Thomas Hobbes
Background: The Puritan Revolution and the two civil wars of England marked the turning point of English hegemony. Other factors involved religious liberty, constitutional sovereignty, and the economic and social participation of the merchant class.
Hobbes wrote the Leviathan, his greatest work, after the beheading of Charles I when Parliament under Cromwell gained power in England. The Leviathan is not an apology for the Stuart monarchy but the first general theory of politics in the English language.
Hobbes’ state of nature: men are in a condition of war of every man against every man. There is:
“continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
According to him, men are naturally equal in mind and body. As to strength of body, the weakest has enough strength to kill the strongest, either by slaying him secretly or by allying himself with others for that purpose. With regard to mental faculties, Hobbes finds an even greater natural equality:
“Prudence is a matter of time and experience that can be acquired by anybody.”
“Most persons think that they have more wisdom than their fellow men, but this in itself, is proof that men are equal rather than unequal. And it is from this basic equality of men that serves as the principal source for trouble and misery.”
“The fear of death is the passion that inclines men to peace. Though man has the capacity to learn prudence and moderation from this his fear of death, his desire for power and glory may tempt him to break his promise because covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.”
Hobbes was against the Church:
“And if a man considers the origin of this ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
Regarding laws:
“There can be no unjust laws because laws are the rules of the just and unjust.”
According to Hobbes, good and evil are not ethical qualities of an object or action, but merely expressions of an individual’s feelings about them. (Emotive theory of value.)
“But whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire, that is it which he calls good; and the object of his hate or aversion, evil, and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable.”
Source of legislation:
“The desire, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from these passions till they know a law that forbids them, which till laws be made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they agreed upon the person that shall make it.”
General rule of reason:
“That every man ought to endeavor peace as far as he has hope of obtaining it, and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.”
The first fundamental law of nature therefore is to ’seek peace and follow it’ but the right of nature is to ‘defend ourselves by all means.’
“For man by nature chooses the lesser evil, which is the danger of death resulting, rather the greater, which is certain and present death in not resisting.”
