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.