Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory

202 Pages·2000·9.299 MB·English

by  Gabriella Slomp (auth.)

Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory
Thomas Hobbes and the
Political Philosophy of
Glory
Gabriella Slomp
Lecturer in Political Theory
University of St Andrews
Scotland
* © Gabriella Slomp 2000
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To the memory ofm y father, Domenico stomp
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x
ABBREVIATIONS TO HOBBES'S WORKS QUOTED IN THE TEXT xi
INTRODUCTION. THE POLITICAL GEOMETRY OF GLORY 1
PART I. ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL GEOMETRY 9
CHAPTER 1. THE CO-ORDINATES OF MAN: TIME AND SPACE 11
INTRODUCTION 11
1.1 THE POLITICAL ApPEAL OF MOTION 13
1.2 THE TIME DIMENSION OF THE MIND 17
1.3 TIME AND POLITICS 19
CHAPTER 2. FATAL EQUALITY 22
INTRODUCTION 22
2.1 EQUALITIES AND DIFFERENCES 23
2.2 HUMAN FRAGILITY 25
2.3 POLITICAL EQUALITY AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY 26
2.4 Is EQUAL DANGEROUSNESS SELF-EVIDENT? 28
CHAPTER 3. THE AXIOM OF GLORY 31
INTRODUCTION 31
3.1 DEFINITIONS OF GLORY 33
3.2 FORMS OF GLORY 34
3.3 VALUE-LOADED AND DESCRIPTIVE TERMS 36
3.4 GLORY AND HONOUR 38
3.5 GLORY AND SELF-PRESERVATION 40
3.6 GLORY AND FELICITY 43
CHAPTER 4. GLORY: PARALLELS AND INTERSECTIONS 45
INTRODUCTION 45
4.1 THE SOURCES OF HOBBESIAN GLORY 45
4.1.1 Aristotle's honour 46
4.1.2 Biblical pride 47
4.1.3 Aristocratic honour 48
4.1.4 Glory and bourgeois greed 49
4.1.5 Bacon's Essays 49
4.2 THUCYDIDES AND HOBBES ON GLORY: INFLUENCE OR COINCIDENCE? 51
4.2.1 Glory, honour, and ambition 52
4.2.2 Accumulation ofw ealth and the pursuit ofh onour 54
4.2.3 The lessons ofw ar 55
4.2.4 Thucydides' fate and Hobbes's faith in education 56
vii
Contents
CHAPTER 5. AMBITION: PARADOXES AND PUZZLES 58
INTRODUCTION 58
5.1 THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF AMBITION 59
5.1.1 Ambition in Anti-White 60
5.1.2 Ambition in Behemoth 60
5.1.3 Ambition in Elements of Law, De Cive, and Leviathan 61
5.2 CIVIL WAR IN THuCYDIDES AND HOBBES 63
5.3 THE IMPLICATIONS OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC MONEY 65
5.4 THUCYDIDES' PARADOX OF AMBITION AND HOBBES'S SOLUTION 66
5.5 HOBBES'S PUZZLE 69
5.5.1 Beehives and behaviour 69
5.5.2 The three greatest things 71
5.5.3 Proximate and ultimate causes ofc onflict 72
CHAPTER 6. THE DILEMMA OF FEAR AND HOPE 74
INTRODUCTION 74
6.1 CHARACTERISATION OF FEAR 75
6.2 THE ROLE OF FEAR 78
6.3 THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FEAR 80
6.4 THuCYDIDES' DILEMMA OF FEAR 81
CHAPTER 7. THE TRAJECTORY OF GLORY 84
INTRODUCTION 84
7.1 THE GLORY-SEEKERS 85
7.1.1 Melancholy and madness 86
7.1.2 Riches, places ofp ower, knowledge, and sensualities 86
7.1.3 Charity and laughter 87
7.2 THE MYSTERIOUS NON-GLORY-SEEKERS 88
7.3 THEFALLOFGLORYINLEVIATHANANDDEHOMINE 90
7.4 SHERLOCK HOLMES AND OTHER DETECTIVES 92
CHAPTER 8. GLORY AND THE EXCELLENT SEX 97
INTRODUCTION 97
8.1 HOBBES'S REJECTION OF NATURAL PATRIARCHALISM 99
8.2 HOBBES'S OPEN SOCIAL CONTRACT 102
8.3 HOBBESANDARTIFICIALPATRIARCHY 103
8.4 CUSTOM AND THE EXCELLENT SEX 105
CHAPTER 9. THE DETERMINANTS OF THE CITIZEN:
NATURE AND NURTURE 108
INTRODUCTION 108
9.1 THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF THE HOBBESIAN GLORY-SEEKER 109
9.2 HOBBES ON EDUCATION 112
9.3 HOBBES ON NATURE AND NURTURE 114
9.4 FROM NATURAL AGENT TO EDUCATED CITIZEN 116
viii
Contents
PART II: THEOREMS OF POLITICAL GEOMETRY 119
CHAPTER 10. THE RATIONAL ACTOR AT PLAY 121
INTRODUCTION 121
10.1 THE STATE OF NATURE AS A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT 122
10.2 ON THE ApPLICABILITY OF GAME THEORY TO HOBBES 123
10.3 GAME-THEORY ApPLICATIONS TO HOBBES'S THEORY 125
10.3.1 The Bees and Ants game 126
10.3.2 Prisoner's Dilemmas 126
10.3.2.1 Gauthier's Logic of Leviathan and assumption selection 126
10.3.2.2 Kavka, Hampton, and the Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma 128
10.3.3 Assurance games 131
10.3.4 Neal's 'co-ordination' game 133
10.3.5 Fowl games: Chickens, Hawks and Doves 134
10.4 GAME THEORY A LA CARTE 134
10.5 CHICKEN WITH SPICES: GLORY AND DEATH 135
CHAPTER 11. HOBBES'S IMPOSSIBILITY THEOREM 140
INTRODUCTION 140
11.1 THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE POLITICAL DEFINITION OF MAN 142
11.2 DEFINITIONS AND THEOREM 144
11.3 ESCAPE FROM THE IMPOSSIBILITY RESULT 148
11.4 GEOMETER, AGENT, AND READER 150
11.5 CORRESPONDENTS' RESPONSES TO THE THEOREM 152
CHAPTER 12. THE IDEOLOGY OF POLITICAL GEOMETRY 155
INTRODUCTION 155
12.1 HOBBES, IDEOLOGIES AND IDEAS 156
12.1.1 Conservatism, pessimism, and custom 156
12.1.2 Fascism, Peace, and the State 157
12.1.3 Christian morality, the beggar, and the apple tree 158
12.1.4 The Utilitarian, the Happy, and the Poor 161
12.1.5 Hobbes, the Oppressive Liberal? 163
12.2 THE IDEOLOGY OF POLITICAL GEOMETRY 164
12.2.1 Hobbes, Orwell, and Room 101 166
12.2.2 Hobbes, Camus, and The Plague 167
NOTES 174
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 184
NAME INDEX 191
ix
Acknowledgements
The story is told of the review editor who once asked a
distinguished British economist to review a weighty tome of
mathematical economics. Having taken the volume in her hands and
skimmed through it, after a few seconds the economist turned down the
request, claiming that she was not prepared to endure five hundred
pages of right-wing twaddle. The review editor could not resist asking
how she had reached her verdict (correct, as it turned out) on a highly
technical work in such a short time. The economist replied that the
author's acknowledgement of the 'help of a deeper sort' by his
marvellous wife had given the game away.
This story plunges me into a serious moral dilemma. I am torn
between, on the one hand, the duty of acknowledging the help of my
life-long companion, Manfredi La Manna, in the production of many
ideas in this book as well as the assistance of my son Camillo in the
preparation of the index, and on the other hand, the duty of dispelling
any illusion in the reader that I might entertain conservative leanings.
Unable to decide which of these duties should be over-riding, I
proceed regardless and acknowledge my debt of gratitude to three
academics, who, while not agreeing with many (if any) of my ideas,
have always encouraged and supported my research on Hobbes,
namely, lain Hampsher-Monk, John Horton, and Preston King.
Also, I wish to thank those scholars who, over the years have
accepted to comment on my ideas on Hobbes's theory. They include:
Brian Barry, Martin Bertman, Keith Dowding, Murray Forsyth,
Maurice Goldsmith, Kenneth Minogue, Robert Orr, Carole Pateman,
Raia Prokhovnik, John Sanderson, and John Watkins.
Some of the ideas in this book have appeared previously in
Political Studies, History of Political Thought and in two joint articles
with Manfredi La Manna published in the Canadian Journal of
Political Science and in Constitutional Political Economy.
Last and foremost, I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to Tim
Farmiloe and Alison Howson of Macmillan Press for their help in
bringing this project to fruition.
Gabriella Slomp
Sf Andrews
x
Abbreviations to Hobbes's works quoted in the text
For ease of reference, in the text I shall use the following
abbreviations to Hobbes's works, followed by the relevant page
number(s):
Leviathan = Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited by Richard Tuck.
London: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
De Civitate = Thomae Hobbes, Opera Philosophica quae latine
scripsit omnia, In unum corpus primum collecta
studio et labore Gulielmi Molesworth, vol. III,
Londini: Apud Joannem Bohn, MDCCXLI. (Latin
version of Leviathan).
Elements ofL aw = Thomas Hobbes, The Elements ofL aw. Natural and
Politic, 2nd ed., edited by Ferdinand Tonnies.
London: Frank Cass, 1969.
De Cive = Thomas Hobbes, De Cive. The English version entitled in
the first edition Philosophical Rudiments concerning
Government and Society. Volume III of the Clarendon
Edition of the Philosophical Works of Thomas
Hobbes, edited by Howard Warrender. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1983.
Behemoth = Thomas Hobbes, Behemoth, or the Long Parliament, 2nd
ed., edited by Ferdinand Tonnies. London: Frank
Cass,1969.
History, EW VIII = Thomas Hobbes, The History of the Grecian War
written by Thucydides, vol. I, vol. VIII of The English
Works of Thomas Hobbes, edited by William
Molesworth. London: John Bohn, 1843.
History, EW IX = Thomas Hobbes, The History of the Grecian War
written by Thucydides, vol. II, vol. IX of The English
Works of Thomas Hobbes, edited by William
Molesworth. London: John Bohn, 1843.
Rhetoric = Thomas Hobbes, The Whole Art of Rhetoric, (translation of
Aristotle's Rhetoric), pp. 419-510, vol. VI of The
English Works of Thomas Hobbes, edited by William
Molesworth. London: John Bohn, 1840.
Anti-White = Thomas Hobbes, Thomas White's De Mundo Examined,
translated from the Latin and edited by Harold
Whitmore Jones. London: Bradford University Press,
xi