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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
In this essay, I examine two claims Hobbes makes about obligation in Leviathan:
1) that obligation and ‘prudence’ (or advantage) are conceptually separate;
2) that fulfilling one's obligations is to one's advantage.
My thesis is that Hobbes seeks to reconcile these apparently conflicting claims by arguing that obligation and advantage are empirically identical. He does so, I hold (in contrast to many of his interpreters), without ‘reducing’ obligation to advantage. That is, he does not hold that people should only keep covenants if doing so is in their self-interest.
In section I, I analyse the temporal structure of covenants and distinguish the decision to enter (or not to enter) a covenant from the decision to break or keep a covenant one has already entered. In section II, I examine Hobbes’ fool. Hobbes tries to refute the fool by putting him right about that which conduces to his ‘conservation, and contentment.’
1 For his generosity and incisiveness, I offer my thanks to Ross Rudolph for his detailed comments on an earlier draft. The Journal's referees and editors have also helped me improve earlier versions considerably and my thanks goes to them.
2 Hobbes, T. Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civill [Leviathan], Macpherson, C.B. ed. (London: Penguin 1985/[1651]), XXI, 268 [111]).Google Scholar Henceforth, I refer to Leviathan with ‘Harvard’ references of the following kind: Lev XXI, 268 [111]. The Roman numeral refers to chapter, the Arabic to page number of the Macpherson edition; the Arabic numeral in square brackets refers to the pagination of the ‘Head’ edition of Leviathan as given in Macpherson's and also in more recent editions.
3 Lev XI, 162 [48]. Schochet explains obligation via benefit in terms of tacit consent. See G. Schochet, ‘Intending (political) obligation: Hobbes and the voluntary basis of society,’ in Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory, M. Dietz, ed. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press 1990), 67.
4 Hobbes, T. On the Citizen (De Cive), Tuck, Richard and Silverthorne, Michael ed. and trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998/[1647]), XV.7, 174-5.Google Scholar
5 Murphy, M. ‘Deviant uses of “obligation” in Hobbes’ Leviathan,’ History of Philosophy Quarterly 11 (1994), 281.Google Scholar Murphy states that Hobbes appears to be giving a definition of obligation when he describes their self-imposed nature.
6 Hobbes’ discussion of ‘Covenants extorted by feare’ makes clear that covenants in the condition of nature are possible, though generally unlikely (Lev XIV, 198 [69]).
7 De Cive, II.10, 36
8 J., Hampton Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986), 64Google Scholar
9 Ibid., 69-74, in particular 73-4
10 Ibid., 68
11 Ibid., 31 (emphasis added)
12 The reason she falsely ascribes a choice to individuals who have covenanted lies in Hampton's game-theoretic depiction of the condition of nature. ‘Commitments,’ as they are called in game theory, are treated as entities about which one decides to ‘keep’ or ‘break.’ Hampton (139) cites a game-theoretic examination of obligation (Birmingham, R. ‘Legal and moral duty in game theory,’ Buffalo Law Review, 18 (1969): 99–117Google Scholar) that contains a section entitled ‘Contract and promise.’ Birmingham, like Hampton, refers to ‘a choice between acceptance and refusal of the obligations of an agreement.’ Furthermore, he elides the distinction between ‘refusal either to enter into an agreement [and refusal] to honor an obligation already undertaken’ (105-6, emphasis added). What sort of obligations these are meant to be is not clear, but they are not those that Hobbes has in mind.
13 See Ludwig, B. Die Wiederentdeckung des epikureischen Naturrechts: zu Thomas Hobbes’ philosophischer Entwicklung von De Cive zum Leviathan im Pariser Exil 1640-1651 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 1998), 235–47.Google Scholar
14 ‘The obligation to keep contracts as such seems to arise, for Hobbes, from the meaning of the words used.’ Parry, G. ‘Performative utterances and obligation in Hobbes,’ Philosophical Quarterly 17 (1967), 249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 One of the Journal's referees kindly pointed this out.
16 Pace Deigh, J. ‘Reason and ethics in Hobbes's Leviathan,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 34 (1996), 57CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Deigh appeals to ‘customary meaning’ used by ‘competent speakers’ as the criterion for a correct definition in Hobbes. But given that ‘men give different names, to one and the same thing’ because of differences in their passions (Lev 11, 165 [50]), it is unlikely that Hobbes thought ‘customary usage’ would yield unique, let alone, adequate, definitions, unless he tendentiously defined ‘competent speakers’ as those who agreed with him.
17 See Feldman, K. Binding Words: Conscience and Rhetoric in Hobbes, Hegel, and Heidegger (Illinois: Northwestern University Press 2006),CrossRefGoogle Scholar chapter 1.
18 A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England, Cropsey, J. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1971/[1681]), 110–11.Google Scholar
19 The relationship of ‘ought’ to ownership is clear from its Germanic heritage. The modern German eigen is the etymological cognate of ‘ought’ and means ‘own’ (my own house — mein eigenes Haus) and also gives us the German word for ‘property’ (Eigentum). Similar connections between what we owe and what we ought to do can be found in other normative terms such as ‘duty’ and ‘should.’
20 See Curley, E. ‘Reflections on Hobbes: recent work on his moral and political philosophy,’ Journal of Philosophical Research 15 (1989-90) 189.Google Scholar
21 Gauthier, D. The Logic of Leviathan (Oxford: Clarendon 2000/[1969]), 42, cf. 56.Google Scholar
22 H., Warrender The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford: Clarendon 1957), 98–9, 213, 248.Google Scholar
23 Although I do not expound his views here, Gauthier has argued convincingly against interpretations of Hobbes in which the primary obligation inheres in the laws of nature. See ‘Thomas Hobbes and the contractarian theory of law,’ in Canadian Philosophers, Copp, D. ed. (Calgary: University of Calgary Press 1990): 5–34;Google Scholar and ‘The Laws of Nature,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 82 (2001) 258-84.
24 De Cive, II.19, 40
25 De Cive, II.18, 40
26 Ibid.
27 This convention was established at least as early as the first commentaries on Warrender, e.g. T., Nagel ‘Hobbes’ concept of obligation,’ Philosophical Review 68 (1959), 76;Google Scholar Brown, S. ‘Hobbes: the Taylor thesis,’ Philosophical Review 68 (1959), 304, 311;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Raphael, D. ‘Obligations and rights in Hobbes,’ Philosophy 37 (1962), 345–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28 Nagel, ‘Hobbes’ concept of obligation’: 74;Google Scholar Watkins, J. Hobbes's System of Ideas, 2nd edition (Aldershot: Gower 1989/[1973]), 57.Google Scholar Hobbes, according to Watkins, wishes ‘to collapse the dualism between “I want” and “I ought”.’
29 Hampton, Hobbes, 56
30 Oakeshott's formulation is more exact than Hampton’s: ‘since to undertake an obligation is always to perform a voluntary act of self-denial, it must always be done in the hope of acquiring some benefit’ (emphasis added). See Michael Oakeshott, ‘Introduction to Leviathan,’ in idem, Hobbes on Civil Association (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 2000), 71.
31 Hampton, Hobbes, 56
32 Hampton, Hobbes, 56
33 I note here, in response to a referee's query, that the saddle/horse example differs from the case of the fool, for Hobbes indicates that the fool's case is one in which he stands to gain enormously (‘the getting of a Kingdome’ (Lev XV, 203 [72])) if he breaks covenants; my gain from breaking the covenant with Jones, by contrast, is modest. This is indeed a difference, but the point of the saddle/horse example is to address Hampton's question, that is, whether Hobbes would counsel people who have made a covenant to honour its execution if doing so would damage their best interests (Hampton, Hobbes, 56). Hampton poses her question in the context of obligations in Hobbes, not, specifically, with reference to the fool. My saddle/ horse example is aimed to cast doubt on her conclusion that Hobbes’ ‘psychology’ necessitates a negative answer to the question, and hence to cast doubt on the prudential account of obligation.
34 De Cive, II.1, 33
35 I would like to thank one of the Journal's referees for pointing this out.
36 Hobbes, T. Elements of Philosophy, The First Section, Concerning Body, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, vol. I, Molesworth, William ed. (London: John Bohn 1839/[1655]), V.1, 56.Google Scholar
37 Hoekstra, K. ‘Hobbes and the Foole,’ Political Theory 25 (1997) 620–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 Hobbes does not limit ‘declarations’ to verbal expressions, but includes declaration by action, which he distinguishes from verbal declarations (Lev, XIV, 191-2 [65], XV, 211 [76], XXXII, 411 [196]). Even ‘Nature’ can make declarations (Lev XXI, 273 [114]).
39 Hoekstra, ‘Hobbes and the Foole’: 620, 623–4Google Scholar
40 Hayes, P. ‘Hobbes's Silent Fool,’ Political Theory 27: 225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
41 Martinich, A.P. Hobbes (London: Routledge 2005), 104.Google Scholar Hoekstra avers that Hobbes believed there were such people, namely those who, in seventeenth-century England, ‘publicly asserted that in certain circumstances people do not owe their sovereign obedience’ (‘Nothing to Declare?’ Political Theory 27: 232; ‘Hobbes and the Foole’: 623, 628).
42 Martinich, Hobbes, 103Google Scholar
43 Logic of Leviathan, 84-5. Hoekstra assents to this statement (‘Hobbes and the Foole’: 626).
44 Hoekstra, ‘Hobbes and the Foole’: 652 note 63
45 I thank one of the Journal's editors for clarifying this point.
46 I. Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Werkausgabe Band VII, ed. Wilhelm Weischedel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2. Auflage, 1974/[1786]), 22-3.
47 In De Cive (III.5, 46), Hobbes writes that to be just is ‘to delight in doing justice’ whilst ‘to be Unjust is to disregard justice or to suppose that the measure of it is present advantage, not a man's agreement.’
48 Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 90, 252, 292Google Scholar
49 Hobbes, De Homine, in Man and Citizen, Gert, B. ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett 1991)Google Scholar: XII.1, 55; De Cive, III.32, 55; Lev XXVI, 322 [143].
50 Gert, B. ‘Hobbes on Reason,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 82 (2001), 243–57,CrossRefGoogle Scholar 255. See also Peacock, M. ‘Rationality in Leviathan: Hobbes and his Game-Theoretic Admirers,’ European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 12 (2005), 209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
