will is a matter of the play of bodily motions, and that desire which gains control is simply the strongest of the competing motions. Only actions can be spoken of as voluntary and involuntary, according as they result from the will or inner determination of the man himself or result from some external necessity of nature. The will, however, is itself always a determined thing.14 3. When Hobbes turned from his discussion of the nature of man to his social philosophy or study of the body politic, the ethical consequences of his materialistic and egoistic psychology became still more clear. Since men are naturally self-seeking, they will often run counter to each other's interests., "Men by natural passion are divers ways offensive one to another." They think only of themselves and their own private advantage, so that, if unrestrained by superior force, they will try to triumph over and oppress their fellow men. And since their good lies in the objects of their desires, there is no reason why they should not. (A A man is naturally entitled to whatever he is able to get; he need recognize no rights of others.) "Every man by nature hath right to all things." Whatever he can possess either through brute strength or through cunning, he is entitled to enjoy. Whatever he wills is good for him. There is no law to which he is subject except the law of his own desires.16 Consequently, though Hobbes, like nearly all the writers of the seventeenth century, believed in a primitive state of nature, he differed from them in the description he gave of it. He was not, as the deists were, under the influence of the Christian tradition; and having no theological doctrine to defend, he was not led by any a priori conceptions to adopt their light-hearted view of what the state of nature must have been. He did not even depict the state of nature as Grotius and Pufendorf did, as the state where reason and peace, at least partially, prevailed. (He formulated his theory of the state of nature, not by reconstructing the past so as to harmonize history with preconceived dogma, but by drawing logical conclusions from what he regarded the facts of human nature to be) (Hence he viewed the state of nature as a state of war,-the war of all against all An unorganized existence is full of inadequacies and perils for every one concerned. Impulse governs, and bitter conflict is inevitable. Every man possesses, as "the right of nature," the liberty to use all his resources to gain his own ends, no matter what the result is upon others. Natura dedit omnia omnibus. (As long as men remain in the state of nature, there is no moral law at all.)("Nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no 14 Human Nature, 12,3-4. Leviathan, 6. 15 De Corpore Politico, Part I, 1, 4. 16 De Corpore Politico, Part I, 1, 10. Philosophical Rudiments, 1,7-10 place. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues." Even contracts solemnly entered into may be freely broken by anyone clever enough to profit thereby.17 Hobbes was eager to insist upon the utter unsatisfactoriness of this state of nature. He had lived through the chaos of the English revolution and knew well what strife and incessant warfare meant. He longed above all else for security. In the state of nature, no man can be sure of obtaining his own good; for he is at the mercy of his fellows. "In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." 18 The state of nature involves such misery that everyone will endeavor, for his own good, to escape therefrom, and to attain some means of peace and security. sea; 4. Hobbes, like so many of his contemporaries, used the phrase "the law of nature." And he too identified it with "the dictate of right reason.”19 (Reason is just as much a part of the nature of man as his passion or impulse, and is shared as a common possession by all men alike. Moreover, reason is the only part of man's nature which can be spoken of as in any sense laying down a law.)(For passions are essentially unruly and chaotic, recognizing no authority except their own urgency). Reason, however, is disciplinary and directive, specifying the conditions necessary to be observed for the attainment of the desired goal.20 Hence it alone of all man's faculties defines a law. And its law may well be called the law of nature. But in all other respects than in treating the law of nature as the dictate of reason, Hobbes differed greatly with the other writers of the century. According to him, the law of nature is not to be found in "the consent of all nations, or the wisest and most civil nations;" for the nations are often in conflict and each claims to be the wisest. Nor is the law of nature in the common consent of mankind; for then no man could violate the law of nature, since his own consent is part of the common consent. "To receive the laws of nature from the consents of them who oftener break than observe them is in truth unreasonable."21 Nor finally is the law of nature found in any innate imprints on the mind of man; for Hobbes nowhere recognized any such inborn principles. 17 De Corpore Politico, Part I, I, 10, 2, 10. Leviathan, 13–14. 14. 18 Leviathan, 13. De Corpore Politico, Part I, 1,12–13. Philosophical Rudiments, 1, 12–14. (Rather the law of nature is, for Hobbes, that dictate of reason 22 which specifies "what are the conditions of society or of human peace," It is the procedure by which, and by which alone, escape from the state of nature would be effected. When men exercise their natural rights as they freely wish, they defeat their own ends and imperil their own existence. Reason, "conversant about those things which are either to be done or omitted for the constant preservation of life," suggests as a law that which affords the only way out to peace. Among its articles are these: that men relinquish at least a part of the right they by nature have to all things; that they perform their covenants; that they exhibit due gratitude for favors received; that they render themselves helpful to others; that they recognize the rights of others equally with their own etc. 23 These articles of the law of nature are in no sense arbitrary, but are discovered by reason from a survey of human nature. (Hence they are immutable and eternal24 Nevertheless, the law of nature is not binding in the state of nature. It seems strange in reading Hobbes to find that what he called the law of nature has no constraining power in what he called the state of nature. Yet he doubtless used such terminology in order to emphasize his disagreement with the principles advocated by Grotius. Where there is no power present in society which can guarantee that others will be forced to obey the law of nature, a man is not under obligation to that law himself) Inter arma silent leges. Though the law of nature alone can save men from the state of war, yet it has no moral force until the situation which it would remedy has been superseded. Any one who yields obedience to the law of nature while he still lives in the state of nature will only "procure his own certain ruin, contrary to the ground of all laws of nature.25 In other words, the laws of nature "are not properly laws, but qualities that dispose men to peace and obedience. When a commonwealth is once settled, then are they actually laws, and not before." 26 The laws of nature have binding moral force only when they have actual civil force behind them too. Hobbes was willing, however, to grant the law of nature a certain slight function even in the state of nature. It cannot control men's actions, but it should "oblige the conscience." In other words, men should be desirous of obeying the law of nature, as soon as conditions arise which make it prudent for them to do so. (The law of nature binds in foro interno always, but it binds in foro externo only in so far as men are safe in following it. 22 Philosophical Rudiments, I, 1. 23 Leviathan, 14-15. Philosophical Rudiments, 2-3. De Corpore Politico, Part I, 2-4, 24 Philosophical Rudiments, 3, 29. Leviathan, 15. 25 Philosophical Rudiments, 5, 1-2. De Corpore Politico, Part I, 6, 1-2; Part II, 1, 5. Leviathan, 15-17. 26 Leviathan, 26. 27 Leviathan, 15. Philosophical Rudiments, 3, 27. 5. Since the state of nature is intolerable and the law of nature has in itself no power to compel obedience, men seek to bring about a state of civil government. (This civil state is not a natural thing; it is an artificial product.) Yet expediency compels men to create it, and successful exercise of power justifies its existence. Only when there is "some mutual and common fear to rule them," will men live in peace.28 Only when there is some central authority able to enforce laws, will men give up the full extent of the rights to which they are by nature entitled. Only when there is an overwhelmingly superior power which is able to restrain men in the ways in which they are so objectionable to one another, to crush the individual's lust for power, and to put an end to all strife, will men ever be able to attain an era of concord, of secure enterprise, of human welfare.29 Thus the state rests on a contract. Hobbes emphasized this contract as much as any other writer in the history of political theory. All existing civil societies are based on solemn agreements between ruler and ruled. The agreement of a people with a prince may have been entered into freely, with no pressure on his part, simply that the people might secure protection against each other; or it may have been entered into under threat of death, through the power of conquest, in order that the people might secure protection against the prince himself.30 But in either case the contract or covenant is binding. The power of the sovereign is to be justified, not by how it was secured, but by its ability to control. It may be true that "there is scarce a commonwealth in the world whose beginnings can in conscience be justified."31 Certainly "the original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual good will men had toward each other, but in the mutual fear they had of each other." 32 Yet a wise ruler will not seek justification for the source of his power, nor approbation of his past acts; rather he will rest his claims to obedience upon the security and peace which his enforcement of law guarantees. The contract on which the state rests was the result of distressing fear. But that fear, so far from invalidating the right of the ruler, gives him indisputable sovereignty. Hobbes's view of the contractual origin of civil society led him to emphasize one quality which a successful commonwealth must possess. He did not deny that a commonwealth may have any one of a number of forms of government; for though he himself for several reasons preferred a monarchy to either an oligarchy or a democracy, yet he 28 De Corpore Politico, Part I, 6, 4. 29 Leviathan, 17. Philosophical Rudiments, 5. De Corpore Politico, Part I, 6, 6-11, 30 Philosophical Rudiments, 8, 1. De Corpore Politico, Part II, 3, 2. 31 Leviathan: Conclusion. 32 Philosophical Rudiments, 1, 2. 33 De Corpore Politico, Part II, 5, 8. Philosophical Rudiments, 10, 19. Leviathan, 19. 33 granted that the body politic may, at the time of the original contract, create whatever form of government, monarchic, aristocratic, or democratic, they are able to create and happen to prefer. But he did insist that this government, of whatever form it may be, must be absolute. Contrary to Grotius and Pufendorf, he did not regard the contract as capable of limiting the power of the rulers. While the earlier writers made the governors of a state supreme, Hobbes made them also absolute. A limited monarch is a contradiction in terms. For the sovereign must be able to guarantee security against any combination of foes, to enforce any law and execute any punishments, to appoint any necessary officials, to determine policies for any emergency which may arise, etc. To limit a sovereign would be only partially to abolish the state of nature; and hence there would still be left something of the state of war which might flare up at any time and overwhelm civil society altogether.34 And since the sovereign power is absolute, it must also be above all law. That which creates law is not itself bound to obedience. Every ruler will of course be brought to judgment by God; but he cannot be judged by any of his subjects. He is unpunishable. His form of government, once brought into being, cannot even be altered by his people. All his subjects are under obligation to obey him, since he has power to compel them; but he is under no obligation to them, since they have no power to compel him. Though a ruler ought of his own accord to obey the law of nature, yet such obedience is voluntary, and no infraction of it can be punished except by God alone.35 His theory of political absolutism forced Hobbes to consider the problem of the rights of the individual conscience. With this problem he had great difficulty, but offered two solutions. In the first place, he believed that "the profit of the sovereign and subject goeth always together." "Governing to the profit of the subjects is governing to the profit of the sovereign."37 Hence there is no reason why an issue of conscience should arise between a ruler and any of his subjects. However, the actual political situation in England was such that this solution must have seemed, even to Hobbes himself, almost wholly verbal. In the second place, Hobbes believed that, if an issue of conscience did arise, the will of the sovereign should prevail. No man is infallible in his reasoning; and consequently there is need for an "interpreter of right reason." 38 Such an interpreter is afforded in the sovereign. Most men are not competent to decide truly concerning good and evil. Where, therefore, a conflict of conscience arises, the 34 De Corpore Politico, Part II, 1. Philosophical Rudiments, 5-6. Leviathan, 18, 20. 35 Leviathan, 18. Philosophical Rudiments, 6, 14, 7, 2, 12, 4, 13, 2. 36 De Corpore Politico, Part II, 5, 1. 37 Idem, Part II, 9, 1. 38 Philosophical Rudiments, 15, 17. Cf. also 12, 1. |