Ouir view of the living world is a product of culture and the development of ecology
since the
eighteenth century has closely reflected society's changing concerns.
THOMAS HOBBES – (1588-1679) British, his themes were first enunciated
by Machiavelli
Hobbes argued that society itself is a human artifact. It is not natural, but a human
creation.
And if is a human creation, we can alter it as we see fit.
Humans are not social or political by nature – we do not naturally cooperate.
Society is imposed
on humanity out of fear and self-preservation. Like Machiavelli, Hobbes was concerned with
humans as they are not as they should be.
Again similar to Machiavelli, Hobbes’ analysis in The Leviathan portrays
humans as incessantly
active, not restful or peaceful. Whatever humans desire, they equate with what is good. (Notice
classical and neo-classical economics claims that you can’t tell what is good, you can only know
individual desires. Fulfilling desire is the function of economy, increasing capacity to fulfill desires).
What they fear they equate with evil.
desires = good
fears = evil
Nonetheless, although humans are incessantly active they all share a single want of
selfpreservation (same as Machiavelli). Self-preservation impels humans to some degree of
cooperation although our nature creates a “war of all against all” in the world without
government.
Hobbes is often grouped in the history of social thought with John Locke (17th century)
and Jean
Jacques Rousseau (17-18 thcentury, French) – all called social contract theorists because
they
imagined a world before society and cooperation, what was termed the “state of nature”
– the state of nature was not just a fictional enterprise of some philosophers
– early anthropologists sought to find what humans were like in the “state
of nature” and that in part
drove them in part to look at what were considered “primitive” and “undeveloped”
societies.
–these few should rule
– When we take away what we know of human institutions, what do we see?
In the state of nature, there is no place for industry because the fruit thereof is
uncertain, no
culture, no society, a continual fear and danger of violent death, and “in the state of
nature the life
of man is solitary, nasty, brutish, and short” (famous Hobbes quote)
How do we go beyond the state of nature?
Shun death (the “chief of evils,” the boundary of human interaction),
seek self- preservation, find and
seek means of peaceful interaction.
Fundamental dictate of law of nature = find peace to preserve the self.
We contain “the war of all against all” by ceding, by giving all
of our rights to a sovereign who
in exchange gives us security.
Hobbes was the speech writer for the absolutist king of England. During the parliamentary
revolution in England in 1688, Parliament limited the power of the king, but until then the king went
relatively unchecked and Hobbes was explaining why this unchecked state was an okay thing.
(Earlier limitation on monarch in Magna Carta, nobles setting up parliament but were relatively
weak until 17th century.)
*ceding to sovereign in exchange for security = social contract
With the social contract, there is always a change, sometimes a “bargain”
or “consideration” (as it
would be called in law) and it’s always an interaction (A↔B).
The social contract is another myth created by numerous writers to explain society –
so they
proposed this “state of nature,” humans in “natural”
form before shaped by society. This imagined
notion was used to identify human nature – it addressed the question, what would be at the human
core without socializations imposed by society and experience? It was used to justify a particular
social vision of how society should be organized (i.e. “given certain set of certain conditions,
these
are the subsequent material, organizational and cultural things we need...”).
Locke = social theorist animating American vision, argues that government is instituted
to protect
our industriousness, imagines a peaceful existence with some insecurity, we need government to
protect our property.
Rouseau = collectivist, romantic, in state of human nature we are perfect, society
corrupts.
Hobbes = sovereign can take any form (democratic, aristocratic, monarchic, etc.) but
power will be
limitless regardless of form
– once you created a sovereign, it was non-removable, it was the end-all
– final test is that the sovereign keeps law, order, peace
– but sovereign does have duties – to keep law, order, peace, obliged
to make well- being of
people the rule of action
– sovereign who acts otherwise is acting against reason of peace and law
of nature
– sovereign is responsible for caring for subjects and subjects’
interests Hobbes was
defending the absolutism of the British king – he assumed that absolutism
was in general interest
of his subjects because it protects all the people for the good of the people. If the sovereign does
not provide that safety, then he breaks the bargain!
Power arises out of necessity – we have no choice but to submit to authority
if society is to be
realized. Inequality of power arises out of human nature which propels us to be subject to an all
powerful sovereign who will protect us. (The notion of rights was just starting to develop during this
time, and rights were to be ceded to the sovereign.)
Hobbes’ conception served his immediate political workings, since he was
an intimate advisor to
the king who sought legitimacy.
Hobbes wrote 100 years after Machiavelli, and used the metaphors of mechanics (he
was a
contemporary of Newton & Bacon – hence the mechanics).
His means of legitimating king, state, and community were important because he was
seeking a
secular justification for absolutist king who had been legitimated by saying “king was agent
of
God” but that wasn’t going over so well after the Protestant Reformation
which challenged
Catholic hegemony. There were schisms in western Christiandom – kings
who spoke in God’s
name were problematic since Pope also spoke in god’s name – so Hobbes offered a non-religious
justification.
Order was to be constructed through the secularizing and generalizing of god –
it was a rational
explanation. He talks about the perfect body of the sovereign – not a person but a concept who
exists only through the sovereign's subjects: Illustrated by the image of the king composed entirely
by little people. The frontpiece of The Leviathan when it was published.
Notice how each subject is clearly discernible – citizens are not swallowed
up into an anonymous,
mystical mass – instead each remains discrete and retains identity
*organizing principle: to completely identify each subject with the sovereign
What is achieved through the social contract is the basis of the body politic.
There is surrender and silencing of the translation...
How do we translate each individual’s identity into the sovereign and
vice versa?
The act of subjecting one’s self to the sovereign is made invisible. The
conflict is rendered into the
sovereign to display, not to the people to enact. Hobbes uses metaphors of voice, language, words
– he legitimates the political community which is located in a mechanical notion of power as a
just
exchange.
