Hobbes: Social Contract

This paper presents a problem for a prisoner’s dilemma model according to which the state of nature would be a war of all against all, which I call “the close up problem.”.

This chapter approaches the question of biopolitics in ancient political thought looking not at specific political techniques but at notions of the final aim of the political community. It argues that the “happiness” (eudaimonia, beatitudo) that constitutes the greatest human good in the tradition from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas is not a “biopolitical” ideal, but rather a metabiopolitical one, consisting in a contemplative activity situated above and beyond the biological and the political. It is only with Thomas Hobbes that civic (...) happiness becomes “biopolitically” identified with simple survival; for modernity, as Hannah Arendt puts it, mere being alive becomes the greatest human good, and happiness is understood as a subjective “quality of life.” In both models, the political realm is a means to an end. Arendt draws our attention to a neglected third alternative to both the classical/metabiopolitical and the modern/biopolitical ideals: “public happiness” consisting in political participation itself. (shrink)

For more than a decade, activists, scholars, journalists, and politicians of various stripes have been discussing and decrying mass incarceration. This collection of voices has mostly focused on contingent features of the phenomenon. Critics mention racial disparities, poor prison conditions, and spiraling costs. Some critics have alleged broader problems: they have called for an end to all incarceration, even all punishment. Lost in this conversation is a focus on what is inherently wrong with mass incarceration specifically. This essay fills that (...) void and supplies an answer, drawing on the early modern English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. On the Hobbesian account developed here, mass incarceration is always wrong because it is always inconsistent with having a free society. (shrink)

Hobbes is known for bridging natural and political philosophy, but less attention has been given to how this distinguishes the Hobbesian conception of the self from individualist strands of liberalism. First, Hobbes’s determinism suggests a conception of the self in which externalities determine the will and what the self is at every moment. Second, there is no stable conception of the self because externalities keep it in a constant state of flux. The metaphysical underpinnings of his project downplay the notion (...) of a purely individualistic conception of the self, pointing to a positivist theory of criminology relying upon external forces. This theory is especially prescient with respect to twentieth-century variants of positivism that focus upon how social organization affects personality. In a sense, then, modern criminological theory is indebted to Hobbes’s focus upon the connections between externalities and the self; a focus that illuminates new ways of viewing responsibility and accountability. (shrink)

Contrary to John Bramhall and critics like him, Thomas Hobbes takes the view that no account of liberty or freedom can serve as the relevant basis on which to distinguish moral from nonmoral agents or explains the basis on which an agent becomes subject to law and liable to punishment. The correct compatibilist strategy rests, on Hobbes’s account, with a proper appreciation and description of the contractualist features that shape and structure the moral community. From this perspective human agents may (...) indeed use their liberty to make themselves moral agents. In doing this, however, they are not employing a distinct kind of liberty but rather using a liberty that they share with animals and other nonmoral agents to perform a distinct kind of act (i.e., consent) whereby they become moral agents subject to law and any punishments that are required to enforce it. ____ -/- Originally published in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Europe - eds. D. Clarke & C. Wilson, OUP 2011 -/- Republished in Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy: Selected Essays - OUP 2021: Paul Russell]. (shrink)

I argue that both Hobbes and Spinoza rely on a pivot epicurean idea to form their conceptions of the social contract, namely, the idea that the human acts by calculating their utility. However, Hobbes and Spinoza employ this starting principle in different ways. For Hobbes, this only makes sense if the calculation of utility is regulated by fear as the primary political emotion. For Spinoza, there is no primary emotion and the entire construction of the social contract relies on how (...) the calculation of utility is carried out. I argue that this conception of the social contract leads Spinoza to espouse a radical position about the political, which has been overlooked by those like Antonio Negri who read Spinoza as a radical democrat. (shrink)

Hobbes postulates a social contract to formalize our collective transition from the state of nature to civil society. The prisoner’s dilemma challenges both the mechanics and the outcome of that thought experiment. The incentives for reneging are supposedly strong enough to keep rational persons from cooperating. This paper argues that the prisoner’s dilemma undermines a position Hobbes does not hold. The context and parameters of the social contract steer it safely between the horns of the dilemma. Specifically, in a setting (...) as hostile as the state of nature, Hobbes’s emphasis on self-interest places a premium on survival, and thereby on adaptability, which then promotes progressive concessions toward peaceful coexistence. This transforms the relevant model of rationality from utility maximization to utility satisficing, thus favoring the pursuit of a mutually satisfactory outcome over that of the best personal outcome. The difference not only obviates the prisoner’s dilemma but also better approximates the state of nature while leaving a viable way out. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes’ theory of punishment plays a constitutive role in the Leviathan’s theory of state sovereignty. Despite this, Hobbes’ justification for punishment is widely found to be discrepant, weak, inconsistent, and contradictory. Two dominant tendencies in the scholarship attempt to stabilize the Leviathan’s justification for the state’s right to punish by either identifying it with the sovereign’s right to war or by elaborating a theory of authorization within the state. In contrast, by tracing the deployments of the metaphor that Hobbes (...) utilizes to evoke the state’s right to punish in the Leviathan (i.e. that of the nerves of the Leviathan) this paper finds that these two accounts can be made to be consistent with each other — thereby destabilizing the grounds upon which the theory of punishment can be founded. (shrink)

Con el presente artículo se procura mostrar que Hobbes, aunque sea uno de los padres fundadores del paradigma individualista político moderno, no es un contractualista, insistiendo para tal efecto en su obra Leviatán. El soberano no nace así mediante el contrato social y político que daría origen a la sociedad, sino que más bien el contrato presupone la figura del soberano, sin la cual la sociedad política individualista ni siquiera existiría. La cabal comprensión del poder soberano es entonces el principal (...) objetivo de Hobbes. (shrink)

Although sovereign jurisdictional authority is not itself a kind of property right for Hobbes, it is the object of the sovereign’s (not the state’s) proprietary rights. Jurisdictional authority for Hobbes is foundationally over persons rather than territory, so that the sovereign’s territorial jurisdiction is parasitic on jurisdiction over persons. Territory nevertheless plays a significant role in determining subjects’ political obligations because the sovereign’s ability to protect subjects is necessary for such obligations, and control over space is necessary to protect subjects. (...) Yet Hobbes shows why the modern ideology of the state does not univocally posit the state as an intrinsically territorial entity. There are two traditions here: The Lockean one that, in grounding jurisdictional authority in private dominion over things, portrays the state as intrinsically territorial, and the Hobbesian one that, in deriving property rights from jurisdictional authority, does not. (shrink)

This study seeks to critically explore the link between sovereignty, violence and war in Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer series and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. From a brief rereading of Leviathan’s main arguments that explicitly revolves around the Aristotelian distinction between actuality/ potentiality, it will conclude that Hobbesian pre-contractual violence is primarily based on what Hobbes terms “anticipatory reason” and the problem of future contingency. Relying on Foucauldian insights, it will be emphasized that the assumption of certain potentialities suffices in leading to (...) Hobbes’s well-known conclusion that the state of nature is a “condition of Warre.” In a second step, this study considers some of Agamben’s arguments to account for how pre-contractual violence as envisioned by Hobbes cannot be rendered impotent through the integration of a sovereign. In specific, Agamben’s claims shed light on an irreducible, inextricable entwining between the state of nature and the state of law as “Siamese twins” (Virno). On a meta-level, Agamben thus implicitly shows how the “Hobbesian problem” cannot be merely reduced to a “problem of order” (Parsons). With regard to the current functioning of the stratagems of financial markets and the mechanisms of future-colonization underpinning global politics, this study finally argues that Hobbes ought to be reevaluated in particular regarding the problem of the future in his account. Partly responding to Agamben’s critical investigations, I suggest that a careful exploration of what will be coined “the prospects of an actualization of the potentiality not-to-be” might serve as a first theoretical step towards a productive form of criticism. (shrink)

This essay is dedicated to Durkheimian conception of justice. The Hobbesian polarization between law and justice is considered paradigmatic for modern political thought. The Durkheim contribution is a significant reformulation of Hobbes’ alternative, able to highlight differently the constitutive tension between law and justice. Durkheim’s criticism against contract theories reframes the juridical order trough the concept of solidarity, considered by Durkheim as the unthought premise to modern obligation. The contract theory, has to been considered as the modern way to think (...) the relation between society, individual, property and work. Thus, contract theory becomes the claim allowing the emergence of a new conception of justice able to call into question - by the way of the notion of fair contract – the formal premises on which contract itself is grounded. So characterized, social justice join the notion of solidarity reframing the concept of obligation itself. (shrink)

Although Catharine Macaulay was a contract theorist and early feminist her philosophy is not based on a concept of liberty like that of Hobbes, but on a notion of individual liberty as self government close to that accepted by Mary Astell. This raises the question of whether criticisms of liberal feminism which assume that it is rooted in Hobbes's suspect notion of freedom and consent may miss there mark.

Bernard Gert’s distinctive interpretation of the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes in his recent book may be questioned in at least three areas: (1) Even if Hobbes is not a psychological egoist, he seems to be a desire egoist, which has the consequence, as he understands it, that a person acts at least for his own good in every action. (2) Although there are several senses of reason, it seems that Hobbes uses the idea that reason is calculation of means to (...) ends; while such calculation sets intermediate goals, reason itself does not set ultimate ends. (3) Hobbes’s political theory is best understood as a form of social contract theory because subjects covenant among themselves to authorize the sovereign to protect them; authorization has the consequence that subjects give some of the their rights to the sovereign; but this gifting of rights is not the essence of the origin of the civil state. (shrink)

In this brief article I expound some uses that Hobbes gave to the concept of multitude. Firstly, I explain the distinction between "people" and "multitude", the confusion of which was regarded in De Cive as a cause of sedition. The plural and disunited character of the multitude is highlighted, in comparison with the unity that constitutes the people. Secondly, I show that Hobbes, beyond the cited distinction, makes a relevant use in Leviathan of the principle of representation, in order to (...) show the way in which multitude becomes State. Finally, I highlight the two-fold use given by the author to such concept: on the one hand, by attributing a theoretical role to it, which should allow thinking of the rational construction of the State; on the other, by showing the historical reality of multitude, turned into a source of madness and sedition. (shrink)

ExcerptThe following essay is an investigation into the nature of the contract, the way in which the contract indexes “right” and equality, and the textual and historical expressions—as well as echoes—that this has taken from Thomas Hobbes to Karl Marx.1 The opening set of conceptual remarks will lead to a reading of Hobbes's Leviathan and Marx's On the Jewish Question, with the intent of arguing that both texts were concerned with theoretically explicating the relationship between right and equality, germane to (...) which was the problematic of the “nation,” which was itself conceived via the “Jewish question.” It will be argued…. (shrink)

This article examines the free will problem as it arises within Thomas Hobbes' naturalistic science of morals in early modern Europe. It explains that during this period, the problem of moral and legal responsibility became acute as mechanical philosophy was extended to human psychology and as a result human choices were explained in terms of desires and preferences rather than being represented as acts of an autonomous faculty. It describes how Hobbes changed the face of moral philosophy, through his Leviathan, (...) in ways that still structure and resonate within the contemporary debate. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that if one closely follows Hobbes' line of reasoning in Leviathan, in particular his distinction between the second and the third law of nature, and the logic of his contractarian theory, then Hobbes' state of nature is best translated into the language of game theory by an assurance game, and not by a one-shot or iterated prisoner's dilemma game, nor by an assurance dilemma game. Further, I support Hobbes' conclusion that the sovereign must always punish (...) the Foole, and even exclude her from the cooperative framework or take her life, if she defects once society is established, which is best expressed in the language of game theory by a grim strategy. That is, compared to existing game-theoretic interpretations of Hobbes, I argue that the sovereign plays a grim strategy with the citizens once society is established, and not the individuals with one another in the state of nature. (shrink)

"Explores the concept of the social contract and how it shapes citizenship. Argues that the modern social contract is an account of the ethical and cultural conditions upon which modern citizenship depends"--Provided by publisher.

A company of buccaneers invites comparison with states founded on the social contracts of Hobbes and Locke. These companies were formed by an explicit contract, the articles of agreement, and transgressors risked being marooned in a literal state of nature. Buccaneers were relatively powerful and their authority structure and share system was relatively democratic. The role of venture capitalists in organizing buccaneering may explain why parallels with Locke's social contract are particularly striking. Matthew Tindall attempted to exclude pirates and include (...) privateers in the social contract, but conceded that sufficiently powerful pirates themselves formed states. These comparisons highlight the problem of basing human rights on contract theory. (shrink)

Two, ostensibly different, versions of the social contract appear in Hobbes’s Leviathan, a commonwealth by institution and one by acquisition. These versions unexpectedly converge in chapter 20 with his remarkable claim that both commonwealths have the same rights and consequences of sovereignty. I argue that the first of these versions gives rise to a disjunction that logically commits Hobbes to either an impotent state or a Thrasymachean styled tyranny. After this, I describehow he tries to distance himself from the unsettling (...) implications of this disjunction by conflating two importantly different ideas, authorization and empowerment. Next, I explain how this conflation undermines his empowerment thesis for the first version, a difficulty further compounded by the failure of the jus naturalis to supply a normative foundation for this form of commonwealth. I then briefly detail his account of the second version and explain why a Thrasymachean styled tyranny emerges as the only possibility in a commonwealth by acquisition. Finally, after conceding a measure of plausibility to his claim of equivalency for his two forms of commonwealth, I conclude that Hobbes’s commitment to a coalescence of his two versions in chapter 20 effectively transforms his theory of a social contract into a defense of tyranny. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag wird die These vertreten, dass dem Gesellschaftsvertrag im neuzeitlichen Kontraktualismus von Hobbes bis Fichte nicht nur die Aufgabe der Gewährung von Schutz und die Sicherung individueller Freiheit zugesprochen wird, sondern dass an den Staat als Verkörperung des Gemeinwillens durchaus auch sozialpolitische Aufgaben delegiert werden. Der Kontraktualismus eröffnet eine Auffassung von Sozialstaatlichkeit, die nicht an einen substantiellen Begriff von Wohlstand gebunden ist, sondern an die per Vertrag verbindlich gemachte Grundidee der Verpflichtung der Gemeinschaft zur Hilfeleistung bzw. zur Bereitstellung (...) der Bedingungen der Teilhabe am gesellschaftlichen Reichtum und des Rechtes des Einzelnen gegenüber dem Staatswesen auf Unterstützung. Dabei ist die Einsicht gewachsen, dass die rechtsstaatliche Gewährleistung formaler Freiheit und Gleichheit nicht automatisch auch für alle die realen Möglichkeiten zur aktiven Teilnahme an der Gesellschaft beinhaltet, sondern dass diese Teilnahme von politisch herzustellenden ökonomischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen abhängig ist. Schon im neuzeitlichen Kontraktualismus ist der Grund gelegt worden, den Rechtsstaat immer auch als Sozialstaat zu verstehen. (shrink)

Les usages que fait Hobbes de l’état de nature sont souvent mal compris par les philosophes anglo-américains contemporains, y compris par des commentateurs distingués comme Gauthier et Hampton. À la différence de Gauthier, je soutiens que Hobbes ne se soucie nullement de naturaliser le fondement de la motivation morale, et je conteste l’interprétation de Hampton qui considère que le contractualisme hobbesien a plus de pertinence pour nous aujourd’hui que le contractualisme kantien. Il existe certes des liens entre une juste interprétation (...) de Hobbes et la philosophie politique du XXe siècle, mais je suggère que ces derniers résident dans un usage déflationniste de la redescription. C’est dans cette perspective que je m’efforce de montrer qu’il existe une comparaison valide entre Hobbes et le philosophe britannique John Gray.Hobbes’s uses of the state of nature are often misunderstood by Anglo-American philosophers, even distinguished Hobbes commentators like Gauthier and Hampton. Contrary to Gauthier, I argue that Hobbes is not notably interested in naturalising the basis of moral motivation, and I dispute Hampton’s interpretation of the lasting value of Hobbesian as opposed to Kantian contractualism. There are connections between Hobbes as he ought to be understood and twentieth century political philosophy, but I suggest these lie in a certain use of deflationary redescription. In this respect Hobbes and John Gray are comparable, as I try to show. (shrink)

Abstract Inspired by Rawls?s admission that his twentieth?century contract theory builds in the parochial horizon of modern constitutional democracy, this essay critically examines two truisms about seventeenth?century contract theory. The first is the stock view that the English case is irrelevant to the logic of Leviathan and the Second Treatise. To the contrary, I argue that their political conclusions depend on introducing constitutional and legal ?facts?, in particular, facts about the constitution of the English monarchy. Second, I challenge the Whiggish (...) characterization of contract theory as an important step in the development of democratic sovereignty. I draw on Hume?s famous critique of the genre to make the case that seventeenth?century contract theory addressed a peculiarly ancien?regime issue ? namely, resistance to legitimate rulers. In both respects, Hobbes?s and Locke?s social contracts are properly regarded as ancien?regime theories of politics. They are, as Rawls would put it, ?political not metaphysical? theories. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz untersuche sich, ob sich der Hobbes’sche Naturzustand als Gefangenendilemma beschreiben lässt und welche Konsequenzen dies gegebenenfalls hat. Ich argumentiere für die Thesen, dass erstens eine solche Beschreibung eine angemessene Charakterisierung des Hobbes’schen Naturzustandes ist , dass das Gefangenendilemma zweitens kein Problem für die Hobbes’sche Argumentation aufwirft und dass drittens Hobbes sein Argumentationsziel verfehlte, wenn er den Naturzustand anders beschriebe, d.h. so, als seien die Applikationsbedingungen des Gefangenendilemmas nicht erfüllt. Das Gefangenendilemma, in dem sich die Naturzustandsbewohner befinden, ist (...) daher notwendige Voraussetzung für die Vernünftigkeit eines Staates, in dem der Souverän mit einer Hobbes’schen Machtfülle ausgestattet ist. (shrink)

Currently the dominant interpretation of Hobbes in the field of moral and political philosophy is as a social contract theorist: that he legitimates moral rules and sovereign power by arguing that we would agree we are better off obeying a sovereign than living in a state of nature, and that we are best off if that sovereign is an absolute monarch. There are interesting alternatives to this reading of Hobbes—Warrender’s divine-command interpretation and Boonin-Vail’s virtue theory interpretation, to name just two—but (...) it is not my purpose here to debate their relative merits. Rather, I want to comment on one of the main features of the social contract view, namely, the means of maintaining political stability. (shrink)

Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls set out different versions of the social contract theory. In this dissertation, these different versions are treated as iterative accounts within an on-going meta-conversation. To facilitate this conversation, a generic social contract is developed that sets out a uniform way to look at the different versions of the social contract. The generic social contract highlights specific features of the contract process for comparison by creating a set of questions that are posed to each theorist. (...) This conversation reveals a series of progressive choices regarding the values and standards incorporated into the moral and political institutions designed to bring about social order. Taken as a whole, the different versions are subsumed under a social contract paradigm that reinterprets the social contract as a diagnostic tool that goes back and forth between assessing problematic moral and political situations and the societal institutions that manage them. The social contract paradigm offers a technique of continuous inquiry that permits renegotiation of the social contract in light of progressive refinement of the demands placed upon moral and political institutions. (shrink)

Starting from an historical remark of R. Tuch (1993) concerning the relationship between Renaissance scepticism and the first social contract theories, this article defends the idea that the main difference between Hobbes's social contract theory and contemporary contractualism rests on the conception of reason. Comparing Hobbes and Rawls it shows that the first one rejects subjective theories of rationality and conceives the contract as a pre-condition of successfid individual rationality, which allows him both to escape sceptical and relativist criticisms and (...) to consider politics as an autonomous source of norms. /// Apoiando-se numa observação historica de R. Tuck (1993) acerca das relações entre o cepticismo saído do Renascimento e as primeiras teorias do contrato social, o presente artigo defende a tese de que a diferença fundamental entre a teoria hobbesiana do contrato e o contratualismo contemporâneo versa sobre a concepção da razão. Comparando Hobbes e Rawls acerca do contrato, o autor mostra até que ponto o filósofo de Malmsbury rejeita as teorias subjectivas da racionalidade fazendo do contrato a precondição para o exercício individual da razão, o que lhe permite simultaneamente evitar as críticas cépticas e relativistas e de considerar a política como uma fonte autónoma de normas. (shrink)

En este artículo evalúo el comportamiento estratégico de la racionalidad instrumental en el pensamiento político de Thomas Hobbes. Para ello empleo el dilema del prisionero y argumento que tal dilema permite modelar adecuadamente el estado de naturaleza que emplea Hobbes para desarrollar sus formulaciones principales con respecto a la necesidad de un orden institucional y de un poder soberano que garantice la paz.

One common interpretation of the Hobbesian state of nature views itas a social dilemma, a natural extension of the well-knownprisoner''s dilemma to a group context. Kavka (1986)challenges this interpretation, suggesting that the appropriate wayto view the state of nature is as a quasi social dilemma. Iargue that Hobbes''s remarks on the rationality of keeping covenantsin the state of nature indicate that the quasi social dilemma doesnot accurately represent the state of nature. One possiblesolution, I suggest, views the state of nature (...) as a social dilemmabetween groups rather than individuals. Although thiscleanly represents the strategic problem faced in the state ofnature, it also means we should take intergroup dynamics intoaccount when putting forth a solution. I argue that Hobbes''ssolution of commonwealth by institution – the favored solution forHobbesian social contract theories – will not work in the state ofnature viewed this way. (shrink)

This rich collection will introduce students of philosophy and politics to the contemporary critical literature on the classical social contract political thinkers Thomas Hobbes , John Locke , and Jean-Jacques Rousseau . A dozen essays and book excerpts have been selected to guide students through the texts and to introduce them to current scholarly controversies surrounding the contractarian political theories of these three thinkers.

This paper recounts the pedagogical benefits of the Hobbes Game to introduce students to Hobbes' social contract theory. The author introduces a modified version of John Immerwahr's Hobbes Game and organizes the activities according David Kolb's typology of learning styles. The game provides students with a concrete experience of thought experiments from the text and encourages reflective observation of the theory itself. Since the game mimics the experience of the Hobbesian state of nature students are able to see Hobbes' arguments (...) from different points of view along with abstract conceptualization in an active experimentation. (shrink)

In 1976, John Immerwahr published a classroom simulation designed to illustrate Hobbes’ model of the mutual transfer of rights in the formation of the social contract. The game is fruitfully seized upon in classrooms from a broad range of disciplines (economics, psychology, sociology, etc.) because the lesson of Hobbes’ state of nature and Immerwahr’s game can both be represented and elucidated by principles of game theory. This paper reintroduces a new generation of teachers to what the author calls “one of (...) the finest philosophy simulations ever designed”, offers suggestions on conducting the game and on how Immerwahr’s implementation of it can be improved, and discusses its game-theoretic implications. Whereas Immerwahr’s version of the game approximates the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the version presented in this paper more closely resembles the “Assurance Game”. Accordingly, the results of the author’s game indicate that, if given the chance to cooperate, students do so, and the average student finishes the game better off than in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The author relates the results of his game to the theories of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and concludes by underscoring the richness of the game for philosophical analysis. (shrink)

The author examines Hobbes and Hume in the light of recent proposals of neo-Hobbesian political theories. Magri concludes that Hobbes and Hume's strategies would be plausible from the point of view of liberal thinking if they succeeded; the difficulty, however, is that both systems fail to overcome the barrier between individual interests and moral and political principles.

Dees and Cramton have argued that we should take a deontological stand to make negotiations more ethical (“Promoting Honesty in Negotiation: An Exercise in Practical Ethics” BEQ, Vol. 3, #3). I suggest that their analysis is overdetermined, and that one can, in fact, reach the same conclusions through a Hobbesian approach to negotiation. I suggest that an equally valid way to develop ethical negotiation is through the consequentialist “Harmony Thesis” which posits that moral behavior is coextensive with beneficial results.