Question

Explain and critically examine Hobbes’s account in chapter XXIX of the following five seditious opinions or “doctrines” that tend weaken or dissolve commonwealths: “That every private man is Judge of Good and Evill actions”; “that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience, is Sinne”; “That every private man has an absolute Propriety [i.e. a natural right to property] in his Goods; such, as excludeth the Right of the Soveraign”; “That the Soveraign Power may be divided.” What basic elements of his philosophy appear to support his conclusion that these doctrines are “seditious” (in a broad sense of “seditious” which means being harmful to political authority and social order)? Do you agree with these conclusions and the reasons he sets forth in Leviathan to support them? Explain why or why not, in your well-reasoned opinion. (<800 22 points)

Answer 1

The first implication that Hobbes theory shares with Machiavelli is that, as I alluded to earlier, both appeal to the rational and not the spiritual or theological, both thought of politics as a secular pursuit. So in Hobbes’ materialist eyes it is prudent not to break a covenant not because of the threat of eternal damnation but because it is simply the most rational course of action either for the individual.

A second implication that arises is what makes us different from cuckoos is that we possess free will and are not slaves of our genes, desires or fortune. To be free is not to be constrained in following one’s desires and aversions. We naturally have certain desires and aversions that move us in certain directions and away from others, and the last one in the chain before an action is what we will – insofar as we are able to carry out those movements, we are free. Freedom is not a matter of somehow choosing in some none deterministic and non-causal way our desires and aversions. Hobbes held a compatabilist position that held that both free action and determinism are possible. So a river is free to run down a hillside, in the sense that it is not constrained – it is not damned, for example – but its flow is none the less determined by physical laws. By holding this view Hobbes looked to show that determinism is no threat to freedom.

Hobbes has provided a forceful repost to the fool which with the invention of game theory and ideas such as ESS have only been strengthened in recent years. It is his second argument therefore that appears the strongest as society looks to keep out cheats. Since Hobbes’ ‘Theory of the State’ we know what man is capable of but since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.

Hobbes’ greatest legacy is perhaps his contribution to the ‘social contract’ that was taken up later by Rousseau and Locke. His idea of absolutism of the sovereign sits uncomfortably in this more liberal age because we have seen the results with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. However the safety and security of the individual was of great concern to Hobbes to the point that it was legitimate to overthrow a sovereign if they were not providing it.