Leviathan

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Revision as of 03:58, 7 June 2012

during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre --Hobbes (Part I Chapter XIII)

Hobbes' Leviathan argues for the necessity of an absolute sovereign in order to overcome the bellum omnium contra omnes—war of all against all.

Power Hobbes believes that there are two types of power. “Natural power” is the “eminence of the Faculties of Body, or Mind” (51). People are either born with this type of power or they are born without it. Most power, however, is what Hobbes calls “instrumental”: “those powers, which acquired by these, or by fortune, are means and instruments to acquire more” (51). This power is constructed by individual initiative or luck. All this power, though, is of no use to the body politic unless it is given to a sovereign (105). This power can be given voluntarily (a “sovereignty by institution”) or given out of fear (a “common-wealth by acquisition”) (126). But in either case, the power is voluntarily given: “in both cases they do it for fear” (127). Because this power is given voluntarily, “every subject is author of every act the sovereign doth” (135).

Human Nature For Hobbes, the root of all distinctions lie within us: “whatsoever is the object of any mans appetite or desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate, and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so” (29). Individuals all have will, which Hobbes defines as “the last appetite in deliberation,” or the desire to act voluntarily (34). This will must be forfeited to a sovereign if the natural state of chaos, of war of all against all. This chaos is inevitable without a sovereign, because humanity insists on distinguishing between the common good and the private good: “man, whose joy consisteth in comparing himself with other men, can relish nothing but what is eminent” (107).

State of Emergency Without a sovereign, humanity is naturally in chaos. Everyone has a “right to everything; even to one anothers body” (79), “and to do whatsoever he [thinks] necessary to his own preservation; subduing, hurting, or killing any man in order thereunto” (201).

Hobbes cannot imagine what it would be like for peace to exist in the absence of a sovereign: “for if we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent in the observation of justice, and other laws of nature, without a common power to keep them all in awe . . . there neither would be, nor need to be any civil government, or common-wealth at all; because there would be peace without subjection” (106).

Without a sovereign, there would be no industry, navigation, commodious building, knowledge of the face of the earth, account of time, arts, letters, or society, and people would live in “continual fear, and danger of violent death” (77).

Affect Even with an absolute sovereign, people tend to seek their own gain at the expense of everyone else, assuming that their wealth “were an effect of their wit, or riches, or bloud, or some other natural quality, not depending on the will of those that have the sovereign authority” (192). Hobbes disagrees with la Boetie here—indifference is not the biggest danger plaguing the affectations of the body politic, but greed and selfishness (89, 159).