Abstract

This dissertation begins by noting the plurality of interpretations surrounding Thomas Hobbes' political views. While the most significant effect has been a general confusion, several themes emerge as dominant. It is widely considered that there is an important relation between Hobbes' politics and psychology on the one hand, and his physics on the other. This has sometimes been taken as implying that Hobbes' overall philosophical programme fails, due to defects in his understanding of physics, or because of his failure to complete his reduction of human behaviour to material and mechanistic terms. ;Those interpretations which focus on Hobbes' psychology often make of him a psychological egoist. This too is advanced as a defect, on the basis that Hobbes' understanding of human nature was limited, or that, if he was an egoist, then no genuine sense of obligation--moral or political--is possible for Hobbes. ;In politics, Hobbes is widely considered as absolutist. It is said he favoured harsh and repressive powers for the sovereign, stressed the negative features of social control, and generally foresaw a minimal role for government in other respects. ;Finally, historically Hobbes is perceived as a founder of modern political science: his 'behavioristic' mechanistic materialism and 'amoral' legal positivism are seen as constituting an important break with classical political tradition, which focuses on such moral abstractions as the 'Good Life' and the 'Highest Good'. ;I believe each of these views is, in important respects, wrong. Beginning with Hobbes' scientific and methodological writings, I argue that his politics and psychology may be understood independently of his physics, and are not subject to refutation due to any defect in Hobbes' understanding of physics. ;Secondly, I argue that, in his mature writings, Hobbes was not a psychological egoist. He acknowledged that men can act from a genuine concern for others, as well as from a sense of duty. Moreover, I show how, for Hobbes, the transformation of man from a self-regarding, amoral and irrational creature in a state of nature to a social, moral and rational being is achieved. I argue that a doctrine of genuine obligation, moral and political, is therefore consistent with Hobbes' views on human nature, and that such a doctrine is found in his writings