Thomas Hobbes – 1588-1679 – Lecture 1

 Remember to think about it within the context of the English Civil War
 Civil War gets more and more violent as it goes on
 Hobbes solution to the problem to political violence is absolute authority in whatever person or
persons it was vested

Thinking contextually

 Hobbes experience of the civil war violence led him to state that the burdens of even the
most oppressive government are scarce sensible, in respect of the miseries, and horrible
calamities, that accompany a Civil War
- Any government is better than a civil war
- Hobbes wants to give us a scientific account of why authoritarian governments are
least prone to lead to civil war

Methodology

 Hobbes probably the 2nd thinker in Western political thought to offer a scientific view of
politics
 Couldn’t see why politics couldn’t be modelled on natural science
 1st thinker of the scientific view was Machiavelli
- Hobbes thought history is not the source of knowledge about human affairs
 Nominalism: there are no universal abstract objects in a world beyond the physical world
- You can see why Christians wouldn’t be his bigger fans
- These ideas obviously challenge the ideas and hierarchies of the Church
 Hobbes is interested in us as human beings: our feelings, our behaviours and so on. Not
interested in the ‘life beyond’

Human Nature

 We need to understand the component parts of human society before we can understand
the whole
 If we all are physical systems, natural mechanism, there are no natural hierarchies; all
human beings are equal
- The same flaws plague every individual, regardless of where society has decided
to place us in the social hierarchy
- Only natural equality
- No natural right to rule: all government, all rule, is an invention and a convention
- This egalitarian idea is very revolutionary for the time
 Human beings are naturally fragile
- Need reason to protect ourselves
- Reason is the capacity to derive the conclusions of actions, the ability to draw
conclusions from a number of premises
 Believes that there is no universally agreed notion of goof, the good life, and the absolute
purpose of human beings
- Once again, you can see how this pissed off Christians
 Humans desires are always changing are influenced by the actions of those around us
  Though there is no absolute good, there is an absolute evil: sudden, violent death
- Summum malum
- Everyone is concerned with self-preservation
- Because all human beings are afraid of death, reason tells us that we need to
accumulate as much power as possible in an attempt to stop this happening

Corollaries of the Summum Malum

1. Because all human beings are afraid of death, reason tells us that we need to accumulate as
much power as possible in an attempt to stop this happening
2. We come together out of a fear of one another and for the sake of avoiding the ultimate evil

State of Nature and the Hobbesian Problem of Order

 Invites us to imagine a situation with no laws, no authorities, no greater power: we call this
the state of nature
 Not an actual historical state: not a primitive state, just a theoretical construct
 Thought experiment meant to highlight the problem to which government is the solution:
the Hobbesian problem of order
 Believes the establishment of a sovereign is the answer

Understanding the State of Nature and State of War

 In the scenario with no rule, no authority, no judge to decide what is right and wrong, to
allocate right and duties, it is inevitable that there will be disagreement over plenty of things
 A state where private judgement rules: what I decide is best for myself I will do
 In practice, individuals driven by pride, by envy, will justify an attack on lots of things
 In this state, we have a right to things necessary for self-preservation: the right of nature

War of All against All

 Think about Hobbes understanding of human nature: why might he think that the absence
of authority would lead to a War of All against All?
 Idea that mutual fear drives people into a race to amass as many weapons and resources as
they can in order to protect themselves: THINK OF COLD WAR AND ARMS RACE
 Need to understand that Hobbes set up the State of Nature in his own terms: seems a little
bit funky to me