Chapter 3 - All the Mind’s Pleasure: Glory, Self-Admiration, and Moral Motivation in On the Citizen and Leviathan

Summary

Hobbes’s striking On the Citizen position that “all the mind’s pleasure is either glory (or to have a good opinion of oneself), or refers to glory in the end” disappears in Leviathan. In this chapter, Lloyd argues that in stepping back from his On the Citizen assertion of a universal basic motive, which she analyzes as aiming to secure self-admiration, Hobbes loses sight of a tremendous potential resource for stabilizing political society. This motive can, in a properly designed commonwealth, motivate compliance with the requirements of morality; and adherence to a correct morality, such as that which Hobbes would have to be taught to all, is enormously helpful in securing civil peace. Re-attention to On the Citizen helps us to recover that insight, and from it to develop an argument that Hobbes could have used to his benefit.