Thomas Hobbes, Sir Robert Filmer and John Locke

Conceptions of Man, Nature and Government

Thomas Hobbes 1588- 1679

Born in 1588 with his twin Fear

Staunch Materialist, Determinist, Rationalist, and Secular thinker

Lived in exile in Paris from 1640-51, where he tutored Charles II

1651 He makes enemies in the Royalist camp when he writes and publishes Leviathan

Leviathan: A Mechanical, Psychological Political

Theory

Leviathan is an attempt to describe the generation and power of “the great Leviathan, or rather . . . of that mortal God.” I.e. the ruling authority that keeps men in check

The Argument in Four Parts– Of Man– Of Commonwealth– Of a Christian Commonwealth– Of the Kingdom of Darkness

From External Mechanics to Psychological Determinism

Matter in motion: The external world exists as a machine made up of matter and is devoid of spirit.

Knowledge, then, is the sensory impressions that the external world makes on the minds (also matter) of mankind

The self (once the idea of soul and spirit are removed) exists as the complex nexus of its sensory impressions

Hobbesian Political Theory: Absolute Rule or Social Anarchy

Men are Equal: Both in physical and mental capacity. But this equality breeds “hope in attainting of our Ends” (7). In short, it produces competition and enmity.

Diffidence: The primary ends of man: Self-preservation which causes men to “endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another” because they mistrust those around them (7).

War: The fear and mistrust of others coupled with the drive of self-preservation creates Anticipation (or pre-emptive strikes): the desire “to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him” (7).

This is the great natural state of mankind--“War of everyone against everyone” not so much in the actual fighting, “but in the known disposition thereto” (7).

Why the war of all against all gives way to contract and law:

Primarily because the natural state of war is inconvenient. There is no Industry, cultivation, exploration, geography, arts, letters, no society, and instead “continual fear, and danger of violent death.

In the state of war, “the life of man” is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (7).

How does Hobbes confirm the truth of his doctrine? Well if the logic of the argument is unsatisfactory (an ultimately it is) then he asks for inquirers to search their own experience to confirm Hobbes’s theory, but not condemn mankind.

Is man naturally bad or evil? Of course not, “in such a war nothing is unjust” (8). Because man has not made any law that murder for self-preservation violates, murder is not unlawful.

The governing virtues in the war of every man are Force and Fraud because there is no law but self-preservation.

Further, Hobbes argues that no law will every be made until people get together and decide on a ruler that will make laws for them. “Where there is no common Power, there is no Law” (8).

From Social Anarchy to Absolute Rule

So why, according to Hobbes is there absolute rule?– One: The “fear of death”; “desire of such things

as are necessary to commodious living” and “a Hope that by their industry to obtain them” are the Passions that drive men to contract (8).

– Two: Reason suggests the rules of law and order that will maintain peace and curb man’s natural passions.

Sir Robert Filmer d. 1653 Major work, Patiarcha, or

the Natural Power of Kings Asserted, was posthumously published in 1680

It became a major focal point in Locke’s argument against the power structure that supported the idea of divine right of inheritance.

It also had social implications beyond the overt defense of political monarchy

My King, My Father

The primary point here is that the King derives his power not from the people, nor does the power ever devolve to the people.

Rather, kingly authority was originally derived from God and was passed down from head of household to head of household.

“There is, and always shall be continued to the end of the world, a natural right of a supreme Father over every multitude, although, by the secret will of God, many at first do most unjustly obtain the exercise of it” (10).

My Father, My King

“If obedience to parents be immediately due by natural law, and the subjection to Princes by the mediation of a human ordinance, what reason is there that the law of nature should give place to the laws of men?” (10).

“As the father over one family, so the King, as Father over many families, extends his care to preserve, feed, clothe, instruct, and defend the whole commonwealth” (10).

And if you disagree expect a spanking or execution as the father/king sees fit.

John Locke 1632-1704

Born in Somersetshire to a country Solicitor and small landowner

Elected to the Royal Society in 1668

Became a physician to the First Earl of Shaftesbury

According to Locke, both Hobbes and Filmer got it all wrong.

His philosophy of mind argues for external ideas and innate faculties. That is, the mind is a tabula rasa engineered to perceive, remember, and combine external ideas as well as desire, will and deliberate on those ideas to produce a second class of ideas.

Because only clear and distinct ideas count as truth, speculative theories of man and God did not count and should be thrown out.

Locke on Government and Political Power

Filmer is unacceptable because: (1) it is impossible to trace authority to Adam, and (2) Adam’s authority may have been suspect from the very beginning

Hobbes is to be rejected because: If men were as nasty and brutish as Hobbes claims, its is unreasonable to think that this war of natural men would give rise to organized Government.

Political Power and Its Original: The Natural State

Political Power = “a Right of making Laws with Penalties of Death, and consequently all less Penalties, for the Regulating and Preserving of Property, and of employing the force of the Community, in the Execution of such Laws, and in the defense of the Common-wealth from Foreign Injury, and all this is only for the Public Good” (215).

Political Power is predicated on a Natural State of Man, which is:– Perfect Freedom: the capacity to order his affairs and property as

he sees fit

– Perfect Equality: no one is born “having more than another”

Political Power and Its Original: Natural Law

Although man’s natural state may be one of perfect Freedom and Equality, it is bounded by Natural Law which is known through Reason– Man must not destroy himself or any other creature he possesses

because it is reasonable and not simply expedient for his self-preservation. Thus, “no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty or Possessions” (215).

– Natural law “willeth the Peace and Preservation of all Mankind” (216).

Why?– Because man is the property of God and hence not his own to

dispose of as he sees fit (this will be the rub when it comes to property).

Natural Law con’t Because natural law wills peace and preservation it puts into

everyman’s hands “the Execution of the Law of the Law of Nature . . . whereby everyone has a right to punish the transgressors of that Law to such a Degree, as may hinder its Violation. . . . if any one in the State of Nature may punish another, for any evil he has done, every one may do so” (216).

Thus civic authority comes not by “Absolute or Arbitrary power” but by the authority of natural law executed in equality

Any transgression of the law is considered declaration of the transgressor to “live by another Rule, than that of reason and common equity” and as a result “he becomes dangerous to Mankind” (216).

Labor, Freedom, and Property If in the natural state of mankind he has power to

dispose of his property, and the Earth was given to all men in common– God gave man the earth and he also gave him reason, “to make

use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience” (217). Then the question arises: how does one come to own

property?– “The Labor of his Body, and the Work of his hands . . . are

properly his. . . .Whatsoever he removes out of the State that Nature has provided . . . he hath mixed his Labor with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property” (217).