Hobbes, History, and Non-domination

Alan Cromartie

doi:10.1163/092158909X12452520755513

Jump to Content Jump to Main Navigation

Hobbes, History, and Non-domination

in Hobbes Studies

Author: Alan Cromartie

View More View Less

Online Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2009

Volume/Issue:: Volume 22: Issue 2

Article Type:: Research Article

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/092158909X12452520755513

Keywords:: NEO-ROMAN; PETTIT; HOBBES; ROUSSEAU; SKINNER; OBLIGATION; LIBERTY

Restricted Access

Get Access to Full Text

Get Permissions

Abstract

Pettit's and Skinner's stimulating books are open to historically-minded objections. Pettit's reading of Hobbes is Rousseauian, but he rejects the Hobbesian/Rousseauian belief that some modern people are driven by amour-propre/“glory”. If Hobbes is right, there is, in Pettit's sense, no “common good”. Skinner's treatment of the neo-Roman “theorists” over-estimates their self-consciousness and their consistency. Leviathan chapter 21 is not a response to neo-Romanism; it treats civil liberty as non-obligation, not as non-interference.