covenants, etc., and are principles whereby
our preservation is always consistent with that of others. Indeed the formula
required by Hobbes for the erection and maintenance of the state is not 'preserve
yourself' (though this is always permissible) but 'act so that all men can be
preserved, except where this is inconsistent with your own preservation'. This is a
prescriptive principle of a very different type and cannt be derived from the self-
interest of the individual alone. Again, even if we consider only the individual, it
should be noted that Hobbes's political theory relates not to self-interest but to self-
preservation. The subject may be entitled to rebel in order to save his life, but he
is not permitted on Hobbes's theory to rebel simply for gain, nor because he might
consider himself as potentially a better sovereign than the present incumbent, not
even because he might (correctly) estimate that he has a good prospect of success.
Hobbes's laws of nature are directed at nothing less than the preservation of men
in general and they fall under the rubric 'do as you would be done by'. The
obligation to obey such laws is clearly very different from any ordinary exercise in
expediency or self-interest.
(b) Hobbes's ethical doctrine is based upon a particular conception of human
nature, and it is perhaps instructive to see it as a partial morality related to a model
of 'political man'.
302

His key account of the restless, self-seeking individual, fearful of death, with
every man his enemy and life as a race is not a comprehensive, but an abstract or
specialized description of human nature. Man is dearly both more noble and less
rational than Hobbes's model - a matter which Hobbes himself freely recognizes.
In speaking of magnanimity, he allows that there are some who would scorn to base
their lives on fear or deceit and he obviously admired such people. But he maintains
that they are either too few or that it is too risky to assume that there will be enough
of them to sustain the state. Similarly, men may, in a trivial manner, throwaway
their lives out of boastfulness or provocation on a mere insult. Nevertheless, Hobbes
thought that he had described the character of man as it is essential for the study
of politics. As we are all aware, the benign father of a family, kind to his wife and
doting on his children, or an expansive and generous friend in the local pub,
presents a very different person as a member of a university committee or
government department dispensing scarce resources, or taking part in trade union
or disarmament negotiations, or fighting on a battlefield. All men are not as Hobbes
describes them, still less all actions of all men at all times. Nor do they need to be.
lt is sufficient if he has accounted adequately for the political arena.
Hobbes's method, reputed for having taken its inspiration from the study of
Euclid, no doubt had its limitations as applied to the natural or experimental
sciences. But it belongs to a style of investigation that has had a much more fruitful
record in the field of the social sciences. Deductive and ahistorical, it may most
usefully be compared with the model making of the classical economists of over a
century later. 5 By a similar process of abstraction they elaborated the concept of
economic man, to be fitted into a universal and rationalistic system - in this case
for the maximization of wealth. Hobbes does not prove that life is good or death
evil. The man who wants to survive is archetypal to his model. He knew well enough
that there are a handful of men bent on suicide (regarded as insane in his system)
as the classical economists knew that there could be Trappist communities with no
interest in material wealth. Such people could have no interest in reading their
works. Hobbes, like the economists was simply writing for the overwhelming
majority of men of all nations and ages for whom survival was, for whatever reason,
of supreme importance.
From this point of view, it is inappropriate to look to Hobbes for an ethical
theory of human nature in the round, but rather for a morality related to political
man.
(c) Perhaps the most important reason for attempting to proceed with Hobbes
beyond self-interest or expediency is that unless we can do so, his whole system
collapses and he cannot reach his goal of political obligation. Given the coercive
power of the sovereign a criminal minority can no doubt be held to obedience
through self-interest, simply by the availability of adequate punishments. But unless
a critical number of citizens will support the sovereign in any case or beyond the
point of self-interest (even long-term self-interest) he has no power and his sanctions
 303

do not exist. Now Hobbes shows every indication of realizing his problem. As we
have already seen he requires the citizen to hold to the state to the point where his
life is in danger, not to the point of self-interest. On a number of occasions he
emphasizes the necessity of accepting some kind of obligation if the state is to be
viable.

For if men know not their duty, what is there that can force them to obey the laws? An
army, you will say. But what shall force the army? Were not the trained bands an army?
Were they not the janissaries, that not very long ago slew Osman in his own palace at
Constantinople? (B, 59).

Elsewhere Hobbes draws a distinction between the state and those roving bands that
are held together merely by consent and self-interest, but not by obligation. It is
clear that he was prompted to make an attempt (or several attempts) to establish
for the citizen a tie more binding than expediency or self-interest, though it may be
more open to dispute how successful he was in doing so.

4. Hobbes and Kant

One such attempt is represented by what may be called the Kantian analogies in
Hobbes's doctrine. It has been pointed out that there are some passages in Hobbes's
work strikingly reminiscent of positions taken up later by Kant, 6 as where Hobbes
maintains, for example, that breach of covenant is like a logical absurdity, or where
he suggests that the just man does not simply act in accordance with the law, but
for the sake of the law. Or his remarks on obligation in foro interno, where it
appears that the individual must have a mind to obey the law rather than effect
specific performance. A great deal in this suggests not only Kant's formulation of
the categorical imperative, that our maxim of action should be capable of (logical)
universalization, but his emphasis upon the good will that wills for the sake of duty
alone.
In spite of claims that Hobbes's doctrine contains a strict deontology, however,
we must contend that though the relevant passages exist, their significance appears
to be very limited. They are isolated observations that play no constructive or
continuing part in Hobbes's political philosophy, the main burden of which is
carried by the obligation to obey the laws of nature, which belongs to a different
ethical style. Elsewhere it is apparent that Hobbes expects the just man to act with
the intention of obeying the law and not simply in conformity to it; but a motive
to act only for the sake of the law would be extremely difficult to accommodate to
the rest of his account. The principle of universality relevant to Hobbes's laws of
nature, moreover, is not the Kantian logical principle of non-contradiction, but the
rubric 'do as you would be done by', which (as we shall suggest) is a much more
fruitful basis for an ethical system.
304

In fact the understanding of Hobbes's ethical doctrine would appear to require

us to roll back the assumptions which have tended to dominate academic moral
philosophy in the post-Kantian era. 7 The Kantian legacy has encouraged us to set
a great gulf between duty and interest, to emphasize the autonomy of the will, acting
for the sake of duty and against inclination - a tendency reinforced by the logical
positivists who have often asserted the uniqueness of ethical terms, the gap between
naturalistic and non-naturalistc explanations and so on. The net effect has been a
trivialization of ethics even by those most anxious to claim their impo·rtance. It is
not by chance that so much writing in this field seems to deal with trivial and
personal examples, while the great problems of peace and war, survival, the starving
millions of the world, wages policies, welfare policies, problems of freedom and
equality receive little attention. Surely matters of this size have considerable ethical
implications and it is desirable for us to think constructively about them if we can.
It is one of Hobbes's merits that, belonging to an earlier tradition, his ethical
speculation can take in large scale social issues, and that without too much
insistence that duty is so different from interest, or moral obligation superior to
rational. Hobbes's politico-ethical system can indeed be regarded as making a
valuable beginning to a field I have called macroethics, and which deserves attention
in its own right.

S. What is Macroethics?

Macroethics is the ethics of impersonal relationships. That is to say a system in

which my duties to one person are the same as my duties to every other person in
the same circumstances. I conceive this study as rationalistic in character and hence
dealing inevitably with universal and particular, being based upon the individual
and the whole universe of men in general. It follows also that in a sense groups
(classes, nations, races) fall outside its ambit; rules of conduct specific to groups,
considered strictly, are not ethics but ideologies.
If macroethics has a categorical imperative, it is the rubric 'do as you would be
done by'; or put another way such a rubric could be taken to be definitive of ethics,
in that it is the totality of the body of rules that fall beneath it. Again, the nearest
we can get to a moral absolute is the principle against discrimination; that is that
ethical and therefore political distinctions should not be made between persons on
non-ethical grounds (such as race, color, etc.).
Macroethics is inevitably opposed to historicism, all forms of which are ultimately
discriminatory. Any historicist thesis must proceed by dividing the universe of
discourse into heroes and villains, the saved and the damned. Whether the group
be classes, nations or races, or whether the principle of division be historical success
or any other special non-ethical quality, real or supposed, does not affect the central
point. All are discriminatory in our sense, and what is more show an alarming
 305

propensity to slide out of one form of discrimination into another. Macroethics is

a permanent critique of such theses.
As its name implies, macroethics is orientated towards problems that are of
serious concern to men in multitudes, and so with peace and war, survival, social
policy, and some important interpretations of equality and justice. Controlled by
the rubric 'do as you would be done by', it is frequently concerned with situations
in which distinctions between duty and self-interest or between rational and moral
obligation are extremely difficult to draw and sustain. And in fact they turn out to
be, not the major distinctions that define ethics, but subordinate categories within
it.
This is not the place to elaborate further on this type of thinking. I have adduced
it here to give some glimmering of the style of Hobbes's ethico-political system, and
an indication of what is involved in his theory of natural law. I hope that I have
at least been able to raise the suspicion that Hobbes's system represents a way of
looking at the world that is worthy of serious attention.

6. The Theory of Justice

If we turn to the second of the traditional concepts that Hobbes transformed, the
notion of a social contract, we find that this is integral to his theory of justice.
Natural law obliges men of right reason in any event, but positive law, whether
human or divine, obliges only those who have contracted themselves into obedience.
Thus men may extend their obligations to the civil law by the political covenant or
to the injunctions of the Christian religion by the covenant of baptism. Thereafter
they will be obligated more immediately to obey the prescriptions contained therein,
but more ultimately to keep a covenant they have voluntarily undertaken. And a
covenant appears or reappears at all critical points in allegiance, as in cases of
conquest or a change of sovereign authority. Thus, the theory of contract, of which
covenant is a special case, is pivotal in Hobbes's system, and is applicable to men
both in the State of Nature and civil society.8 Like the laws of nature, however, it
contains an escape clause in the interests of personal preservation from death, and
the existence of validating conditions9 for its full operation means that it can have
different implications in pre-political life from those in the security of civil society.
Hobbes gives several descriptions of justice. It is 'to give to each man his own';
with the just man, it is a general disposition to obey the law; but his key definition
is that justice is 'the keeping of covenant', and the rest follows from this.

And in this law of nature, consisteth the fountain and original of JUSTICE. For where
no covenant hath preceded, there hath no right been transferred and every man has a right
to every thing; and consequently, no action can be unjust. But when a covenant is made,
then to break it is unjust: and the definition of INJUSTICE, is no other than the not
performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust, is just (EW III, 130-131).
306

Hobbes then goes on to indicate that in the keeping of covenants there is more
involved than simple calculation of self-interest.

The fool hath said in his heart, there is no such thing as justice; and sometimes also with
his tongue; seriously alleging, that every man's conservation and contentment, being
committed to his own care, there could be no reason, why every man might not do what
he thought conduced thereunto: and therefore also to make, or not make; keep, or not
keep covenants, was not against reason, when it conduced to one's benefit ... From such
reasoning as this, successful wickedness hath obtained the name of virtue: ... (ibid. III,
132).

In Hobbes's treatment of justice, we see evidence of his extreme individualism. For

him there is a sense in which every man makes his own justice, in that it consists
ultimately in keeping an agreement he has voluntarily made. The individual is not
obliged to contract himself into any particular civil society or religion; he could
choose to take his chance as an enemy or outlaw. But Hobbes is also a minimalist
and a hard-liner in that covenants made under duress (unless the individual is
actually compelled or impeded physically) count as voluntary, however hard the
options. Thus if I covenant to save my life under threat of death (and am trusted
and not imprisoned) that covenant is valid and binding thereafter.
We are also back again in Hobbes's rather disturbing ethical world. I am not
allowed to make and break covenants as self-interest or expediency might dictate,
and Hobbes is very firm on this point. At the same time some of the covenants that
Hobbes takes to be valid, we would on modern interpretations hesitate to describe
as morally binding. But justice is not ultimate in Hobbes, in that it is one of the
special or derivative laws of nature, though clearly a very important one. With the
other laws it falls under and is an articulation of the first law of nature, which
enjoins the seeking of peace, and to this we pass in conclusion.

7. Conclusion: the Theory of Peace

I have attempted to indicate that though Hobbes took the traditional concepts of
natural law and contract, and modified them for his purposes, he did not abandon
them. On the contrary, in a revised form they pervade his whole account of man
both in the State of Nature and in civil society, forming the basic framework of his
theory, and giving rise respectively to his theory of peace and his theory of justice.
The growth of large scale methods of destruction in the modern world has raised
the conjecture that we may soon reach the position that the smallest states could be
a fatal menace to the largest. In such an event, we shall have reached, between
nations, the position that holds between Hobbes's natural men - a saturation of
power or of an equality of fear. On Hobbes's assumptions it would then be rational
to form a world state, though whether men would in fact do so is, of course, another
 307

question, or indeed how far they could thread their way through his rational or
ethical system to reach such a goal.
Quite apart from such considerations, however, Hobbes's theory has a number
of interesting implications. Hobbes does not require pacifism, but clearly for him
the only case for war is self-defense, and if everyone acts strictly on this basis and
is well informed, there can be no war. Hobbes allows men to preserve themselves
in extremity, but this is not also a right to save others. In the much debated question
of whether the Vietnamese war was a just war from the American point of view,
for example, on a Hobbesian basis it would have been necessary to show that it was
required to save American life and nothing else would have been relevant. Similarly
a Hobbesian version of the Nuremburg trials would have turned upon the argument
of self-defense. That is to say, the perpetrators of war crimes would have been
required to show that they had no choice in acting as they had, if they were to avoid
being killed themselves. Though less elevated, perhaps, than the argumentation
used, such a basis might have been more realistic and more appropriate to a valid
judicial procedure than that actually employed. It is apparent too that Hobbes
would place a great deal more emphasis upon the maintenance of agreements than
is current. The Suez Crisis, for example, implicated a treaty about the Canal,
resembling many agreements made by colonial or dependent countries, sometimes
under hard terms and circumstances. Hobbes allows no escape on these grounds.
If we are seriously interested in peace we may need to take more notice of the
conditions that Hobbes specifies.
In the present paper I have been more concerned, however, with Hobbes's system
as a style of thinking about human affairs. Hobbes's political philosophy is unusual
in that it deals less with men's aspirations than with a quietus that allows their
continued existence. I have suggested that it may be regarded as an essay in what
I have called macroethics, which meets most nearly the requirements of his doctrine
and Hobbes's own exposition of it. I have also suggested that such a type of thinking
may fruitfully be developed in its own right, with some consequent modification in
our use of moral concepts.
This leaves problems enough. Hobbes takes a hard line on saving the lives of other
people, as he does in agreements contracted under duress, which I would not wish
to minimize. At the same time it would, I think, be a mistake to write off his theory
simply as an exercise in self-interest or expediency. On the hand, Hobbes's
objective, the preservation of men in multitudes is no trivial matter. On the other
hand, our conceptions of self-interest or expediency are completely inadequate for
such a role. Though they have a perfectly valid and intelligible function within a
restricted circle, extended to the horizon on the scale required for the problem in
hand, they are in fact illusory.1O Indeed with Hobbes we may well settle simply for
the survival of men as an ethical goal. And this not necessarily because mere survival
is worth while for its own sake; but because it gives each man the opportunity to
pursue what he considers to be worth while.
308

NOTES

A number of points raised, particularly in the first part of this paper, I have discussed more
adequately elsewhere. See: Howard Warrender (a) The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford, 1957);
(b) 'The Place of God in Hobbes's Philosophy', Political Studies Vol. VIII (1960), pp. 48-57;
(c) 'Obligations and Rights in Hobbes, Philosophy Vol. XXXVII (1962), pp. 352-357; (d) 'Hobbes's
Conception of Morality' Rivista Critica di Storia della Filosofia Vol. XVII(1962), pp. 434-449; (e) The
Study of Politics (Belfast, 1963); (f) 'A Postcript on Hobbes and Kant', Hobbes-Forschungen (Berlin,
1969), pp. 153-158. (Cited hereafter as Warrender (a), (b), etc.)
2 A great deal of Warrender (a) is concerned with the general role of natural law in Hobbes's theory
(esp. sections IV, V, VII, pp. 213-219, 274-275, 308-311, 322-329).
3 Warrender (a) 323-329; (d) 436-439.
4 Warrender (a) 307-311,323-329; (b) 49-56. I indicate that if God were eliminated from Hobbes's
system, he would lose a certain formal analogy between civil law as command of the sovereign, and
natural law as command of God; but this is a relatively minor point and would leave Hobbes's main
system unaffected.
5 Warrender (d) 443-449; (e) sect. IV.
6 See A.E. Taylor 'The ethical Doctrine of Hobbes', Philosophy Vol. XIII (1938), pp. 406-24; also
S.P. Lamprecht 'Hobbes and Hobbism', American Political Science Review Vol. XXXIV (1940), pp.
31-53, and his Introduction to Thomas Hobbes: De Cive or The Citizen (New York, 1949). Both authors
in this period were exceptional in drawing attention to moralistic aspects of Hobbes's doctrine.
7 Warrender Ca) 335-337; Cf) 153-158.
8 I have discussed contracts in Hobbes, particularly in the State of Nature, in considerable detail
in Ca) III, X.
9 Warrender Ca) II, Ill; Cd) 437-441.
10 As indicated above, from the point of view of macroethics, there is not a great gulf between duty
and interest, and so explanations in terms of interest are not anathema. But it is important that we should
be clear what we are doing. Our conception of self-interest or expediency rapidly loses its meaning
outside a restricted circle. If I am thinking of buying something in a shop today, but know that it will
be cheaper in the coming sales, it may be in my long-term interest to defer my purchase for a week or
a year, and all this is very intelligible. But to think that I have a global, super long-term interest on the
horizon, that I can evaluate and by which I can measure my actions (or further, that such can be known
for all men) is illusion; or to produce something different in kind. In the fact of such an impossible
calculation, if not conception, we normally lapse surreptitiously into some type of ethics.
From another direction, we may attempt to convert Hobbes's laws of nature into a system of prudence
by adding the rewards and punishments of God in an after-life to these prescriptions. And Hobbes
himself may well have accepted such a solution. Against the commentator who prefers this, I did not
think that there is any great objection, provided it is realized that his kind of theological prudence is
completely different from ordinary mundane self-interest and requires a totally different course of action
in the person obliged. On the other hand, such theological prudence leaves the laws of nature operating
as though they were ethical or rational principles, and those who adduce it are exposed to the charge that
they have added nothing to Hobbes's natural law except more assumptions.
 309

INDEX

absolutism 197, 209, 241, 299 commercial ethic 221

analysis 5, 7, 21ff., 33, 35, 39, 41f., 45f., commodious life 89, 91,93, 95f.
48f., 52, 57, 62ff., 73, 90, 100, 106, 124, community, membership in 287
134f., 137 compact 95, 144, 213
Aquinas, St. Thomas 179, 256, 274, 276 competition 9, 26, 57, 76f., 116, 140, 142f.,
Aristotle 29f., 72, 75, 82f., 105, 154, 156, 146-148
162, 179, 256, 259, 262, 272f., 289, 292 cona/us 3, 8f., 17, 123f., 127, 130ff., 134,
on law 264 136f., 183, 196
on equity 242, 269-271 conceptions 21, 24ff., 27, 30, 42, 44, 59f.,
Articles of peace 66, 93f. 94, 106, 125f., 135, 147ff.
artificial 5,7, 16f., 29ff., 60f., 7 Iff. , 76, 78, conscience 31,205,207,212,235,248,250
80ff., 100, 105f., 107, 117 liberty of, 232, 235
Austin, John 254, 275 contract 12f., 18,48,51, 58f., 61f., 64ff.,
author 62,76,81,92, 161,207 75,79, 90f., 94,191,211,228, 279f., 287f.,
authority 5,8,21, 50ff., 64, 67, 81, 85, 292,297
100f., 104ff., 135, 137, 150,241, 257f., 263 contract theory 90ff., 279, 287, 305
authorization 62, 72, 82f., 92, 95, 171 counsel 254, 263f.
Bacon, Francis 247f. covenant 4f., 9, 12f., 17f., 23, 31,48,62,
Baier, Kurt 294 64, 72f., 76, 79, 8 Iff. , 94f., 100, 158ff.,
Bailon, W.M. 247 171,204,218, 224ff., 243f., 263, 272, 305f.
balance of forces 160 Cromwell, Oliver 221f.
Barry, Brian 176, 256 death 1,5,17,50,58, 63f., 90f., 139,
Behemoth 219 141ff., 156, 299
belief 234f. fear of, 189, 280; and see timor mortis
Berkeley, George 101 decision theory 279
Berlin, Isaiah 177 De cive 5, 7, IOff., 21f., 57ff., 63ff.,
Bible 224-227 111-116,118, 124, 126, 130, 135, 144ff.,
Bramhall, John 59 172, 190, 220f.
Brandt, Frithiof 127, 130 De corpore 3, 5, 22, 24, 38, 57, 59ff., 67,
Calvin, John 224 Iliff., 124-127,132, 134, 136, 220f.
Cassirer, Ernst 101 De corpore politico 153, 155, 159
causality 4f., 12f., 17,22,25, 27ff., 34, De homine 60,99, 111, 123, 126, 135, 220f.
36ff., 53f., 57ff., 67, 74, 82f., 91, 99, 118, democracy 160, 211, 220
124, 126f., 133f., 143, 146f., 219, 221 deontology 203, 279f., 287, 289-91 passim
Cavendish, Sir Charles 131 Descartes, Rene 24f., 101, 127-133, 196
character 8f., 18, 75, 80, 123f., 136f., 148 desire 5,9, II, 15,58, 63f., 67, 89, 90-94,
Charles II 222 99-102, 135, 142-147, 182, 184, 198
Christ 231-235 detenl)inism 223
Christianity 232 Dialogue oj the Common Laws oj
Cicero 156f., 262 England 246-249 passim
civil state 31, 93f., 149 disposition 46, 51, 57, 61, 67, 102, 123ff.,
civil society 28,89,90-96,111, 116f., 135, 134-137, 145, 150
144, 149, 194, 198, 221, 243, 258, 283, 288 duty 150, 304
civil war 11, 34ff., 39f., 48ff., 54, 149 education 51,103, 144f., 150, 194,237
Civil War, English 83, 118 egoism 8, 30, 58,63, 93, 123, 137, 196,218,
class society 222 280f., 284, 289
coercion 162, 169 Elements oj Law 7,11,58,111-116,118,
Coke, Sir Edward 72f., 78, 84f., 248, 265, 124ff., 132, 135, 141, 163, 166, 172, 219
268 endeavor 80, 92, 124-127, 131, 133f., 141,
command 254, 263f. 143, 147
310

equal weight viewpoints 281, 283, 287 Grotius, Hugo 161

equality 14f., 27, 57, 75, 115, 190f., 222, happiness 142
250, 255, 259, 271, 273, 289 Harsanyi, G. 279f., 282
equity 3f., II, 13f., 17f., 63, 72f., 78, 84ff., Hegel, G.W.F. 196, 199, 216
241-276 passim history 28, 42, I II, 139, 148, 205, 215
courts of, 242, 247 historicism 304
ethics 12, 14, 46, 101, 105, 107, 123, 125 honor 116f., 143, 173, 175,265
ethology 281 hope 58f., 91, 150
Euclid 302 human nature 154, 182, 30lf.
evil 37, 63, 77f., 80, 83f., 93f., 100, 102, Hume, David 101, 103f., 106,222
145, 148, 254, 257 imagination 28, 93, 114, 118, 125, 135,
fairness 251,271,273; cf. 'equity' 143f., 146
faith 156, 182, 193, 195, 228 weakness of, 284
as bond of contracts, 187, 227 imitatio Dei 71
fear 6, 12, 15, 17,28,50,52,57,59,64, impartial spectator 289
90f., 93, 146, 150, 156, 182, 193, 195, 228 individual 15, 26, 33ff., 37, 40, 46ff., 75,
federal theology 224; cf. 'foedus' 77f., 85, 9lff., 95, 100, 103f., 107, 147-150,
felicity 89, 9lff., 141, 143 203
Fichte, J.G. 159 individualism 155f., 162, 181, 306
Ficino, Marsiglio 71f. in foro interno, externo 31, 157,235,282,
First Philosophy 4, 7, 17, 23f., 26, 31, 59ff., 292, 295, 303
79,124 intention 303
foedus 224, 226f., 230 juridical positivism 162
force 1,27,58,63,65,96,101,103,142, juris-lative power 161
149f., 196 jurisprudence 219
form 24, 28f., 90, 95,101, III, 143 jus civile 161f., 169f.
free trade 220 jus naturale 153-55, 162, 164, 167, 169, 182
free riders 284 justice 3ff., 13ff., 17, 34f., 49ff., 61, 63, 65,
freedom 73, 78, 81ff., 89, 90, 93-96, 106, I1lf., 135,
and obedience, 229 140, 163f., 226, 228, 241-76 passim
Galilei, Galileo 24, 154, 293 commutative 272
game theory 149, 279, 281f., ditributive 259, 272, 276
games economic 280
cooperative 282 natural 221, 304ff.
non-cooperative 282 "thin" theory of, 244, 254
Gauthier, David 294 Justinian 266
Germain, Christopher St. 256, 276 Kant, Immanuel 11, 15f., 24, 102, 161f.,
generation 3f., 9ff., 21, 24, 27ff., 38f., 47, 165, 216, 283, 289, 295, 303f.
59ff., 72, 80f., 103, Ill, 134f., 147 knowledge 5, 7, 23, 30, 34ff., 45, 47, 57, 60,
generosity 195 passim, 199 62ff., 67, 71, 83, 94, 96, 100, 103ff., 114,
geometry 7, 12, 24, 30, 34ff., 45ff., 53, 125, 143, 148, 193
59ff., 106, 129, 221 Lamprecht, S.P. 308
Gert, Bernard 123 language 3, 5, 7, 9f., 16, 4lf., 59ff., 65, 67,
glory 57, 76f., 141, 146, 148, 150, 189ff., 99-102,104-107,111,113,147
passim law 156f., 243, 253f., 257, 262, 264
God 227 civil 204, 244, 250, 253, 262-264 passim,
command of, 237 266, 299f.
injury to, 176 command theory of 263
power of, 176,223, 230f., 292, 299 common 264ff., 268
sovereignty of, 176, 226 divine 157, 246, 264
Golden Rule 281 good 95
Goldsmith, M.M. 172 interpretation of, 248ff., 256, 262, 266-269
good 13f., 22, 37, 62ff., 71, 75, 77ff., 83f., of natural law, 267f.
91, 93ff., 97, 100ff., 135, 140, 142ff., 146, making vs. devising, 267, 269
148ff., 244f., 254, 262, 280, 282, 289f. pOSItive 161, 164
gratitude 254f. natural 156f., 164f., 168, 185ff., 204, 206,

208, 217ff., 223, 230, 237, 242, 244, 246,
254f., 262-64 passim, 273, 279, 285, 292,
297, 300f., 305, 308
legal positivism 1, 13, 89
legal reason 265 f.
legitimacy 11, 215f.
Leviathan 5ff., 22, 25, 29f., 38, 57, 59ff.,
72ff., 81, 84, 91f., 99, 111-118, 135, 142,
150,153,155, 159, 172, 189f., 204, 211,
221f., 246, 292
lex naturalis Cf. law, natural
liberty 5, 9f., 35, 58f., 61, 64ff., 156, 158,
162, 231, 234-36 passim, 251, 257f.
life 4f., 17, 35, 37, 63f., 66, 79, 82ff., 90ff.,
94, 96f., 102, 135, 141-144, 146, 148
Locke, John 101, 161, 189f., 203, 205, 210
logic 3, 5ff., 15ff., 44, 47, 59f., 73ff., 78,
81f., 85, 112-115, 118
macro ethics 297, 304f., 307
Marx, Karl 210, 216
mathematics 75, 79, 105, 112
matter 28ff., 90, 101
maximum principle 280
McNeilly, F.S. 8, 33f., 123
means-ends 280, 286, 294
mechanistics science 11, 23ff., 10 1, 206
Mersenne, Marin 130f., 154, 220
method 5, 7, 24f., 27, 33f., 39ff., 45, 48, 53,
59f., 111-115, 127, 137,302
miracles 234
models 279, 290, 292ff.
monarchy 203, 211
model
obligation 203, 205ff., 212-214 passim,
216, 221, 223
philosophy 199, 245, 272
rules 206, 282
theory 279f.
virtues 63, 102, 182, 195, 220, 272-74
passim
morality 28, 94, 96, 100, 102f., 169, 219,
242, 244f., 254, 280, 282, 291, 301
and law, 251
more geometrico 228f., 233f.
motivation 65, 77, 91, 96, 123, 142, 144, 287f.
motive 58, 76, 90, 142, 146, 288, 295, 303
explanation, 285, 287
principle of sufficent, 287f.
myth 139, 148, 150
Nash, Ogden 290
natural condition 73, 154, 182, 190, 198; cf.
state of nature
natural justice, science of 2ff., 7, 11, 13ff.,
71,73, 75f., 78, 85f., 130, 197,219,257,
297
natural law 1, 9f., 13f., 32, 62, 66, 92, 94,
96, 103
311
natural reason 74f., 78ff.
natural right 3, 8, 10, 17, 38, 64, 66, 78, 89,
92
nature, law of 29ff., 58, 61, 63, 65ff., 77,
79f., 94, 102, 115f., 136
nature, state of See 'state of nature'
nature 3ff., 8f., 11, 16f., 21, 23, 25ff., 29,
33,35,37, 47f., 51, 53, 59, 62, 64, 71f., 74,
76f., 80, 84, 89, 91f., 94, 102, 115, 118,
126, 134f., 137, 139-146, 148, 150, 193, 230
necessity 4, 9, 22, 31, 33, 35, 37, 43ff., 58f.,
73,99, 135, 145, 150
norms 223
Newcastle, Earl of [William Cavendish] 112,
219
Niirnberg Trials 307
obedience 37,78,80, 94f., 191,229,263,
266
obligation 5, I1f., 15,48, 57ff., 62, 64ff.,
93, 164, 218f., 285f., 29lf., 299f., 303, 305
legal 221, 292
theory of, 280f., 287
cf. moral obligation
obligatoriness 163
Ockham, William of 154, 221f.
optics 221
pactum 226
Paul, St. 157,235
passion(s) 22,26,28,31,40, 48ff., 54, 57ff.,
6lff., 66, 73, 76ff., 8lff., 85f., 91f., 94f.,
103, 106, 112ff., 117, 135, 137, 142, 148f.,
173, 182f., 193,204,264
peace 4ff., 10, 15, 17,29, 35ff., 52, 58f., 61,
63, 66, 74, 77, 79f., 84[f., 89f., 94ff., 99f.,
102,113, 139f., 142ff., 149f., 232, 263
Hobbes's theory of, 297,301,306-308
passim
persons
artificials 243
natural 243
Peters, R. 100f.
philosophy 4ff., 9ff., 15, 17, 22[f., 29, 33ff.,
38ff., 46f., 52, 57, 59[f., 63,67,73, 75f.,
80ff., 85, 89f., 96, 101f., 125, 135, 140,
192f., 196f., 215
political 5, 22ff., 29, 3lff., 60f., 89f., 97,
106, 111, 140, 150,298
Physicalism 280
physics 149
physiological theory 36, 101, 106, 117
Plato 29, 35, 74f., 82, 193, 196f., 215, 259,
262, 270f.
Polin, R. 100, 157
political science 22, 30, 58, 89, 144
power 1, 9, 11, 23, 26ff., 30f., 33, 50f., 54,
58, 63f., 83f., 90, 92f., 95, 113, 116, 126f.,
312

136, 142-146, 1481'., 195, 228f., 243, 299 self-preservation 30, 63f., 79, 206, 258
preservation 58 sense 24ff., 28, 31, 37f., 41f., 45f., 60, 62,
of man in general, 229, 30 I, 307 73, 85f., 93f., 103f., 106f., 126ff., 132, 134,
of one's self, 250 143, 145, 147f.
prisoner's dilemma 282, 294 sin 58, 208, 231, 265
property 14, 49ff., 96, 136f., 161f., 170, 210, skepticism 62, 103f.
258-261 passim Smith, Adam 221,280, 305
prophet 225 social contract 59, 94, 210f., 221, 228, 279f.,
prudence 52, 73ff., 93f., 107, 143,251,301, 287f., 292, 297
308 Socrates 257, 259
maxims of, 221 Solon 266f.
punishment 261-63 passim, 268 Sorbiere, Samuel 112, 115, 137
Puffendorf, S. 161 sovereign 33, 50, 52, 73ff., 82ff., 91-96, 100,
race 141 f., 144 107, 149f., 175f., 197,204,206,208,211,
Ramist 71,75, 87n, 113 244, 254, 257, 259
ransom 96, 213ff. duties of, 176f., 236f., 24lf., 245, 258,
rationality 15, 31f., 51f., 75, 78, 80, 103, 299
146, 172 power of, 188ff., 258, 266f., 292, 296, 299
Rawls, John 203, 279f., 287, 290, 294f. limits to, 251
reason 6, 9ff., 14f., 28, 30, 37, 48f., 51, rights of 170f.
57ff., 71f., 74, 76ff., 86, 89f., 92ff., 97, Spinoza, Baruch 162
103,111-115, 118, 141, 145, 148, 193, 195, state of nature 9ff., 2lff., 25ff., 50, 65, 90f.,
230, 233, 246, 263f. 93f., 96, 102, 104, 139, 146, 148f., 155,
reasonableness 281 174f., 190, 203, 212ff., 216f., 228, 234,
rebellion 217, 221, 300f. 245, 279f., 282, 284, 294f., 298f.
religion 190ff., 224ff., 232, 234, 299 Strauss, Leo 165,173,177,196
Christian 191 strength 16, 48ff., 57, 143
representative 211 Suarez, Francisco 179
Res publica 153, 158, 162 Suez crisis 307
resistance 64, 132f., 150, 236 taxation 256, 260f.
revenge 189, 255, 288 Taylor, A.E. 28, 30, 96
revolution 205,209-11 passim, 214, 216 teleology 280, 289f.
rhetoric 2ff., 7,16, 22f., 112ff., liS, 117f., theology 3, 17, 39
141, 144 Thucydides 220
right timor mortis 156
and freedom 177f. Tonnies, F. 130
and rationality 172ff., 177f. transfer of rights 61, 65
natural 153ff., 166f., 184, 198, 220 trust 82, 229, 233, 245
of nature 21, 30, 61, 64 truth 16, 22f., 37,39, 42, 44f., 47, 59, 61,
positive 162 75, 100f., 103-105, 111-114, 233, 236, 238
primary 167 universalizability 283
secondary 167, 177 utilitarianism 279, 287, 289f.
transfer of 159, 258,285, 288 act 279, 291
right reason 60, 64, 72, 184, 198, 204, 265 rule 279, 291
and right 172, 178 Vietnamese War 292, 307
Roberval, Gilles Personne de 220 voluntary actions 63, 65, 93, 126, 135,
Rousseau, Jean Jacques 21, 23, 89, 91, 96, 285-88 passim
161f., 203, 205, 208, 210, 215 war 4, 6, 9f., 21, 27f., 31, 36, 50, 58, 61,
safety of the people 86, 95, 24lf., 245 63f., 67, 72, 76ff., 83, 85, 89-96, 102,
salvation 232, 235, 299 116f., 136, 139f., 146, 156, 175, 183,261
scarcity 206 Warrender, Howard 282, 286f., 292
science 5, 7f., II, 13, 15ff., 22ff., 31, 33f., Watkins, J.W.N. 287
36, 38f., 43ff., 47, 53f., 57ff., 62, 66f., wicked 23, 51, 136, 140, 145f., 148
73f., 77f., 85, 94, 97, 99,101, 103ff., 107, words 63ff., 75f., 78f., 82, 85, 99, 102-106,
lllf., 115, 117, 143, 192, 194,215 147ff.
security 31, 206f., 251 worship 235f.