Why Study Hobbes. Locke,
Rousseau?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”
“Laws of Nature and Nature’s God…”
“We the People…”
“Justice”
“...the blessings of Liberty…”
Hobbes’s Questions
What is human nature like?
What obligations do people have?
Where do our obligations come from?
Why is there government?
Why gives a ruler the right to rule?
How much power should government have?
Leviathan
1588-1679
A Bit of Background
Hobbes was an Enlightenment thinker.
He thought of himself as an innovator and
reformer.
Why read Hobbes? Because his ideas shape
much of modern thought.
Fear and I were born twins.
My mother hearing of the
Spanish Armada sailing up
the English channel gave
premature birth to me”
The Solution!
New Truths
Nature
The Mechanical Universe
Man
A True Science of Human Nature
Government
The Social Contract
The Mechanical Universe
“Everything is either body or it is
nothing”
Man
“… life is but a motion of limbs…”
“All Fancies are motions within us, reliques of those made in
Sense”
The Social Contract
This will be the glue that binds together
isolated individuals and creates
government by mutual consent.
Human Nature
According to Hobbes
Aristotle: “Man is a
political animal.”
Hobbes: “Not so
much.”
“…men have no pleasure,
(but on the contrary, a
great deal of grief), in
keeping company…”
In short, we don’t naturally
get along very well.
Because…
First Principles of Human Nature
❏ Every animal has desires: things it wants to have;
things it wants to avoid. Good/bad
❏ Happiness, “felicity”, is continual success in achieving
our desires.
❏ Power is the means to obtain our desires/objects of
our attraction/ what we call good.
First Principles of the Human
Condition
❏
Our desires are extended through time.
❏
Our need for power extends through time
❏
Happiness, or felicity, is never permanent.
In other words...
“[T]he object of man’s desire, is not to enjoy
once only, and for one instant in time; but to
assure forever, the way of his future desire.”
Chapter XI
Therefore...
“...[I] put it for a general inclination of all
mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for
power after power, that ceaseth only in
death…”
Chapter XI
“Restless desire for power after power”
would be one thing if we were alone
What are these other people like?
FREE and EQUAL
State of Nature
Human beings are in a state of nature
according to Hobbes when they live
together without a common
authority over every person with the
power to keep them all “in awe”.
State of Nature??
State of Nature
State of Nature
Hearby it is manifest, that during the
time men live without a common
Power to keep them all in awe, they
are in that condition which is called
Warre; and such a warre, as is of
every man, against every man.”
Leviathan is the lifeblood of modern political
theory, Ignatz Mouse