Western Political Thought

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Political Theorist, Realist, Empiricist and Materialist:

 Born in England in 1588. England went through a civil war in 1642-1651. His Political Philosophy is
largely affected by this was.
 Gave very famous theories i.e., Theory of Social Contract, State of Nature and Nature of Man.
 Used a new method to look at politics by incorporating and combining materialist metaphysics,
utilitarian psychology, a new scientific epistemology, and theory of language.
 Was a proponent of Absolutism and Power Politics.
 Wrote many books but most famous was “The Leviathan” published in 1651.
 Strong supporter of monarchy.

Questions in CSS:
 Hobbes and Bodin are said to be the proponents of theory of Absolutism. Do you agree? Give
Reasons. (2003)
 Compare the view of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau of Social Contract and Sovereignty. (2005, 2013-
Critical analysis of SCT only, 2015 and 2020-Critical analysis of “Social Contract” of Hobbes and Locke)
 “Life in state of nature was nasty, poor, brutish, and short” – Hobbes. (2008)
 Discuss Locke and Hobbes’ perspective on the “State of Nature”. (2011)
 Compare and contrast the different political philosophies of Hobbes and Locke. How are these
Philosophies implemented in present day political systems and policy making? (2017)
 What is the concept of State of Nature as given by Thomas Hobbes? Make its comparison with the
Social Contract as presented by John Locke and Rousseau. (2018)
 What is difference between Rousseau’s notion of “the state of nature” and that of Hobbes and
Locke? (2021)

Important topics w.r.t questions asked in exams

 State of Nature. Hobbes’s version.
 Hobbes’s version of Theory of Human Nature.
 Hobbes’s version of Theory of Social Contract.
 Concept of sovereignty as given by Hobbes.
 General Idea of Political Philosophy of Hobbes
 Contemporary application and criticism.

General Introduction and Background

English Civil War in a nutshell; its effects an ideas of Thomas Hobbes

In the late 16th century, Europe was going through a civil war, the reformation had enclosed every sphere of
European lives. The Roman Catholic Church was losing authority everywhere as kings were declaring
themselves free from the rule of the Catholic Church. The situation in England was not similar as in other parts
of Europe but religion was not the primary focus of tensions in the country.
The main issue rising in England was between the Parliament and the Monarch. At the start of 16 th century,
Parliament was responsible for making financial decisions to which Charles I was having problems dealing
with. As his requests for more money were being denied and he had to take loans which he had no intention
of paying back. To consolidate his authority, he stopped calling the parliament meeting for over 11 years
starting in 1629. But due to his religious policies to introduce what people at the time called “catholic”
practices in England and Scotland, a riot broke out in Scotland and the king was forced to call parliament
which after being called leveled its own grievances against the king. The king dissolved the parliament in 1642
and installed a new one known as “Long Parliament”, but the tensions rose even more as the king ordered 400
soldiers to arrest 5 members of the parliament to which the speaker denied them to hand-over.

The civil war (1642-1651) broke out and was in three parts the first one lasting from (1642-1646), Second
(1648-1649) and lastly (1649-1651). The war was between the Royalists or the supporters of the king and the
Roundheads and Puritans or the supporters of the parliament. The Parliament won and King Charles I was
executed in 1649 and his son Charles II was sent into exile. However, the protector government of Oliver
Cromwell and his son Richard Cromwell fell short of maintaining the country effectively and Charles II was
eventually recalled from exile and reinstated as the Monarch and not until in 1688 by the Glorious Revolution
would the parliament legally get its authority that the Monarch cannot make any decision without the consent
of the Parliament. However, during the war, Hobbes had seen the horrors of the war that killed almost
200,000 people on both sides.

The effects of this war can be felt in the political philosophy of Hobbes as he values human life and peace so
much as to restrict even the slightest form of liberty if it endangers peace. To Hobbes, war should be avoided
at all costs. For this, he supported the Monarch during the civil war and wrote a book named “The Leviathan”,
Published in 1651, that supported his stance. But his stance was not based on religious facts as the Royalists
did at the time claiming that the King rules by “Divine right” rather his argument was purely scientific and
philosophical, something that royalists did not agree with, and the puritans were naturally against his ideas as
they claimed him to be an atheist; a fact he denied.

Introduction to Thomas Hobbes:

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), a very controversial yet very important figure in the history of political
philosophy. Hobbes was born prematurely when her mother gave birth to him as the news of Spanish Amanda
reaching the shores of England created a tense environment, Hobbes explained this in funny words “Fear and I
were born twins”. He studied in Oxford University but did not like the classical literature and thought which
was being taught there, instead he would buy books off the street and read them but he eventually got his B.A
degree in 1608, afterwards he was hired as private tutor many times but was most notably hired as a private
tutor to the son of Sir Gervase Clinton, 1st Baronet, to whom he taught for 18 months, it was during this period
that he was exposed to the science of geometry and was really intrigued by its method to solve complex
equations by breaking them down into simple ones and deducing “truths” logically.

Although historians generally agree that his knowledge of mathematics and geometry was not always
accurate, but they agree that he successfully used the “Pyramid” method to be incorporated into his theory of
politics. This was the first time; scientific method was used intellectually to build a theory of political science.
Hobbes used the method of geometry by building his theory step by step onto “truths” derived by deductive
reasoning in which he explained how human nature works and how it can be incorporated into making a
political system that suits the nature of human beings.

Thomas Hobbes; His stance on human nature; and his method of looking at political
philosophy
Methodology:

The scientific revolution of the 16th century changed the paradigm of study of everything from the method of
classics of the past to more empirical method i.e., direct observation and experimentation. Hobbes was also
one of those people who incorporated empirical method into his philosophy, but he did an additional step of
changing the way of observation. Hobbes had developed a purely materialistic approach based on
mathematics and geometry to the study of political philosophy. Let us see how he developed this method.

Hobbes believed that sensations i.e., hearing, touching, watching etc. which are tools of empirical observation,
must not be taken at face value, but we must look for something that is much more basic i.e., break the
complex problems into small parts to identify the base. The base of everything according to Hobbes was Body
and Motion. Everything that exists has a body, is constantly in motion and that when we break it down to a
basic level i.e., atoms, which are the common denominator of everything. If this is true then it would mean
that everything is the same, and the things we see are just different forms of the same base and they just have
different motions. For example, Redness has no form. How do we define redness? It is the specific wavelength
and motion of light that is reflected from a plane or object and if that motion changes or if our ability to
capture that motion changes, it changes the color, as in with colorblind people. If Redness in itself was a
property or a reality, then it would be unaffected by wavelength of light. It is only in our minds that we have
named an experience of our eyes as red, which we have placed in a category named color and placed
experiences like Red and Blue under the same category. These are all abstractions (thoughts) and our own
understanding of different forms of motion for which we have created in our mind a “language”, by assigning
names to these things. Redness is just a word we use to describe the experience we see and to describe that,
we have developed words or symbols and assigned them to different things. It is just our way of explaining
these experiences by using “language” of symbols. This concept is called Nominalism.

The nominalist says that words are mere symbols we use to classify things such that beauty, as beauty is
simply an abstract term or symbol we use to classify certain attributes of a flower. So, to understand the
psychology of humans, we first need to understand the basic workings of human will and knowledge.
According to Hobbes, knowing and willing are just physical “motions” within the brain which can be explained
by a language but in order for our conclusions to be “true”, they must be true in the language we use, but we
have seen that the language of mere symbols does not constitute “true”. E.g., if a person says that a certain
thing is red, it may well be his understanding of redness, but another person may come and say this is “Dark
red”. How do we define a dark red or even red, it seems that both of them have developed a language for
certain characteristics but none of them are absolute “truths”. It follows that almost all of the things that we
perceive in our brains are just our “perceptions” about a certain “truth” but in reality there is no such thing as
“truth” it is just our perception for which we have developed a language of symbols and attributed some
characters to it. But when we study mathematics we find that language of symbols here can give us some
“truth” or “true facts” because they are internally consistent for which no other opinion can be generated i.e.,
2+2=4 is a true equation, it cannot be changed by perception, the symbols we have allotted to this equation
may well be our own making but the equation in itself is “true”. If we deduce anything from this and we apply
it in the real world our answer will be consistent with this equation. When you collect 2 chickens and then 2
more you’re going to have 4 chickens not five. You can change the subject, but the answer will always remain
the same. But how do we apply this to study of human nature?

Now as discussed earlier that he thing about mathematics and geometry is that their conclusions are “True” in
nature because they are internally consistent, meaning their deductions are true. Now what we missed here is
that Hobbes combined geometry and mathematics with syllogism (If A=B and B=C then A=C) in explaining the
concept of human psychology meaning that if we take a basic fact that is “true” about humans, we can deduce
more facts on the basis of that fact, by building a pyramid going from smaller fact to bigger facts for example
we define a circle as an infinite series of points on a plane that are equidistant from a common point, it
logically follows that any number of lines drawn from the center of a circle to the circumference would be
equal in length and we may further deduce that the circumference of the circle is equally proportionate to its
radius. Now we can take these deductions and apply them in real life, and they would never give us wrong
results. In the same way, we can explain human nature and psychology by breaking it down to the simplest
form and then using geometry and syllogism so we can build on truths like a pyramid to finally build a concept
of human nature and subsequently a state or society which is in accordance with this nature. This idea of
Hobbes that scientific method is the creation of comprehensive and sophisticated theories to deduce or
predict the occurrence of physical facts is more correct than Sir Francis Bacon’s method which meant
accumulation of more and more facts as method of science. Now we have the bases of studying human
nature, we just need to combine the method of geometry with syllogism in order to get “true” conclusions of
human nature.

Human Nature: Ethical Egoism

Now Hobbes uses the same method and applies it to the study of human beings. He starts by saying that
human beings have two types of functions, the vital or involuntary motions such as breathing and voluntary
motions such as walking, eating, speaking etc. Our focus would be voluntary motions, but first we need to
understand that according to Hobbes, thoughts have a physical existence, and he is right, after all the thoughts
are also a sort of electromagnetic pulses. So, Hobbes explains that human will, and knowledge precede action,
it means that before we act, we think and in the same way the human psychology must precede politics but
what comes first in this thought process before action? Will or Knowledge? Knowing, says Hobbes is a
psychological activity by which we translate our sensations into words and then into language systems that
can be manipulated to produce knowledge while willing on the other hand is the desiring side of personality
which works on the same physical principles as knowing and they are called as passions, which include
physical desires for food, sex and social desire for honor and status.

As we know and Hobbes explains that motions are ceaseless, so there is no limit to knowledge or desires.
Knowledge can be manipulated to produce accurate results or “truths” such as the two colors white and black
exist in the mind but another thought regarding these two can also be generated that white is not black and
black is not white. But the willing side or desiring side, if we were to sum it up, is as ceaseless as the motion of
particles themselves hence we can conclude in by deducing from the facts above mentioned, that all of the
human nature revolves around appetite and aversion which means that humans by nature, want to maximize
pleasure and minimize pain. Hobbes had in fact developed a Utilitarian psychology that human behavior
works open the principles of pleasure and pain. Hobbes further argues that humans seek pleasure not only by
amount of it but also for the assurance that It will keep coming afterwards, he says “The object of man’s
desire, is not to enjoy only once, and for one instant of time; but to assure forever, the way of his future
desire” – Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan.

Hobbes also argues that different people have different desires and different concepts of pleasure but while
different people have different desires, they all have one common desire and that is POWER. Now Hobbes
further employs deductive reasoning or “geometrical” method and says that if all by nature are pleasure
seekers then it logically follows that all are power seekers as well and since passions are desires are unlimited
hence the desire for power itself must be unlimited but one may argue that a person may be satisfied with
some amount of power to which Hobbes provides a counter argument that it is only possible if he sees no
other having more power but he would still love to always have more than whatever he currently has, so as
long as people who continue to acquire power will pose a threat to those who have not and this competition
will bring havoc.

The genuinely revolutionary character lies in the fact that he says that these desires are also involuntary
actions a human being cannot do otherwise. He seeks pleasure all the time, that if one is a saint then he is
because he thinks that being a saint will bring him more pleasure in the long run then being a sinner. To sum it
up, according to Hobbes man is an utterly self-regarding, self-interested, power-seeking animal and by nature,
antisocial, which would use intellectual capacity to achieve its desires. But why he thinks that man is
antisocial? And if he thinks that he is anti-social then why do humans form communities wherever they live?
The answers of these arguments can be found in Hobbes’s theory of State of Nature.

State of Nature and Social Contract; Concept of Sovereignty and Absolutism; Rights of the
State and Subjects
State of Nature

Now we have a brief idea about Hobbes’s method of looking at philosophy. As we know that Hobbes had seen
the horrors of a civil war where thousands of people died, and he did not want that to happen again. So how it
can be avoided according to Hobbes. How the state failed to protect its people and the community was
ravaged by war. If we follow his methodology, Hobbes broke it down into simpler levels. To understand the
complex problem, he gives a thought experiment. Hobbes states that if all the levels of state and authority
were to disappear and man had no one to look after him, in short we would all be in a state of nature where
everyone would be for himself.

As all men have almost equal proportion of physical strength and ability i.e., the weakest person has enough
strength to kill the strongest and also that human beings have an equal and unlimited desire for power hence
the result would be chaos and without any authority controlling them, and since nothing is unjust in the state
of nature as the notions of good, bad, just, and unjust disappear and It will be a war of all against all. People
would kill each other for food, honor, and defense. There will be constant violence or threat of violence and
universal distrust would be all over the place. In the state of nature, there would be no peace and hence
mankind cannot develop any further as people would always be fearful for their lives.

Social Contract Theory

Now as humans have an innate desire for pleasure and pain they would naturally want to reduce the pains of
this state of nature in exchange for loss of pleasure but in order to do that everyone must come in agreement
with everyone to stop fighting each other and lay down weapons. So, man out of desire for self-preservation
begins to reach an accommodation and understating and voluntarily gives up the right to do anything in
exchange for security. The point to be noted here is that they would come to an agreement not because they
are social but because they are antisocial and just want to protect their own lives and serve their self-interest,
hence they are compelled to do so, they have no other choice. Once they agree to do this, we find here a kind
of “social contract” between people to avoid killing each other in order for peace to be maintain but this
cannot go on for long as people have an unlimited desire for power. Mere words in the form of contract would
serve no purpose hence another contract must be made in which a higher authority must be created to which
all the power must be bestowed upon, and that authority would be responsible for peace by punishing those
who break this covenant. Here we see the bases of the creation of a state.

How state if formed by social contract and what is the power of sovereign?

Combining the concerns of security and other concerns as well. People will tend to make an authority which
has the power to stop violence and that authority or state will be formed by consent of people in the form of a
social contract. In this contract, a person will agree with everyone to lay down their weapons and
subsequently their rights and transfer them to a single person or an assembly of men who then shall be
declared as SOVEREIGN. The sovereign has to responsibility to enforce the contract and use force as a tool as
force is the only effective way, as Hobbes said, “Covenant without sword is but words”. Hobbes perceives this
to be in a form like stated:

“As if every man should say to everyman, ‘I authorize and give up my right of governing myself, to the man
or assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like
manner…and he… is called SOVEREIGN’ and said to have sovereign power; and everyone; besides, his
SUBJECT” – Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan.

The sovereign is the Leviathan. Leviathan is a biblical monster that is very powerful.

It is important here to understand what a sovereignty is. Sovereignty means ultimate powers, and when
applied to a political unit such as state, it means that state has the final and ultimate power. The concept of
sovereignty corresponds to a unified and centralized structure of a nation-stat and is essentially incompatible
with decentralized political structure of feudalism. Sovereignty for a state also means internal and external
sovereignty. External sovereignty means that within the legitimate boundaries of the state, that state has to
right to rule and apply laws and no other external force is allowed to infiltrate or share power and internal
sovereignty means that no person or institution that is under the power of sovereign shall declare itself to be
the final authority.

Thus, for the state to be formed, all people must lay down their right of governing themselves and confer all
power and strength to the sovereign. Point to be noted here is they must confer all power, not some power,
meaning that Hobbes believed that in order for the sovereign to be effective, he must be given all of the
power and power must not be divided between the sovereign and his subjects as that would bring instability
to the state, so in short absolute power and authority must reside with the sovereign and hence we come to a
new term known as Absolutism.
Now let us examine what kind of sovereign is formed by the contract. As we see that a contract is always
based on terms hence in order for the sovereign to be legitimate, it must adhere to the terms of the contract
as both sovereign and state are abstractions and not real beings than it follows that any kind of contract can
be formed and its effects will also be according to the contract. A sovereign may be all power and may also be
weak. According to Hobbes, the sovereign must be given all of the power and authority. An additional
information here is that out of a single man and assembly of men, Hobbes chose a single person rule to be
better and most effective. Let us now see the rights of sovereign once it is formed after the contract according
to Hobbes.

 The people cannot make a new covenant.

 There can be no breach of covenant on part of the sovereign; and consequently, none of the subjects,
any pretense of forfeiture, can be freed from subjects.
 He that dissented must now consent with the rest.
 Since every man is the author of the sovereign, the action of sovereign can do no damage/injury to the
subjects.
 The sovereign cannot be put to death.
 The sovereign shall be sole judge of what opinions and doctrines are averse and what and conducive to
peace.
 The sovereign shall make all rules and laws.
 The sovereign has the right to judicature.
 The sovereign has to right to make war or peace.
 The sovereign has the right to reward or punish.
 Once the leviathan comes into existence, the subjects will lose all the rights of rebellion and
disobedience.
 The power and honor of the king is greater than any or all of his subjects.
 All are equal in the eyes of king, and they are with no honor in front of him as is a slave in front of his
master.
 If the sovereign loses a war, the contract shall remain in power and will be passed onto the victor.
 The church or religion in general must be under the sovereign. For best rule, he shall be the ruler of
both the state and the head of the church.

According to Hobbes, all of these things might seem bad, but these are far better than the misery of civil war.
The pain of civil war or violence is far more than losing one’s rights. Peace and security must be maintained at
all costs. Now we must see what rights are of the subjects if they have any. We have to understand the rights
of the subjects are mostly conditional and on what conditions the sovereign may be disobeyed.

 The subject can disobey the sovereign if the sovereign fails to protect him. Every man has the right to
defend himself. End of obedience is protection.
 If the state captures and imprisons a man, he has the right to set himself free.
 No man must be compelled to fight a war for the sovereign.

Apart from these, what kind of liberty is allowed by the state? According to Hobbes, for a sovereign to remain
effective, he must not meddle in the personal affairs of the subjects. He shall give social and economic
freedom to his subjects, but these depend on the will of the sovereign as he may deem fit from time to time.
The point to understand here is that Hobbes does not promote the use of unlimited force and injustice, what
he suggests is that the prime responsibility of the sovereign is to maintain peace and protect its people, and he
must use a minimal amount of power to maintain and rest he should leave people free to do what they want
to do but must ultimately reside with the sovereign.

Criticism of Hobbes’s philosophy and its value in contemporary politics:

Criticism of Hobbes’s version of human psychology and state

 Hobbes’s idea of human psychology has some very strong facts but is not always accurate. Life is dear
to every human, but it is not the most wanted. In the past, people have laid their lives for the collective
good of the society which they knew they would never live to see. It would be injustice to say that they
were just self-interested, and this would be a very bad way if not wrong to understand human
psychology.
 Hobbes’s idea of a sovereign is so much totalitarian that it would not survive for long and it contradicts
itself that if humans were all power seekers, there would be conflict of interest between subjects and
the sovereign unless some degree of power is transferred to the subjects, the state would collapse
onto itself. Like it did in past.
 People cannot be controlled with sheer display of power and the state cannot be put together only by
self-interest. They must believe in a higher purpose which cannot be achieved by materialistic
approach. As Machiavelli would argue that Moral Ethics are still necessary for a strong foundation of
the state and people should believe in the greater “Good” in order for a stable society to be formed.

Value in the contemporary world and conclusions

His idea about power politics in a state of nature is totally valid when it comes to the international arena
where there is no single authority, so states behave like individual human beings as desire for power and
authority grows more and more and the notions of justice disappear. The UN has completely failed as an
institution for international peace mainly because it has no “sword” and what is evident from today’s
international politics is that is the same as at individual level as states and individuals behave the same when
subjected to the same conditions. For peace to be established internationally, notes can be taken from the
philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and applied accordingly by creating a sovereign authority above the states that
is more powerful than all of them in order to achieve long lasing peace but it is not possible as the first step to
create such a power would require all states to disarm themselves and no state would do so for the fear of
being taken advantage of the situation by invaders and other states unless all agree with no intention of using
this fragile situation but that does not appear to be happening in the near future. Hobbes’s method and
philosophy maybe be controversial but valuable lessons can be learnt about human psychology and the nature
of politics in general to improve the political sphere arounds us thus his contributions to political thought are
unique and are of high value.