An introduction to Thomas Hobbes as a systematic and not merely political philosopher. Best known for his contributions to political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes set out to develop a coherent philosophical system extending from logic and natural philosophy to civil and religious philosophy. In this introduction to Hobbes’s thought, Otfried Höffe begins by providing an overview of the entire scope of his work, making clear its systematic character through analysis of his natural philosophy, his individual and social anthropology, and his political (...) thought. He then offers an innovative examination of religious and ecclesiastical questions, touching not only on the political implications of religion so important to Hobbes, but also on his attempt to reconstruct Christianity in terms of a materialistic philosophy. He also explores Hobbes’s continuous critique of Aristotle and Aristotelian Scholastics, in which Höffe argues that Hobbes and Aristotle have much more in common philosophically than is normally supposed—and certainly more than Hobbes himself acknowledged. Finally, Höffe sketches the influence Hobbes had and continues to have on the development of legal and political philosophy. “A thoroughly successful introduction to the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes ” — Reinhard Brandt, in Süddeutsche Zeitung, in praise of the German edition. (shrink)

I propose to examine here, at the outset, what I call the asymmetry in Thomas Hobbes's thought between his treatment of civil war and war between states, that is to say, between the departure from the state of nature - when that is a condition prevailing between individuals - and the permanency in the state of nature when it forms a condition existing between states. Secondly, I will address the Kantian progression beyond this asymmetry through the dual introduction of the (...) idea of progress and of ‘cosmo-political’ peace. The attention given in recent years by Habermas to the Kantian idea of perpetual peace [Habermas, 1996], the recent events in Kosovo and Chechnya, and their implications for the shape of an international penal tribunal to judge crimes against humanity, invigorate the questions of civil peace and of rights which transcend state frontiers. (shrink)

Is Hobbes a normative egoist? That is: does Hobbes think that an agent’s normative reasons are all grounded in her own good? A once-dominant tradition of Hobbes scholarship answers ‘yes’. In an important recent work, however, S.A. Lloyd has argued that the answer to the question is ‘no’, and built an alternative non-egoistic interpretation of Hobbes that stresses reciprocity and mutual justifiability. My aim in this paper is to articulate and defend an original ‘middle way’ interpretation of Hobbes which steers (...) a course between an excessively egoistic and what we might call an excessively ‘moralistic’ interpretation. According to the interpretation I defend, our obligations have their source in self-interest in the sense that they are all self-assumed results of covenants, our reasons for making which are solely self-interested. But the obligations that result from such covenants can sometimes require us to act against our self-interest. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of ‘the legitimacy of the people’, that is, what constitutes the legitimate demarcation of the political units within which democracy is practiced? It is commonplace among philosophers to argue that this problem cannot be solved by appeal to democratic procedure because every attempt to do so results in an infinite regress. Based on a social contract theoretical analysis of the problem, this view is rejected. Although contract theorists have ignored the problem of the legitimacy of (...) the people, this article nevertheless argues for one specific, and currently dominant, type of contract view – ‘contractarianism’ – that it contains the conceptual tools to solve it. In a contractarian view, the people are understood as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage and accordingly consist of only those individuals for whom it is mutually beneficial to bind themselves to one another. It is argued that contractarianism offers a procedurally democratic solution to the problem of the legitimacy of the people that does not cause an infinite regress. Furthermore, this article refutes a classic criticism of contractarianism’s account of moral standing. Finally, the article demonstrates contractarianism’s practical implications for one specific articulation of the problem of the legitimacy of the people, namely, immigration. (shrink)

Public reason accounts commonly claim that exercises of coercive political power must be justified by appeal to reasons accessible to all citizens. Such accounts are vulnerable to the objection that they cannot legitimate coercion to protect basic liberal rights against infringement by deeply illiberal people. This paper first elaborates the distinctive interpersonal conception of justification in public reason accounts in contrast to impersonal forms of justification. I then detail a core dissenter-based objection to public reason based on a worrisome example (...) advanced by Jonathan Quong. While we may be able to impersonally justify coercing the illiberal dissenter, public reason liberals must explain how we can interpersonally justify such coercion—meaning justify given the perspective of the dissenter. The two prominent strategies for dealing with dissenters involve idealization of reasoning and requiring liberal values; I show that these strategies do not succeed in a way compatible with the public reason project. That is, the prominent strategies leave public reason theorists with a dilemma between denying the legitimacy of using coercion to protect core freedoms against deeply illiberal people or abandoning the fundamental public reason project. I conclude by proposing a different answer to public reason liberalism’s fundamental question: what requires justification? On my account, it is not that coercion requires interpersonal justification for its permissibility, but that such justification is necessary as a constitutive element of a kind of moral community. (shrink)

Epicurean contractarianism is an attempt to reconcile individualistic hedonism with a robust account of justice. The pursuit of pleasure and the requirements of justice, however, have seemed to be incompatible to many commentators, both ancient and modern. It is not clear how it is possible to reconcile hedonism with the demands of justice. Furthermore, it is not clear why, even if Epicurean contractarianism is possible, it would be necessary for Epicureans to endorse a social contract. I argue here that Epicurean (...) contractarianism is both possible and necessary once we understand Epicurean practical rationality in a new way. We are left with an appealing version of teleological, individualistic contractarianism that is significantly different from Hobbesian contractarianism. (shrink)

The question of what a group of rational agents would agree on were they to deliberate on how to organise society is central to all hypothetical social contract theories. If morality is to be based on a social contract, we need to know the terms of this contract. One type of social contract theory, contractarianism, aims to derive morality from rationality alone. Contractarians need to show, amongst other things, that rational and self-interested individuals would agree on an impartial division of (...) a cooperative surplus. But it is often claimed that contractarians cannot show this without introducing moral assumptions. This paper argues that on the right understanding of the question contractarians are asking, these worries can be answered. Without relying on moral assumptions, the paper offers a novel derivation of symmetry, which is the axiom responsible for the impartiality of the most famous economic bargaining solutions appealed to by contractarians. (shrink)

This paper brings new work to bear on the perennial question about Hobbes's atheism to show that as a debate about scepticism it is falsely framed. Hobbes, like fellow members of the Mersenne circle, Descartes and Gassendi, was no sceptic, but rather concerned to rescue physics and metaphysics from radical scepticism by exploring corporealism. In his early letter of November 1640, Hobbes had issued a provocative challenge to Descartes to abandon metaphysical dualism and subscribe to a ?corporeal God?; a provocation (...) to which the Frenchman angrily responded, but was perhaps importantly influenced. Hobbes's minimal realism was consonant with atheism, to which Descartes felt he was being forced. Moreover, Hobbes was unrelenting in his battle against Cartesian dualism, for which he saw Robert Boyle's experimental science as a surrogate. (shrink)

This lecture presents the text of the speech about the genealogy of the modern state delivered by the author at the 2008 British Academy Lecture. It explains that to investigate the genealogy of the state is to discover that there has never been any agreed concept to which the word state has answered. The lecture suggests that any moral or political term that has become so deeply enmeshed in so many ideological disputes over such a long period of time is (...) bound to resist any efforts at definition. (shrink)

O objetivo do presente artigo é apresentar e confrontar os pressupostos de duas tradições interpretativas _Leviatã _de Thomas Hobbes. Pretendo demonstrar como, a partir dos pressupostos e dos critérios de interpretação de cada uma delas, teremos não apenas duas abordagens diversas, mas resultados e soluções distintas para problemas políticos e morais que o próprio Hobbes buscou solucionar com essa obra. Na primeira parte do artigo, apresentarei os aspectos inovadores da nova interpretação do _Leviatã_ em contraposição às interpretações tradicionais ou ortodoxas. (...) Na segunda parte, confrontarei essa abordagem com a abordagem tradicional sobre um problema específico, mas central na filosofia de Hobbes: o problema da desordem social. Apresentarei a tese tradicional segundo a qual a solução para o problema da desordem seria criar um poder capaz de impor sanções que não permitissem que o interesse racional egoísta atuasse de forma irrestrita. Em seguida, apresentarei a solução revisionista segundo a qual a solução seria produzir uma estável e apropriada reconfiguração dos diversos interesses morais e religiosos dos cidadãos através de um processo de educação contínua responsável pelo consenso social. (shrink)

El propósito del presente trabajo consiste en explicar por qué Hobbes adopta una perspectiva corporativista para dar cuenta de la dinámica social y política que opera al interior del Leviatán. En concreto, intentaremos demostrar cómo el ordenamiento de la sociedad política en sistemas conducidos por representantes le permite a Hobbes establecer ciertas pautas en el desenvolvimiento de los conflictos públicos, fundamentalmente, la asignación de responsabilidades. A su vez, como hipótesis subsidiaria, argüiremos que el rol de la teoría de la representación (...) es central en la medida en que Hobbes no pretende eliminar la disputa política como tal, sino tan sólo deshacerse de su modalidad irregular. (shrink)

In the introduction to the Leviathan, Hobbes famously defends the anthropological point of departure of his theory of the state by invoking the Delphic injunction ‘Know thyself!’ of which he presents a peculiar reading thereafter. In this paper, I present a reading of the anthropology of the Leviathan that takes this move seriously. In appealing to Delphic injunction, Hobbes wanted to prompt a particular way of reading his anthropology for which it is crucial that the reader relate the presented anthropological (...) views to his self-conception. The anthropology of the Leviathan is thus a kind of manual for a certain kind of self-reflection by which the reader's self-knowledge is to be improved. Furthermore, I will argue that Hobbes' interpretation of the Delphic injunction illuminates several theoretical issues relevant to the epistemology of that kind of ‘self-knowledge’ that was demanded by the Delphic injunction. While Hobbes does not solve all the epistemological problems related with the ideal appealed to by this inscription, he does provide some interesting insights into some general requirements that any epistemological account of Socratic self-knowledge has to meet. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically inquire into some of the interpretations of what appears to me to be the core of Hobbes's political philosophy: his concept of political obligation. And in so doing I will provide a new way of reading the problem of obedience in Hobbes, one that does not dismiss the limits of political obligation and the theological context that surrounds it.

The article investigates the interplay of moral rules in computer simulation. The investigation is based on two situations which are well-known to game theory: the prisoner''s dilemma and the game of Chicken. The prisoner''s dilemma can be taken to represent contractual situations, the game of Chicken represents a competitive situation on the one hand and the provision for a common good on the other. Unlike the rules usually used in game theory, each player knows the other''s strategy. In that way, (...) ever higher levels of reflection are reached reciprocally. Such strategies can be interpreted as moral rules.Artificial morality is related to the discipline of Artificial Life. As in artificial life, the use of genetic algorithms suggests itself. Rules of behaviour split and reunite as chromosome strings do. (shrink)

In this article, I derive a weak version of Kant's categorical imperative within an informal game-theoretic framework. More specifically, I argue that Hobbesian agents would choose what I call the weak principle of universalization, if they had to decide on a rule of conflict resolution in an idealized but empirically defensible hypothetical decision situation. The discussion clarifies (i) the rationality requirements imposed on agents, (ii) the empirical conditions assumed to warrant the conclusion, and (iii) the political institutions that are necessary (...) to implement the derived principle. The analysis demonstrates the moral significance of the weak principle of universalization and its epistemic advantage over the categorical imperative. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes tells us that he wrote Leviathan to “absolve the divine laws” of the charge that they justify rebellion. This article interprets the argumentative strategy of the second half of Leviathan in light of this intention. Over the course of his three major political works, Hobbes develops a convergent argument to absolve God’s laws. This strategy of judicial rhetoric relies on using multiple independent claims in the hope that one’s audience finds at least one of them persuasive. This was (...) a risky strategy for Hobbes that angered his critics. The strategy also reveals something about what sort of philosopher Hobbes was and how we ought to approach his work. (shrink)

Game theory has proven useful in clarifying Hobbes’s argument that the state of nature will inevitably devolve into a state of war. Mathematically-leaning philosophers, however, have paid little attention to Rousseau’s depiction of the state of nature as a peaceful, asocial state of solitary wanderers. This paper articulates Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes in formal terms, which pinpoints two crucial issues in Hobbes’s account: the lack of an exit option and an unrealistic depiction of human nature. Building upon recent game-theoretic treatments (...) of Hobbes, we first construct a model that incorporates Rousseau’s criticisms by permitting an exit option and endogenizing human preferences and capacities. Second, we draw out the implications of Rousseau’s analysis for the question of political authority, which cannot be answered, as Hobbes believed, by invoking a hypothetical state of nature. (shrink)

Hobbes’s interpreters have struggled to find a plausible semantics for evaluative language in his writings. I argue that this search is misguided. Hobbes offers neither an account of the reference of evaluative terms nor a theory of the truth-conditions for evaluative statements. Rather, he sees evaluative language simply as having the non-representational function of prescribing actions and practical attitudes, its superficially representational appearance notwithstanding. I marshal the evidence for this prescriptivist reading of Hobbes on evaluative language and show how it (...) sidesteps various textual and philosophical problems that bedevil the traditional interpretations. (shrink)

The importance of Pyrrhonism to Hobbes's political philosophy is much greater than has been recognized. He seems to have used Pyrrhonist arguments to support a doctrine of moral relativity, but he was not a sceptic in the Pyrrhonist sense. These arguments helped him to develop his teaching that there is no absolute good or evil; to minimise the purchase of natural law in the state of nature and its restrictions on the right of nature; virtually to collapse natural law into (...) civil law; and to make the sovereign the political, moral and theological epicenter of his political system. (shrink)

This article answers questions about the consistency, coherence, and motivation of Hobbes's account of the right to punish. First, it develops a novel account of authorization that explains how Hobbes could have consistently held both that the subjects do not give the sovereign the right to punish and also that they authorize the sovereign to punish. Second, it shows that, despite appearances, the natural and artificial elements of Hobbes's account form a coherent whole. Finally, it explains why Hobbes thought it (...) was important to establish the sovereign's right to punish apart from the sovereign's power to punish. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically review the game-theoretic discussion of Hobbes and to develop a game-theoretic interpretation that gives due attention both to Hobbes's distinction between “moderates” and “dominators” and to what actually initiates conflict in the state of nature, namely, the competition for vital goods. As can be shown, Hobbes's state of nature contains differently structured situations of choice, the game-theoretic representation of which requires the prisoner's dilemma and the assurance game and the so-called assurance dilemma. (...) However, the “state of war” ultimately emerges from situations that cannot be described by any of these games because they represent zero-sum games in which the outcome of mutual cooperation does not exist. (shrink)

RESUMO O texto acalenta a hipótese de que as razões pelas quais Hobbes justifica a desobediência e mesmo a resistência ao soberano possam ser compreendidas a partir da teoria da boa-fé contratual, tal qual apresentada por Rawls em Uma teoria da justiça. ABSTRACT The text raises the hypothesis that the reasons why Hobbes justifies disobedience and even resistance to the sovereign can be understood from the contractual good-faith theory, as presented by Rawls in A Theory of Justice.

Hobbes’s state of nature is often analyzed in two-person two-action non-cooperative games. By definition, this literature only focuses on duels. Yet, if we consider general games, i.e., with more than two agents, analyzing Hobbes’s state of nature in terms of duel is not completely satisfactory, since it is a very specific interpretation of the war of all against all. Therefore, we propose a definition of the state of nature for games with an arbitrary number of players. We show that this (...) definition coincides with the strategy profile considered as the state of nature in two-person games. Furthermore, we study what we call rational states of nature. We show that in rational states of nature, the utility level of any agent is equal to his maximin payoff. We also show that rational states of nature always exist in inessential games. Finally, we prove the existence of states of nature in a class of symmetric games. (shrink)

Philosophers and social scientists have recently turned to game theory and agent-based models to better understand social contract formation. The stag hunt game is an idealization of social contract formation. Using the stag hunt game, we attempt to determine what, if any, barrier diversity is to the formation of an efficient social contract. We uncover a deep connection between tolerance, diversity, and the social contract. We investigate a simple model in which individuals possess salient traits and behave cooperatively when the (...) difference between their trait and the trait of their counterpart is less than their ‘tolerance level’. If traits are fixed and correspond to permanent or semipermanent features of the individual, such as religion or race, social contract formation is a remote possibility. If traits are malleable, social contract formation is possible but comes at the steep cost of diversity and tolerance, that is, individuals are unwilling to cooperate with those much different from themselves. Yet homogeneity and intolerance are not a long-term feature of the population. Over time mutations allow for increasingly tolerant agents to prosper, thereby ushering in trait diversity. In the end, all reap the benefits of cooperation. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem como objetivo tratar do papel da imaginação na filosofia política de Hobbes. Argumentamos que a reflexão de Hobbes sobre a imaginação conduz à distinção fundamental para sua filosofia política entre prudência e razão. A instituição da soberania consiste justamente na superação da dimensão da prudência através da razão. Assim, a filosofia política de Hobbes envolve a substituição de uma esfera de relações de poder, o plano da imaginação, por uma esfera de relações de direito no estado civil, (...) o plano da razão. (shrink)

According to a common reading of Thomas Hobbes, fear is the most philosophically important passion, responsible for the founding and sustaining of the commonwealth. I argue that this common reading is incorrect by focusing on the necessary and important role of hope in human action as well as in the founding and sustaining of the commonwealth. Life in the Hobbesian commonwealth, on the reading defended in this paper, is less fearful and more hopeful than scholars have noticed.

Hobbes postulates a social contract to formalize our collective transition from the state of nature to civil society. The prisoner’s dilemma challenges both the mechanics and the outcome of that thought experiment. The incentives for reneging are supposedly strong enough to keep rational persons from cooperating. This paper argues that the prisoner’s dilemma undermines a position Hobbes does not hold. The context and parameters of the social contract steer it safely between the horns of the dilemma. Specifically, in a setting (...) as hostile as the state of nature, Hobbes’s emphasis on self-interest places a premium on survival, and thereby on adaptability, which then promotes progressive concessions toward peaceful coexistence. This transforms the relevant model of rationality from utility maximization to utility satisficing, thus favoring the pursuit of a mutually satisfactory outcome over that of the best personal outcome. The difference not only obviates the prisoner’s dilemma but also better approximates the state of nature while leaving a viable way out. (shrink)

In this paper an analysis of Hobbes' argument in favor of the Leviathan is combined with a reassessment in a new security environment. The analysis shows that Hobbes' premises are complex and lead to conclusions that differ from the realist as well as from the world-state position, both attributed to Hobbesian logic in IR theory. A strict application of the Hobbesian argument in today's security context leads to a rationale of multilateral institution-building among states. In the first part of the (...) paper the internationalist analogy in the concept of war of all against all is uncovered and analyzed in relation to the security dilemma, domestic analogy, and methodological individualism. The second part reassesses the Hobbesian security rationale in a security environment which is assumed to be shaped by transnational terrorism and nuclear WMD. (shrink)

David Gauthier in his article, Maximization constrained: the rationality of cooperation, tries to defend of the joint strategy in situations which no outcome is both equilibrium and optimal. Prisoner’s Dilemma is the most familiar example of these situations. He first starts with some quotes by Hobbes in Leviathan; Hobbes, in chapter 15 discusses an objection by someone is called Foole, and then will reject his view. In response to Foole, Hobbes presents two strategies (i.e. joint and individual) and two kinds (...) of agents in such problems including Prisoner’s Dilemma – i.e. straightforward maximizer (SM) and constrained maximizer(CM). Then he considers two arguments respectively for SM and CM, and he will show that why in an ideal and transparent situation, the first argument fails and the second one would be the only valid argument. likewise, in the following part of his article, he considers more realistic situations with translucency and he concludes that under some conditions, joint strategy would be still the rational decision. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz untersuche sich, ob sich der Hobbes’sche Naturzustand als Gefangenendilemma beschreiben lässt und welche Konsequenzen dies gegebenenfalls hat. Ich argumentiere für die Thesen, dass erstens eine solche Beschreibung eine angemessene Charakterisierung des Hobbes’schen Naturzustandes ist , dass das Gefangenendilemma zweitens kein Problem für die Hobbes’sche Argumentation aufwirft und dass drittens Hobbes sein Argumentationsziel verfehlte, wenn er den Naturzustand anders beschriebe, d.h. so, als seien die Applikationsbedingungen des Gefangenendilemmas nicht erfüllt. Das Gefangenendilemma, in dem sich die Naturzustandsbewohner befinden, ist (...) daher notwendige Voraussetzung für die Vernünftigkeit eines Staates, in dem der Souverän mit einer Hobbes’schen Machtfülle ausgestattet ist. (shrink)

In this article I introduce the notion of crucial evidence and I use it to shed light on an ongoing scholarly controversy in Hobbes studies, namely whether Hobbes holds a prudential or a deontological theory of contractual obligation. Even though there is important evidence for both readings, I argue that there is crucial evidence for interpreting Hobbes’s account in a deontological fashion.

The paper argues that the moral philosophy of Thomas Hobbes is unified by a complex conception of reason that imposes consistency norms of both rationality and reasonableness. Hobbes’s conceptions of rightness as reciprocity, and moral goodness as sociability belong to an original and attractive moral theory that is neither teleological nor classically deontological, nor as interpreters have variously argued, subjectivist, contractarian, egoist, or dependent on divine command.

La siguiente propuesta de lectura es, en muchos sentidos, el resultado del encuentro con la obra de Norberto Bobbio. Este pensador italiano se dedicó a estudiar a los clásicos de la filosofía política y, entre ellos, especialmente a Thomas Hobbes, y fue. mostrando, de un modo cada vez más convincente, la presencia de la obra de: Hobbes en el desarrollo de la filosofía política moderna, hasta el punto de considerarla: como el gran modelo que reemplaza ala tradición aristotélica. Su tesis (...) es muy clara: ese modelo está formado por un con- junto de conceptos en cuya estructuración predomina la racionalidad; en ese modelo existe un doble y compatible camino intelectual: el de la fundamentación racional del Estado y el de la fundamentación de un Estado racional. Estas fórmulas han tenido mucho éxito en el campo de la historiografía, pero creemos que pueden modificarse sustantivamente si se muestra que el peso fundamental del pensamiento político de Hobbes recae no sólo en la razón sino también, y antes que nada, en la imaginación. Es precisamente el sentido básico de ese descubrimiento el que nos ha llevado, distanciados de Bobbio, a proponer el presente estudio. (shrink)

This study seeks to critically explore the link between sovereignty, violence and war in Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer series and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. From a brief rereading of Leviathan’s main arguments that explicitly revolves around the Aristotelian distinction between actuality/ potentiality, it will conclude that Hobbesian pre-contractual violence is primarily based on what Hobbes terms “anticipatory reason” and the problem of future contingency. Relying on Foucauldian insights, it will be emphasized that the assumption of certain potentialities suffices in leading to (...) Hobbes’s well-known conclusion that the state of nature is a “condition of Warre.” In a second step, this study considers some of Agamben’s arguments to account for how pre-contractual violence as envisioned by Hobbes cannot be rendered impotent through the integration of a sovereign. In specific, Agamben’s claims shed light on an irreducible, inextricable entwining between the state of nature and the state of law as “Siamese twins” (Virno). On a meta-level, Agamben thus implicitly shows how the “Hobbesian problem” cannot be merely reduced to a “problem of order” (Parsons). With regard to the current functioning of the stratagems of financial markets and the mechanisms of future-colonization underpinning global politics, this study finally argues that Hobbes ought to be reevaluated in particular regarding the problem of the future in his account. Partly responding to Agamben’s critical investigations, I suggest that a careful exploration of what will be coined “the prospects of an actualization of the potentiality not-to-be” might serve as a first theoretical step towards a productive form of criticism. (shrink)

A survey of some game-theoretic accounts of the emergence and evolution of spontaneuous cooperation in social and public-good dilemmas.

This article is a reply to Carlo Ginzburg’s Max-Weber Lecture delivered at the European University Institute. The author agrees with Ginzburg in many important points. However, he insists that terror produced by the state cannot be interpreted as the highest degree of the usual fears of ordinary people. It is not even identical with the simple death fear.

This work intends to demonstrate the existence of limits that hinder the absolute authority of the sovereign in Hobbes’s political theory. Particularly, I will try to identify the concept of honor as the paradigm of this limitation. The field of the manifestations of worth — it will be argued — operates within a logic that runs parallel to that of the State. Moreover, it engenders authorities with high degree of autonomy. To be sure, the sovereign power can intervene in this (...) field by means of persuasion and coercion, but it will never be able to erase the resistances and limitations imposed by signs of honor. (shrink)