Thomas Hobbs “Leviathan” is an incredibly comprehensive and
detailed argument relying on logic using a scientific context. While the text isn’t
devoid of religious references or arguments they are far from the center of any
arguments. This is a welcome divergence for this time period. It is impossible
to completely separate leviathan from the English civil war in the way that
many scholars would never interpret Milton’s “Paradise Lost” ignoring this context.
What strikes me the most about Hobbs approach is how he
provides all the framework required for the United States Current democratic
model. Hobbs states that man must relinquish rights in order to live without a
constant state of war. His work is clearly influential to Thomas Locke who further
develops the idea of a social contract. Locke further defines what a just
social contract would entail in his “Two Treatises of Government. Hobbs is
incredibly forward thinking in proposing all that is required of a stable
government; establishing legitimacy, defining context of disagreements and
limits, and laying a framework for transfer of power (only under his
restrictive limits that would necessitate a transfer occur). He even begins to
set the initial theory for separation of Church and state.
While he may personally have been a royalist it is easy to
see how those rebelling during the English civil war could have easily clung to
his words to justify their actions. To state that a commonwealth derived its
rights “.by the consent of the people assembled”, clearly did not alone solve
the problem as either side could claim they did not support the legitimacy of the
opposing party.
In regards to his attempt to define limits within rebellion
is acceptable, he could be argued to have provided stabilizing factors by
defining a minority had no right to usurp the majority desire. However, he does
not put this to bed by leaving both parties the right to “the sword” to either
attack or defend. In this way he leaves a hole in his argument as answerable by
might makes right. He attempts to support the king’s legitimacy but his logic
leaves clear openings to delegitimize leaders that become unfavorable.
In Hobbs’s chapter on religion I find this the most evocative
writing for the time. To conclude the “natural Cause of Religions, the Anxiety
of the time to come”, as the driving factor of religion makes the case that
religion is born of human desire not of natural truth. By doing this it can be argued that he makes
religion a logical imperative to assuage his own fears not a tool through which
we should define government and other things that can be deduced with logic. He
further separates religion from his political theory by proposing that forces unseen
can have no bearing on the physical world. His common-sense approach to
favoring scientific process in developing theory of government mirror those of
the present day.
You mention that Hobbes dicusses how man must relinquish his rights to live without the constant state of war, particularly how this leads on to Locke's social contract theory. I thought it was interesting that you brought up the United States in this particular example, as it seems as though there is a constant debate domestically regarding what we must relinquish in order to live in a peaceful society (the Patriot Act for example). I've always thought this idea was an interesting one, particularly when examined across political and cultural boundaries. There is this idea that if a country is rich then the social contracts between the government and society will shift by society demanding more civil liberties. The social contracts in several rich countries such as China or Saudi Arabia are more focused on simply the government providing safety and good paying jobs/economic opportunities, and there have been no major social or political uprisings to shift this dynamic. I just thought that this was an interesting point, that of the social contract, that is worthy of further discussion.
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