Hobbes and the Morality Beyond Justice

2014

2017

In the course of knowledge, the aspect that gives enlightenment about a state, government, politics, liberty, justice and authority by exploring the question that come up in any of these aspects and tries to come up with recommendations to minimize friction and conflict in a state is commonly referred to as Political Philosophy. Overtime, the definition of political philosophy has been modified to suit different eras and epochs but it remains unchanged on the premise that it gives stance to how a state should be set up, what system of government minimizes conflict and ensures inclusiveness within a polity as well as summarize the rights and duties of individuals within the state. Many scholars have been brought to limelight through their ideological stance on what is or what ought to be in a state, before it can said to enjoy governance and authority and the boundary between the right of the governed and the governor and some of these ideals have been criticized on various ethical, moral philosophical and religious grounds but these scholars have made their mark as far as the field of Political philosophy by bringing forth their ideological thoughts, one of such scholar is Thomas Hobbes.

2003

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is best known for his political thought, and deservedly so. His vision of the world is strikingly original and still relevant to contemporary politics. His main concern is the problem of social and political order: how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict. He poses stark alternatives: we should give our obedience to an unaccountable sovereign (a person or group empowered to decide every social and political issue). Otherwise what awaits us is a "state of nature" that closely resembles civil war – a situation of universal insecurity, where all have reason to fear violent death and where rewarding human cooperation is all but impossible.

Nwogu Peter, 2025

Hobbes's political theory begins with his representation of the state of nature, a hypothetical condition in which individuals exist without a formal government or social contract. He argues that in this natural state, individuals are driven by self-preservation and are inherently in conflict with one another. This leads to a “war of all against all,” where life is characterized by constant fear, insecurity, and violence. According to Hobbes, human beings are motivated by basic instincts and desires, including the pursuit of self-interest and the avoidance of harm. To escape the chaos of the state of nature, Hobbes proposes the formation of a social contract, in which individuals collectively agree to surrender certain freedoms and submit to a sovereign authority. This sovereign he called “Leviathan," possesses absolute power to maintain order and enforce laws. The social contract, therefore, is the foundation of political legitimacy and social cohesion. His social contract theory and advocacy for absolute sovereignty remain central to debates in political philosophy and theory.

Thomas Poole and David Dyzenhaus (eds.), Hobbes and the Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) , 2012

Hobbes's Moral Philosophy. Elements of Thomas Hobbes's moral theory are found in works such as his The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (written in 1640, two portions of which were published in 1650 with the titles Human Nature or the Fundamental Elements of Policy and De corpore politico, the entire work being published only in 1889), De cive, published in Paris in 1642, Leviathan, or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil, published in 1651, De corpore (1655) and De homine (1658). Hobbes's sensist-nominalist and materialistic ethics or moral philosophy is a mixture of egoistic hedonism, 1 where "moral good and evil are equivalent to pleasure and pain for the individual man," 2 individualistic utilitarianism, wherein a certain amount of pleasure must be renounced in favor of self-preservation, security and peace in the artificial body of the State, and moral positivism, 3 where good and evil are determined by the Sovereign and where all rights originate with the State, proceed from the State. Aside from his egoistic hedonism, individualistic utilitarianism, and moral positivism, Hobbes also affirms a "a crude version of the theological approbative theory," 4 in various passsages of his works (see, for example, the opening paragraph of chapter IV of his Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, volume II, ch. IV, Molesworth edition, 1841, pp. 50-51), but as Vernon J. Bourke observes, "very few writers in his century were able to accept this pious declaration as genuine. Many wrote in rebuttal. One of the first of these critics was John Bramhall…who called the Leviathan a 'horrendous monster.' Bramhall's original objections to Hobbes had to do with the denial of free will in Hobbesian psychology. 5 In later essays Bramhall accused Hobbes of overturning all law with his teaching on the 'irresistible power' of God. 6 " 7 Although Hobbes attempts, in certain passages of his works, to ground his egoistic hedonism, individualistic utilitarianism, and moral positivism in a "crude version of the theological approbative theory," it should nevertheless be stressed that, for Hobbes, "it is the State, or more precisely the Sovereign, that determines good and evil. In this sense the State is the fount of morality…St. Augustine certainly did not believe that the sovereign determines moral distinctions. For him there is an objective moral law, with transcendent foundations, which is independent of the State and to which all sovereigns and subjects are morally obliged to conform their conduct. For Hobbes, however, there is no such moral law. It is true that he allowed that the sovereign is responsible to God and that he did not admit that he had eliminated any idea of objective morality apart from the sovereign's legislation. But at the same time philosophy, according to his own assertion, is not concerned with God, and he explicitly asserted that it is the sovereign who determines what is good and what is evil. In the state of nature good

Hobbes Studies, 2022

This article identifies an argument in Hobbes’s writings often overlooked but relevant to current philosophical debates. Political philosophers tend to categorize his thought as representing consent or rescue theories of political authority. Though these interpretations have textual support and are understandable, they leave out one of his most compelling arguments—what we call the lesser evil argument for political authority, expressed most explicitly in Chapter 20 of Leviathan. Hobbes frankly admits the state’s evils but appeals to the significant disparity between those evils and the greater evils outside the state as a basis for political authority. More than a passing observation, aspects of the lesser evil argument appear in each of his three major political works. In addition to outlining this argument, the article examines its significance both for Hobbes scholarship and recent philosophical debates on political authority.

Springborg, “The Paradoxical Hobbes: A Critical Response to the Hobbes Symposium, Political Theory, 36 2008”, Political Theory, 37, 5 (2009), 676-688; to which Deborah Baumgold responds in the same issue, Political Theory, 37, 5 (2009), pp. 689-94.

Attention has turned from Hobbes the systematic thinker to his inconsistencies, as the essays in the Hobbes symposium published in the recent volume of Political Theory suggest. Deborah Baumgold, in “The Difficulties of Hobbes Interpretation,” shifted the focus to “the history of the book,” and Hobbes’s method of serial composition and peripatetic insertion, as a major source of his inconsistency. Accepting Baumgold’s method, the author argues that the manner of composition does not necessarily determine content and that fundamental paradoxes in Hobbes’s work have a different provenance, for which there are also contextual answers. Hobbes was a courtier’s client, but one committed early to a materialist ontology and epistemology, and these commitments shackled him in treating the immediate political questions with which he was required to deal, leading to systemic paradoxes in his treatment of natural law, liberty, authorization, and consent. Keywords: Hobbes’s paradoxes; materialist ontology; politics

This is a translation of Leo Strauss, “Quelques remarques sur la science politique de Hobbes,” in Recherches Philosophiques (1933: 2), 609-22. It is translated from the French by Murray S. Y. Bessette. Note the French text is a translation by Alexandre Kojève of the original German, which can be found in Leo Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften, 6 Bde., Bd.3, Hobbes' politische Wissenschaft und zugehörige Schriften, Briefe, m. Sonderdruck von Bd.1 für die Subskribenten, ed. Heinrich Meier (Germany: Metzler, 2001). In light of the fact that Leo Strauss was close to and friendly with Alexandre Kojève and that he read French, I presume the French is a very good (although necessarily imperfect) reflection of Strauss’ authorial intent. Moreover, insofar as the article in question was only available in French until 1999 (a full 66 years), the French text remains of some interest, especially as there may be significant divergences, either omissions or additions, from the German. Thus, I would invite anyone with sufficient proficiency in German to make the necessary comparison.