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5 December 2013 Cregge 1 HE495 Captain MacLean
“You see, their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these...
these civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.” - The Joker, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight
Look upon it. Its fearsome teeth are bared, lining the massive mouth. Its skin taut; scales
line its back and blunt any arrow and iron, sword or javelin, club or lance. Its chest is hard as
rock, and its undersides are jagged and barbed. The inferno that streams from its nostrils can
burn all in its path. This creature is not a dragon of legend. Nor is it Charybdis of Greek myth,
though it does stir up the sea and leave a wake behind itself. This is Leviathan; the monster God
describes to Job in the Hebrew Bible1. This beast is not equaled nor has it any fear. Thomas
Hobbes adopted this horror as both the title of his book, Leviathan, as well as the representative
force of the monarch. The sovereign’s power was massive like Leviathan’s, leaving only God
himself capable of defeating either of them.
Terror lies at the heart of Hobbes’ work, and it is easy to understand why. He wrote
Leviathan from 1647-1650, and it was certainly a tumultuous time for monarchists like Hobbes
(Hobbes liv). During this time, Oliver Cromwell would strike down rebellions in Ireland, and
push back Royalist groups in Scotland and Wales (Hobbes liv). In 1649, King Charles I would be
executed; all of which Hobbes would watch in Paris as he tutored the son and then next in line
for the throne, Charles II (Hobbes liv). To appreciate Leviathan is also to appreciate the times in
which Hobbes lived. If there are two foremost philosophical aims for the writing of the book
then, they are this: to examine and give Hobbes’ thoughts on the subject of nature, and to
reestablish the rational idea of the state under the rule of a sovereign. Hobbes’ introduction
begins with his definition: “Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the word) is by
1 Descriptions of Leviathan taken from Job 41, New International Version
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the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial
animal” (Hobbes 7). “For seeing life,” in Hobbes’ mind, “is but a motion of limbs” (Hobbes 7),
he radically refuses the classical ideas on how a soul might move a body (Hobbes 477). In
opening with this explanation of nature, Hobbes continues to give his thoughts on the essence of
life. However he is also recreating the philosophical arguments for the state that have been
thrown asunder by the English Civil War. Hobbes wrote a dedicatory letter to Mr. Francis
Godolphin, the brother of a Royalist killed in 1643 who left two hundred pounds to Hobbes in
his will. In the letter, Hobbes speaks of “the endeavor to advance the civil power” and that his
possibly uncommon uses of Holy Scripture would create “outworks of the enemy, from whence
they impugn the civil power” (Hobbes 3). Clearly Hobbes wants to put forward the argument for
why the civil power, or Leviathan, should serve a more important role in the state, which he will
continue to build upon over the course of the work. Yet where did this beast come from, and
what havoc will the demon wreak when Leviathan is set off of its chain?
This paper will not address the mayhem of modernity’s monster chronologically. Instead
it will thematically turn between three authors, Plato, Machiavelli, and Hobbes, over five
examinations of their arguments. These inquiries into human nature, justice, fortune and
progress, and finally religion lead to the eventual conclusion of Leviathan’s domination. The
paper will first trace the classical roots of Hobbes’ arguments about equality, the state of nature,
and social contracts, as illustrated in the character Thrasymachus from Plato’s Republic. The
Thrasymachan view of justice explains what Hobbes uses as his founding narrative, the state of
nature, but does not provide the philosophical necessity for the sovereign. In looking to the past,
there is a shift in discourse about the goal of the political realm that is first altered by
Machiavelli. That modern turn proposes that fortune is something that guides life beyond the
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divine will, which allows for Hobbes to define his idea of progress. While Plato or Machiavelli
do not expressly address progress as a goal of the state, they both agree that religious narratives
provide the most effective way to institute the justice and order in a state. Hobbes consequently
adopts religious narratives in order to secure this new idea of progress. In using religious
narratives, Hobbes reaches the terrifying conclusion that Leviathan will take over the position of
the classical God, who will provide for the safety and growth of society, but also determine what
is good and right for his people.
I.
Hobbes’ recreates the founding narrative of government with the concept of the state of
nature. He begins building the idea around the initial statement that all men are equal (Hobbes
82). The supposition is not inherently logical as his statement differentiates that men are equal
physically and mentally, stating: “the weakest have strength enough to kill the strongest, either
by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himself”
(Hobbes 82). This is the first evidence that Hobbes weaves a new founding narrative of the state.
What Hobbes describes as the inherent equality of man in their physical nature, is not that we are
physically alike. Some humans are stronger than others, as some are weaker. What Hobbes
describes however is humanity’s equality of mortality and our fear of violent death, and therefore
while he states this as evidence of our equality and moves on, it also serves to foreshadow his
views about the innate evil of mankind. For if he had a positive view of the soul, he could just as
easily have described physical strength as the ability of man to defend, rather than kill each other
in confederacies or secret machination.
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Secondarily, Hobbes explains the mental capability of people with the statement that, “I
find yet a greater equality amongst men, than that of strength” (Hobbes 82). How people could
be more equal than equal itself is the sort of logical inconsistency Orwell would take up in
Animal Farm, but Hobbes continues to illustrate his position while foreshadowing as well. He
summarizes that given enough time, all men are capable of learning, but adds specifically, “That
which may perhaps make such equality incredible, is but a vain conceit of one’s own wisdom,
which almost all men think they have in a greater degree, than the vulgar; that is, than all men
but themselves, and a few others, whom by fame, or for concurring with themselves, they
approve” (Hobbes 82). Vain men all think they are smarter than each other and believe in
themselves; foretelling again the inner egotism of the human soul. Hobbes concludes that
because men accept their share of intelligence, they are thus equal in that sense (Hobbes 82). He
continues in this progression of definitions to explain that because man is equal, we equally hope
and thus desire the same things, but because all things cannot be equally possessed, man quarrels
(Hobbes 83). Hobbes makes the clear point that “we find three principal causes of quarrel. First,
competition; secondly, diffidence, thirdly, glory” (Hobbes 83). This is a logically consistent
proposition, but Hobbes lays the new foundation of the state in one sentence: “Hereby it is
manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they
are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man”
(Hobbes 84). Men must be in awe of a central force or implicitly there is no reason to stop them
from quarrelling with each other. The ramifications of this statement are massive and represent
the first step of justifying the unleashing of Leviathan upon the people.
Hobbes clearly implies that man is not nor does he strive to be good. As a result, this state
of nature is so bad that “In such condition, there is no place for industry… and consequently no
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culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities… no commodious building; no
instruments of moving… no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no
letters; no society” (Hobbes 84). This primitive society before the state is chaos, and Hobbes
describes the life of man in this state as being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes
84). It is so injurious to people that Leviathan could be justified. However, Hobbes takes care to
explain what he admits might be considered a minority opinion: “It may seem strange to some
man, that has not well weighed these things; that nature should thus dissociate, and render men
apt to invade, and destroy one another” (Hobbes 84). His commentary on the unpopular opinion
is simply the recognition that men arm themselves on journeys, lock their doors when they sleep,
or lock up their property (Hobbes 84). It is a logical point to make, but not original. While the
realization of the inherent evil in man may seem a modern opinion, Thomas Hobbes actually
adopted the philosophical position of Thrasymachus from Plato’s Republic.
The Republic opens with Socrates recounting a conversation. The dialogue came as a
result of the encounter of a group of men after a religious festival in the port of Athens (Republic
327A-328A). Characters like Glaucon, Adeimantus, Niceratus, Polemarchus, and Cephalus all
talk with Socrates and eventually come to the discussion on the nature of justice. Some of the
men start to provide their own definitions on what is just (Republic 328C-335E). Butting in to
the conversation, Plato introduces Thrasymachus as a brash and arrogant man in need of
recognition (Republic 336B-C). The spirited Sophist insults Socrates and wants to get paid for
his own answer on the nature of justice, and when he finally proposes it, he states it thusly:
“‘then listen,’ he said. ‘I assert that what’s just is nothing other than what’s advantageous to the
stronger” (Republic 338B). Thrasymachus continues that laws are set by the people who rule and
only in that way that is advantageous to them (Republic 339A). The one virtue in the realism of
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Thrasymachus is the recognition of power, as he says of the rulers creating regulations that
support their rule, “And this surely prevails in strength, so the conclusion, for someone who
reasons correctly, is that the same thing is just everywhere, what’s advantageous to the stronger”
(Republic 339A). However, over the course of the dialectic, he gets argued into submission by
Socrates, to the point that he blushes out of embarrassment and departs from the other
interlocutors (Republic 350A). Yet it is at the beginning of Book Two that Glaucon takes up the
argument again, because he “wouldn’t stand for Thrasymachus’ giving up” (Republic 357A). In
Glaucon’s explanation of the argument, he lays out the foundational ideas of social contracts and
the state of nature that Hobbes would later use:
People claim that doing injustice is by its nature good and suffering injustice bad,
but that suffering injustice crosses over farther into bad than doing injustice does
into good, so that when people both do injustice and suffer it from each other and
get a taste of both, it seems profitable to the ones who don’t have the power to
avoid the latter and choose the former to make a contract with each other neither
to do injustice nor suffer it. (Republic 358E-359A)
The “people” of Glaucon’s illustration are those that are in the minority of classical and
later Christian philosophy. As opposed to Thrasymachus, figures like Socrates and St. Augustine
purported that there was a Good to strive for in all of man’s interactions. In the Republic,
Socrates describes the Good through metaphors like the divided line, the sun, and the cave
(Republic 508B-520A). Augustine viewed the Good as an expression of God, as he says when
speaking of the human soul that is directed towards God, “It is by this capacity the soul drinks in
wisdom, and becomes endowed with those virtues by which, in prudence, fortitude, temperance,
and righteousness, it makes war upon error and the other inborn vices, and conquers them by
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fixing its desires upon no other object than the supreme and unchangeable Good” (Augustine and
Schaff 502-503).
One of the larger philosophical shifts to modernity came in the ability to speak the
Thrasymachan position openly as Machiavelli did. In his seminal work The Prince, Machiavelli
speaks of the two modes of combat, laws and force; yet since the former is not often as
successful as the latter, “it is necessary for a prince to know well how to use the beast and the
man” (Prince 69). The scheming Italian references in an even greater way to the Thrasymachan
position alluding, “This role [of the beast and the man] was taught covertly to princes by ancient
writers,” and “if all men were good, this teaching [of using law and force] would not be good;
but because they are wicked and do not observe faith with you, you also do not have to observe it
with them” (Prince 69).
In the case of Hobbes, he is not using the Thrasymachan teaching to advise princes as
Machiavelli did, but to use it as the basis of the argument for recreating the state. For while
Hobbes does write with the expectation of Charles II and other princes reading Leviathan, the
book also serves to address the people of Cromwell’s short lived commonwealth. On May 19 th,
1649, England was declared a “Commonwealth and free state,” and Hobbes concludes Leviathan
with the statement of his intentions that:
And thus I have brought to an end my Discourse of Civil and Ecclesiastical
Government, occasioned by the disorders of the present time, without partiality,
without application, and without other design than to set before men’s eyes the
mutual relation between protection and obedience; of which the natural condition
of human nature, and the laws divine, (both natural and positive) require an
inviolable observation. (Hobbes 475)
5 December 2013 Cregge 8 HE495 Captain MacLean
Hobbes is clearly referring to all people in the British Isles, even if they all might not read
it. Going back into the classical period, when Glaucon speaks of suffering injustice as crossing
over more into bad than doing injustice is good, he speaks of the state of nature in a proto-
Hobbesian manner. While Hobbes focuses his energy on man’s reaction to the hypothetical
nonexistence of the government, Glaucon speaks of justice in its purest form, absent of the
deontological ethics that a government provides. In the same way, though eighteen hundred
years apart, Hobbes and Thrasymachus (through Glaucon also) came to the same position: that
man will seek to do evil to each other given the opportunity. Glaucon even adds to the narrative
of the inherent evil of man when he brings up the story of the Ring of Gyges. It was a ring that
would allow the wearer to become invisible, thus incapable of being caught. He proposes it as a
test to show how men would act if the consequences of injustice were removed. Glaucon clearly
states that people will quarrel over what they want in much the same way Hobbes spoke of:
“Then [if the ring was used] we could catch the just person in the act of going the same route as
the unjust one because of greed for more, which is what every nature, by its nature, seeks as
good, though it’s forcibly pulled aside by law to respect for equality” (Republic 359C). Not only
does Glaucon at this time in the Republic see men as equals as Hobbes does, but he also sees
man’s soul in the same way. For that is the nature of man, making seemingly just decisions on
the utilitarian reasoning that everyone agreeing to not do evil is better for the whole than
everyone doing evil. Moreover, this dramatically reduces goodness as something that exists
beyond the bounds of human interaction to something that is decided based on the whims of
human collaboration. The connection of the social contract concept between both works is
unmistakable however.
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Like the Thrasymachan position, Hobbes radically reduces justice to the keeping of
contracts as created by society. Hobbes’ negation of the classical interpretation of justice comes
as a clarification of laws in the state of nature: “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” (Hobbes 85). In the state of nature that Hobbes creates, men are
nothing but beasts in an endless competition for survival. Indeed, he says as much, declaring,
“there be no property, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every man’s,
that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it” (Hobbes 85). When Hobbes reinstitutes the
concept of justice, it comes listed under “Of Other Laws of Nature,” no longer the central focus
of man’s endeavors or its abiding principle. He defines justice thusly: “But when a covenant is
made, then to break it is unjust: and the definition of injustice, is no other than the not
performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust, is just” (Hobbes 95). For Hobbes,
justice itself lacks a definition, and is only recognized in the renunciation of its opposite like
Thrasymachus before him.
Additionally, the Sachs translation of the Republic specifically uses the word contract to
describe the agreement between those men that would choose to not suffer injustice from each
other. Before Leviathan is even introduced to the pre-societal men in the Hobbesian and
Thrasymachan founding narratives, people will seek to create pacts with each other not to hurt
their ability to produce the industry, culture, etc., that Hobbes speaks of not existing in the
chaotic state of nature. This social contract is different than the contract that is often thought of
with governments and the governed. Glaucon does describe the contract between ruler and
subject when he asserts, “[The pre-societal people] begin to set up laws and agreements among
themselves and to name what’s commanded by the law both lawful and just… What’s just, being
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at a mean between [justice and injustice], is something to be content with not as something good,
but as something honored out of weakness at doing injustice” (Republic 359A-B). Both Glaucon
and Hobbes use a narrative to lay the foundations of justice and government, regardless of its
factual reality. Glaucon merely adopts the Ring of Gyges as a story then expands it to a
hypothetical test with two rings of invisibility for the just and the unjust man. Hobbes as well
says that the state of nature is almost a hypothetical test as well: “It may peradventure be
thought, there was never such a time, nor condition of war as [the state of nature]; and I believe it
was never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places, where they live so now”
(Hobbes 85). Hobbes lists the wilderness in America and nations during civil war as something
that would come close to the state of nature as a result of there being no civil government to
enforce order.
Yet how can Hobbes use the state of nature as a founding narrative to establish social
contract theory when in the next paragraph he explicitly declares, “…there had never been any
time, wherein particular men were in a condition of war against another;” (Hobbes 85)? Hobbes’
declaration that the state of nature is merely a philosophical first position reveals that it need not
have truly existed, but he must use that founding narrative in order to justify the unleashing of
the sovereign with the power of Leviathan. Leviathan the monster strikes terror into the hearts of
men; Leviathan the state is meant to do the same. With a singular power capable of forcing
submission and supervising all his subjects, then he can wrestle humanity from the war of all
against all and achieve peace. Peace, after all, is the principle aim of man in the Hobbesian pre-
society, as he concludes “The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such
things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them”
(Hobbes 86). In that last paragraph Hobbes alludes to the modern shift in his philosophical
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argument. Not only is the state founded on a Thrasymachan view of human nature, but it has a
secondary goal that is not present in the classical idea of government: progress.
II.
Can man improve his condition on Earth? The post-Machiavellian answer is yes; but for
Thrasymachus, the answer is ambiguous at best. The private condition of a man could potentially
be improved by injustice, so long as there were no consequences, as the Ring of Gyges would
allow (Republic 360C-D). However that is merely a hypothetical question about the nature of
justice. If modern political philosophers would have men look at the world realistically and
without fear, than they must also recognize that most actions have consequences, especially for
the broad swath of society. Additionally, when Socrates hypothetically presents the most unjust
ruler, the tyrant, Socrates makes clear how unhappy the tyrant truly is. The tyrant is able to
pursue all of his desires (Republic 571D-573D), but he is also the most unhappy and lamentable
figure in the entire city (578A-B). Given the ability to acquire all of a man’s wishes, Socrates
explains that the Thrasymachan ideal leads to despair. Truly the tyrant views justice as
Thrasymachus did because he is not weak; he is in fact strong enough to not need the social
contract between men.
In the Hobbesian state, while the sovereign will at first secure the peace, he secures the
peace so that the safeguards and agreements laid out in the commonwealth allow for prosperity.
Indeed it is inherent in the term for Hobbes’ state; it is not the polis nor a republic or principality.
It is a commonwealth, so that wealth, and consequently prosperity of all kinds, may be found for
all men in common. Hobbes also details the idea of progress and prosperity of the eventual goal
of the state in his chapter “Of the Difference of Manners”. He states explicitly on this topic that
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he his breaking into a new political era, asserting, “For there is no such finis ultimus, (utmost
aim,) nor summum bonum, (greatest good,) as is spoken of in the books of the old moral
philosophers” (Hobbes 65). These are the very same moral philosophers that were focused on
the Good through its undefined form or through God.
Clearly Hobbes is in many ways thinking differently about the future of the state as much
as its creation from the void. Nor does Hobbes mince words when expressing what the progress
in fact is: “Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining
of the former, being still but the way to the latter” (Hobbes 65-66). Felicity, or happiness, is not
only the progress of the self, but it is implicitly the progress of the state. This is because that in
the way Hobbes spoke of the state of nature, men could only call theirs that which they could
keep by force. It is the force of Leviathan that can reverse nature and allow for contracts to be
kept in trust. With the trust that contracts can be upheld by the central governing force, then the
industry of the citizenry can flourish without the fear of suffering injustice. Hobbes elucidates
the yearning desire for industry in man, commenting, “And therefore the voluntary actions, and
inclinations of all men, tend, not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented
life” (Hobbes 66). Man does not wish to meet his needs at the current time, but also continue to
do all that he can to secure them in the future, which require the progress that the safeguards of
the state allow. As Hobbes does believe in the inherent malevolent nature of humanity, he would
of course see even outside the state of nature that mankind has a “perpetual and restless desire of
power after power,” (Hobbes 66).
However it is the role of the sovereign to bring peace to the commonwealth but also to
pursue the growth to secure future well-being, even at the expense of other nations: “And from
hence it is, that kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavours to the assuring of it at home
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by laws, or abroad by wars: and when that is done, there succeedeth a new desire; in some of
fame from new conquest; in others, of ease and sensual pleasure…” (Hobbes 66). Not only does
the above quote hint at the realist position in foreign policy, but it also serves in a greater way to
establish the larger social contract, not between equal men to not suffer each other’s injustices,
but for the ruled to subject themselves to the ruler. He confirms as much in the next paragraph,
saying, “Desire of ease, and sensual delight, disposeth men to obey a common power: because by
such desires, a man doth abandon his own industry, and labour” (Hobbes 66). With Leviathan
protecting the subjects, they neither have to worry nor work for their own protection. Given this
older concept of the social contract spoken of above in classical terms, how is the idea of
progress formed in other modern political works?
Machiavelli laid the groundwork for political progress in his work The Prince. He and
Hobbes certainly differ in many ways, including their overall response to politics. Hobbes’
overall answer to the state of nature is to bring it forth for all to see and thusly respond to it with
the force of the sovereign, whereas Machiavelli would seek only to reveal the truth of the
Thrasymachan tradition to the rulers so that they may succeed in power, as he so plainly lays out
in the middle of The Prince, “For a man who wants to make a profession of good in all regards
must come to ruin among so many who are not good. Hence it is necessary to a prince, if he
wants to maintain himself, to learn to be able to not be good, and to use this and not use it
according to necessity” (Prince 61). So while both have divergent first goals of government,
their secondary is the same. Where Hobbes uses the word progress, Machiavelli uses the word
fortune, though they are inherently related to each other. “Fortune,” Machiavelli says, “is a
woman; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to bear her and strike her down. And
one sees that she lets herself be won more by the impetuous than by those who proceed coldly”
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(Prince 101). While he uses a metaphor rather than Hobbes’ direct explanation, the prince and
the sovereign would find much agreement in how to secure man’s desires, or take fortune to bed.
The prince must beat down fortune through war abroad, or hold her down with laws instituted
within the state, much as the sovereign would for Hobbes. Inherently in both though there is the
idea that the status of life can be improved and secured for the future given the work and effort
that the prince or the sovereign can produce. However without Machiavelli creating a
philosophical foundation for a view of the world that is not totally guided by divine intervention,
as fortune proposes, then Hobbes could never suggest that progress could be the state’s
secondary aim.
Hobbes also agreed with Machiavelli that an amorphous idea of goodness was a
necessary part of the development of society toward success. Machiavelli provides this
consideration, “On this [the mastering of fortune] also depends the variability of the good: for if
one governs himself with caution and patience, and the times and affairs turn in such a way that
his government is good, he comes out happy; but if the times and affairs change, he is ruined
because he does not change his mode of proceeding” (Prince 100). Not only is this a cynical
conception of goodness as something that vacillates with the time, but it is also an indictment of
the citizens or subjects of the state. Implicitly in Machiavelli’s statement he contends that they
too at least outwardly lack the sort of classical virtue or goodness to differentiate between a state
progressing, consequently helping those subjects, and a state that is being run immorally
regardless of military, monetary, or any other form of state progress.
Hobbes approves of this vacillation of goodness as well, for when he speaks of the
sovereign’s legislative power, it is irreproachable, stating, “To the care of the sovereign,
belongeth the making of good laws. But what is a good law? By a good law, I mean not a just
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law: for no law can be unjust. The law is made by the sovereign power, and all that is done by
such power is warranted…” (Hobbes 230). For Hobbes it is not the sovereign’s singular desire
that should be considered in law-making, for if he wishes to achieve the power to rule all the
people, “for the good of the sovereign and people, cannot be separated” (Hobbes 230). If there is
some semblance of a redeeming quality in this modern opinion of progress of the state it is that
subjects and citizens must be considered at least as judges of the meritocratic nature of the
sovereign’s or the prince’s actions. If the king rules well, the people will support him, but if not,
allegiance will dissipate. While tyranny can still exist in this form, it would allow for the creation
of a better tyranny than pure subjugation of the general will. Yet while classical and modern
political philosophers disagree on whether progress is or should be the eventual goal of the state,
both agree that the most effective narrative to use in the mollification of the masses is not the
fulfillment of sensual desires or winning of financial security, but the adoption of religious
belief.
III.
Plato, Machiavelli, and Hobbes all see at the very least the utility and efficacy of faith in
the preservation of the state, even if they do not appreciate its veracity. Plato’s Republic is a
dialogue that spends nine books focused on the reasoned argument about what justice is in both
the man and the city. As it is stated above, in the discourse Socrates responds to the
Thrasymachan view of justice, but the continued discussion between the interlocutors continues
up into Book Ten with the reasoning on the immortality of the soul (Republic 608C-614A).
However while Plato used the character Socrates up until that point to operate with logical
argument rather than revelation, there is a shift in the discussion itself. Speaking of the gifts of
the just life, Socrates says, “Well, these are nothing in multitude or magnitude compared to those
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that are in store for each sort of person after death. It would be right to hear them, so that in the
hearing each of them may be paid in full the debt he’s owed by the argument” (Republic 614A-
B). No longer is justice for its own sake the focus of persuasion. It is this focus on the results of
actions that Thrasymachus proposed at the beginning of the dialogue, but with an extended,
albeit uncertain timeline. If in fact the actions of people are judged and thusly rewarded or
punished depending on this conclusion, then in a way Socrates and Thrasymachus can reach an
agreement. For justice is the best goal for human life, as Socrates proposes over the course of the
dialogue, yet it is the best option only as a result of the conclusion like that of the first social
contract. If men do agree to not do ill to each other because it is less injurious to the whole to act
that way, then is not the just life (if one believes the Myth of Er) a reasoned reaction that it is
more injurious to do evil to men in life knowing that the unjust man will be punished tenfold in
the afterlife?
The Myth of Er specifically contributes to the Platonic opinion that religious belief is the
most compelling narrative to continue the state and discourage chaos amongst the majority. It
strengthens this point in its uniqueness to the rest of the dialogue. Though it is more than the
revelatory rather than reasonable tone that Socrates takes; it is the contradiction of myth usage in
the first place. Plato’s writing in the Republic is in a large part the denunciation of poetry,
nonetheless this seemingly hypocritical use of myth later was not lost on the careful reader, as
Sir Philip Sidney wrote in his “The Defense of Poetry” in 1579, pointing out, “And truly even
Plato whosoever well considereth, shall find that in the body of his work though the inside and
strength were philosophy, the skin as it were and beauty depended most of poetry” (Sidney). The
Myth of Er, unlike the Ring of Gyges story, is used not to teach, but to inform. It is the story of
the man Er who dies in battle and sees the passage of the soul through the afterlife, from judging
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of just or unjust, the tenfold reaping of reward or punishment, and then the cycle to return back
to new lives for those souls and how they chose (Republic 614B-621B). When the story
concludes and Er’s soul returns to his body, Socrates concludes with a closing statement that
shows the myth’s informative nature and institutional religious intent:
And so, Glaucon, the tale [of Er] was saved and didn’t die; it could save us too, if
we’re persuaded by it, and we’ll get past the river Lethe in good shape without a
stain on our soul. If we’re persuaded by me and believe the soul is immortal and
able to keep itself intact in the face of every evil, and every good as well, we’ll
always keep to the higher road and pursue justice with good sense in every way,
so that we might be friends to ourselves and to the gods… …Both here and in the
thousand-year journey we’ve been going through, we will do well. (Republic
621C-D).
Plato closes the Republic using the Myth of Er and the evangelizing Socrates to show that
above all other arguments for justice and the organization of a city, the argument for religious
belief regardless of its validity will always be the most practical for the continued peace and
prosperity of the state. The political philosophers that follow Plato concur with this as well,
including Machiavelli.
While the embodiments of the classical and modern perspectives disagreed on the
foundations of justice and consequently the state, Machiavelli did agree with the classical
perspective on the utility of faith. In the more well-known Prince, his comments are short but
valuable. He says of ‘Ecclesiastical Principalities’ that, “they are sustained by orders that have
grown old with religion, which have been so powerful and of such a kind that they keep their
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princes in the state however they proceed and live.” Adding also, “…only these principalities are
secure and happy” (Prince 45). As previously discussed the modern goals of the state are to
provide for the security and happiness of the people; if an ecclesiastical principality is the only
one that is always so, than clearly the best way to deliver security and happiness is through the
institution of ecclesiastical faith and virtue. In his less popular work, Discourses on Livy,
Machiavelli reveals his agreement with the benefits of belief for the running of the state.
He recounts the story of Numa Pompilius, successor to Romulus in Rome, speaking
directly, “[Pompilius] turned to religion as a thing altogether necessary if he wished to maintain a
civilization.” Machiavelli continues to show his indifference for the veracity of the religion but
compliments its effectiveness plainly, “Whoever considers well the Roman histories sees how
much religions served to command armies, to animate the plebs, to keep men good, to bring
shame to the wicked” (Discourses 34-35). When it comes to the practical administration of the
state, those are the things a leader must be able to do and Machiavelli remains in agreement with
the classical political philosophers. Indeed he again restates that religion will help accomplish the
two principle goals of the state, “For [the introduction of religion] caused good orders; good
orders make good fortune; and from good fortune arose the happy successes of enterprises”
(Discourses 34-35). If there is to be some holy virtue dragged from the pits of Thrasymachan
realism, it is that Machiavelli values the life of a prophet over a prince. Uttering the maxim in the
concluding paragraph on Roman religion, he decides, “Thus it is the safety of a republic or
kingdom to have not one prince who governs prudently while he lives, but one individual who
orders it so that it is maintained when he dies” (Discourses 36). While the individual ordering the
state is not necessarily a prophet, that religious leader is clearly more valuable to the health of the
state than one prince along the way. For as progressive or successful a prince is, once he dies, the
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allegiance dissipates. It must be rekindled under a new political leader who is not always inclined
to the best care of the people or his principality. The prophet or the institutor of religious faith
can create the immutable structure for virtue and belief that will last long after that person dies.
Among the longest lasting and temporally powerful religious organizations in the world
is the Catholic Church and it is to that same church that Machiavelli moves his discussion of
religion as he traces the history of Italy. The shift from the religion of “the Gentiles” to
Christianity posed a political issue for those at the time; Machiavelli, again revealing his
indifference to whether any one faith is true but recognizing its value to society, dictates, “Thus,
princes of a republic or of a kingdom should maintain the foundations of the religion they hold,
and if this is done, it will be an easy thing for them to maintain their republic religious and, in
consequence, good and united” (Discourses 37). He also believes that if the Christian states,
presumably of Italy, had been religiously “ordered by its giver, the Christian states and republics
would be more united, much happier than they are” (Discourses 37). Yet the states and republics
were fractious and incapable of coming together otherwise until the much later unification of
Italy.
Machiavelli obviously agrees that religious belief is the most effective structure and
narrative to keep a state good and happy, but that it can be just as effective at tearing it asunder.
From this conclusion stems Machiavelli’s two major criticisms about the Catholic Church’s
influence in Italy: wickedness and divisiveness. Once again these are not philosophical debates
about transubstantiation, indulgences, or the veneration of Mary; Machiavelli’s pragmatism is
substituted for his piety. With wickedness in the Vatican, so followed wickedness in Italy, as
Machiavelli describes, “Because of the wicked examples of that court, this province has lost all
devotion and all religion – which brings with it infinite inconveniences and infinite disorders; for
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as where there is religion one presupposes every good, so where it is missing one presupposes
the contrary” (Discourses 37). While the religious belief that is instituted should create a
standard for some good in people, if the current religious leaders do not observe the
commandments, then the general citizenry is under no presumption of following the laws
themselves. The second criticism of the Church is again regarding the success or failing of the
institution; not theologically motivated. Machiavelli arrives at the conclusion that:
For although [the Church] has inhabited and held temporal power [in Italy], it has
not been so powerful nor of such virtue as to be able to seize the tyranny of Italy
and make itself prince of it. On the other hand, it has not been so weak that is has
been unable to call in a power to defend it against one that had become too
powerful in Italy, for fear of losing dominion over its temporal things.
(Discourses 38`).
In a way Machiavelli is more disappointed that the Church’s inability to either conquer
all of Italy or be vanquished entirely leaves the region in a state of flux as foreign nations can
attempt invasions yet no one principality can rise to defeat them. As for the Church’s own
theological existence, Machiavelli is indifferent. On the contrary, Hobbes tweaks the role of
religious faith as a result of his shift in focus from Machiavelli. As it has been previously said,
Machiavelli’s revelation of political realism is meant for the princes while Hobbes intends for all
subjects to understand the necessity of Leviathan. So while Machiavelli’s use of religious faith
could nearly be seen in the Marxist description of the “opiate of the masses,” Hobbes’ criticism
rests with religion’s utility to stem man’s natural fear of death, but also in the creation of a body
capable of wrestling with Leviathan.
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IV.
In the same way that Hobbes begins with the simplest definitions of equality and the state
of nature in order to shape the rest of his argument, he uses the structure to define religion in
Chapter Twelve of Leviathan. It is no wonder Hobbes faced claims of atheism (Martinich 35) as
he opened his discussion on belief with the statement that, “Seeing there are no signs, nor fruit of
religion, but in man only; there is no cause to doubt, but that the seed of religion, is also only in
man” (Hobbes 71). Even though there are no signs, man looks for answers and reasons to actions
and when the question of causes goes unanswered it presents a problem to the human mind. For
Hobbes, it is two primal fears that lead to the creation of religious belief: ignorance of causes and
ignorance of the future, specifically death. He explains this at length, admitting plainly, “So that
man, which looks too far before him, in the care of future time, hath his heart all the day long,
gnawed on by fear of death, poverty, or other calamity… this perpetual fear, always
accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes, as it were in the dark, must needs have for
object something” (Hobbes 72). The object of that wonder and its accompanying fear becomes
the creation of gods. Hobbes takes great care in his writing to differentiate himself from the
nonbelievers of the day and merely condemn the pantheon of Greek and Roman gods as
stemming from fear rather than reason, clarifying:
In which sense perhaps it was, that some of the old poets said, that the gods were
at first created by human fear: which spoken of the gods, (that is to say, of the
many gods of the Gentiles) is very true. But the acknowledging of one God,
eternal, infinite, and omnipotent, may more easily be derived… ….than from the
fear of what was to befall [men] in time to come. (Hobbes 72)
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Hobbes’ dabbling in comparative religion is ignorant to the point of intentionally dishonest
writing; in that, his criticism against the religion of the Gentiles is not applied when addressing
the tenets of Christianity. Yet before ridiculing Greek and Roman religion, he defines the four
natural seeds of religion and states explicitly religious use as a narrative for the preservation of
the state. The four seeds of religion are “the opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes,
devotion towards what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognostics,” and they are not
unreasonable propositions. Yet Hobbes, in his self-imposed blindness, declares the difference
between two culture’s uses for faith:
One sort have been they, that have nourished, and ordered [religions], according
to their own invention. The other have done it, by God’s commandment, and
direction: but both sorts have done it, with a purpose to make those men that
relied on them, the more apt to obedience, laws, peace, charity, and civil society.
So that religion of the former sort, is a part of human politics; and teacheth part of
the duty which earthly kings require of their subjects. And the religion of the
latter sort is divine politics; and containeth precepts to those that have yielded
themselves subjects in the kingdom of God. (Hobbes 74-75)
What a heresy it would be, to speak publicly of the Christian faith as an invention of men
intent to make their societies more obedient. However, he clearly sees it as a relevant criticism of
the Gentiles. One is left to assume that if Hobbes’ reasoning that shows Roman religion to be a
cultural invention were to also show Christianity to be a western cultural invention, then that
would lead the reader not only to atheism but the conclusion that the religion of Europe is the
modern cultural invention of men intent upon society’s obedience.
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Hobbes criticizes and declares the Roman religion illogical for many reasons, and while
some lack a parallel in the Christian faith or are illogical themselves, the sum of Hobbes’
argument and additional comments reveal his true opinion. He first takes to implicitly calling the
polytheism of the Gentiles illogical because everything was a god or “possessed by some spirit
or another” (Hobbes 75). Yet why is polytheism in and of itself fundamentally less logical than a
trinity that somehow becomes a monotheistic interpretation that sees the one God in Hobbes’
own words as, “eternal, infinite, and omnipotent” (Hobbes 72)? It is not any more illogical by
the belief itself; just as Hobbes goes on to critique the Gentiles’ “oblations, prayers, [and]
thanks,” their gods’ pictorial and sculptural representations, and the giving up of land that would
house their representations. The land was separated from other activities and used for only that
purpose as well (Hobbes 76). However, it must be asked again, how are these practices different
than the prayers and thanks that filled Christian churches of Hobbes’ day, or the iconography,
painting, and sculptures of Christ, or any other Christian representations? Or what of the land left
securely to the divine; is this any different than the teaching of the church that Jesus went in to
the temple courts and upon seeing the marketers, drove them out (Matthew 21:12-13)? No, these
are the same sorts of teachings and practices that Hobbes condemns of the Gentiles but leaves
unaddressed for Christianity.
There are three final similarities in religious structure that Hobbes turns a blind eye to in
favor of the Christian faith. These three are: divine involvement and propagation, prophecy, and
revelation. He criticizes the Greek and Roman pantheon for “mixing with one another… but also
by mixing with men and women, to beget mongrel gods, and but inmates of heaven as Bacchus,
Hercules, and others” (Hobbes 76). By such a definition, Jesus of Nazareth is an inmate of
heaven as well; for while many Christians at the time would contend that Jesus was both, fully
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God and fully man, rather than a demi-then-full god like Hercules, the conception of Christ was
at its simplest, the mixing of a god in spirit with a woman. Secondly, Hobbes describes the
“prognostics of time to come,” or prophets, as “naturally, but conjectures upon experience of
time past,” (Hobbes 76). Why are Elijah’s, or any of the Old Testament’s prophecies not merely
conjectures of time past as well? Hobbes remains quiet. Finally however, revelation remains
Hobbes’ most absurd logical blunder, or to the careful reader, his strongest admission of the
utility of religion. Hobbes states of the creation of Islam, “Mahomet, to set up his new religion,
pretended to have conferences with the Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove” (Hobbes 78). Yet
Hobbes does not say how he knows the incorrectness of Mohammed and the correctness of
Christianity when he says a mere two paragraphs later, “But where God himself, by supernatural
revelation, planted religion; there he also made to himself a peculiar kingdom and gave laws, not
only of behaviour towards himself; but also towards one another; and thereby in the kingdom of
God, the policy, and laws civil, are a part of religion” (Hobbes 78). How does God plant all of
this? Through the same sort of divine revelation that Mohammed “pretended to have,” the
prophets of Christianity received God’s word. This is all to say nothing of the truth or untruth of
the Christian faith itself, but the evidence is obvious; Hobbes’ criticism of Greek and Roman
religion is also the implicit criticism of the Christians of his time. This leads to the conclusion
that it is Hobbes’ true but unspoken opinion that the religion of Europe is the modern cultural
invention of men intent upon society’s obedience.
V.
If this is indeed Hobbes’ conclusion of the state of religion, than the implications cut deep
to the classical philosophies of the Good and of God. In the reestablishment of the modern state
Hobbes tears down the Good and redeems the blushing and dismissed Thrasymachus of the
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Republic. To Hobbes, justice is in fact that which is advantageous to the stronger while the
greatest good and final goal of the state ought to be progress. However most important in
Hobbes’ political philosophy is the use of the religious narrative, as he spends the second half of
Leviathan writing about the institution of a Christian Commonwealth. Yet if there is no
established Good nor eternal God, as Hobbes subversively criticized in “Of Religion,” what does
it mean when Hobbes says of the divine kingdom, “God is king of all the earth by his power; but
of his chosen people he is king by covenant” (Hobbes 79). It means that Thrasymachus is not
merely redeemed, but venerated. Leviathan, the sovereign, the man to rule all, through all his
power has subsumed the position of divinity while his power allows the deicide of classical
Goodness. Yet if Leviathan cannot be God of the whole world, then he is king of his chosen
people by covenant, by the social contact that Thrasymachus first proposes and Hobbes later
adopts. As men give up their will to serve God and may not call Him unjust, so too Hobbes gives
this right to the sovereign via his subject, “Because the major part hath by consenting voices
declared a sovereign; he that dissented must now consent with the rest; that is, be contented to
avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest” (Hobbes 117). And just
as it was God who determined what was good for life and will protect His people in His domain,
it is now Leviathan who assumes “The Office of the Sovereign Representative” for which:
…He was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety
of the people; to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an
account thereof to God, the author of that law, and to none but him. But by safety
here, is not meant a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of life,
which everyman by lawful industry, without danger, or hurt to the
commonwealth, shall acquire to himself. (Hobbes 222)
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The state will provide for the subject’s security and contentments, but since the sovereign
has subsumed the role of divine arbiter, there is no one Leviathan must answer to but himself. As
terrifying as the thought is, Hobbes was not dishonest; he foreshadowed the conclusion in his
introduction to Leviathan:
But let one man read another by his actions never so perfectly, it serves him only
with his acquaintance, which are but few. He that is to govern a whole nation
must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but mankind: which though
it be hard to do, harder than to learn any language or science; yet, when I shall
have set down my own reading orderly and perspicuously, the pains left another
will be only to consider if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of
doctrine admitteth no other demonstration. (Hobbes 8)
What other demonstration need there be but of the man who reads in himself and
determines the Good for the whole world? None; because this realization poses the more
important question: what then is more terrifying? The God who struck down Leviathan, or the
Leviathan that would strike down God?
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Prickett. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.
Hobbes, Thomas, and J.C.A. Gaskin. Leviathan. 2008, reimpr. ed. Oxford: Oxford University
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