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)

In G. K. Chesterton's story The Doom of the Darnaways, Lord Darnaway put on the spines of dummy books in his library such empty designations as The Snakes of Ireland and The Religion of Frederick the Great : I too might appear to have chosen a non-subject for this paper. My coming to the contrary conclusion was the unwitting work of the man whom Balliol College employed to give us tutorials in political philosophy. I soon noticed that his interpretation of (...) Hobbes seemed to be based on a few chapters of Leviathan ; desiring to get material for probing questions, and allured by Hobbes's style, I quickly devoured the whole of Leviathan. This reading left me with an abiding respect for the moral and political philosophy of Hobbes; his religious views, at this time, I found curious rather than impressive, but already I had no doubt that they were not mere hollow professions thinly cloaking an immoralist atheism, but were considered opinions sincerely held. (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)

Prior to 1651, Hobbes was agnostic about the existence of God. Hobbes argued that God’s existence could neither be demonstrated nor proved, so that those who reason about God’s existence will systematically vacillate, sometimes thinking God exists, sometimes not, which for Hobbes is to say they will doubt God’s existence. Because this vacillation or doubt is inherent to the subject, reasoners like himself will judge that settling on one belief rather than another is epistemically unjustified. Hobbes’s agnosticism becomes apparent once (...) we attend to his distinctions between the propositional attitudes one might adopt towards theological claims, including supposing, thinking, having faith and knowing. (shrink)

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.

Usually, the interpreters of Hobbes and Locke have discussed the two systems of political philosophy from the perspective of liberal political doctrine, meaning the opposition between unliberal absolute monarchy, which Hobbes promotes, and liberal parliamentary democracy, asserted by Locke. However, some interpreters have pointed out that, beyond the political matter, the two philosophies are first grounded in the culture of the 17th century and in the structure of English society. From this point of view, even Hobbes would keep in his (...) concept of state of nature certain schemes of social behavior, which will allow him to reinvent society. Therefore, Hobbes’s man is the representative of a special type of society that Macpherson calls „possessive market society”. I analyze the implications of this hypothesis on the problem of moral and political obligation in Hobbes, with respect to those conventions which are called social mores. The status of mores is ambiguous in Hobbes, since they depend to a great extent on conventions and they do not have any direct link to natural law; on the other hand, they can be seen as an expression of attitudes and natural interests. In the absence of sociability, morals cannot be understood in other way. (shrink)

Hobbes’s science of politics rests on a dual analysis of human beings: humans as complex material bodies in a network of mechanical forces, prone to passions and irrationality; and humans as subjects of right and obligation, morally exhortable by appeal to the standards of reason. The science of politics proposes an absolutist model of politics. If this proposal is not to be idle utopianism, the enduring functioning of the model needs to be compatible with the materialist analysis of human behaviour. (...) In this paper, I argue that Hobbes's attempts to render his science of politics compatible with his materialism are only partly successful; a fuller compatibility is achieved in the political writings of Spinoza. -/- Published with reply: Luke O'Sullivan, 'Sovereigns and citizens: a response to Field', ibid., 221-224. Reprinted as: Sandra Field (2015), 'Hobbes and human irrationality', in T. Nardin (ed.) Rationality in Politics and its Limits, Abingdon: Routledge, 31-44. With reply: Luke O'Sullivan, 'Sovereigns and citizens: a response to Field', ibid., 45-48. (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.

After the question “how could Hobbes write the natural law, if it is nowritten law?” I’ll try to approach the relationship between natural and civil law after the instauration of the commonwealth. In this sense, I’ll pay attention to the hobbesian distinction among “written law” and “written register” of law and a few consequences after this distinction. For example, if, how Hobbes says, the correct interpretation of natural law doesn’t depend on philosophers, but only on the authority of commonwealth, would (...) include itself the legitimation of the formulation of the natural laws? The paradox of the first question seems to be important, however, negligenced from hobbesian critical literature. Its intent is to investigate this negligence into better understanding his philosophical postulate, that includes important points like the “silence of law”, the right of self-defense, foro interno and foro externo, State and government. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), whose current reputation rests largely on his political philosophy, was a thinker with wide ranging interests. In philosophy, he defended a range of materialist, nominalist, and empiricist views against Cartesian and Aristotelian alternatives. In physics, his work was influential on Leibniz, and lead him into disputes with Boyle and the experimentalists of the early Royal Society. In history, he translated Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War into English, and later wrote his own history of the Long Parliament. (...) In mathematics he was less successful, and is best remembered for his repeated unsuccessful attempts to square the circle. But despite that, Hobbes was a serious and prominent participant in the intellectual life of his time. (shrink)

Liberdade e poder são dois temas que se correlacionam ao longo da história da filosofia política moderna. Nos textos de Hobbes, a ideia da liberdade como ausência de impedimentos às ações ajuda-nos a pensar o dever de obediência ao poder soberano e as relações entre política e direito. Uma situação de vácuo jurídico, em que tudo é permitido, faz-se, contudo, impossível, de modo que a solução de Hobbes consiste em sustentar a ideia do direito natural como direito originário individual vinculado (...) à preservação da vida. Suas ideias do direito natural e da lei natural, que servem de fundamento ao dever de obediência ao soberano, amparam-se em princípios jurídicos, teológicos e biológicos. Tais princípios, entretanto, não dão conta da questão da extensão do poder soberano. Hobbes recorre à análise da linguagem. Sua teoria contratual afirma o princípio de preservação da vida na base da política e sustenta a ideia da criação e da manutenção do poder soberano no ato de linguagem implicado na estrutura representativa do pacto político. (shrink)

This study aims to present a new interpretation about the controversy in the Hobbesian reception about its affiliation to the natural law or the positive law. According to Norberto Bobbio, these positions are mutually exclusive. In the first place, we will present the textual passages that enable Hobbes to be considered, on the one hand, as a supporter of iusnaturalism in accordance with the paradigmatic readings of Howard Warrender and Norberto Bobbio and, on the other, or of iuspositivism, according to (...) the readings of Simone Goyard- Fabre and Jean Hampton. In the second, we will demonstrate our interpretation that accommodates both points of view, from a historical rescue of the antiphontean antilogy, considering the textual ambivalence as a Hobbesian philosophical character. (shrink)

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.

Although most scholars trace the Liar Paradox to Plato’s contemporary, Eubulides, the paper argues that Plato builds something very like the Liar Paradox into the very structure of his dialogues with significant consequences for understanding his views. After a preliminary exposition of the liar paradox it is argued that Plato builds this paradox into the formulation of many of his central doctrines, including the “Divided Line” and the “Allegory of the Cave” and the “Ladder of Love”. Thus, Plato may have (...) been the first to formulate the view that Graham Priest calls dialetheism, roughly, the view that some contradictions are, in an illuminating way, inescapable and true. The paper argues that Plato builds this Liar paradox into the formulation of his signature views because he holds that the attempt by finite human beings to theorize about transcendent realities results in the simultaneous necessity, and impossibility, of transgressing the limits of language—leading to the paradoxes. Finally, it is argued that the existence of these paradoxes in these Platonic doctrines is the direct result of an intrinsic hermeneutical circle in Plato’s aforementioned signature views. (shrink)

This article treats about the influence of Hobbes on the early writings of John Locke, Two Tracts on Government. These Tracts don’t have a particular importance in understanding Locke’s work, but they are important for understanding the spirit of the time and the intellectual development of the author of the Second Treatise. In the Two Tracts, Locke defends a conservative position in the matter of government’s role in regulating the religious policy. Locke was a puritan, but he was part of (...) that direction of Puritanism which remained attached to the Church of England and, therefore, he was critique of the anarchical spirit of radical and sectarian Protestants. Therefore, he defended the thesis that religious feelings should be subordinated to the reasons of State, as defined by the political authority. For a better understanding of the issues of the Two Tracts, we first analyze the political context in which they were written, and the main theories of that time in matter of politics and religion, especially Hobbes’s. Then, we show that the main argument of Locke in Two Tracts could be considered as hobbist, the “hobbism” being, in that time, the use of a Hobbesian view even in the refutation of Hobbes. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I argue for a set of interpretations regarding the relationship between moral obligation and reasons for acting in the theories of Hobbes, Hutcheson, and Hume. Several commentators have noted affinities between these naturalist moral theories and contemporary ethical internalism. I argue that attempts to locate internalist theses in these figures are not entirely successful in any clear way. I follow Stephen Darwall's suggestion that addressing the question “why be moral?” is one of the fundamental problems of modern (...) moral philosophy. Since, as some have argued, there is a tension between accepting internalism and providing an adequate response to the “why be moral” question, I argue that each figure maintains a distinctive response to this question given the sort of internalism, if any, he would accept. In the introduction, I provide the key distinctions that arise from contemporary discussions of ethical internalism, and I motivate my project of looking for insight into the relationship between internalism and amoralism in the British Moralists. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the moral theory Hobbes who, I argue, would accept a version of constitutive existence internalism because he holds that there is a necessary connection between one's being contractually obligated and one's being in certain rationally motivating states. I then present the fool's objection as an objection to the assumption of a relevant similarity between divine obligation and contractual obligation. I argue that, irrespective of this dissimilarity, the fool has some rational motive to keep his covenants in virtue of the fact that making covenants changes one's decision situation in such a way that it becomes reasonable to treat covenants as if they imposed categorical constraints on behavior. I claim that Hobbes's response to the fool is, at least in part, that the fool fails to understand what moral obligation consists in. In the remainder of the dissertation I turn my attention to two classical sentimentalist moral theories. I examine the theories of Hutcheson and Hume because it is not clear what resources moral sentimentalism has available to it in order to address questions about the reasonableness of moral action. In chapters 3 and 4, I develop an interpretation of Hutcheson who, because he distinguishes between exciting and justifying reasons, is able to say there is some non-derivative sense in which moral actions are reasonable. I argue that he develops a theory whereby moral obligation is to be understood in terms of the non-motivating states of approval of moral spectators, and I do not think, contrary to Darwall, that there is anything puzzling about his doing so. I argue that Hutcheson does not accept a version of motive internalism, but that he shares much in common with internalist views: he claims that there is a very strong, if contingent, connection between our states of approval and our motivational states. I offer an explanation of how Hutcheson could respond to the amoalist, which holds that we ought to be moral because, in part, we all already have the motives for and the interests in doing the sorts of things of which moral spectators approve. In chapters 5 and 6, I turn my attention to Hume who, because he makes no distinction between motivating and justifying reasons, does not seem to have anything to say about the non-derivative reasonableness of moral action. I argue that a textually grounded interpretation of Hume's theory of the passions provides us with more reason to favor an internalist reading over an externalist reading of his moral theory. Much of my argument depends on an interpretation of Hume's claim that it is possible for agents to be moved to act from a sense of duty alone. When we ask what Hume can say to the question “why be moral,” some of the options that Hutcheson pursues are initially open to him. However, I argue that Hume thinks philosophical theorizing must give way to the operations of psychological mechanisms that are causally responsible for inspiring agents to act morally by giving rise in them to particular kinds of affections. I conclude with some general remarks about the problems surrounding Darwall's interpretation of Hume's theory of justice, and use this discussion to lend further support to the claim that the actual theories of Hobbes, Hutcheson, and Hume do not neatly fit into the taxonomies that Darwall seems to think they do. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Partindo do dito popular “manda quem pode, obedece quem tem juízo” o presente artigo tem como objetivo defender a tese de que o Estado hobbesiano sustenta-se tanto pela força quanto pela razáo. Dentro desta perspectiva, será analisada a noçáo de desobediência e, ao final, mostrar-se-á que o adágio referido só pode ser tido como verdadeiro de acordo com a filosofia política de Thomas Hobbes após feitas certas ressalvas.