Leviathan

1
Leviathan

• Philosophy 1
• Spring, 2002
• G. J. Mattey

2
Thomas Hobbes

• Born 1588
• From England
• Studied at Oxford
• Personally knew many leading philosophers
• Fled from England anticipating civil war
• Banned from writing on religious matters
• Died 1679

3
Hobbess Contributions

• Contributed to the science of optics
• Rejected Aristotelian natural philosophy,
  claiming that all physical change is matter in
  motion
• Submitted the Third Objections to Descartess
  Meditations
• Held that thinking is computation
• Tried to establish the basis of the authority of
  the sovereign

4
Artificial Life

• Animal life was made by God as automoton, or
  engine that can move itself
• The state is an artificial man with its own
  springs of motion
• There are many analogies between the two, among
  which are the following
• Nerves rewards and punishments
• Reason and will equity and laws
• Creation pacts and covenants

5
Sense

• The thoughts of human beings are individually
  representations of qualities of bodies outside us
  (objects)
• Sense is the origin of these fancies
• It is caused by the motion of external bodies
  pressing on the human body
• Aristotles account of sense by communication of
  form (species) is insignificant speech

6
Imagination

• Bodies in motion remain in motion unless
  something stops them from moving
• Imagination is the continued motion of fancies in
  our brain--decaying sense
• To call imagination memory is to indicate that it
  is fading, old, and past
• Experience is much memory of many things
• Dreams are combinations of decaying fancies
• Imagination is the source of superstition

7
Reason

• There is a tie between the motions of one fancy
  and another
• Unguided thoughts (e.g., dreams) are influenced
  by weak connections
• Other thoughts are regulated by something strong,
  such as desire or design (causal reasoning)
• Foresight, prudence, wisdom are only guesses,
  which improve with experience
• Our reasoning is finite
• We cannot conceive of God
• We can only conceive of objects in space

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The Basis of the Passions

• Imagination is the source of all voluntary motion
  (e.g., speaking, moving limbs)
• Endeavors are small beginnings of motions
• Endeavor toward something is desire, and away
  from something is aversion
• Some desires are natural, some artificial
• We call good that which we desire and evil that
  to which we are averse

9
Some Passions Defined

• Pleasure is the appearance of good, i.e., the
  appearance of what is desired
• Displeasures of the body are called pain, and of
  the mind are called grief
• Courage is aversion to an object with the hope of
  avoiding hurt from it by resisting it
• Deliberation is alternation between desire and
  aversion, hope and fear, continued until the act
  is done or thought impossible to be done
• Will is the last appetite or aversion before the
  act

10
Manners

• Manners are the qualities that enable humans to
  live together in peace and unity
• There is no highest good, but only a continual
  series of desires
• Voluntary actions are directed at procuring
  satisfaction of the successive desires
• This leads people to seek to increase their power
  as the only way to guarantee the continued
  satisfaction of their desires

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War and Peace

• Competition leads to enmity and war
• Needy people are ambitious and have an interest
  in stirring things up
• People are willing to obey a common power that
  will ensure their protection for several reasons
• They seek ease and sensual delight
• They wish for knowledge

12
The State of Nature

• The differences in people are such that none have
  natural predominance over others
• So everyone hopes to attain his ends
• This leads to continual actions to deprive others
  of their lives and productions
• Without a common power to restrain them, people
  live in a state of war of all against all
• Life under such conditions is solitary, poor,
  nasty, brutish, and short

13
Confirmation

• The deduction of the state of nature from the
  passions is confirmed by experience
• People take all manner of security measures, even
  with a common power in place
• States of nature exist in undeveloped areas such
  as seventeenth-century America
• A state of nature exists among sovereign
  countries, which are armed for conflict
• The notions of justice and injustice have no
  application in a state of war

14
Natural Laws

• The right of nature is liberty (lack of external
  impediment) of each person to do what is
  necessary for self-preservation
• A law of nature is a general rule requiring one
  to do to do what he thinks will best preserve his
  life
• Everyone ought to strive for peace, but if this
  cannot be had, they are entitled to self-defense
• People ought to be willing to give up their right
  of nature to the same extent as other agreeable
  parties, in order to fulfill the first law

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Laying Down Rights

• One is obligated not to hinder those to whom a
  right is transferred, or anyone if the right is
  renounced
• Duty is not to annul ones voluntary act
• Injustice is the hindrance in cases where one no
  longer has rights
• Laying down rights is done for self-benefit
• One may not give up rights to self-defense, since
  this would undermine the reason for renouncing or
  transferring other rights

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Contract

• Contract is the mutual transfer of rights
• Covenant involves a deferred transfer by one
  party
• Contracts can be undertaken in two ways
• Expressly, with signs (e.g., I grant)
• Inferentially
• Contracts made in a state of nature are void
  under numerous circumstances, when to keep them
  would undermine the right of nature
• Contracts made under a common power are not void
  under such circumstances, since the power will
  provide enforcement for each side

17
Justice

• It is a (third) law of nature that covenants must
  be kept, as without them there is war
• This is the foundation and origin of justice
• Injustice is breaking the covenant
• Since in the state of nature there are no
  covenants when there is fear they will be broken,
  a common power is needed to make them, and hence
  justice, possible

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Injustice

• It may seem that it is reasonable to break a
  covenant on the grounds that it is to ones
  advantage to do so
• Successful wickedness could then be called virtue
• But this is not reasonable
• Whatever advantage is gained on an individual
  basis is overcome by the undermining of society,
  which is against the persons interests
• It is also not reasonable to violate the covenant
  on religious grounds, which are uncertain

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Person and Act

• A just person is one who conforms his manners of
  life to reason in this respect justice is a
  virtue
• So, justice in a person is a comprehensive
  attitude
• Just actions are those which conform to reason
• A person may commit unjust actions (be guilty)
  while remaining just, due to
• Passion
• Error
• Fear

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Commutative and Distributive Justice

• Commutative justice is thought to be equality in
  the value of things transferred
• But this would make profit unjust
• It is really equity in performing the covenant
• Distributive justice is thought to be
  distribution of goods on the basis of merit
• It is really the distribution of goods on the
  basis of the covenant

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Other Laws of Nature

• There are numerous other laws of nature,
  including the following
• One ought to accommodate himself to others
• One ought to pardon those who repent
• Retribution should be based on beneficial
  consequences, not magnitude of offense
• No one may declare hatred of another
• Everyone must acknowledge others equal by nature
• In sum, do not do to another what you would not
  have done to yourself (negative Golden Rule)

22
Moral Philosophy

• Laws of nature are always binding on what one
  desires, though not always on how one acts in
  every circumstance
• They are immutable and eternal theorems
• The science of them is moral philosophy
• Good and evil signify our appetites and aversions
• In a state of nature, good and evil are
  subjective
• The only objective good is peace and the ways of
  peace

23
The Commonwealth

• The purpose of the restraint to which we subject
  ourselves in living in the commonwealth is escape
  from the misery of the state of nature
• This can only be accomplished under the
  domination of a permanent strong power, who will
  enforce covenants and provide security

24
The Sovereign

• The common power reduces the will of all to that
  of one person or an assembly
• Each member of the commonwealth makes a covenant
  to give up his rights to the governing power and
  let it act for him
• This is a political commonwealth
• The commonwealth is thus an artificial being
  which is a real unity of people
• The sovereign is the person or assembly
  authorized to act for all

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Rights of Sovereigns

• In a commonwealth by institution, people agree to
  treat the sovereigns actions as their own
• No new covenant may justly overturn such an
  agreement, once it is in place
• The sovereign is not capable of breaching the
  covenant, so no one can be freed from it due to
  the sovereigns forfeiture
• Those who dissent from the institution of the
  sovereign are still bound by the covenant
• Censorship is permitted for the good of peace

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Incommodity

• People suffer if the sovereign exercises power
  obnoxiously
• The fault is not to be placed on the form of
  government (monarchy, democracy)
• But the lot of human beings is to suffer from
  incommodity
• Damage inflicted by the sovereign is small
  compared to the incommodity of civil war

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Despotism

• In a commonwealth by acquisition, sovereignty is
  acquired by force
• The only difference from a commonwealth by
  institution lies in who is feared, one another or
  a third party
• The rights of the sovereign are the same
• Parental dominion works through the childs
  consent
• Despotical dominion occurs by agreement by the
  conquered to have their lives spared