SOME REMARKS ON THE POLITICAL SCIENCE OF HOBBES1

Apropos the recent book by Mr. Lubienski2

I. Today, when on the one hand one finds, largely widespread, the opinion that

liberalism and liberal democracy have definitely gone bankrupt, and when, on the other

hand, the idea of a complete reestablishment of the ancient forms of government that

claim to be founded on a divine law, seem, as much as the Bolshevist doctrine, to appall

“the intellectual probity” of a non-negligible number of our contemporaries, the attention

of those that do not content themselves with half-solutions necessarily must carry

themselves toward the political science of Hobbes. First, because Hobbes was, as M.

Bréhier3 says, “absolutist without being theologian,” and even, we will add, without

being theist or religious in general. Next, because the rigueur and result of his thinking,

which is not denied even by his most resolute adversaries, guarantees that the solutions

that he proposes are not half-solutions.

Just or not, the modern critique of the liberal doctrine, exerted today a little

everywhere, radically modifies the situation of liberalism. Because it is the first time that

one oppose something to it that is not simply a “reactionary” critique, nor an “immanent”

critique – as is that of socialism – that, in arriving at results radically opposed to those of

liberalism, nonetheless accepts without discussion its fundamental principles. Today,

liberalism, if it still wants to maintain its positions, must, more than ever, find a radical

1 “Quelques remarques sur la science politique de Hobbes,” in Recherches Philosophiques 

(1933: 2), 609‐22. Translated from the French by Murray S. Y. Bessette. Note the French text is a 
translation by Alexandre Kojève of the original German, which can be found in Leo Strauss, 
Gesammelte Schriften, 6 Bde., Bd.3, Hobbes' politische Wissenschaft und zugehörige Schriften, Briefe, m. 
Sonderdruck von Bd.1 für die Subskribenten, ed. Heinrich Meier (Germany: Metzler, 2001). 
2 Z. Lubienski. Die Grudlagen des ethisch­politischen Systems von Hobbes. München, Reinhardt, 

1932. 
3 Emile Bréhier. 

1 
justification for its ideas: an obligation that it has never experienced in the course of its

history. Because in its beginnings it could – if not with right, at least with success – make

an appeal to certain fundamental premises that formed the basis of the religious tradition

that it combated. It [held] these principles in common with its adversary, and thus

rendered the latter vulnerable to its attacks. But today – and it is a result of the victory of

liberalism – its principles are no longer accepted as evident, of the sort that liberalism can

no longer call for them vis-à-vis those of its new adversaries. Now, when it seeks to find

a radical justification for liberalism, thus without having recourse to open or dissimulated

borrowings from the religious tradition, one sees that one is again led back to the political

science of Hobbes. Because [609] Hobbes was the first to give such a justification, and he

gave it with a radicalism that has since never been equaled. At first glance, this assertion

appears paradoxical, but it is truly only at first glance. In effect, if one looks closer, one

finds in him all the premises and all the assertions the most characteristic of liberalism. It

will suffice, for the moment, to recall the following points: the egalitarian principle is the

basis of all of the argumentation of Hobbes; the “natural right” of which he speaks has all

the characteristics of the imprescriptible rights of man; the opposition between the

military state and the industrial state of human society, the last is the only one he accepts,

is expressed in a sufficiently clear manner (cf. Elements, t. I, XIX, 2 and De cive, V, 2

with De cive, I, 2, and XIII, 14); he rejects, directly from the egalitarian principle,

paternal power over the child to the benefit of maternal power, in admitting as his

premise, the absolute legal equality of the two sexes; finally, his opinions on lay

marriage, on the abolishment of the vow, his ideas relative to the organization of higher

education, and – last not least4 – his critique of religion, all of this perfectly conforms to

4 This phrase appears in English and is italicized in the original German text. 

2 
the spirit of liberalism. The fact that Hobbes is a partisan of absolutism is not in discord

with his liberalism, and does not render it suspect. This fact proves only that he well

realized the force of the obstacles that liberalism had to surmount, obstacles coming not

only from the ancient powers of the Church and feudal State, but also, and even above

all, from human nature itself. Anyway it would not be difficult to find other examples

that would prove that liberalism always returns toward its absolutist beginnings each time

that it sees itself seriously menaced or obliged to struggle against a violent opposition.

Hobbes’s absolutism is in the final analysis nothing other than militant liberalism in statu

nascendi, that is to say liberalism in its most radical form. Hobbes is, therefore, truly the

founder of liberalism; and this is why all those who search for either a critique or a

radical justification of liberalism necessarily must return to him.

Now, in being the founder of liberalism, Hobbes all the same is not a “liberal” in

the proper sense of the term. It is also why he can open more possibilities that do not

contain liberalism properly speaking and which could have a positive value even if

liberalism properly speaking effectively had, as its adversaries claim, gone bankrupt.

The “actuality” of the political science of Hobbes will become, we believe, more

and more evident. It does not suffice to say that we could learn something in making

Hobbes the object of our study: Hobbes has to teach us something of which we are in

need. He can serve as our teacher and teach us important truths, of which we are in need

today and that we cannot find in any of our contemporaries. This imposes on the

interpretation of his [611] doctrine the duty to watch over with the greatest care that

opinions that dominate or that tend to dominate actually are not introduced tacitly in the

thinking of Hobbes. For such an alteration of the historical given would deprive the study

3 
of the politics of Hobbes of the importance that it could justly have in view of elucidating

the political doctrines of the day.

Therefore, it is precisely in supposing that the politics of Hobbes has a value

eminently actual that we ought to demand that it be analyzed with all scientific exactitude

possible, without any rapprochement with modern doctrines: this could only lend to

confusion. Consider from this point of view, the recent book by M. Lubienski (Die

Grundlagen des ethisch-politischen Systems von Hobbes, München, 1932, Rienhardt)

leaves from the beginning a favorable impression. It suffices to page through it convince

oneself that it was written with a purely scientific intent. It leaves from the beginning the

impression of solidity and of independence. In these conditions one voluntarily believes

that the author will realize what he promises us, to know how to give “an absolutely

novel solution, which will differ in large part for the results acquired up till now” (15), to

the central problems in the interpretation of Hobbes.

To be able to judge of the novelty of his solution, one must keep present the spirit

of the current interpretation of Hobbes; and to be able to recognize if the novel solution

really has the value that its author attributes to it, one must specify the central problem in

the interpretation of his thinking.

II. All those who have read Hobbes praise the rigor, the consistency, and the

intrepidity of his thinking; and all those who have studied him have always been

astonished by the numerous contradictions which one finds in his writings. Among his

most characteristic theses one does not find many which are not, in fact or in appearance,

directly or by the negation of its consequences, refuted in any one area in his writings.

4 
One therefore needs a “rule” of interpretation that, in the frequent cases where the

philosopher emits contradictory ideas, would allow the interpreter to decide which of the

assertions that contradict each other express his true opinion. Now, one could believe that

one has already found this rule in and by the first impression of rigor of the thinking of

Hobbes, an impression that certainly is not absolutely false. This impression is founded

on characteristic assertions of Hobbes, which must strike all his readers, which in

consequence are universally known as Hobbesian, and which it suffices to reunite to see

that they reveal a single fundamental conviction, perfectly clear and cognizant itself, that

it’s a single elementary will which expresses itself in and by them. And this impression of

unity and rigor is so strong that the observation of the frequent contradictions that one

finds in the writings of Hobbes are powerless to change it. We are not afraid to reproduce

one more time these characteristic assertions: the desire of power and honor,

uninterrupted, insatiable, always increasing, again the desire of more power and honor, is

the fundamental inclination of man; the beatitude is impossible; science has not intrinsic

value: scientia propter potentiam; science is limited to the study of material and efficient

causes; man is by his nature an asocial being; the state of nature is the war of all against

all; the State is an artificial formation; the primacy of natural right, that is to say

necessity, vis-à-vis the natural law, that is to say obligation; the coincidence of the social

contract with the subjugation contract; the absolute sovereignty of supreme power, and

the impossibility of a separation of powers; monarchy, the best form of government; the

subordination of the Church to the State, thus of the eternal to the temporal. Analyze the

one and indivisible conviction, of which results these assertions – that is the unique task

of the interpretation of the doctrine of Hobbes.

5 
 But it does not suffice for this interpretation to show the intimate relation that

unites these characteristic theses; at no moment must one lose sight of the relation of

these theses among themselves, such as that which was established by Hobbes himself.

But, as soon as one begins to study in detail the arguments employed by Hobbes – and it

must well be done because it is precisely these arguments that reveal the manner in which

he linked his ideas –, the first impression, lively and gripping, of the rigor of his thinking

and without which the analysis of his doctrine would be completely disoriented, is

revealed to give us only one insufficient “cannon.” Because this impression does not

permit us to decide which contradictory arguments must be considered as the most

characteristic for Hobbes.

One therefore has a need for a more concrete “rule,” better adapted to the

particular character of the contradictions in question.

Such a “rule” cannot be found except if the contradictions of Hobbes are typical

and are not due to chance [haphazard]. One can suppose from the beginning that it is

truly so, and the analysis confirms this assumption: the Hobbesian philosophy is

determined by two contradictory tendencies, that Hobbes did not know how to reconcile,

and which, anyway, cannot be. The interpreter must, therefore, make a choice: he must

openly and expressly eliminate one of the two contradictory tendencies, in order to

reestablish – in the sense of the other tendency, and in basing it uniquely on this one – the

unity of the politics of Hobbes, that this last had seen without, however, the power to

realize it entirely. Now it is clear that the interpretation must be based on the authentic

tendency, characteristic for Hobbes, and abstracted from that which is only traditional,

and which Hobbes opposed and from which he tried (with more or less success) to

6 
liberate himself from, just as the proof the characteristic tendency, which is without a

doubt, anti-traditional.

The difficulty begins when one tries to define the traditional tendency and the

original tendency. Mr. Lubienski, following other historians (32, note), admits that

Hobbes had the intention to philosophize in the spirit of modern Galilean science, but he

could not always realize this intention, because he was again imbued with the

Aristotelian-Scholastic science that, moreover, he radically combated. But it is

impossible to stop at this observation. Dilthey5 signaled the “dependency” of Hobbes vis-

à-vis roman stoicism, and Mr. Lubienski underlines the “dependency” vis-à-vis Plato (see

especially 222-228). What relation is there between these “dependencies” and the

dependency vis-à-vis the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition? Does Hobbes return to Plato

by opposition to the Aristotelian tradition? Does he truly return to Plato, or does he

endure, only the influence of the platonic tradition? Has one, in general, when one begins

from Hobbes and studies his relations with the tradition, the right to distinguish Plato and

Aristotle? The series of questions that are posed here themselves, and that must be

resolved if one wants to arrive at a coherent interpretation of the Hobbesian doctrine,

easily could be prolonged. We will content ourselves to observe that Mr. Lubienski does

not pose them. He asserts, on the one hand, that the dependency of the Aristotelian-

Scholastic tradition is responsible from “rationalism” of Hobbes, which impedes his

naturalist and “empirical-critical” tendency from fully realizing itself, and he sees, on the

other hand, precisely in the “rationalism” his dependency vis-à-vis Plato, without trying

to elucidate the relation between these two facts.

5 Wilhelm Dilthey. 

7 
 The problem of the relations between the politics of Hobbes and the tradition, a

problem the solution to which is the indispensable premise of the interpretation, does not

lose with Mr. Lubienski the importance that befits it, because he thinks “the faults that

are due to the contradiction between the ancient and new ideas (sc. In the interior of the

politics of Hobbes) are nothing but completely insignificant residues” (33). We have no

need of discussing in detail this opinion of Mr. Lubienski, which is not only materially

false, but also, as it is easy to see in considering it more closely, incomprehensible. It

suffices to signal that Mr. Lubienski – on the occasion of the doctrine of duty, which is

the central part of Hobbesian politics – speaks of “the continual hesitation of Hobbes

between the objective and subjective foundations of morals”, and he brings this

“hesitation” back to the “principal defect” of Hobbes, namely to his attempt to reconcile

the tradition and modern manners of seeing.

III. Mr. Lubienski purports to give “an absolutely novel solution, in large part

different from the results acquired hitherto” (15) of the fundamental problems in the

interpretation of Hobbes. He arrives at his solutions by placing the notion of duty at the

center of his study, and by [614] showing the close relation between this notion and “the

principles of the mechanistic psychology of Hobbes” (14). This positioning6 of the

problem – the interpretation7 of the politics of Hobbes as a naturalist doctrine of duty – is

without a doubt congruous with the sense of most of the express declarations of Hobbes

on his intentions. But it is again evident that this does not constitute a guaranty, for it is

strongly possible that the development of the politics of Hobbes refutes his intention. And

6 The word in the German original is “Bestimmung” or “stipulation.” 
7 The word in the German original is “Verständnis” or “understanding.” 

8 
even in admitting that the task that Mr. Lubienski sets up is realizable, it must again be

asked if the most authentic interpretation is also the most appropriate interpretation. Mr.

Lubienski is ready to recognize “with Tönnies8 that the researches (of Hobbes) relative to

the natural sciences matured much later in his mind9 that his political and social

opinions.” Even in admitting that “the ability with which he unites his final opinions with

the psycho-physical elements of his doctrine assigns him the glory of being one of the

premier representatives of the naturalist trend in ethics and political science” (31), - it

remains that he conceived of his ideas regarding man and the state independently of the

natural sciences, and only after tried to deduce them from the latter. Is it no possible, as a

consequence, to understand his political science completely independent of the

subsequent naturalist deduction? Did he not himself expressly assert at many times the

independence of political science vis-à-vis the natural sciences? This possibility becomes

a necessity if one could show that the most profound anthropological and political ideas

of Hobbes are violated rather than clarified by the subsequent naturalist demonstrations

(without speaking of the fact that the naturalism itself is not, sum total, so “natural” that

one ought not to ask which of its roots are not “scientific” but simply human). It is

therefore, not as evident as Mr. Lubienski thinks that he must base the interpretation of

the politics of Hobbes on the most “mature” writings, that is to say, in particular, on

Leviathan (p. 15). Moreover, it is possible that the most mature treatment is that where

the real roots of the new ideas on man and the State are the most “cleverly” concealed.

Anyway, the univocal and precise texts that can be cited to support the attempt to

understand the politics of Hobbes as a naturalist doctrine of duty are so numerous that

8 Ferdinand Tönnies. 
9 The word in the German original is “Geiste,” which Kojève rendered as “esprit” in French. 

9 
one has in any case the right to try. And one must congratulate Mr. Lubienski for having

posed his problem in a very precise manner. See now the fashion in which he treats it.

His analysis of the “fundamental principles of the system of ethics” of Hobbes

(46-68) culminates in the following result: for Hobbes the Good is “the stimulation of

life”, while “the norm of the universally valid morals” is “the conservation of life”. This

distinction implies the important statement that Hobbes obtains the principle of [615] the

morals by the restriction of a more primitive fact, and that this one cannot “serve as a

base for the constitution of a universally valid morals” (55).

But one must ask firstly if one correctly reproduces the opinion of Hobbes when

one says that the Good is “the stimulation of life”. Admitting that Mr. Lubienski has

reason to say that for Hobbes the Good is not pleasure, not the conservation of oneself

(50-57), that on the contrary “Hobbes subordinates this sentiment of pleasure to another

Good, to knowledge, to the stimulation of the vital movements (sc. localized in the heart),

which pleasure but an indication”. It must be said nevertheless that the precise

expression: “stimulation of the vital movements”, employed by Hobbes himself, certainly

signifies something other than the vague expression: “stimulation of life”, that one does

not find in Hobbes in the sense that Mr. Lubienski attributes to him.

The latter expression moreover is dangerous, for it can veil from one the necessity

of deducing duty from pre-moral facts (what a naturalist theory of duty necessarily must

try to do), since “the stimulation of life” can designate the ensemble of human activities,

and thence all moral actions (62). Beginning thus from a principle that is not truly a

naturalist principle where therefore does it dispense with the essential task of a naturalist

ethics. One thus has all the more the right to assert that, according to Hobbes, the Good is

10 
the stimulation of the vital movements. Specified thusly, the assertion is in accord with

all the fundamental texts. For if “good” is only that which stimulates the vital

movements, then [the assertion] also says: all the true goods are sensible goods; spiritual

goods are means of obtaining sensible goods (ad sensuale conducentia10), are vain, that is

to say, identical to the pleasures of vanity. This opinion is clearly expressed by Hobbes in

De cive, 12. (It is beginning with this passage, as well as that of De corpore, 16, that one

must interpret the unique citation of Mr. Lubienski that appears to permit him to

overshoot the definition of good as “the stimulation of vital movements”, – namely the

remark on the science in De homine, XI, 9; that, indeed, Mr. Lubienski himself implicitly

admits cf. 241).

Secondly, one can reproach Mr. Lubienski for believing he could define “the

Good”, that is to say “the true Good” (53), before having determined “the norm of the

universally valid morals”. Without a doubt, the question relative to this norm is not the

first question of the ethics of Hobbes. But this does not mean that the first question of his

ethics is the problem of the “true Good”. It clearly flows from a passage of the

“Dedication” of De cive, cited by Mr. Lubienski (88), that the determination of the end of

the cupiditas naturalis11 must precede the invention of the “norm of the universally valid

morals”. Mr. Lubienski identifies, it is true, the “true Good” with the end of the cupiditas

naturalis. But this identification, contrarily to what [616] Mr. Lubienski thinks (48), is

not at all justified by the fact that desire is directed toward a good, for one must ask

precisely if this good which is the end of desire is the true Good. Now, it cannot be

contested that Hobbes answers this question in the negative. According to him (v. the

10 Concerning useful feelings. 
11 Natural desire. 

11 
passage from De cive, Ep. ded., cited by Mr. Lubienski himself, 88, also see De cive, III,

31 s.), the cupititas naturalis is opposed to the ration naturalis12, which is solely capable

of recognizing the true Good. Desire is in any case pre-rational. It is even the pre-rational

fact, and, hence, pre-moral, par excellence, the restriction of which gives “the norm of the

universally valid morals”; and it is from this pre-rational fact that one must begin in one

wishes to understand well the manner in which Hobbes poses the foundations of his

morals. When one asks what is the good that is the goal aimed at by natural desire, in

other words: what is the natural ideal of happiness, one cannot but answer with Tönnies:

this goal is the advance, with the fewest hindrances, in the acquisition of power and

honor. Mr. Lubienski objects to this interpretation that “the aspiration to power and honor

… is not in any case posed as the end supreme and in itself” (60). In effect, the aspiration

to power and honor is not, for Hobbes, “the final end in itself”; but advancing with the

fewest hindrances in the acquisition of power and honor is “the greatest good” for natural

desire, that is to say for “natural man”, to whom infelicitous experiences have not yet

taught modesty (cf. De homine, XI, 15 with Elements, I, ix, 21 and Leviathan, XI, as well

as with De cive, I, 2, note 1 and I, 4). The aspiration to a greater and greater power can

equally, it is true, be truly good, that is to say reasonable. But this reasonable aspiration to

power cannot be understood as reasonable only when the principle of “natural reason”,

that is to say the “norm of the universally valid morals”, is elucidated. Reasonable

aspiration is “permitted” aspiration, that is to say conformed to natural right (Leviathan,

XI). A more thorough analysis would show in addition that according to the opinion of

Hobbes natural desire is, at bottom, nothing other than a search for higher and higher

honor, that is to say, – along the Hobbesian conception of honor – nothing other than

12 Natural reason. 

12 
vanity. The opinion of Mr. Lubienski according to which unlimited aspiration to honor

according to Hobbes appears not “in some men” (61) comes from the erroneous

interpretation of a passage from Leviathan, XIII, cited in its support. Furthermore, this

view is clearly contradicted by the passage (Leviathan, XIII) in question, not to mention

many other passages.

Thirdly, we must oppose to the conception that Mr. Lubienski made the “first

principles of the system of ethics” of Hobbes the following remark: in the opposition

between the goal of natural desire and that of natural reason is reduced to the difference

between the “stimulation of [617] life” and the “conservation of life”, the politics of

Hobbes loses completely its proper tension. For when one replaces natural desire, which

(as the comparison of the passage from De cive, Ep. Ded., mentioned above, with De

cive, I, 12) is identical with the “natural tendency of men to mutual harm”, by

“stimulation to life”, it becomes incomprehensible why, according to Hobbes, homo

homini lupus est, why man is, as Mr. Lubienski says, an “asocial” being; and one

comprehends it even less when, according to Mr. Lubienski, “the tendency to the

stimulation to life embraces all human activities and, thereby, all moral actions” (62).

IV. Let us now pass to the analysis of the doctrine of duty of Hobbes (69-117),

which forms, according to Mr. Lubienski himself, the central part of his work. Mr.

Lubienski, like many other historians before him, distinguish within the doctrine of

Hobbes a “logical” deduction and a “psychological” analysis of duty. The “logical”

deduction shows in the conservation of life “an absolute and irrefutable exigency of

reason”: man by his nature aspires toward “the blossoming of life”, and must, as a

13 
consequence, aspire first to the “conservation of life” (cf. 56 and 69). But this explication

is insufficient because it does not explain “why the conservation of life is the duty of each

man” (109). It is the “psychological” analysis that is responsible for answering this more

profound question. It results that duty is a hindrance; more exactly: a hindrance that is not

effectively sensed but forecasts, as a consequence, a mental and moral hindrance (71-76

and 82; cf. above all 76: “the forecast is already a factor of moral nature”). It therefore

must be said that duty is “a moral obstacle (sc. = spiritual) that hinders in men the pursuit

of their natural ends” (73). This evidently signifies that duty is a constraint (84 and 118)

or a psychic hindrance (82). The “logical” analysis did not take into account this element

of constraint. Hobbes tries to link the two analyses of duty by asserting that man,

effectively and necessarily, wants what he must will reasonably, to know all that serves

the conservation of his life. But since the will of man, in fact, is not always reasonable,

Hobbes is obliged to postulate, outside of the conscious will, very often contrary to

reason, the existence of an “unconscious” will, “presumptive” (“mutmaßlicher Wille”),

that is the true will, and always reasonable, of man (87 and 148 ss.).

The remark of Mr. Lubienski on the “presumptive will” is fairly exact.

Mr. Lubienski recognizes as well that the source of this opinion “must be sought

in the doctrine of Plato, according to which one never commits injustice consciously”

(149, note, where Mr. Lubienski refers in particular to Crito, 51, E). One can ask,

however, if [618] Mr. Lubienski renders justice to Hobbes. He believes he is able to

object that there are not, in reality, “unconscious traits”, “unconscious will or

unconscious desires” (229). We would like on the other hand to emphasize in favor of

Hobbes that, if Mr. Lubienski is correct, the attempt “to render conscious this obscure

14 
will” (156), of enlightening man in regard to himself, would have no sense, because it

would be superfluous. The notion of “presumptive will” cannot, we believe, be

understood except as a part of the idea of an “enlightenment philosophy”: detached from

this original foundation, it becomes incomprehensible and, as a consequence, easy to

criticize.

And it is because Mr. Lubienski comprehends neither the profound roots, nor the

motives, no less profound, of the notion of a “presumptive will”, that the latter appears to

him, in the final analysis, lie a fallback solution. According to him, Hobbes formulated

this notion of a “presumptive will” because he wanted – a contradictory attempt – “to

reconcile the normative character of the natural law with a positivist comprehension of

the world, the notion of duty with a deterministic conception of nature” (196); in general,

because he wanted to support “modern principles, based on psychological experience and

observation, with the aid of obsolete arguments and deductions” (233). The notion of a

“presumptive will” would not be necessary save that Hobbes wanted to reconcile the

“logical” and “psychological” foundations of duty.

We do not contest that there are sufficient texts that authorize the distinction

between “logical” foundations and “psychological” foundations. But, as Tönnies already

has demonstrated, Hobbes does not seek simply to reconcile the two foundations; he

seeks to make them coincide. That is to say that the true thought of Hobbes cannot be

understood beginning from a distinction between “logical” foundations and

“psychological” foundations of duty. One cannot grasp this unless one ascends beyond

this distinction.

15 
 According to Mr. Lubienski, the “logical” deduction of duty reduces to this: all

good, as good for man, presupposes that man lives; as a consequence, the conservation of

life is the first of goods. But there is no doubt that we cannot, according to Hobbes

himself, be satisfying by this overly “logical” statement. The insufficiency of this

demonstration which is said to be clear, according to which the conservation of life will

be “an absolute and irrefutable exigency of reason”, becomes even more evident again

once one reverses the question: is death the largest of evils? Hobbes does not answer in

the affirmative so much as by making some important qualifications, because he knows

that, under certain conditions, death can be considered as a good. The conservation of

life, therefore, cannot be the norm of a universally valid morals. Hobbes nevertheless

asserts that violent and painful death is in any case the largest of evils (De homine, XI, 6

and De cive, Ep. ded.). It is, therefore, not the conservation of life as such, but its defense

[619] against possible attacks on the part of other men, which is the end that morals are,

according to Hobbes, the means. It is because the law of nature, which has for content the

conditions of the peaceful life, coincide for him completely with the morals (Leviathan,

XV); it is also because in the catalogue of virtues established by Plato and Aristotle, he

retains only justice, and does not acknowledge the others (for example, courage,

liberality, etc.), that is to say, those which are not conditions of the peaceful life within

society. (De homine, XIII, 9. Beginning from this passage and taking into account the

general economy of the politics of Hobbes, the assertion of the existence of virtues other

than justice, – for example in De cive, III, 32, – is explained by the not yet surmounted

influence of the tradition.) Hence therefore: it is not the means of conserving life as such,

16 
but the means of defending life against the attacks of other men, that is to say it is the

conditions of peace and them only that form the content of duty.

But why is it the duty of man to safeguard peace? It is the “psychological”

analysis of duty that must answer this question. Mr. Lubienski debates the interpretation

according to which Hobbes would have conceived the action determined by duty as an

action determined by fear. Contrary to this interpretation, Mr. Lubienski asserts that, for

Hobbes, “the motives of duty and of fear differ absolutely” (93). He remarks with reason

that Hobbes, no less well than any other moralist, knew to distinguish between an action

determined by duty and an action motivated by fear of punishment (113 s.). Mr.

Lubienski distinguishes then in Hobbes to significations of “fear”: an “intellectual”

signification and an “affective” signification. It is only with fear understood in the

“intellectual” sense with which Hobbes identifies the consciousness of duty; and fear or

care understood as such is nothing other than “the voice of reason” (94-98). Now, it is

here that the true problem rises up, which Mr. Lubienski sadly does not pose: why does

the word “fear” (metus), in its largest sense, mean in Hobbes simply “the voice of

reason”? why does Hobbes call reason, as consciousness of duty, – “fear”? Evidently

because the rational consciousness of duty constitutes itself in and by the forecast of

something terrifying, of the most terrifying thing there is, that is to say of violent death.

We will not discuss this explanation of the consciousness of duty. Whatever its value is,

it permits one to distinguish, just as Mr. Lubienski wishes, between action determined by

duty and action motivated by the dread of punishment: “duty” and “fear” different

between them like constant, astute, farsighted, fear determining the entire life, differs

from shortsighted and momentary fear, Mr. Lubienski himself recalls anyway the

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essential connection between the dread of violent death and the consciousness of duty. He

says in effect: “the threat of death forms a base [620] favorable to the constitution of a

universally valid system” (124). It is then the danger of death, and not, as Mr. Lubienski

said elsewhere (113), “the rational postulate of the necessity of the conservation of one-

self” that is the source of duty. The dread of violent death, – there is the difference, the

constraint sought by the “psychological” analysis of duty. But this fact, which,

supposedly, is only searched for by the “psychological” analysis, differs not from that

which occupies – and in the same sense – the “logical” deduction: the recognition of

violent death as the biggest evil is necessarily the fear of this death; and it is why this

knowledge is “constraining”.

Thus there is, according to Hobbes, a single [seul] foundation of duty: the fear of

violent death as a fear that determines man in his entire life. That is not to say that this

fear is the only [seul] foundation of duty. The mediation between the fear of violent death

and the consciousness of duty is formed by their mutual confidence. It cannot be a

question, here, of developing the genesis of the consciousness of duty from the fear of

violent death. This, in any case, is only possible if one strictly follows the “signposts” of

Hobbes himself, which is to say if one grasps the general economy of his political

science. This economy is completely ignored by Mr. Lubienski. He mentions, it is true,

the fact that Hobbes distinguishes between natural right and natural law (84-86 and 157-

159). But, as it betrays already his incapacity, recognized by himself, to translate

adequately these expressions, he has not understood the capital importance of this

distinction. It is for this reason he can say that, according to Hobbes, “the conservation of

life is, at bottom, our first duty” (71). For Hobbes clearly says that the conservation of

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life is the content of natural right, which is to day that natural man has the absolute right,

but not the duty, to conserve his life. Mr. Lubienski thus has not understood the manner

of proceeding of Hobbes. For Hobbes deduces first natural right, which is to say that

which man has the absolute right to demand, and only after natural law, which is to say

that which man has the duty to do. It is thus entirely impossible to understand the

doctrine of duty of Hobbes, if one does not distinguish clearly the deduction of natural

right from that of natural law, – and if one does not understand this first. For it is then

impossible to understand the sense of the introduction, by Hobbes, of the distinction

between the just and the unjust. Now, he introduces this distinction not only in the theory

of duty, but already in the theory of natural right. Now, if one does not perceive that it is

already natural right, and not only natural law, that possesses a moral character, one

easily arrives at a misunderstanding of the very narrow deduction and – as the differences

of the three writings of the politics of Hobbes already prove – very difficult from natural

right. This is precisely what Mr. Lubienski does, in identifying the “natural desire” and

the aspiration to “the stimulation of life”, which “combine at the same time all the moral

actions”. The interpretation of natural desire, as the aspiration to “the stimulation of life”

suffices therefore for rendering the comprehension of the politics of Hobbes impossible.

In summary, we oppose to the interpretation of Mr. Lubienski the following two

objections: 1) natural desire is, according to Hobbes, not the aspiration to “the stimulation

of life”, but, as a deeper analysis shows, the desire of man to please himself in being

recognized by other men as superior to them; in a word, vanity. 2) It is false to say that

there is in Hobbes two different foundations of duty that are not united except

subsequently; there is only one, which can be characterized neither as “logical” nor as

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“psychological”: Hobbes sees the foundation of duty in the fear of violent death. Vanity

and fear are the two poles between which, according to the doctrine of Hobbes, man

moves in transforming himself from natural man into a citizen. “By his nature”, which is

to say before all education, man is vain, dominated by the unlimited desire of a more and

more complete triumph. To this unlimited desire is opposed, in limiting it, the fear of

violent death: this brings back the “natural” maximal exigency of man to the reasonable

minimal exigency, which wants nothing other than the conservation pure and simple of

life. It is precisely this restriction that renders man capable of contracting obligations and

that are therefore the source of duty.

Vanity is more ancient than fear. But man only can live under the empire of

vanity so long as he misunderstands his own forces and those of other men, so long as he

does not know his true situation. Now he recognizes this when he finds himself in the

presence of a violent death. Before the experience of danger, man lives in the world of his

imagination, he lives as he dreams: he awakens, he regains consciousness of self,

damnorum experientia13, in taking consciousness of the dreadful character of the real

world. The fear of violent death therefore is nothing less than an obscure and blind dread,

since it is on the contrary the only force that “illuminates” man and renders him “lucid”.

It is in the opposition of vanity and fear that the character of the philosophy of Hobbes as

an enlightenment philosophy is revealed.

Vanity and fear characterize two contrary modes of the life of man. To vanity, to

the attitude of physically mature man, but which nevertheless is a puer robustus14,

corresponds the ideal natural happiness of man: the dream of triumph, conquest,

13 Experiential knowledge damns. 
14 Powerful child. 

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domination over all men and, by this, over all things. To fear, which properly belongs to

homo adultus15, corresponds the attitude of defense, of the modest life, of toil organized

in common. It is to this opposition, which has never been presented in so clear, so

profound, and so sincere a manner as by Hobbes, that one must return to it if one wants to

understand the ideals of liberalism and socialism in their shared fundamentals. Because

all struggle against politics, guided under the name of economics, presupposes the

preliminary depreciation of the primary. Now, this depreciation is effected in opposing,

overtly or in a dissimulating manner, politics, considered as the proper domain of vanity,

of prestige, of desire of domination, to economics, considered as the world of reasonable

and modest work.

It is thus a specifically modern attitude that is expressed in and by the opposition

of vanity and fear (or modesty). This opposition appears at first sight as a secularized

form of the opposition superbia-humilitas16. It has in any case as a foundation the

Christian conception of life. It is beginning from this opposition that an epoch, which has

lost faith, but which nevertheless is determined by faith, sees and understands itself. But

this attitude, modern, and that, truly, is not only expressed in the writings of Hobbes,

cannot be understood simply by beginning from this privative premise. The voice that

leads from vanity to fear is the voice that guides from unconsciousness to circumspection,

from the brilliant mirage of the “political life” to the truly good, accessible only to

rational understanding. Which means: the opposition vanity – fear is the modern form,

determined by Christianity, of the opposition posed in a classical manner by Socrates-

Plato.

15 Adult human. 
16 Pride‐humility. 

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 A true comprehension of the politics of Hobbes, a judgment founded and based on

this, at bottom therefore is not possible unless one confronts it with the politics of Plato.

Only then can we decide in the transposition of the antique ideas by Hobbes, determined,

in fact, by Christianity, truly resting, as he affirms on a more profound understanding of

human nature; it is only then that we can see what at bottom is this aspiration to

profundity.

Leo Strauss

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