Hobbes's Moral and Political Philosophy

First published Tue Feb 12, 2002; substantive revision Sat Aug 23, 2008

The 17th Century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes is now widely regarded as

one of a handful of truly great political philosophers, whose
masterwork Leviathan rivals in significance the political writings of Plato,
Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls. Hobbes is famous for his early and
elaborate development of what has come to be known as “social contract theory”,
the method of justifying political principles or arrangements by appeal to the
agreement that would be made among suitably situated rational, free, and equal
persons. He is infamous for having used the social contract method to arrive at the
astonishing conclusion that we ought to submit to the authority of an absolute—
undivided and unlimited—sovereign power. While his methodological innovation
had a profound constructive impact on subsequent work in political philosophy, his
substantive conclusions have served mostly as a foil for the development of more
palatable philosophical positions. Hobbes's moral philosophy has been less
influential than his political philosophy, in part because that theory is too
ambiguous to have garnered any general consensus as to its content. Most scholars
have taken Hobbes to have affirmed some sort of personal relativism or
subjectivism; but views that Hobbes espoused divine command theory, virtue
ethics, rule egoism, or a form of projectivism also find support in Hobbes's texts
and among scholars. Because Hobbes held that “the true doctrine of the Lawes of
Nature is the true Morall philosophie”, differences in interpretation of Hobbes's
moral philosophy can be traced to differing understandings of the status and
operation of Hobbes's “laws of nature”, which laws will be discussed below. The
formerly dominant view that Hobbes espoused psychological egoism as the
foundation of his moral theory is currently widely rejected, and there has been to
date no fully systematic study of Hobbes's moral psychology.

The Philosophical Project

Hobbes sought to discover rational principles for the construction of a civil polity
that would not be subject to destruction from within. Having lived through the
period of political disintegration culminating in the English Civil War, he came to
the view that the burdens of even the most oppressive government are “scarce
sensible, in respect of the miseries, and horrible calamities, that accompany a Civil
Warre”. Because virtually any government would be better than a civil war, and,
according to Hobbes's analysis, all but absolute governments are systematically
prone to dissolution into civil war, people ought to submit themselves to an
absolute political authority. Continued stability will require that they also refrain
from the sorts of actions that might undermine such a regime. For example,
subjects should not dispute the sovereign power and under no circumstances
should they rebel. In general, Hobbes aimed to demonstrate the reciprocal
relationship between political obedience and peace.
The State of Nature

To establish these conclusions, Hobbes invites us to consider what life would be

like in a state of nature, that is, a condition without government. Perhaps we would
imagine that people might fare best in such a state, where each decides for herself
how to act, and is judge, jury and executioner in her own case whenever disputes
arise—and that at any rate, this state is the appropriate baseline against which to
judge the justifiability of political arrangements. Hobbes terms this situation “the
condition of mere nature”, a state of perfectly private judgment, in which there is
no agency with recognized authority to arbitrate disputes and effective power to
enforce its decisions.

Hobbes's near descendant, John Locke, insisted in his Second Treatise of

Government that the state of nature was indeed to be preferred to subjection to the
arbitrary power of an absolute sovereign. But Hobbes famously argued that such a
“dissolute condition of masterlesse men, without subjection to Lawes, and a
coercive Power to tye their hands from rapine, and revenge” would make
impossible all of the basic security upon which comfortable, sociable, civilized life
depends. There would be “no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is
uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the
commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no
Instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no
Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; and
which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of
man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” If this is the state of nature, people
have strong reasons to avoid it, which can be done only by submitting to some
mutually recognized public authority, for “so long a man is in the condition of
mere nature, (which is a condition of war,) as private appetite is the measure of
good and evill.”

Although many readers have criticized Hobbes's state of nature as unduly

pessimistic, he constructs it from a number of individually plausible empirical and
normative assumptions. He assumes that people are sufficiently similar in their
mental and physical attributes that no one is invulnerable nor can expect to be able
to dominate the others. Hobbes assumes that people generally “shun death”, and
that the desire to preserve their own lives is very strong in most people. While
people have local affections, their benevolence is limited, and they have a tendency
to partiality. Concerned that others should agree with their own high opinions of
themselves, people are sensitive to slights. They make evaluative judgments, but
often use seemingly impersonal terms like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to stand for their own
personal preferences. They are curious about the causes of events, and anxious
about their futures; according to Hobbes, these characteristics incline people to
adopt religious beliefs, although the content of those beliefs will differ depending
upon the sort of religious education one has happened to receive.
With respect to normative assumptions, Hobbes ascribes to each person in the state
of nature a liberty right to preserve herself, which he terms “the right of nature”.
This is the right to do whatever one sincerely judges needful for one's preservation;
yet because it is at least possible that virtually anything might be judged necessary
for one's preservation, this theoretically limited right of nature becomes in practice
an unlimited right to potentially anything, or, as Hobbes puts it, a right “to all
things”. Hobbes further assumes as a principle of practical rationality, that people
should adopt what they see to be the necessary means to their most important ends.

The State of Nature Is a State of War

Taken together, these plausible descriptive and normative assumptions yield a state
of nature potentially fraught with divisive struggle. The right of each to all things
invites serious conflict, especially if there is competition for resources, as there will
surely be over at least scarce goods such as the most desirable lands, spouses, etc.
People will quite naturally fear that others may (citing the right of nature) invade
them, and may rationally plan to strike first as an anticipatory defense. Moreover,
that minority of prideful or “vain-glorious” persons who take pleasure in exercising
power over others will naturally elicit preemptive defensive responses from others.
Conflict will be further fueled by disagreement in religious views, in moral
judgments, and over matters as mundane as what goods one actually needs, and
what respect one properly merits. Hobbes imagines a state of nature in which each
person is free to decide for herself what she needs, what she's owed, what's
respectful, right, pious, prudent, and also free to decide all of these questions for
the behavior of everyone else as well, and to act on her judgments as she thinks
best, enforcing her views where she can. In this situation where there is no
common authority to resolve these many and serious disputes, we can easily
imagine with Hobbes that the state of nature would become a “state of war”, even
worse, a war of “all against all”.

Further Questions About the State of Nature

In response to the natural question whether humanity ever was generally in any
such state of nature, Hobbes gives three examples of putative states of nature. First,
he notes that all sovereigns are in this state with respect to one another. This claim
has made Hobbes the representative example of a “realist” in international
relations. Second, he opined that many now civilized peoples were formerly in that
state, and some few peoples—“the savage people in many places of America”
(Leviathan, XIII), for instance—were still to his day in the state of nature. Third
and most significantly, Hobbes asserts that the state of nature will be easily
recognized by those whose formerly peaceful states have collapsed into civil war.
While the state of nature's condition of perfectly private judgment is an abstraction,
something resembling it too closely for comfort remains a perpetually present
possibility, to be feared, and avoided.
Do the other assumptions of Hobbes's philosophy license the existence of this
imagined state of isolated individuals pursuing their private judgments? Probably
not, since, as feminist critics among others have noted, children are by Hobbes's
theory assumed to have undertaken an obligation of obedience to their parents in
exchange for nurturing, and so the primitive units in the state of nature will include
families ordered by internal obligations, as well as individuals. The bonds of
affection, sexual affinity, and friendship—as well as of clan membership and
shared religious belief—may further decrease the accuracy of any purely
individualistic model of the state of nature. This concession need not impugn
Hobbes's analysis of conflict in the state of nature, since it may turn out that
competition, diffidence and glory-seeking are disastrous sources of conflicts
among small groups just as much as they are among individuals. Still,
commentators seeking to answer the question how precisely we should understand
Hobbes's state of nature are investigating the degree to which Hobbes imagines
that to be a condition of interaction among isolated individuals.

Another important open question is that of what, exactly, it is about human beings
that makes it the case (supposing Hobbes is right) that our communal life is prone
to disaster when we are left to interact according only to our own individual
judgments. Perhaps, while people do wish to act for their own best long-term
interest, they are shortsighted, and so indulge their current interests without
properly considering the effects of their current behavior on their long-term
interest. This would be a type of failure of rationality. Alternative, it may be that
people in the state of nature are fully rational, but are trapped in a situation that
makes it individually rational for each to act in a way that is sub-optimal for all,
perhaps finding themselves in the familiar ‘prisoner's dilemma’ of game theory. Or
again, it may be that Hobbes's state of nature would be peaceful but for the
presence of persons (just a few, or perhaps all, to some degree) whose passions
overrule their calmer judgments; who are prideful, spiteful, partial, envious,
jealous, and in other ways prone to behave in ways that lead to war. Such an
account would understand irrational human passions to be the source of conflict.
Which, if any, of these accounts adequately answers to Hobbes's text is a matter of
continuing debate among Hobbes scholars. Game theorists have been particularly
active in these debates, experimenting with different models for the state of nature
and the conflict it engenders.

The Laws of Nature

Hobbes argues that the state of nature is a miserable state of war in which none of
our important human ends are reliably realizable. Happily, human nature also
provides resources to escape this miserable condition. Hobbes argues that each of
us, as a rational being, can see that a war of all against all is inimical to the
satisfaction of her interests, and so can agree that “peace is good, and therefore also
the way or means of peace are good”. Humans will recognize as imperatives the
injunction to seek peace, and to do those things necessary to secure it, when they
can do so safely. Hobbes calls these practical imperatives “Lawes of Nature”, the
sum of which is not to treat others in ways we would not have them treat us. These
“precepts”, “conclusions” or “theorems” of reason are “eternal and immutable”,
always commanding our assent even when they may not safely be acted upon.
They forbid many familiar vices such as iniquity, cruelty, and ingratitude.
Although commentators do not agree on whether these laws should be regarded as
mere precepts of prudence, or rather as divine commands, or moral imperatives of
some other sort, all agree that Hobbes understands them to direct people to submit
to political authority. They tell us to seek peace with willing others by laying down
part of our “right to all things”, by mutually covenanting to submit to the authority
of a sovereign, and further direct us to keep that covenant establishing sovereignty.

Establishing Sovereign Authority

When people mutually covenant each to the others to obey a common authority,
they have established what Hobbes calls “sovereignty by institution”. When,
threatened by a conqueror, they covenant for protection by promising obedience,
they have established “sovereignty by acquisition”. These are equally legitimate
ways of establishing sovereignty, according to Hobbes, and their underlying
motivation is the same—namely fear—whether of one's fellows or of a conqueror.
The social covenant involves both the renunciation or transfer of right and the
authorization of the sovereign power. Political legitimacy depends not on how a
government came to power, but only on whether it can effectively protect those
who have consented to obey it; political obligation ends when protection ceases.

Absolutism

Although Hobbes offered some mild pragmatic grounds for preferring monarchy to
other forms of government, his main concern was to argue that effective
government—whatever its form—must have absolute authority. Its powers must be
neither divided nor limited. The powers of legislation, adjudication, enforcement,
taxation, war-making (and the less familiar right of control of normative doctrine)
are connected in such a way that a loss of one may thwart effective exercise of the
rest; for example, legislation without interpretation and enforcement will not serve
to regulate conduct. Only a government that possesses all of what Hobbes terms
the “essential rights of sovereignty” can be reliably effective, since where partial
sets of these rights are held by different bodies that disagree in their judgments as
to what is to be done, paralysis of effective government, or degeneration into a
civil war to settle their dispute, may occur.

Similarly, to impose limitation on the authority of the government is to invite

irresoluble disputes over whether it has overstepped those limits. If each person is
to decide for herself whether the government should be obeyed, factional
disagreement—and war to settle the issue, or at least paralysis of effective
government—are quite possible. To refer resolution of the question to some further
authority, itself also limited and so open to challenge for overstepping its bounds,
would be to initiate an infinite regress of non-authoritative ‘authorities’ (where the
buck never stops). To refer it to a further authority itself unlimited, would be just to
relocate the seat of absolute sovereignty, a position entirely consistent with
Hobbes's insistence on absolutism. To avoid the horrible prospect of governmental
collapse and return to the state of nature, people should treat their sovereign as
having absolute authority.

The Limits of Political Obligation

While Hobbes insists that we should regard our governments as having absolute
authority, he reserves to subjects the liberty of disobeying some of their
government's commands. He argues that subjects retain a right of self-defense
against the sovereign power, giving them the right to disobey or resist when their
lives are in danger. He also gives them seemingly broad resistance rights in cases
in which their families or even their honor are at stake. These exceptions have
understandably intrigued those who study Hobbes. His ascription of apparently
inalienable rights—what he calls the “true liberties of subjects”—seems
incompatible with his defense of absolute sovereignty. Moreover, if the sovereign's
failure to provide adequate protection to subjects extinguishes their obligation to
obey, and if it is left to each subject to judge for herself the adequacy of that
protection, it seems that people have never really exited the fearsome state of
nature. This aspect of Hobbes's political philosophy has been hotly debated ever
since Hobbes's time. Bishop Bramhall, one of Hobbes's contemporaries, famously
accused Leviathan of being a “Rebell's Catechism.” More recently, some
commentators have argued that Hobbes's discussion of the limits of political
obligation is the Achilles' heel of his theory. It is not clear whether or not this
charge can stand up to scrutiny, but it will surely be the subject of much continued
discussion.

Bibliography

The secondary literature on Hobbes's moral and political philosophy (not to speak
of his entire body of work) is vast, appearing across many disciplines and in many
languages. The following is a narrow selection of fairly recent works by
philosophers, political theorists, and intellectual historians, available in English, on
main areas of inquiry in Hobbes's moral and political thought. Very helpful for
further reference is the critical bibliography of Hobbes scholarship to 1990
contained in Zagorin, P., 1990, “Hobbes on Our Mind”, Journal of the History of
Ideas, 51(2).

Journals

 Hobbes Studies is an annually published journal devoted to scholarly

research on all aspects of Hobbes's work.
Collections

 Brown, K.C., (ed.), 1965, Hobbes Studies, Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, contains important papers by A.E. Taylor, J.W. N. Watkins, Howard
Warrender, and John Plamenatz, among others.
 Caws, P., (ed.), 1989, The Causes of Quarrell: Essays on Peace, War, and
Thomas Hobbes, Boston: Beacon Press.
 Dietz, M., (ed.), 1990, Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory, Lawrence:
University of Kansas Press.
 Finkelstein, C., (ed.), 2005, Hobbes on Law, Aldershot: Ashgate.
 Foisneau, L. and T. Sorell, (eds.), 2004, Leviathan after 350 years, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
 Lloyd, S.A., (ed.), 2001, “Special Issue on Recent Work on the Moral and
Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly,
82 (3&4).
 Rogers, G.A.J. and A. Ryan, (eds.), 1988, Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Rogers, G.A.J., (ed.), 1995, Leviathan: Contemporary Responses to the
Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes, Bristol: Thoemmes Press.
 Shaver, R., (ed.), 1999, Hobbes, Hanover: Dartmouth Press.
 Sorell, T. (ed.), 1996, The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
 Sorrell, T. and G.A.J. Rogers, (eds.), 2000, Hobbes and History, London:
Routledge.
 Springboard, P., (ed.), 2007, The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's
Leviathan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Books and Articles

 Armitage, D., 2007, “Hobbes and the foundations of modern international

thought”, in Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Ashcraft, R., 1971, “Hobbes's Natural Man: A Study in Ideology
Formation”, Journal of Politics, 33: 1076-1117.
 Baumgold, D., 1988, Hobbes's Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
 Boonin-Vail, D., 1994, Thomas Hobbes and the Science of Moral Virtue,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Collins, J., 2005, The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
 Curley, E., 1988, “I durst not write so boldly: or how to read Hobbes'
theological-political treatise”, E. Giancotti (ed.), Proceedings of the
Conference on Hobbes and Spinoza, Urbino.
 –––, 1994, “Introduction to Hobbes's Leviathan”, Leviathan with selected
variants from the Latin edition of 1668, E. Curley (ed.), Indianapolis:
Indiana University Press.
 Curran, E., 2006, “Can Rights Curb the Hobbesian Sovereign? The Full
Right to Self-preservation, Duties of Sovereignty and the Limitations of
Hohfeld”, Law and Philosophy, 25: 243-265.
 –––, 2007, Reclaiming the Rights of Hobbesian Subjects, Hampshire:
Palgrave Macmillan.
 Darwall, S., 1995. The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought', 1640-
1740, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
 ––– 2000, “Normativity and Projection in Hobbes's Leviathan”, The
Philosophical Review, 109 (3): 313-347.
 Ewin, R.E., 1991, Virtues and Rights: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas
Hobbes, Boulder: Westview Press.
 Gauthier, D., 1969, The Logic of 'Leviathan': the Moral and political
Theory of Thomas Hobbes, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
 Gert, B., 1967, “Hobbes and psychological egoism”, Journal of the History
of Ideas, 28: 503-520.
 ––– 1978, “Introduction to Man and Citizen”, Man and Citizen, B. Gert,
(ed.), New York: Humanities Press.
 ––– 1988, “The law of nature and the moral law”, Hobbes Studies, 1: 26-44.
 Goldsmith, M. M., 1966, Hobbes's Science of Politics, New York: Columbia
University Press
 Hampton, J., 1986, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
 Hoekstra, K., 1999, “Nothing to Declare: Hobbes and the Advocate of
Injustice”, Political Theory, 27 (2): 230-235.
 –––, 2003, “Hobbes on Law, Nature and Reason”, Journal of the History of
Philosophy, 41 (1): 111-120.
 –––, 2007, “A lion in the house: Hobbes and democracy” in Rethinking the
Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
 Hood, E.C., 1964. The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes, Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
 Johnston, D., 1986, The Rhetoric of'Leviathan': Thomas Hobbes and the
Politics of Cultural Transformation, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
 Kavka, G., 1986, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
 LeBuffe, M., 2003, “Hobbes on the Origin of Obligation”, British Journal
for the History of Philosophy, 11(1): 15-39.
 Lloyd, S.A., 1992, Ideals as Interests in Hobbes's 'Leviathan': the Power of
Mind over Matter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 –––, 1998, “Contemporary Uses of Hobbes's political philosophy”,
in Rational Commitment and Social Justice: Essays for Gregory Kavka, J.
Coleman and C. Morris (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Macpherson, C.B., 1962, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism:
Hobbes to Locke, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 –––, 1968, “Introduction”, Leviathan, C.B. Macpherson, (ed.), London:
Penguine.
 Malcolm, N., 2002, Aspects of Hobbes, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Martinich, A.P., 1992, The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on
Religion and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 –––, 1995, A Hobbes Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell.
 –––, 1999, Hobbes: A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridg University Press.
 –––, 2005, Hobbes, New York: Routledge.
 Murphy, M. 2000, “Hobbes on the Evil of Death”, Archiv für Geschichte
der Philosophie, 82: 36-61.
 Nagel, T., 1959, “Hobbes's Concept of Obligation”, Philosophical Review,
68: 68-83.
 Oakeshott, M., 1975. Hobbes on Civil Association, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
 Raphael, D. D., 1977, Hobbes: Morals and Politics, London: Routledge
Press.
 Ryan, A., 1986, “A More Tolerant Hobbes?”, S. Mendus, (ed.), Justifying
Toleration, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Schneewind, J.B., 1997, The Invention of Autonomy: History of Modern
Moral Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Schwitzgebel, E., 2007, “Human Nature and Moral Education in Mencius,
Xunzi, Hobbes, and Rousseau”, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 24 (2):
147-168.
 Skinner, Q., 1996, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 –––, 2002, Visions of Politics Volume 3: Hobbes and Civil Science,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Sommerville, J., 1992, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical
Context, London: Macmillan.
 Sorell, T., 1986, Hobbes, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
 Strauss, L., 1936, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: its Basis and
Genesis, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Tuck, R., 1979, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 –––, 1989, Hobbes, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 –––, 1991, “Introduction”, Leviathan, R. Tuck, (ed.), Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
 –––, 1993, Philosophy and Government 1572-1651, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
 Warrender, H., 1957, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: his Theory of
Obligation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Watkins, J.W.N., 1965, Hobbes's System of Ideas, London: Hutchison and
Co.