Thomas Hobbes

Born: 1588

Died: 1679, at the age of 91

Country of origin: England

Major Books written by Thomas Hobbes:

• "The Elements of Law" (1650)
  
• "Elementa Philosophica" (1651)
  
• "Leviathan" (1651)

Cocktail summary of Thomas Hobbes's main ideas:

Thomas Hobbes was the dictator's best friend. He was a political philosopher and one of the strongest defenders of the absolute authority of Kings. Democracy, Public Dissent, and Seperation of Powers in government were the roots of all evil for Hobbes, and he devoted his long life to arguing for a vision of society in which there was one captain of the ship and all citizens pledged absolute loyalty to their leader. There exists a "social contract" between leader and citizens, Hobbes argued, where in return for this blind obedience from the public the King is expected to protect property, person, and guarantee stability. This is the best way to produce a healthy, happy, and stable co-existence between citizens in any nation. True Democracy was to be avoided at all costs.

Hobbes was famous for his pessimistic view of human nature. His most well-known phrase was his description of the "state of nature" in which mankind is at its purest state. In this natural state Hobbes argured that "the life of man [is], solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Hobbes did not believe in the idea of the Noble Savage of later generations, and he saw primitive society as operating according to the laws of the jungle, in which might makes right and only the strong survive, with morality and ethics being as relevant for mankind as they are for lions and tigers and zebras. No one judges the lion immoral for killing a zebra, so judging primitive society according to any morality or social justice is meaningless.

Hobbes' pessimistic ideas about human society are most often contrasted with the more optimistic ideas of his contemporary John Locke, who was also interested in how societies should be defined, but while holding a very different view of human nature. Hobbes and Locke occupy 2 opposite ends of the spectrum of political theory, and while Hobbes held a darker view of human nature it is a view that is still held by many today, especially in some modern theories of Economics.

Hobbes lived during the English Civil War, in which the populace rebelled against their King and eventually established England's first popularly elected Parliament. This likely had a deep influence on his ideas, even though many of his writings pre-dated the English Civil War, with it simply reinforcing his arguments. He argued that human nature is most clearly seen in primitive societies, in which people are at their most base. He argued that, in this state of existence, humans are by nature selfish, violent, and fearful. Life is short and violent, and people live by the law of the jungle, where only the strong survive and morality is defined by whoever wins.

Hobbes argued that people recognize the need to come together to co-exist in communal groups, in order to better guarantee everyone's survival, with towns and cities forming out of a basic desire for self-preservation. They agree to do so in order to create a means of supressing their natural violent tendencies. The State becomes a sort of artificial person - which Hobbes called a "Leviathan", after the Biblical figure of a large sea-monster - which controls all members of the populace, protecting person and property, but staying out of most personal and business affairs. This Leviathan is composed of many individuals with competing interests, creating a sort of controlled chaos, which together create a state of order and safety that could not be maintained in mankinds natural state.

The result of this view of society was that Hobbes argued that all members of any society had a responsibility of blind allegiance to the State, as long as the State maintained its side of the social contract. This amounted to basically a defence of the "divine right of Kings" - absolute authority is the most efficient way to run a nation, and all citizens are expected to follow orders without question or complaint. Hobbes held a very low view of Democracy, since the voices of individual conscience served only to rock the boat.

His low view of Democracy was reinforced by the events of the English Civil War, in which the King was killed and chaos ensued. He saw men reverting to their natural, violent, "brutish" nature. He defended the right of the King to rule at any cost, and the responsibility of all citizens to support their ruler, despite any personal abuses of power the King may exhibit, as long as he lived up this his end of the social contract by maintaining a stable and safe environment for his subjects. This anti-Democratic attitude didn't win Hobbes many friends with the English man on the street, and he ended up fleeing to Paris for his safety, and hanging out with fellow philosophers and scientists for the next 12 years or so.

But when the English Parliament was created and eventually took over the role of the previous monarch in running the affairs of State, Hobbes changed his tune somewhat and decided that Parliament now served the same function that the King previously had - being the center which guaranteed order and safety to all citizens - and therefore every citizen was expected to now pay full allegiance to Parliament. This created a new set of enemies for Hobbes, from the Royalists, who saw Hobbes as a turn-coat. But Hobbes argued that he was being entirely consistent - the Leviathan of the State operated best as an individual with absolute authority. But a group of leaders in the form of a Parliament was the next best thing, and that new center now held the same social contract as the king. But full representational Democracy was the most unstable form of society, he argued, and that was never to be fought for.

Hobbes lived an unusually long life for a philosopher, into his 90's, and he owed part of this longevity to making the right friends in high places. He had been a tutor for many years to the future King Charles II and after the "Restoration" in 1660 the King remembered his old friend and granted him a life-long pension. Hobbes spent much of this time waging a public war of words with mathematicians, arguing about details of the then-new scientific method, and often getting in over his head in details he didn't fully understand. He also wrote several objections to his fellow-philosopher Rene Descartes' "Medidations". The best career choice for any philosopher is to get a free pension and be known for writing stinging attacks on anyone who disagrees with him.

Thomas Hobbes praised & criticized:

• Hobbes' supporters and critics usually fell along clear boundaries between royalists and those who believed in popular Democracy. The royal dynasties of Europe held him in high regard, since he was one of their most eloquent defenders. All royalists supported the rights of kings and appreciated Hobbes putting some philosophical muscle behind their arguments.
  
  Followers of the growing movement towards popular elections, freedoms of expression, and separation of political powers naturally viewed Hobbes as a crusty old relic, living in the past and stuck in the blindness of unquestioning obedience. While Hobbes viewed popular Democracy as little more than drunken chaos, followers of Democracy argued that the freedom to exist in chaos was better than being stifled by a stable dictatorship.
  
  Hobbes views of human nature were later picked up by economists like Adam Smith who also viewed human nature as being basically selfish and self-interested, with the goal being to allow self-intersted parties to co-exist and compete in a state of controlled seflishness. Social Darwinists also inherited his vision of mankind as living by the same laws of the jungle, living in a morally neutral reality, with the only true values being profit and protection from violence. So while his low views of popular Democracy eventually lost in the public arena of ideas in Europe, his views of human nature have lived on, for better or worse.

Notable Facts about Thomas Hobbes:

• Religious affiliation:
  Thomas Hobbes devoted a large part of his book "Leviathan" to discussing religion, but his interest in it was focused on religion as a useful social authority that could shape loyal citizens with respect for the State. He was interested in religious institutions as a tool, but not as a discipline in and of itself. This attitude towards religion was a forerunner of later so-called Utilitarianism, which asked of religion not "is it true" but "is it useful".
  
  Hobbes was ambivalent towards the underlying questions of religion. He considered all morality to be no more than social constructs and viewed religious institutions as primarilly vehicles for enforcing morality. Spiritual devotion was of little interest to him, and questions about God and the supernatural were outside of his concern. He was interested in social structures, not spirituality.
  
  
• Hobbes lived to be a very old philosopher, living into his 90's. Making the right friends in high places is a good idea for philosophers who spend their life rocking the boat a lot.
  
  
• "Hobbesian" has survived as a term into the modern era, refering to any situation in which there is unrestrained, violent, and amoral competition and conflict. Sort of like the vision of a Free Market economy in which there is no government intervention where Survival of the Fittest is the only guiding hand behind all social interaction.
  
  
• Yes, it's true, the character of the tiger in the comic-strip "Calvin & Hobbes" is named after the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. But the reason for this is unclear, since the tiger in the comic-strip rarely displays any of the philosopher's pessimistic and severe views. (Although the character of Calvin does often display some of the more menacing personality traits of his namesake, the Protestant Reformer John Calvin). Perhaps Bill Watterson never read The Leviathan...?
  
  
• Hobbes died of a stroke following a bladder disease. His last words are rumored to have been, "I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark", which was a fittingly Hobbesian epitaph to his own life.
  
  
  

Quotes:

• "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." (Refering to the state of humanity in his natural, non-political state.)
  
  
• "In the state of nature, profit is the measure of right."
  
  
• "I put forth a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceases only in death."
  
  
• "During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition called War; and such a War, as if of every man against every man. To this War of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice."
  
  
• "Curiosity is the lust of the mind."
  
  
• "Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues."
  
  
• "Corporations are many lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man."
  
  
  

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