Thomas Hobbes: Political Philosophy

Introduction

While reading about a political philosopher, always keep in mind his personal life experiences and the socio-economic and political conditions of the time he was living in. Both have a deep impact on his ideas.

Thomas Hobbes was no exception

B. Thomas Hobbes-Life

Hobbes was the son of a clergyman, who left the family in 1604 and never returned. He was brought up by a wealthy uncle who sponsored Hobbes’ education at Oxford. He later became the tutor of Charles, Prince of Wales. Both remained in exile for 11 years.

C. Europe in the 1700s

With England on the brink of civil war, the Royalist Hobbes fled to Paris, fearing the reaction of the Long Parliament to his writing. Between 1646 and 1648, Hobbes was a mathematics tutor to Charles, Prince of Wales (the future Charles II), who was also in exile

It was the age of discovery in Europe. Hobbes was a contemporary of Galileo and Kepler, who had discovered laws governing planetary motion, thereby discrediting much of the Aristotelian worldview. He hoped to establish similar laws of motion to explain the behaviour of human beings

Thus, these three things, the anarchy he saw around him, his closeness with royalty, and the new scientific discoveries are the main motivations for his book Leviathan. All his following main ideas spring out of these three above-mentioned events in his life.

D. Core Ideas of Thomas Hobbes

1. The Materialist View of Human Nature
2. Fear as the Determining Factor in Human Life
3. Good and Evil as Appetite and Aversion
4. Absolute Monarchy as the Best Form of Government

E. The Materialist View of Human Nature

Hobbes believed that all phenomena in the universe could be explained in terms of the motions and interactions of material bodies. He did not believe in the soul, the mind as separate from the body, or any other incorporeal or metaphysical entities.

Instead, he saw human beings essentially as machines, with even their thoughts and emotions operating according to physical laws and chains of cause and effect, action, and reaction.

As machines, human beings pursue their self-interest relentlessly, mechanically avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure. Hobbes saw society, as a similar machine, larger than the human body and artificial but operating according to the laws governing motion and collision.

F. Fear as the Determining Factor in Human Life

Hobbes maintained that the constant back-and-forth mediation between the emotions of fear and hope is the defining principle of all human actions. Either fear or hope is present at all times in all people.

In the state of nature, as Hobbes depicts it, humans intuitively desire to obtain as much power and “good” as they can, and no laws prevent them from harming or killing others to attain what they desire.

Thus, the state of nature is one of constant war, wherein humans live in perpetual fear of one another. This fear, in combination with their faculties of reason, impels men to follow the fundamental law of nature and seek peace among each other.

Peace is attained only by coming together to forge a social contract, whereby men consent to be ruled in a commonwealth governed by one supreme authority. The natural fear of such harm compels subjects to uphold the contract and submit to the sovereign’s will.

G. Good and Evil as Appetite and Aversion

Hobbes believed that in man’s natural state, moral ideas do not exist. Thus, in speaking of human nature, he defines good simply as that which people desire and evil as that which they avoid, at least in the state of nature.

Hobbes uses these definitions as the basis for explaining a variety of emotions and behaviours. For example, hope is the prospect of attaining some apparent good, whereas fear is the recognition that some apparent good may not be attainable

Hobbes believes that moral judgments about good and evil cannot exist until they are decreed by a society’s central authority. This position leads directly to Hobbes’s belief in an autocratic and absolutist form of government.

H. Absolute Monarchy as Best Form of Government

Hobbes argues that absolutist monarchy is the only right form of government to minimize discord and factionalism within society — whether between state & church, between rival governments or between different contending philosophies

Hobbes believes that any such conflict leads to civil war. He holds that any form of ordered government is preferable to civil war. Thus, he advocates that all members of society submit to one absolute, central authority for the sake of maintaining the common peace.

I. Hobbes’s Political Science

Based on the above-mentioned four core ideas, Hobbes’s political science proper consists of three interrelated postulates, namely

1. State of Nature
2. Social Contract
3. Sovereign as Leviathan -

J. The State of Nature

The idea of the state of nature is an effort to understand what humans would be like without any government or society & why we let ourselves be governed. Hobbes believed that it would be a state of freedom & equality, but also a war of all against all for three reasons

1. Competition: Because of the scarcity of resources, and also the fact that human beings are naturally equal, each individual possesses the natural right to preserve himself and seek all power, there would be intense competition among them to gain maximum for himself
2. Distrust: As individuals strive to accumulate goods, they compete with each other, and consequently create an atmosphere of distrust. The attempt to acquire things, and preserve them from the encroachments of others, causes us to try to dominate and control those around us.
3. Glory: Furthermore, Hobbes observes, that some people care particularly to be known as that sort who can dominate — they are vainglorious or prideful individuals who are unhappy if they are not recognized as superior.

These three things — competition, distrust, and desire for glory — throw humankind into a state of war, which is for Hobbes the natural condition of human life, the situation that exists whenever natural passions are unrestrained.

K. The Social Contract

Once the misery of the natural condition becomes clear, it is evident that something must be done to change it. The first step is for individuals to decide to seek peace and to make the arrangements necessary to attain and preserve it.

Thus, the only way to have peace is for each individual to give up his natural right to acquire and preserve everything in whatever manner he sees fit. It must be a collective endeavour, as it only makes sense for an individual to give up his right to attack others

Hobbes calls this collective renunciation of each individual’s right to all things the “social contract.” It inverts the state of nature while also building upon some key passions responsible for the state of nature: an intelligent way to preserve oneself and safely acquire goods.

L. Sovereign as Leviathan

The sovereign is not a party to the social contract; he receives the obedience of the many as a gift in their hope that he will see to their safety. The sovereign makes no promises to the many to win their submission.

Indeed, because the Sovereign does not transfer his right of self-government to anyone, he retains the total liberty that his subjects trade for safety and ensures that everyone involved in the social contract will keep his word, he is “visible power to keep them in awe,”

Contrary to the common assumption that the Leviathan is a king, Hobbes makes clear that the sovereign power can be one person, several, or many — a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy. The only requirement is that the entity has absolute power to defend the social contract

M. Religion in the Commonwealth

One power that Hobbes insists the sovereign must possess is the authority to determine public observance of religion, as religion can be one of the chief threats to public peace since it can validate authorities other than those designated by the sovereign.

Hobbes is concerned with both the church, which makes spiritual or moral claims with political intent, and an appeal to private conscience, which is essentially the claim that an individual's opinion should take priority over a common agreement represented by the political sovereign.

N. Impact of Thomas Hobbes

1. Hobbes’s importance lies not only in his political philosophy but also in his contribution to the development of an anti-Aristotelian and thoroughly materialist conception of natural science.

Hobbes rejects the most famous thesis of Aristotle’s politics, namely that human beings are political animals who fully realize their natures as citizens of a polity. Hobbes turns Aristotle’s claim on its head: human beings, he insists, are by nature unsuited to political life.

2. His political philosophy influenced not only successors, such as Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, who adopted the social contract framework, but also those theorists who connected moral and political decision-making in rational human beings to considerations of self-interest

3. The materialist bent of Hobbes’s metaphysics is also much in keeping with contemporary Anglo-American, or analytic, metaphysics, which tends to recognize as real only those entities that physics in particular or natural science in general presupposes.

4. Although Hobbes’s emphasis on the absolute power of the Leviathan sovereign seems to put his political thought at odds with liberal theory, in which politics is devoted to the protection of individual rights, he did lay the foundation for the liberal view.

After all, Hobbes’s concept of the state of nature grounds politics in the individual’s desire to preserve his life and his goods, and stipulates that the role of government is to serve these ends. If this is not a liberal view, then what else is?

Yes, it is not as comprehensive as the modern liberal view, but he does suggest that politics exists to help further the individual’s pursuit of happiness. A representative government that represents but does not rule us, makes our lives and acquisitions safe, not our souls.

5. John Locke used many of the elements of Hobbes’s thought to develop the first full account of modern political liberalism. Although Locke takes pains to distance himself from Hobbes, Hobbes’s influence can be seen in Locke’s account of the state of nature

Taking cues from Hobbes, Locke makes the preservation of property central in his argument that the origin of all legitimate government lies in the consent of the governed, and his view that the political community should aim to serve basic, common needs

6. Through Locke, Hobbes indirectly influenced the founders of the United States, who, in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, proclaimed a new kind of politics based on equality and consent, in which government serves relatively limited and popular aims.

7. Some disagree with Hobbes’s claim that politics should be viewed primarily as an instrument to serve self-interest, and side with Aristotle in thinking that politics serves both basic needs and higher ends. However, there is another view.

Hobbes’s systematic focus on achievable goals has made possible the security and prosperity that those in modern Western nations enjoy, and these conditions give us the leisure and peace to pursue knowledge and excellence in the private life goals of Aristotle.

Comparison of Social Contract Theory by Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke

Although using the same concepts, all three philosophers—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, have different meanings about the state of nature, the reasons for entering into a social contract, and the nature of state and society in the new setting.

According to the authors, the concept of the social contract is that in the past, people lived in a State of Nature that lacked governments and laws to regulate them and their lives. Thus, in that condition, they faced hardships, miseries, and irregularities, and to overcome the problems, they entered into agreements.

However, for Rousseau and Locke, the State of Nature was not as unpleasant as for Hobbes.

State of Nature

1. Rousseau argues that in the State of Nature, people get many advantages from nature that they cannot have in the civil state. What people lose under the social contract is their natural liberty and unrestricted right to anything they want and can get.

2. For Hobbes, however, the State of Nature was as unpleasant as he called life conditions full of fear and selfishness where people live in a chaotic condition of permanent fear. According to Hobbes, life in the State of Nature was ‘solitary’, ‘poor’, ‘brutish’, and ‘short’

3. Locke, contrary to Hobbes, considers the State of Nature not that miserable, arguing that it was a state of perfect and complete liberty where everyone could conduct his life the way he saw best. In the State of Nature, all people were equal, independent and free from the interference of others Although there was no civil authority to maintain order, people were bound to some morality. Therefore, the State of Nature according to Locke was ‘pre-political’, but not ‘pre-moral’.

Why Social Contract

1. For Rousseau, a man enters into the contract to gain more power to preserve what he has, and to do that, he has to submit his will to the ‘General Will or the sovereign’, a kind of alienation.

2. For Hobbes, people’s natural desire for security and protection made them enter into the contract, and to achieve this, they should surrender all their rights and freedoms to an authority whom they must obey.

3. Locke argues that due to the absence of law, impartial judges, and executive power, the property was not safe in the State of Nature. Thus, people decided to enter into a contract for the sake of property preservation.

Role of State

1. For Hobbes, the authority becomes the absolute head, and subjects have no rights against the authority. However, Hobbes argues that people enter into such a contract due to their ‘rationality and self-interest’ for the sake of the preservation of peace, life, and prosperity (Hobbes, 2017). Therefore, one would argue that Hobbes was a supporter of absolutism. Here a problem arises: What guarantees the subjects’ rights against the authority? To protect the subjects and their rights, Hobbes placed moral obligations on the authority that would be bound by natural law.

2. But Rousseau argues that this submission happens in a way that man remains as free as before. Therefore, the states and laws are formed by the ‘sovereign’ and the state has to protect the natural rights of its citizens. But when it fails, citizens have the right and occasionally the duty to withdraw their support from, or even take action against the state. The state has to ensure the freedom and liberties of man in all circumstances (Therefore, Rousseau put individuals before the state)

3. In Locke’s view, people do not surrender all their rights to the authority, only the right to preserve property and enforce the law. As a result, people retain the right to life, liberty, and estate. So, government and law are created to protect the natural rights of people and they are valid until they do their jobs

Conclusion

1. State of Nature was a state of war for Hobbes, but a state of relatively peaceful, equality and independence for Locke and Rousseau.

2. Preservation of life, property, and individual prosperity are counted as key factors by the three philosophers that forced people to enter into the contract.

3. While Hobbes says that whatever the state does is right and just for its citizens and supports absolute authority without titling any value in individuals, Locke argues that the state’s main job is to ensure justice is secured, while Rousseau asserts that the state in all circumstances must ensure the freedom and liberty of its citizens.

4. So, Rousseau and Locke put more support and value on people than the government, while Hobbes does the opposite.

5. In other words, Hobbes supports an absolutist system, Locke supports constitutionalism, and Rousseau supports a representative form of government.