Hobbes E-Book

Bernard Gert

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Classic Thinkers series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 402

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Thomas Hobbes was the first great English political philosopher. His work excited intense controversy among his contemporaries and continues to do so in our own time. In this masterly introduction to his work, Bernard Gert provides the first account of Hobbes’s political and moral philosophy that makes it clear why he is regarded as one of the best philosophers of all time in both of these fields. In a succinct and engaging analysis the book illustrates that the commonly accepted view of Hobbes as holding psychological egoism is not only incompatible with his account of human nature but is also incompatible with the moral and political theories that he puts forward. It also explains why Hobbes’s contemporaries did not accept his explicit claim to be providing a natural law account of morality.

Gert shows that for Hobbes, civil society is established by a free-gift of their right of nature by the citizens; it does not involve a mutual contract between citizens and sovereign. As injustice involves breaking a contract, the sovereign cannot be unjust; however, the sovereign can be guilty of ingratitude, which is immoral. This distinction between injustice and immorality is part of a sophisticated and nuanced political theory that is in stark contrast to the reading often incorrectly attributed to Hobbes that “might makes right”. It illustrates how Hobbes’s goal of avoiding civil war provides the key to understanding his moral and political philosophy.

Hobbes: Prince of Peace is likely to become the classic introduction to the work of Thomas Hobbes and will be a valuable resource for scholars and students seeking to understand the importance and relevance of his work today.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Preface

1 Hobbes’s Life, Times, and General Philosophical Views

Hobbes’s Life and Times

Hobbes on Religion

Hobbes on Human Nature, Morality, and Justice

Hobbes on Language, Reasoning and Science

Hobbes’s Metaphysics

Hobbes’s Epistemology

Hobbes’s Common-sense Views

2 Human Nature

Psychological Egoism

Materialism and Egoism

Psychological Egoism versus Tautological Egoism

Human Beings as Natural Animals versus Human Beings as Citizens

Self-Preservation

Passions

Reason

Sense and Imagination

Appetite, Aversion, Pleasure, Pain and the Passions

Mental Disorders

Human Nature and Psychological Egoism

Rationality and the Good

Rationality and Human Nature

3 Hobbes’s Moral Theory

Moral Theories

Natural Law Theory

Hobbes’s Concept of Reason

The Laws of Nature and Morality

Philosopher or Polemicist

Interpretations of the Laws of Nature

God and the Laws of Nature

Distinguishing between Justice and Morality

Examination of each of the Laws of Nature that Dictates a Moral Virtue

Impartiality and Rationality Yield the Moral Virtues

Charity

Summary

4 Hobbes’s Political Theory

Hobbes and Social Contract Theories

Ways of Forming a Commonwealth

The Right of Nature and the Laws of Nature

Inalienable Rights

Arguments for Obeying the Law

Arguments for Entering into a Commonwealth

Summary

5 After Hobbes

Hobbes versus Locke

Hobbes on Sovereignty

Aristotle, Hobbes, and Hume

Consequentialism, Deontology, and Natural Law

Hobbes and Contemporary Political Philosophy: Rawls

Hobbes and Contemporary Moral Philosophy: Gert

Bibliography

Index

Copyright © Bernard Gert 2010

The right of Bernard Gert to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2010 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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Malden, MA 02148, USA

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4881-1

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4882-8(pb)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5944-2(Single-user ebook)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5943-5(Multi-user ebook)

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Preface

More than 45 years ago I finished my PhD dissertation on the Moral and Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. More than 35 years ago I edited and wrote an introduction for a volume entitled Man and Citizen, which includes both De Homine (chapters 10–15) and all of De Cive. I have also written many articles about Hobbes and reviewed several books about him. More importantly, much of my own work on morality and human nature has been influenced by Hobbes. My own moral theory is a version of the natural law theory put forward by Hobbes in De Cive and Leviathan. The account of human nature that I am developing also owes much to Hobbes, in particular his account of reason, but also of the emotions and of pleasure and pain.

While working out my own views, I have been struck by how often, when I arrive at what I take to be an original point, my next reading of Hobbes shows me that he had made that same point centuries before me. Hobbes did not get everything right, but it is surprising how much he did get right. His views about human nature, though pessimistic, are not unduly so. He was among the few moral and political philosophers whose views take into account that people differ from one another in significant ways. It is ironic that he should be criticized for holding that all people are completely selfish, because he held that one could not make any universal empirical claims about the motivation of all people. He does hold that the nature of the passions is the same in all people, e.g., fear and hope, but not the object of these passions. He says, “I say the similitude of the passions, which are the same in all men, desire, fear, hope, &c, not the similitude of the objects of the passions, which are the things desired, feared, hoped, &c.” (Leviathan, Introduction par. 3) Hobbes is doing philosophy; he is providing a philosophical analysis of the passions. He is not doing empirical psychology, making universal claims about the motivation of all people, for he realizes that people are different.

Hobbes acknowledges the extent and power of religious beliefs and realizes that they provide a continuing threat to civil peace. He is aware that the primary difference between religious beliefs and superstitious beliefs is that the former are generally looked on favorably whereas the latter are not. He realizes the importance of distinguishing morality from religion, and establishes a foundation for morality completely independent of religion. However, because he is aware of the impossibility of eliminating religious belief, he devotes an enormous amount of time and effort trying to show that Christianity, properly interpreted, supports his account of morality. He presents an interpretation of Christianity, the only religion that was relevant in seventeenth-century England, which is most compatible with his moral and political views. His views on religion are an area in which he holds a position held by many contemporary philosophers.

Hobbes’s work on language anticipated many of the discoveries of philosophers of language of the twentieth century. He explicitly describes the performative use of language in the transferring of rights, as in promises. He is aware that the primary benefit of language is that it enables people to communicate with each other for practical purposes. He does not, as many philosophers do, consider the primary function of language to provide a description of the world. Even though Hobbes is considered a thoroughgoing materialist, he was not primarily interested in metaphysics, and often does not distinguish between different versions of materialism, e.g., reductive materialism and epiphenomenalism. He also was not greatly interested in epistemology and did not take skepticism seriously. His primary concern with epistemology and metaphysics is to discredit those religious views that he thought were responsible for civil unrest and war. This lack of interest in epistemology and metaphysics may explain why some philosophers do not consider him to be ranked with Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. But no one denies that he ranks with the very best of all time in political theory, and I would rank him in a similar way in moral theory.

My appreciation of the greatness of Hobbes’s moral and political theories has led me to spend considerable time and effort correcting some of the traditional misinterpretations of his views. I am pleased that I have played some role in changing the most egregious of those misinterpretations, that Hobbes held psychological egoism, i.e., the view that self-interest is the only motive for human action. That misinterpretation was used as a basis for criticizing Hobbes, and so it was not difficult to persuade those scholars who recognized the philosophical power of Hobbes’s views that it was indeed a misinterpretation. It is more difficult to persuade such scholars that the standard interpretations of his views about reason or rationality are also mistaken because their misinterpretations of this concept are not used as a basis for criticizing him. Indeed, Hobbes is often credited with anticipating Hume’s account of rationality as solely instrumental. I hope, however, to be as successful in changing this misinterpretation as I was in changing the misinterpretation of his views about human nature. Removing these misconceptions of Hobbes’s views of human nature and rationality makes it possible for Hobbes’s moral and political theory to be read more straightforwardly and sympathetically, and their power and relevance to become more apparent.

The state of nature, the right of nature, and the law of nature are central to Hobbes’s accounts of human nature, rationality, morality, and politics. It may seem that his account of these technical terms, which are no longer in general use, are of interest only to Hobbes scholars. It is true that understanding these concepts are essential to understanding Hobbes’s moral and political theories, but understanding them is also helpful in a more general understanding of how human nature and rationality are related to moral and political theory. Hobbes’s discussion of the state of nature, the right of nature, and the law of nature are central to his justification of morality and of the political theory that he puts forward. When all of these concepts are given their proper interpretations, it becomes clear why Hobbes is considered one of the greatest political philosophers of all time. It is my view that Hobbes’s moral theory is superior to other theories, such as those of Kant and Mill, which are generally regarded in a more favorable light.

Hobbes wrote about human nature, morality, and politics over a long period of time. The account of human nature expressed in his earliest work, The Elements of Law Natural and Politic (at one time considered as two separate works, Human Nature and De Corpore Politico), might be taken as egoistic. This non-authorized and only privately circulated early work, which was a draft of De Cive, provides most of the support for the misinterpretation of Hobbes as a psychological egoist. De Homine, published in 1658 but not translated into English until 1972, cannot possibly be taken as supporting psychological egoism. I am concerned with Hobbes’s mature views, which start with the publication of De Cive in 1642 when he was already over 50. His philosophical views did not change much after that time, although he made successive refinements. He did, however, become interested in having more political influence, which may explain why Leviathan, published in 1651 (the same year that the English translation of De Cive was published), was initially published in English rather than Latin. (It was published in Latin in 1668). Although Leviathan is a very long work, Hobbes wrote it to influence an audience wider than that of De Cive.

Philosophers are situated in a particular time and place and their writings are a response to the problems with which they are presented. Hobbes’s moral and political theories were clearly influenced by the religious controversies and civil wars that England was embroiled in during the much of the seventeenth century. In the Author’s Preface to the Reader in De Cive, he even says that it was the impending civil war that led him to write De Cive, the third part of a trilogy, before writing the two works that were to precede it, De Corpore and De Homine. The Thirty Years War started when Hobbes was 30, so he was aware that the problems caused by religious beliefs were not peculiar to England. He was also aware of the conflict between religion and science. When Hobbes was in his mid-40s, Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems and was punished by the Inquisition for publishing it. Hobbes fled to France to escape the English Civil War, which broke out when he was 54, the same year that De Cive was published. It is not surprising that he was concerned with the evils caused by religious controversy and devoted increasing space in his political writings to discussing religion. Nor is it surprising that he thought that applying the new scientific method to moral and political philosophy might provide a way to establish peace and stability.

I am interested in Hobbes’s views because I think that they are important and mostly correct. When they are not, I shall suggest modifications of his views to correct them. I am not the kind of philosophical scholar who treats the writings of his favorite philosopher as if they were sacred texts, so that they have to be interpreted in order to rule out any mistakes. Hobbes made mistakes. Most of them were in matters of detail, not in the general theory. However, even in stating his general theory, there are problems, usually due to Hobbes’s tendency to hyperbole. I shall try to distinguish clearly between my interpretations of Hobbes’s views and my clarifications and revisions of them. For example, Hobbes seems to hold that, absent appropriate religious beliefs, it is irrational to sacrifice your life to save others. He comes close to giving up this view in the fifth paragraph of A Review and Conclusion in Leviathan, when he adds a new law of nature, “that every man is bound by nature, as much as in him lieth, to protect in war the authority by which he is himself protected in time of peace.” However, in most of his writings he assumes the irrationality of sacrificing your life for others, and seems mistakenly to think that this position is an essential premise of his moral and political theory.

Despite centuries of being attacked on the basis of mistaken interpretations of his views, Hobbes has maintained his reputation as the leading English political philosopher. It is a fully deserved reputation. I hope to show also that he should be ranked as highly as a moral philosopher and even as a philosopher of human nature. There are many philosophers who are very impressive upon first reading, but who become somewhat less impressive with each successive reading. Hobbes, on the other hand, is one of those few philosophers who become more impressive on each successive reading. Although his writings were occasioned by what was happening around him, we do not read him today because of his immersion in the problems of his times. We read him because his solutions to those problems incorporate solutions to problems that every age faces. I hope that my account of his moral and political philosophy will make clear how impressive his account of human nature and his moral and political theories views are.

1

Hobbes’s Life, Times, and General Philosophical Views

Hobbes’s Life and Times

Hobbes lived in troubling times. In his Verse Autobiography, he says that he was born prematurely on April 5, 1588 because of his mother’s fear of the impending arrival of the Spanish Armada sent to invade England. He refers to this event by saying, “my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear.” Somewhat surprisingly, Hobbes seems to be proud of being a fearful person. When he left England for France in 1640, he claims that he was among the first to flee the civil war. But since Hobbes held that the primary goal of reason is to avoid avoidable death, it may be that his claim that he was a timid person was a modest way of claiming that he was a rational person. However, his writing shows no hint of timidity. He put forward views that he knew were quite controversial, when to publish controversial views about politics or religion was far more dangerous than it is now in England and America. Even now, in many parts of the world publishing controversial views about politics or religion may result in imprisonment or even death, and England during Hobbes’s lifetime was more like these parts of the world than present-day England. Both the Roman Catholic Church and Oxford University banned the reading of his books, and there was talk, not only of burning his books but also of burning Hobbes himself. Actually, a few years after Hobbes died, Oxford University did burn copies of De Cive and Leviathan.

Hobbes was intimately involved in the political and religious controversies of his time, so that a proper understanding of his moral, political, and religious views requires some understanding of these controversies. Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 when Hobbes was almost 15 and James VI of Scotland became James I of England. James died in 1625, and his son, Charles 1, became king. Charles I, like his father, believed in the divine right of kings, and was almost continuously in conflict with the Parliament of England, precipitating two civil wars. He was defeated by parliamentary forces in the first civil war (1642–5) and was asked to approve a constitutional monarchy, but he would not do so, and in the resulting second civil war (1648–9) he was defeated again. The monarchy was then abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established with Cromwell as its leader. In 1646, the son of Charles I, Charles II (1630–85), fled to Paris, and Hobbes, who had fled there himself in 1640, became his mathematical tutor for two years. They must have developed a close relationship, for after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, when Charles II became king, Hobbes was welcomed to his court and provided with a small pension. This happened even though Hobbes had presented Cromwell with a copy of when he returned to England in 1651.