Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679)

?"the condition of man?. . . is a?condition of war?of every one against every one"

Thomas Hobbes is the grumpy old man of philosophy but I don't think we can blame him for his less than cheery outlook. Hobbes lived during a time of immense political upheaval and it should be no surprise that the horrors that he witnessed as a result of living through two civil wars had a negative impact on his philosophy.

The Man

Thomas Hobbes was born in Wiltshire, England on 5 April 1588. His father was the vicar of Charlton and Westport and was apparently very quick tempered. After engaging in a public brawl outside his own church door (!) he fled England for fear of being hanged, leaving his three young children, including Thomas, in the care of his wealthy older brother.

The young Thomas was well looked after by his uncle and money was provided for his education. When he was four years old he was sent to school at Westport before attending a private school. He proved to be an excellent scholar and at only 15 years of age he went to Oxford University where he took an arts degree and developed an interest in maps.

Hobbes witnessed first hand The English Civil Wars (1642-46 and 1648-51) which led to the King being executed and a republic being declared. England stood divided against itself in many ways, and Hobbes lived through a time of great violence. There were divisions between rich and poor, the king and parliament and between regions. There were also huge inequalities of wealth. All this led to the emergence of radical political and religious sects and it was a time of great fear and uncertainty for everyone living in England at this time.

The events that Hobbes witnessed certainly informed his philosophical and political perspective and his political philosophy has a pessimistic view of human nature. Hobbes' greatest fear was social and political chaos and his philosophy calls for a strong authoritarian state.

From the age of sixty his health began to decline and steadily worsened. He died from a stroke in 1679.

His Philosophy

“And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” ‘Leviathan’ Chapter XIII

Hobbes’ ‘Leviathan’ is among the greatest works in the history of ideas. It was written during a moment in English history when the common political and social structures, as well as scientific methods, were shifting and it was a very unsettling and fearful time for those who lived through it.

In ‘Leviathan’ Hobbes argues that civil peace and social unity are best achieved by the establishment of a strong state through a social contract. A social contract is a hypothetical agreement between the citizen and the state and many philosophers, including John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, have debated what this hypothetical agreement might have been like.

Hobbes did not believe in the soul, or in the mind being separate from the body like the earlier philosophers Plato and Descartes. Instead, he saw human beings as machine like, with even their thoughts and emotions operating according to physical laws and chains of cause and effect. Hobbes believed that given the chance, human beings would relentlessly pursue their own self-interest, mechanically avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure, irrespective of the impact that this may have on other individuals.

Hobbes viewed the state, or society, as a similar machine, it was larger than the human body of course and was an artificial construct, but nevertheless Hobbes thought that it operated according to the same laws of cause and effect.

In a famous passage in Leviathan, Hobbes states that the worst aspect of the state of nature is the “continual fear and danger of violent death.” For Hobbes, the state of nature, was a time without law or security, and because Hobbes thought that human instinct was to obtain as much power and goods as possible, with no regard to the welfare of others, he viewed the state of nature as a state of constant war.

Hobbes thought that in the state of nature humans would live in a perpetual state of fear of one another and in order to avoid certain death they would eventually have to come together and use their powers of reason to establish some kind of peace treaty. Hobbes referred to this treaty as a social contract.

Hobbes was the first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed social contract theory and in his version he contended that people in the pre-social state of nature gave up their individual rights in order to create a sovereign state. The benefit of this being that although individuals had fewer rights and freedoms, they were protected by the state and enjoyed a more functional society without living in fear of being murdered.

For Hobbes, social contract theories evolved out of pragmatic self- interest, and Hobbes' ideal state is ruled by a sovereign power who is granted absolute authority. The sovereign's main responsibility is protecting the security of the state, preserving peace and preventing civil war.

During his lifetime, Hobbes was an outspoken Royalist and he fled to France during the Civil War which is where he wrote Leviathan. It should be no surprise then that Hobbes promoted monarchy as the best form of government and the only form of government that can guarantee peace. He holds that any form of ordered government is preferable to civil war and thus advocates that all members of society submit to one absolute, central authority for the sake of maintaining the common peace. In Hobbes’s system, obedience to the sovereign is directly tied to peace in all realms. The sovereign is empowered to run the government, to determine all laws, to rule the church, and to adjudicate in philosophical and ethical disputes. For Hobbes, this is the only sure means of maintaining a civil, peaceful society and preventing civil war.

The practical application of Hobbes’ Political Philosophy

Hobbes believed that people pursue their own self-interests and will harm or kill others to achieve their ends. He thought that people are motivated by fear and need a sovereign power to protect them both from themselves and from each other.

Hobbes believed that if the state was abolished civil war would be the result and this is in fact what Hobbes witnessed. The only solution, as far as Hobbes was concerned, is to have a strong state which should be autocratic and absolutist. There should be no opportunity for dissent.

It's easy to see why Hobbes came up with the views that he did, but I can't say that I'm convinced by them. I think that people are kinder and more social than Hobbes would have us believe, and I also think that most of us would prefer to live in peace rather than pursue power.

John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau also considered social contract theory but came to radically different conclusions about what life was like in the state of nature and what the ideal form of government should be. Interestingly their philosophy was also very much shaped by the events that they lived through. I'll be investigating their ideas in the future.

Further Reading

Thomas Hobbes 'Leviathon'

Sparknotes Thomas Hobbes

Jonathan Wolff 'An Introduction to Political Philosophy'

About me

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