Sorry to be so long replying on Hobbes. I have been meditating a decent response.
Ed says: > ... I must say I’ve never felt comfortable with > Hobbes’ articulation of man in the "state of nature". It > depicts man as solitary, acting only to satisfy himself, > being nothing more than an "organic automaton". > Personally, I don’t think it was ever like that. First, > we have always lived not by ourselves, but in groups, and > groups were always governed by codes of behaviour... As you note later, Hobbes does not understand himself to be giving a *historical* account. It may well be that it has never been "like that" for any historical society. But we can do the thought-experiment. What is it LIKE, what is our condition *in the absence of civil authority*? Ans: It is like when there is civil war (as, very sadly, in some parts of the world right now). Speaking perhaps more directly to us, Hobbes says that there is another way to see political actors living in "the state of nature" --> take a look at international relations; consider the sovereign rulers of the sovereign states in the world. Between them there is no law, no mine or thine, no common power to keep them all in awe & thus to enforce obedience. There is only the practicalities and tenuous agreements, for the time being and every one of them breakable. The invasion of Iraq shows this as clearly as anything could. [Thus there is ultimately a Hobbesian argument for world government (though he never argued for such a thing).] Thus a simple answer to Selma Singer, who asked: >> Something that has always puzzled me about Hobbes: In what way does the writing he >> does profit him? In what way does the fact of his being a writer, philosopher, >> generator of ideas, support and validate the philosophy he writes about? << Hobbes wants us all to understand clearly: what a sovereign, what government, *is*, what a citizen is, what the nature of legitimate political authority is, and, in short, why anyone should ever obey any law. He believes that almost everyone is grotesquely and dangerously confused about these things and therefore subject themselves to the most slavish and absurd arrangements. He can make his argument from clear first principles and he thinks it is persuasive. **It's all in your head** It has always seemed to me important to underline and emphasize one especially important feature of Hobbes's argument: he is urging us to *revise* the way we look upon, and relate to, a landscape that remains largely familiar. He wants us to look at it from another angle and see it as it *really* is for the first time. At one level nothing at all changes. Daily life goes on and the things, people & characters who populate our world remain intact - Dukes remain, princes remain, paupers and yoeman and farmers and soldiers remain, just as before. But who they really are and what our relationship to them all is radically reconfigured. Give your head a shake and see it all for what it is. We are matter in motion, organized so as to seek to remain in motion, to seek life and to shun death (the cessation of all motion). All the rest follows. This is very like what Copernicus and Galileo do with the Earth, Sun, and Planets. At one level, nothing changes at all - the sun continues to rise in the east & set in the west, Venus carries on as Evening Star and Morning Star, the earth is firm beneath my feet. And yet, at another level *everything* has changed and with my mind's eye I can "see" that we are spinning and whirling around a resting massive Newtonian sun, etc., etc., etc. There is nothing but "massy" particles & laws of motion. Hobbes says "political science begins with me" - all that has come before is superstition and error. And indeed when we get it straight we do get the sort of perspective that Ed sketches: political authority legitimate because *authored* by the governed who have joined their wills to meet their needs and thereby in fact govern themselves; and >> ... perhaps what is most important about Hobbes, if I have it right, is that he >> believed people to be rational and essentially material in their interests. It >> would seem that he believed that man's fate was in the hands of man, not God. ... >> << The immediate context of Hobbes's writing is the New Science of Galileo and the English civil war. _Leviathan_ was written in Paris where Hobbes was in exile - "the first of all that fled" - and back home the King has been seized and beheaded. Unheard of! And yet, although he believes that for various *practical* reasons a monarchy is a superior form of government, Hobbes is urgently putting _Leviathan_ through the press (in 1651) in order to persuade the English that THEY NOW HAVE A NEW SOVEREIGN to which they owe obedience. True, the Protector is a Sovereign by acquisition, but a Sovereign nonetheless, whose legitimacy is constituted by all their rights and powers conjoined, who thereby commands sufficient power to keep the peace, maintain the rule of law, and sustain civil society. (Just as when, later, Charles II is invited to return to England as King in parliament, the English have another new Sovereign, and the same analysis of political authority obtains.) > Stories that govern > morality, part myth but also part history, have been told > and retold for many thousands of years... Part of Hobbes's task is to debunk such of these stories that mislead us into subjecting ourselves to *illegitimate* powers; such stories are false, dangerous, and ideological. Just for example, the story about "the divine right of kings". Nonsense. This is pure ideology and serve the interests of a particular faction. "For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a king hath not his authority from Christ unless a bishop crown him? That a king, if he be a priest, cannot marry? That whether a prince be born in lawful marriage, or not, must be judged by authority from Rome? That subjects may be freed from their allegiance if by the court of Rome the king be judged a heretic? That a king, as Childeric of France, may be deposed by a Pope, as Pope Zachary, for no cause, and his kingdom given to one of his subjects? ... [Such errors are pronounced] not only amongst catholics, but even in that Church that hath presumed most of reformation" [Bk I Ch 12]. So, we come to recognize that there could be nothing worse in principle than life in a state of nature - continual fear of violent death - and so we choose life; we choose peace; we choose to take ourselves *out* of the state of nature by creating an "artificial Man", a Sovereign Power. We say to one another (in principle), "Look, I hereby covenant to transfer *all* my natural rights and powers to that 3rd entity (say, the elected members of parliament) thereby to constitute a common civil power, provided you do the same." Now we have a new set of answers to all the old questions: Why should I obey the law? Because ultimately you are the author of the law. What is justice? Obedience. [and so on] One final thing concerning this last bit. Hobbes is *NOT* saying "You cannot be disobedient" as if this were somehow impossible. He is *not* saying "You cannot behead your King" since he doesn't wish to appear stupid. He *IS* saying - if you are disobedient, if you behead the King, there is one thing you cannot legitimately do: you cannot correctly claim to be acting according to justice, you cannot correctly claim that God or your "conscience" or some imagined higher power makes your disobedience legitimate after all. You cannot claim that your wants or desires are "above the law". (Well, you can *claim* this, but nobody should believe you.) Does this mean there can be no grounds for revolution? no such thing as a bad king who *therefore* ought not to be obeyed? Yes, that is what this means. But so what? All THAT means is that in such situations you are ON YOUR OWN, taking your own chances. Who knows, you may succeed and be justified retrospectively. Just be clear - you cannot call upon the sovereign to support you while you try to destroy that sovereign. But it is just as well this not be easy and open to the frivolous. Plunging us into civil war is serious business. I must give Hobbes the last word. Noticing that we commonly blame the government, blame the rulers, for failing to deal sufficiently with the various miseries of daily life, Hobbes writes: "And commonly they that live under a monarch think it the fault of monarchy; and they that live under the government of democracy, or other sovereign assembly, attribute all the inconvenience to that form of Commonwealth; whereas the power in all forms, if they be perfect enough to protect them, is the same ... "[They do not consider] that the estate of man can never be without some incommodity or other; and that the greatest [worst] that in any form of government can possibly happen to the people in general is scarce sensible, in respect of the miseries and horrible calamities that accompany a civil war, or that dissolute condition of masterless men without subjection to laws and a coercive power to tie their hands from rapine and revenge ... "[Nor do they consider] that the greatest pressure of sovereign governors proceedeth, not from any delight or profit they can expect in the damage weakening of their subjects, in whose vigour consisteth their own strength and glory, but in the restiveness of themselves that, unwillingly contributing to their own defence, make it necessary for their governors to draw from them what they can in time of peace that they may have means on any emergent occasion, or sudden need, to resist or take advantage on their enemies. "For all men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses [microscopes] (that is their passions and self-love) through which every little payment appeareth a great grievance, but are destitute of those prospective glasses [telescopes] (namely moral and civil science) to see afar off the miseries that hang over them and cannot without such payments be avoided" [end of Bk I, Chap 18]. Brilliant! Thank you for your patience ... Stephen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Vancouver, B.C. [Outgoing mail scanned by Norton AntiVirus] _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
