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Prescription and Description in Political Thought The Case for Hobbes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Blair Campbell
Blair Campbell*
Affiliation:
U.C.L.A.
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Abstract

In seeking a basis for political obligation in the “facts” of human nature, Hobbes has created a major problem for students of political theory. Recent scholarly debate has suggested that we understand Hobbes either as a descriptive and analytic theorist, or as a normative theorist. While this logical distinction has didactic value, it is apt to produce a misunderstanding of the dynamics of political thinking. All discourse does not rest upon logic: we must distinguish political argumentation, which often goes beyond the confines of logic by manipulating our factual perceptions, from disinterested philosophical debate, which aims at clarity.

Hobbes manipulates his readers' perceptions in such a manner as to preclude a number of assumptions underlying traditional moral arguments for political disobedience. While moral argument (at least of a sort) is possible, it is not necessary to the argument of the Leviathan. Hobbes grounds political obligation on one situational and two psychophysiological postulates: man's most fundamental concern is self-preservation; his passions lead him into situations of conflict which give rise to intense feelings of fear; this fear has an “enlightening value,” transforming human behavior from the merely reflexive to the contrived. Terror hence provides a strategy of fear-avoidance, a logic of survival to which the individual must conform in order to avoid future encounters with death.

Thus, while Hobbes's answer to the problem of political obligation is nonmoral in the traditional sense, it is more than merely prudential. Hobbes's conception of homeostasis as informed by fear is, like morality, both universal and imperative. The natural law binds not because it is “good” but because its violation is too frequently accompanied by an all-consuming terror which the ordinary man cannot withstand.

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Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 376 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1929

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Footnotes

*

I am very grateful to Victor Wolfenstein, Duane Smith, Wayne Swanke, and the anonymous referees of the American Political Science Review for their invaluable assistance in the final preparation of this paper.

References

1 Although there have been some contemporary attempts to challenge this axiom, such as Searle's, John R. “How to Derive ‘Ought’ from ‘Is,’” Philosophical Review, LXXIII, No. 1 (Jan., 1964), 43ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, they appear to have met with little success among most ethical philosophers. See James and Judith Thomson's “How Not to Derive ‘Ought’ from ‘Is,’” ibid., No. 4 (October, 1964), 512ff.

2 Another obvious alternative—that this radical distinction between fact and value is simply inapplicable to Hobbes—is often rejected as irrevelant. Stuart M. Brown, Jr. states:

“Even if Hobbes himself did not in fact distinguish clearly between questions in moral philosophy and questions in empirical psychology, we now distinguish between these questions and must determine whether Hobbes could in principle have done so without damage to his theory.”

(“The Taylor Thesis: Introductory Note,” Hobbes Studies, ed. Brown, Keith C. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965], p. 34 Google Scholar).

3 Stephen's, Leslie Hobbes (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961)Google Scholar, presents this view, as does Oakeshott's, Michael “Introduction” to the Leviathan (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960)Google Scholar, although the latter argument allows for an element of morality. Raphael's, D. D. “Obligations and Rights in Hobbes,” Philosophy, XXXVII (1962), 345ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, restates and defends the traditional view.

4 Taylor's, article, “The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes,” is included in Hobbes Studies, p. 35ffGoogle Scholar. It originally appeared in Philosophy, XIII (1938), 406ff.Google Scholar

5 The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: His Theory of Obligation (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957)Google Scholar. Warrender has summarized major segments of his argument in “Obligations and Rights in Hobbes,” Philosophy, XXXIV (1962), 352ff.Google Scholar; “The Place of God in Hobbes's Philosophy,” Political Studies, VIII, No. 1 (February 1960), 48ff.Google Scholar, and “A Reply to Plamenatz, Mr.,” Hobbes Studies, p. 90ffGoogle Scholar. Although Warrender was quite tentative in grounding Hobbesian natural law in God, he has, nonetheless, inspired several theistic interpretations of Hobbes. See Hood's, Francis Campbell The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes: An Interpretation (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1964)Google Scholar, Olafson's, Frederick A. “Thomas Hobbes and the Modem Theory of Natural Law,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, IV, No. 1 (January 1966), 15ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Willis B. Glover's “Human Nature and the State in Hobbes,” ibid., Vol. IV, No. 4 (October, 1966), 293ff.

6 Political Philosophy of Hobbes, p. 93ff.

7 The French philosophes, particularly La Mettrie. d'Holbach and Helvetius, inclined toward this extreme. See Diderot's Jacques le Fataliste for an uneasy parody of this position. While Diderot could satirize this posture, he was unable to offer a “scientific” refutation of it.

8 Oakeshott has also observer this relation: “What we ought to do is unavoidably connected with what in fact we are; and what we are is (in this connection) what we believe ourselves to be.” (Rationalism in Politics [New York: Basic Books, 1962], p. 248)Google Scholar. However, he apparently views this mutual influence merely as constituting a limitation within which a thinker must function, rather than as a manipulative weapon.

9 Even the most radical of relativists must assume some degree of psychic fixity. Hans Kelsen, an advocate of relativism, observes that such a position must assume both equality and mutual conformity among knowing subjects ( What is Justice? Justice, Law and Politics in the Mirror of Science [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957], p. 200 Google Scholar).

10 Paul Schrecker makes this point in his admirable “Revolution as a Problem in the Philosophy of History”: “Every true scientific proposition is, at the same time that it figures as a link in an objective system of knowledge, a norm which must be followed by our thought, a model to which the mind must conform, if it desires to reach the truth.” ( Revolution [Nomos, VIII], ed. Friedrich, Carl J. [New York: Atherton Press, 1969], p. 40 Google Scholar).

11 Or “just the right frame of mind,” as Aristotle described it. Aristotle, indeed, defines the emotions in terms of their ability to influence cognition: “All those feelings that so change men as to affect their judgments….” ( Rhetoric, Book II ed. and with an Introduction by McKeon, Richard [New York: Random House, 1941]Google Scholar).

12 Pocock, J. G. A. draws a parallel distinction between philosophic and ideological thinking in “The History of Political Thought: A Methodological Inquiry,” contained in Philosophy, Politics and Society (2nd Series), eds. Laslett, Peter and Runciman, W. G. (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1962), p. 186ffGoogle Scholar.

13 Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, p. 6.

14 Ibid., p. 5.

15 Norbert Weiner, one of the major pioneers of the “cybernation revolution,” has modernized the scientist's beloved machine-man with a network of electronic circuits. See his The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1954)Google Scholar. See also Sluckin's, W. Minds and Machines (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1954)Google Scholar.

16 This does not mean that Hobbes's interest in science was solely as an ideological tool, any more than was Plato's psychic preoccupation, although Strauss's, Leo The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and its Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1963)Google Scholar, suggests such an interpretation. Both Watkins', J. W. N. Hobbes's System of Ideas: A Study in the Political Significance of Philosophical Theories (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1965)Google Scholar, and Goldsmith's, M. M. Hobbes' Science of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966)Google Scholar, take issue with Strauss, attempting to unify Hobbes's scientific and political doctrines.

17 Hobbes devotes a separate section of the Leviathan to those who conceived of intellectual sophistication in terms of religion rather than science.

18 A doctrine which suggests that we are always obliged to the state is not a moral doctrine. It supersedes morality with politics. It reduces itself to the slogan “right or wrong, my country.” A moralist, on the contrary, must be prepared to say “Politic or not, my principles.”

19 The Dialogues of Plato, ed. Jowett, Benjamin (New York: Random House, 1937), II, 531 Google Scholar.

20 To say that a person is politically obliged is to say only that he ought to obey the commands of the state. If this obligation is to be morally binding, the “ought” must be followed by the explanation “because it is good or moral to do so.” Socrates never offers this explanation; indeed he takes it for granted that the legal command that has inspired the discussion of the Crito—his condemnation—is not good or moral. For an opposing interpretation of Socrates' submission see Pitkin's, Hanna “Obligation and Consent—II,” American Political Science Review, Vol. LX, No. 1 (1966), pp. 40–42.Google Scholar Her argument is “that Socrates' focus on his past acceptance of the laws and his gratitude to them is in fact an evaluation of the Athenian government (or the expression of such an evaluation).” (p. 42). If this were the case, we could legitimately expect Socrates to explicate the standard according to which he was making such an evaluation; yet he does not offer a standard. Indeed, his biographical emphasis makes it quite clear that he owes his very identity to his beloved Laws, and that there could be no circumstances under which he would be morally obliged to disobey them ( Pitkin, Miss herself concedes that “Socrates may never have been in doubt as to what he would do …” [p. 40]Google Scholar). He does remind his judges, in the Apology, that he has disobeyed political edicts in the past, but his disobedience was motivated by a deep sense of commitment to political legality, not to transpolitical morality. He emphasized that he had “law and justice” with him on the relevant issues, that he disobeyed the “criminal” edicts because of their “illegality.” ( The Dialogues of Plato, I, 415 Google Scholar).

21 Allen, J. W., A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (London: Methuen [n.d.]), p. 115 Google Scholar.

22 Discourse on Method, Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans. Haldane, Elizabeth S. and Ross, G. R. T. (2 vols.) (Cambridge: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955), I, 100 Google Scholar. See also Krailsheimer's, A. J. Studies in Self-Interest: From Descartes to La Bruyere (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), Ch. 2Google Scholar.

23 Descartes had been frightened into intellectualizing on behalf of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Hobbes deplored this as cowardly, despite his own views about the power of fear. See Helen Hervey's “Hobbes and Descartes in the Light of Some Uupublished Letters of the Correspondence between Sir Charles Cavendish and Dr. John Pell,” Osiris, X (1952), 83ff. For a more complete account of the intellectual relationships between Hobbes and Descartes, see Frithiof Brandt's Thomas Hobbes's Mechanical Conception of Nature (Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard, 1928), Ch. 4.

24 Leviathan, p. 13.

25 Ibid., p. 14.

26 Ibid., p. 46.

27 Ibid., p. 20.

28 Ibid., p. 25.

29 Ibid., p. 17.

30 Ibid., p. 41.

31 Loc. cit.

32 Ibid., p. 211.

33 Ibid., p. 26.

34 Ibid., p. 44.

35 Ibid., p. 30.

36 Ibid., p. 26.

37 Ibid., p. 211.

38 Wolin, Sheldon also emphasizes this point in his Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1960), p. 257ffGoogle Scholar. This conception of truth appears to be confined to Hobbes's political writings, however. Concerning scientific troth, he appears to have accepted Descartes' self-evidence theory. See Peters', Richard Hobbes (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1956), p. 57 Google Scholar. Oakeshott argues for an individualist interpretation of reason, even in Hobbes's political writings. See his Introduction, p. IV. Comparisons with Kant obtrude themselves into discussions of Hobbes's epistemological, as well as his ethical doctrines. Engel, S. Morris, for instance, views Hobbes as proto-Kantian in his conception of knowledge. See his “Analogy and Equivocation in Hobbes,” Philosophy. XXXVII (1962), 326ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Marcuse's, Herbert One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966)Google Scholar provides us with a modern instance of such belief. See Ch. 1, especially p. 13ff.

40 Numerous additional mystical conceptions of value and truth, of course, have been and are still being suggested. For instance, it would be difficult to place into either category the psychedelic truths which urge our Yippies to “drop out.” However, the above do constitute an exhaustive list of alternatives that have been asserted as being rational. Men have maintained both that they are discoverable by intellect and demonstrable; this without benefit of drugs or grace.

41 Leviathan, p. 68.

42 With the exception of the Warrender school, most scholars see Hobbes's theistic notions as being irrelevant to his political argument. Leo Strauss, for instance, remarks: “Recognition of teleology here and there … is, if it is sincere, to be explained only as a residue of tradition which contradicts the whole of Hobbes's philosophy.” (Hobbes, p. 123, n. 3.) Plamenatz also insists that God plays no part in Hobbes's political views. (“Mr. Warrender's Hobbes,” Hobbes Studies, p. 74ff). And even Keith C. Brown, who believes that the argument from design should be allowed “its proper place in Hobbes's system,” nevertheless concedes (at least implicitly) that it is redundant (“Hobbes's Grounds for Belief in a Deity,” Philosophy, XXXVII [1962], p. 336ffGoogle Scholar). Finally, Skinner's, Quentin “Hobbes on Sovereignty: An Unknown Discussion,” Political Studies, XIII, No. 2 (June 1966), 213ff.Google Scholar, brings new evidence to bear against a theistic interpretation of Hobbes's political views.

43 Leviathan, p. 68.

44 Ibid., p. 72.

45 Ibid., p. 240.

46 Ch. 22.

47 Ibid., p. 81. Cf. De Cive or The Citizen, ed. with an Introduction by Sterling Lamprecht, P. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949), p. 22n., pp. 22–23 Google Scholar.

48 Leviathan, p. 67.

49 Ibid., p. 181.

50 lbid., p. 32.

51 Ibid., p. 190.

52 Ibid., p. 104.

53 Ibid., p. 42, p. 57.

54 Ibid., p. 104.

55 Ibid., p. 211.

56 See n. 1, above, for an instance of this rendition of the question.

57 “The tendency which the child has to regard duty and the value attaching to it as imposing itself regardless of the circumstances in which the individual may find himself.” (The Moral Judgment of the Child, trans. Gabain, Marione [New York: Free Press, 1965], p. 111.Google Scholar)

58 “The will of all” is formed, not by moral decision, but rather by “terror.” (Leviathan, p. 112).

59 “names that signify our appetites and aversions…” (ibid., p. 104).

60 De Cive, p. 26. Cf. The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, ed. with a preface and critical notes by Tonnies, Ferdinand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), p. 54 Google Scholar.

61 Leviathan, p. 84.

62 Ibid., p. 109.

63 De Cive, p. 5.

64 Ibid.

65 Ibid., p. 24n.

66 Hobbes is neither unique nor antiquated in viewing psychic conflict as the source of a quality of awareness. Indeed, he again harks back to Plato, for Plato used an example of such conflict against the Sophists to demonstrate the existence of a rational faculty. See his example of the thirsty man in the Republic, trans. Francis M. Cornford (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 136. Of course Marx and Freud put conflict to similar use, and Piaget remarks that consciousness of a rule (even a motor rule) can only occur as a result of frustration and ensuing conflict (Moral Judgment of the Child, p. 87).

67 Elements, p. 54.

68 We could easily impose Freudian terminology on this process and say that Hobbes replaces moral persuasion with a description of the development of a political ego; one which emerges from conflict with the external environment, as all good egos must.

69 John Plamenatz has stressed the importance of an “internal censor” for morality, and denies that Hobbes acknowledges such a governor. He fails to explain how Hobbes can formulate prescriptive rules which are against the passions ( Man and Society [New York: McGraw Hill, 1963], I, 128 Google Scholar).

70 In his Elements of Law, Hobbes even offers a golden-rule resolution of the natural law: “That a man imagine himself in the place of the party with whom he hath to do, and reciprocally him in his …” (p. 71). Cf. Leviathan, p. 103, Nagel's, Thomas “Hobbes's Concept of Obligation,” The Philosophical Review, LXVIII, No. 1 (January, 1959), 68ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that it is a “concern for others,” as opposed to self-interest, that is lacking in Hobbes. Hobbes's argument, however, appears to be that it is precisely because of our self-interest that we must effect a concern for others.

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