Making space for Leviathan : on Hobbes’ political theory

Political Studies, 2016

In his autobiography, Thomas Hobbes stated that he wrote his most influential work of political theory, Leviathan, to “absolve the divine laws” in response to “atrocious crimes being attributed to the commands of God.” This paper attempts to take Hobbes seriously, and to read Leviathan as his contribution to the religious politics of the English Civil War. I demonstrate Hobbes’ appropriation of the religious terms and sources characterizing civil-war political discourse, and explore these terms and sources both in Hobbes’ response to religiously-motivated politics and in the foundations of his most important political ideas. Hobbes emerges from this account as a critic of Christian politics and enthusiasm broadly conceived, as a political philosopher who employed an Israelite political model, and as an erstwhile ally of some of those usually considered his deepest opponents. His work as portrayed here might provide insights for political philosophers writing in theological political climates.

23-3, 2019

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a significant political theorist who could be regarded as the founder of social contract theories. Hobbes’s philosophy is worthy of attention in the history of political thought due to his definition of natural state, the reasons of the formation of civil society, authorization and political obligation. Specifically, he focused on the rationalization of political obligation to the sovereign in order to strengthen monarchy in the given era. Meanwhile, he could not exclude the concept of God due to the conditions of the century. Therefore, he preferred integrating the concept of God into his political philosophy by means of moral laws and moral obedience after he had introduced the idea of social contract theory. Furthermore, in contrast to previous thinkers, he gave God a secondary role in the maintenance of political and social order. Excluding the idea of God and the obedience of unwritten laws gave rise to discussion about Hobbes’s rejection of the existence of God although he did not accept these accusations. In this paper it is argued that, Hobbes was an atheist and he used religion only as a political instrument for the sake of the social order. In other words, this paper clarifies the idea that Hobbes used religion and the fear of God as a tool in order to force individuals to obey written laws under a sovereign. In order to indicate the rightness of this argument, his main ideas stated in De Cive and Leviathan are analysed and the place of religion and God in his theory is examined in this paper. Summary: Thomas Hobbes had lived in the seventeenth century England in which the social and political order was under threat and the obligation to the sovereign was in need of justification. The developments in natural science and the alterations in philosophical thought that made rationalization significant, led to question the power of the sovereign and free will of the individuals in the given period. Therefore, the questions concerning God, religion and political obligation had been emerged. The prevalent philosophy of Hobbes was to reject Aristotelian teleology, and he aimed to replace it with a mechanistic view. His insistence on modern natural science made him to defend that political philosophy also should be grounded in mechanistic approach. Briefly, he eliminated the preliminary role of God from his political philosophy. However, he did not reject the existence of God while arguing this. In his books that are analysed in this paper; De Cive and Leviathan, Hobbes stated that individuals were important as parts of the society but naturally they were not political beings. Therefore, they needed to enter into a political association in order to survive. In other words, the weakness of humankind necessitated the establishment of political society. Although a human being was not naturally political, a political association was not against to human nature. Hobbes insisted that a civil society as an artificial product needed to be established for the sake of the individuals. In the absence of civil law and a common authority namely a coercive power, human beings were under threat. Under these conditions, a human being was in need of focusing on his/her self-preservation alone and she/he would try to achieve it at all costs. Therefore, in order to prevent such a state of war, individuals chose to leave their unlimited freedom and enter into a society under a sovereign. Actually what provided human security was not the existence of a political society; rather it was a coercive power. For Hobbes, coercive power was a requirement to make individuals live in a peaceful environment. Put another way, individuals needed to be frightened from a power to form a society firstly and to keep the society alive secondly. Without the concept of fear, Hobbes would have never been successful in finding a ground for coercive political power in his political theory since the element of fear is required when private interests of the individuals conflict with the common good. At this point, he used the concept of God in his theory. In this paper it is argued that the concept of obligation to make selfish human beings ideal subjects was left incomplete without the role of religion in Hobbes’s theory. The subjects chose to enter into political establishment due to fear and the need for security. Such a need, for Hobbes, should have been supported with the fear of God. However, he did not use the fear of God and the existence of moral obligation in the state of nature. Rather, he inferred the existence of God, when he needed to find a solid basis for political obligation to maintain the political order. Hobbes clarified natural laws, moral laws and divine laws in his books. For him, natural laws were moral laws, and they could be considered as the divine laws as well. Therefore, all were same and all were given by God since God gave reason to every human being and people could derive those laws through their reason. Till that point, there was room for moral obligation both in state of nature and in civil society. However, Hobbes surprisingly added that human beings in the state of nature did not have moral conscience and they were not obliged by moral laws. For Hobbes, natural laws/ moral laws or God’s laws whatever we call them, could become laws if and only if they were commanded by a civic sovereign. Although he had accepted that there would be moral laws in the state of nature, he added that there could not be moral obligation before human entered into a society. When there was a coercive power that pushed human beings to keep the covenant, natural laws as the commands of God turned to be obligations. This means that moral principles were meaningless without a political power. Moreover, it could be stated that the dictates of reason and God’s laws were distinct for Hobbes and this idea make us think that Hobbes was not a believer at all. However, he needed the power of religion for providing a basis for obligation. That is the reason why he aimed to use God as an instrument in his theory. He also seemed to limit the absolute power of the sovereign and form a basis for obligation theory. In other words, rather than making a religious justification of God’s existence, he led the sovereign to use religion as an instrument for political and social order. What Hobbes tried to do was to indicate that Leviathan is made up of the individuals, and people had to obey the sovereign due to their authorization and consent. He based his political theory on the will of the subjects rather than God. People entered into a civil society and refrained of their freedom in order to get protection from the sovereign. Therefore, they needed to obey the sovereign since they gave consent to be a part of it. In other words, obedience of the subjects is justified through the power of the sovereign which was limited by God at the same time. It is argued in this paper that, Hobbes tried to restrict the sovereign by introducing Divine Will, while in fact he guaranteed the absolute power of the sovereign without making it accountable, neither to an earthly nor to a divine power. In order to defend this, his arguments in De Cive and Leviathan were analysed in detail.

Journal for The Study of Religions and Ideologies, 2019

The history of the people of God is tightly dependant on receiving the Law, as, by fulfilling it, Israel remained within the realm of knowing God. The institution of the monarchy was obliged to stay faithful to the law of God in order for the State of Israel to remain within God’s favour. In that context, the king had a duty to his people to remain faithful to God, as embracing idolatry would have been a danger to the very religious, social and political stability of Israel. The Christian perspective of the early 1 st century, marked by the political context of the rule of the Roman Empire, continues the Judaic paradigm as to the relation between the political and the religious authority, but adds certain nuances to it (Matt. 22:21;Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13-17). For this very reason, the Leviathan proposed by Thomas Hobbes does not have a correspondence in the Jewish-Christian world. The birth of a political system based on society voluntarily renouncing its most basic rights, esta...

1987

Chronological awareness might lead us to consider Hobbes’s Leviathan as his most definitive statement on political philosophy in the historical development of his thought and to prefer it for that reason to his earlier works on the subject, in interpreting his system. However, history involves more than mere chronology. There is evidence of various kinds that Leviathan (1651) did not just come last, but was conceived from the start as different in intention and therefore in nature from both De Cive (1642) and The Elements of Law (1640).

This article explores the concept and function of power in the philosophy and politics of Thomas Hobbes and the ways in which he has subsequently been read and used. We look at how fear of violent death structures the contract model and how Hobbes mobilizes a spectacle of fear, a 'lesson of fear', to legitimate his system and convince his readers and we discuss his political psychology and the anthropological foundation of his thinking situating man as the eminently dangerous and killable being. Man is basically exposed and vulnerable and this is both the foundation and the selling point of his system. We then move onto his nominalism and the right of interpretation and naming as the premier attribute of sovereignty. It is a monopoly on decision and interpretation rather than violence which preoccupies Hobbes and defines his sovereign. Just like the fragility of flesh is used creatively so is religion both the problem and the solution. Hobbes develops a political theology using a minimalist and politicized definition of religion to block the attempts of religious scholars and proselytes to use religion against the sovereign but he also acknowledges the power of religion to persuade and legitimate so he inscribes the sovereign, the Leviathan, the mortal God, within a religious vocabulary and mysticism. Deep within his mechanistic philosophy a mystic religious core pulses. Hobbes' solution throughout is to turn the problem and source of disorder into the solution and foundation of order. This article explores how he did that.

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2013

Jennifer Bralick “The fool hath said in his heart: ‘there is no such thing as Justice.’”1 Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan is a singular political treatise, a subtle masterpiece that manages to mask the full measure and implications of its innovation behind an argument that is itself shockingly revolutionary. For a political work, it is also remarkably preoccupied with questions of religion, prophecy, and revelation. All too often, as Edwin Curley notes, the religious sections of the Leviathan are de-emphasized or omitted from study altogether by scholars and students, even though some of Hobbes’s most radical arguments are given there.2 But Hobbes does not limit his discussion of religion to the parts of the treatise specifically dedicated to that topic: his references to divinity, religion, and inspiration recur throughout the text, as do his frequent citations and interpretations of scripture. On the surface, Hobbes’s treatment of Christianity seems innocent at best, and rather worldly ...

Minding the Modern, 2013

"This paper seeks to trace the ways in which Christianity, in particular 17th century Calvinist theology, influenced and shaped the thinking and writings of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. The writings of Hobbes, especially the Leviathan, continue to be highly influential texts for political theory and thought today, especially as it informed the emergence of modern secular states, the development of social contract theory, natural law, and the rise of political rights and responsibilities of citizens in a liberal state. Most of this Hobbesian influence on contemporary politics is derived from readings of Hobbes as a secular political theorist (either areligious or an atheist) who initiated a critical break from earlier theories of religious and monarchical rule, and opened the way for the emergency of modern political systems rooted in republican and parliamentarian principles of citizenship. “For the truth is that the way modern liberal democracies approach religion and politics today is unthinkable without the decisive break made by Thomas Hobbes” (Lilla 88). On this reading, the Leviathan is seen as the political handbook par excellence for modern secular and liberal state. I argue that this assertion, however, is a fundamental misreading of Hobbes and his writings. Not only should Hobbes be seen as a powerful Christian political theologian, but the entire project of Leviathan is one of reconciling religious and civil rule under the control of a Christian commonwealth (hence the subtitle: “The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill”). To read Hobbes as a secular theorist unconcerned or hostile to religion requires not only ignoring the historical context in which Hobbes was writing during and responding to in his works, but even more, to ignore his own words. While many of Hobbes's ideas about theology were certainly heterodox for his time, this very heterodoxy strengthens the case for Hobbes as a deeply committed political theologian."