Journal of the History of Philosophy

Hobbes on Obligation, Moral and Political Part Two: Political Obligation* STANLEY MOORE HOBBES'S THIRD REQUIREMENT for harmonizing self-interest with morality is that each man must have reasonable security that others will act toward him as he acts toward them. In all three of his systematic expositions he states this principle of security in the form of a postscript to his derivation of the laws of nature. He writes, for example, in De Cive: But because most men, by reason of their perverse desire of present profit, are very unapt to observe these laws, although acknowledged by them; if perhaps some, more humble than the rest, should exercise that equity and usefulness which reason dictates, the others not practising the same, surely they would not follow reason in so doing: nor would they hereby procure themselves peace, but a more certain quick destruction, and the keepers of the law become a mere prey to the breakers of it.37 The principle of security is presented as an application of the more general principle that moral rules lose their imperative force in circumstances where obedience entails destruction. Insecurity, however, is a matter of degree. The likelihood that if one does one's duty others will do theirs varies from duty to duty and from situation to situation. At one extreme is the ideal limit of a security so complete that each man can obey every moral rule with the certainty that others will do likewise. It follows from Hobbes's premises that in such situations men are morally obliged to obey all the laws of nature. At the other extreme is the ideal limit of an insecurity so dangerous that no man can obey any moral rule without bringing destruction upon himself. It follows from Hobbes's premises that in such situations men are not morally obliged to obey any law of nature. Between these extreme~ lies a wide range of actual situations where security is not complete but obeying some moral rules is not suicidal. It follows from Hobbes's premises that in such situations men are morally obliged to obey those laws of nature. * Part one, Moral Obligation, appeared in this Journal, IX, 1 (January, 1971), 43-62. 3~ De Cive, p. 45. Also Elements o[ Law, pp. 107-108; Leviathan, p. 145. [29] 30 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY In the passage from De Cive quoted above, Hobbes continues: It is not therefore to be imagined, that by nature, that is, by reason, men are obliged to the exercise of all these laws in that state of men wherein they are not practised by others. We are obliged yet, in the interim, to a readiness of mind to observe them, whensoever their observation shall seem to conduce to the end for which they were ordained. We must therefore conclude, that the law of nature doth always and everywhere oblige in the internal court, or that of conscience; but not always in the external court, but then only when it may be done with safety,as Hobbes connects this contrast between the internal court of conscience and the external court of action with his earlier contrast between the justice of men and the justice of acts. One is a matter of internal disposition, the other a matter of external behaviour. But Hobbes does not write here that in situations of insecurity moral rules oblige only in conscience. He writes that they oblige also over a range of actions less extensive than the corresponding range in situations of security. The point can be clarified by two examples. Hobbes asserts that men's moral obligation to obey the law of nature forbidding cruelty is the same in war, which is a situation of insecurity, and in peace, which is a situation of security. This obligation is unaffected by expectations concerning others' conduct. By contrast he asserts that men's moral obligation to obey the law of nature enjoining fulfilment of contracts holds for a narrower range of cases in situations of insecurity. Suppose two parties contract to perform certain acts at later dates, one before the other. Assume that between the time they contract and the time the first has agreed to...