As such, Hobbes proposes a complex collective transfer and centralisation of rights, called the Laws of Nature. Based upon the passions that incline men to peace, ““the Feare of Death; Desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them”, the Laws of Nature involve “doing to others, as wee would be done to”, and oblige us “to seek peace and follow it”. Following them is the solution, and indeed the “finall Cause, End or Designe of men”.
The fundamental and most important right exchange that occurs is laid out in Hobbes’ second law of nature:
“That a man be willing when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defence of himselfe he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow himselfe”.
As long as all men hold on to this right, all men are worse off, and remain trapped in their “nasty, brutish, and short” lives under the state of nature. If the individual were to lay down this right alone, then it would not do “some Good to himself”. In fact, as Hobbes explains, the person who lays down this right first, is a fool. The actual nature of the transition is something that Hobbes himself perhaps may not have been totally clear about, but nevertheless, we are to assume that the transition must occur, for otherwise man would be still locked in to the state of nature.
Enforcing and maintaining the contract in which the rights are transferred is in itself a great problem. Once entered into, the social obligations must be acknowledged and respected if society is not to regress back into the state of nature and perpetual warfare. This third law of nature, “That men performe their Convenants made”, is as vital as the first two if man is to escape the state of nature.
Why this enforcement is necessary, i.e. the motivation for breaking the state of nature is a somewhat unclear issue in Leviathan. In Hobbes’ conception of things, as our principal concern is our own preservation, attempting to forgoe this obligation would be irrational and against nature as doing so would endanger our own existence. It is important to remember that in Hobbes’ view, the only motivating factor and right that man will have is self-preservation – there is no concept of utility, or utility maximisation. To talk about utility-maximisation in the positivist conception of the term is inherently misleading. The only reason to break the social contract is if one believed that one’s survival depended upon breaking it. Despite this, when he intermittently discusses “the pursuers of Wealth, Command, or sensuall Pleasure” it would not be unreasonable to assume that Hobbes may have recognised that men would wish to break the basic social contract for their own personal gain.
Nevertheless, Hobbes repeatedly states than men can not be simply expected to promise to keep to the contract on the basis of mere words. And if men are expected to, then the contract is axiomatically void. For the person that fulfills his side of the contract has no assurance that the other will do the same, which renders the contract void. Put simply, “bonds of words are too weak to bridle men's ambition, avarice, anger, and other passions”. In a world where all men are equal, and have differing and ill-founded opinions concerning the situation they are in, the only recourse is war. Thus, “The force of Words [is] … too weak to hold men to the performance of their Covenants”. There can never be a contract that is held together simply by trust or the word of man.
Hobbes’ solution to this problem looks to his first principles. These are are a set of socially determined, consensual set of opinions on human nature. A key part of these are a group of emotions called the passions. He looks to these to find a passion that can be manipulated. In all of these, Hobbes sees possible emotions that can form the basis of political obligation:
“There are in mans nature, but two imaginable helps to strengthen it. And those are either a Fear of the consequence of breaking their word; or a Glory… The Passion to be reckoned upon, is Fear”.
Hobbes discerns two kinds of fear. One the fear of “Spirits Invisible”, the other of “the power of those men they therein shall offend”. Whilst the former is a useful last resort in the state of nature where the only alternative is war, it is relatively unreliable once man his risen from the state of nature. For although it appears in “is in every man”, and is “the greater power”, “the feare of the latter is commonly the greater”. Hobbes does not rationalise why. For although a man may “calleth to him vengeance on himselfe” we can only wonder why it is not the case that “the feare of breaking might be greater”. We can hazard a guess that this omisssion may be because the innate and omnipresent lack of discipline is a self-evident first-principle of nature.
Thus in the absence of any other reliable basis of political obligation, there must be a real, physical authority to force both parties to keep this contract. This central authority must be able to wield this power so as to force men to keep their social contract:
“there must be some coërcive power to compell men equally to the performance of their Convenants, by the terrour of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect the breach of their convenant; and to make good that Propriety, which by mutuall Contract men acquire, in recompence of the universal Right they abandon: and such power there is none before the erection of the Common-wealth.”
This force provides the assurance that the covenant will be kept by both sides. If one reneges on the agreement, the arbiter will come in to force the digressor to fulfill his side of the contract. The sovereign will have “so much Power and Strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is inabled to *con*forme the wills of them all”. He becomes a “Mortall God”.
In such as case, the contract is viable and can be kept:
“But if there be a common Power set over them both, with right and force sufficient to compell performance, it [the contract] is not Voyd”.
As such, under the state of fear, not only is the contract void, but a state of war is avoided.
As a result of this fear, which allows the social contract to be created and enforced, the state can come into being. So, ostensibly, the creation of the Leviathan, or commonwealth results, in order to uphold the laws of nature and maintain the social contract by which all men are now bound. The image of the Leviathan on Leviathan’s fronitpiece provides an apt metaphor for understanding Hobbes’ conception. In it, the towering figure is a collective entity constituted of both the masses who make up the body - the force and might behind the Leviathan - and the sovereign represented as the head, who thinks for and commands the collective force of the body. Everyone agrees ‘to submit their wills, everyone to his will, and their judgments, to his judgment’.
An additional, and rather important benefit, of the creation of the Leviathan is the reduction and near elimination of conflict. According to Hobbes, all conflict is a conflict of belief. Principally, this conflict of belief is rooting in the need for surival – of whether or not someone poses a threat to my existence, of whether or not I need a resource more than someone else to survive. Nevertheless, all beliefs that might be the basis of conflict are inadequately founded - as the very fact that that there is disagreement shows. Men are to renouce the state of nature by renouncing their right to all things – their own private judgement about what conduced to their preservation.
In conclusion, we can see that in order to lift man from the state of nature, there is no alternative but to use fear, vested in the Leviathan, to force men to keep to their social contract. Without this, men would be unwise to expect other men to adhere to it, and be foolish to adhere to it themselves.
Bibliography
- Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan, Cambridge University Press Revised Student Edition.
- Hobbes – A Very Short Introduction, Richard Tuck. Oxford University Press.
Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan, Cambridge University Press Revised Student Edition, P. 117.
Much of the first book of Leviathan is spent closely arguing and outlining, in deductive style, Hobbes’s vision of human nature. He repeatedly mentions that the war is a direct result of the the “passions” that he outlines.
Ibid., 89 – “It may seem strange… that nature should thus disassociate, and render men apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this inference, made from the passions…”
Hobbes – A Very Short Introduction, Richard Tuck. Oxford University Press. P. 79
Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan, Cambridge University Press Revised Student Edition, P. 100
Hobbes – A Very Short Introduction, Richard Tuck. Oxford University Press. P. 123
Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan, Cambridge University Press Revised Student Edition, P. 99
Hobbes – A Very Short Introduction, Richard Tuck. Oxford University Press. P. 75, 227
Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan, Cambridge University Press Revised Student Edition, P. xxvii
