Today:

1
Today

• How do we escape the state of nature?
• What is the Hobbesian Commonwealth like? What
  are the rights, powers, and duties of the
  sovereign?
• An objection answered
• Are there counterexamples to Hobbess view?

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How do we escape the State of Nature?

• The State of Nature is really really terrible.
  How can we get out of it?
• To answer this question is to explain the origin
  of political society.
• To answer this question is to understand your
  obligations to obey the laws of political society.

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How do we escape the State of Nature?

• Hobbes says
• It is a 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. Seek peace and follow it. But by all means
  you can, defend yourself.
• A man should be willing, when others are so too,
  as much as peace and self-defence requires, to
  lay down his right to all things, and be
  contented with so much liberty against other men,
  as he would allow other men against himself.

4
How do we escape the State of Nature?

• The goal of self-preservation demands that we get
  ourselves out of that miserable condition of war.
  But it also demands fighting if that gives you
  the best chance of survival.
• Treat others as they are treating you.

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How do we escape the State of Nature?

• The answer to how we escape SoN
• By conferring all our power and strength upon
  one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may
  reduce all our wills by plurality of voices, unto
  one will.
• By each person saying to every other person, I
  authorise and give up my right of governing
  myself to this person on this condition, that
  thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all
  his actions in like manner.

6

• Should we try to escape the state of nature or
  should we continue to fight everyone else?

7

• It is a 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. Seek peace and follow it. But by all means
  you can, defend yourself.

8

• A man should be willing, when others are so too,
  as much as peace and self-defence requires, to
  lay down his right to all things, and be
  contented with so much liberty against other men,
  as he would allow other men against himself.

9

• The goal of self-preservation demands that we get
  ourselves out of that miserable condition of war.
  But it also demands fighting if that gives you
  the best chance of survival.

10

• Be peaceful if others are willing to be peaceful.
  But if others are going to fight, fight like
  hell.
• Hobbesian Version of the Golden Rule
• Treat others as they are treating you.
• (The Bronze Rule? The Brazen Rule?)

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• How can we escape the state of nature?

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How do we escape the State of Nature?

• The answer to how we escape SoN
• Everyone agree with everyone else to give all
  his or her power to one other person (or group of
  persons).
• Create a being with the power to destroy every
  one else.
• Create a Mafia Boss, a Leviathan.

15

• The answer to how we escape SoN
• By conferring all our power and strength upon
  one man that may reduce all our wills by
  plurality of voices, unto one will.

16

• The answer to how we escape SoN
• By each person saying to every other person, I
  authorise and give up my right of governing
  myself to this person on this condition, that
  thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all
  his actions in like manner.

17

• Note the difference between this agreement and
  the unstable egalitarian groups we discussed
  earlier.

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The Leviathan
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The Leviathan
20
How do we escape the State of Nature?

• The person to whom is given all the power and
  strength is sovereign.
• The people who have agreed to obey the sovereign
  are subjects.
• The sovereign and subjects together constitute a
  commonwealth.

21

• Origin of the Hobbesian state
• Self-interest
• Artifice
• Fear
• A contract between each subject and every other
  subject, not a contract between subjects and
  sovereign

22
Rights, powers, and duties of sovereign and
subjects

• What are the rights and powers of the Hobbesian
  sovereign?

23

• Its impossible for the sovereign to do anything
  that violates the social contract.
• Because the right of bearing the person of them
  all is given to him they make sovereign by
  covenant only of one to another, and not of him
  to any of them, there can happen no breach of
  covenant on the part of the sovereign and
  consequently none of his subjects, by any
  pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his
  subjection.

24

• Its impossible for the sovereign to do anything
  that violates the social contract.
• The opinion that any monarch receiveth his
  power by covenant, that is to say, on condition,
  proceedeth from want of understanding this easy
  truth, that covenants, being but words and
  breath, have no force to oblige, contain,
  constrain, or protect any many, but what is has
  from the public sword.

25

• Its impossible for the sovereign to do anything
  that violates the social contract.
• Besides, if there is ever any disagreement about
  whether the sovereign has broken the social
  contract, there is no one beyond the sovereign to
  judge whether such a violation has occurred. So
  either the sovereign has the power to decide
  whether s/he has broken the contract, or everyone
  returns to the state of nature.

26

• The subjects cannot rightfully make a new
  covenant with a different sovereign. Nor can the
  subjects lawfully cast off the commonwealth and
  return to the state of nature.
• No right of revolution. Revolution and
  disobedience are ALWAYS WRONG.

27

• All are under sovereigns powers, those that
  voted against him or her as well as those who
  voted for.
• By participating in the original vote, you give
  your consent to the outcome.
• Obedience to the sovereign is very much in your
  best interests.

28

• The sovereign can never be guilty of injustice,
  and can never be guilty of injuring a subject.
• Because every subject is by the institution of
  the commonwealth author of all the action is and
  judgments of the sovereign instituted, it follows
  that, whatsoever he doth, it can be no injury to
  any of his subjects, nor ought he to be by any of
  them accused of injustice.
• It is true that they that have sovereign power
  may commit iniquity, but not injustice, or injury
  in the proper signification.

29

• It is never right to punish the sovereign or put
  the sovereign to death.

30

• The sovereign has absolute authority to decide on
  matters of peace and defense.

31

• The sovereign has absolute authority to decide
  which opinions and doctrines to allow, as this
  authority is necessary for preserving peace and
  security. The sovereign has complete authority
  to control what is said and published.

32

• The sovereign has absolute authority to determine
  all matters of property.

33

• The sovereign has absolute authority over all
  legal judgments.

34

• The sovereign has absolute authority over the
  military and its use, which includes raising
  funds through taxation.

35

• The sovereign has absolute authority to choose
  all government officials.

36

• The sovereign has absolute authority to determine
  how much money any and all subjects receive.

37

• The sovereign has absolute authority to determine
  how much honor and status any and all subjects
  receive.

38

• The sovereign has absolute authority to determine
  all religious matters. Every subject must
  practice religion in the way the sovereign
  dictates.

39
Rights, powers, and duties of sovereign and
subjects

• What rights do the subjects have?

40
Rights, powers, and duties of sovereign and
subjects

• The sovereigns power
• Unconditional
• Unlimited
• Undivided

41
Rights, powers, and duties of sovereign and
subjects

• In the Hobbesian commonwealth
• There is no distinction between the person and
  the office of the sovereign.
• A kingdom divided in itself cannot stand.

42
Rights, powers, and duties of sovereign and
subjects

• How does Hobbess conception of the commonwealth
  compare with the ideas underlying the U.S.
  revolution and constitution?

43

• Objection to the Hobbesian Commonwealth
• The condition of the subjects is very miserable,
  as being obnoxious to the lusts and other
  irregular passions of him or them that have so
  unlimited a power in their hands.

44

• Hobbess answer
• Those who make this objection do not consider
  that the estate of man can never be without some
  incommodity or other, and that the greatest 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.

45

• Hobbess answer, continued
• For all men are by nature provided of notable
  multiplying glasses (that is their passions and
  self-love), through which every little payment
  appeareth a great grievance, but are destitute of
  those prospective glasses (namely moral and civil
  science), to see afar off the miseries that hang
  over them, and cannot without such payments be
  avoided.

46

• Hobbess answer, continued
• The worst government is still better than the
  state of nature.

47

• Hobbess answer, continued
• People who make this objection also fail to
  consider that the greatest pressure of sovereign
  governors proceedeth not from any delight or
  profit they can expect in the damage or weakening
  of their subjects (in whose vigour consisteth
  their own strength and glory), but in the
  restiveness of themselves (p. 35).
• It is in the sovereigns own interests for his
  or her subjects to be prosperous.

48

• The Hobbesian Choice
• Absolute sovereign or the war of all against all
• (no third alternative)
• Is a Hobbesian commonwealth the best we can do?
• Is the creation of a Hobbesian sovereign the only
  way to avoid the war of all against all?
• Is the United States a counterexample to Hobbess
  claim?