The Disposition to Seek Peace in Hobbes’s Leviathan: A Question of Risk and Trust?
In: Journal of Pacifism and NonviolenceSearch for other papers by Silviya Lechner in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
Even though Hobbes is primarily remembered as a philosopher of war, the focus of my interpretation is on the laws of nature and covenants as two central devices which Hobbes enlists in Leviathan as creating the conditions of peace. Hobbes calls the laws of nature ‘articles of peace’, whereas covenants – or contracts with deferred performance – presuppose (at least temporarily) the relinquishing of hostile, war-like motives. Because the first performer in a covenant acts on trust, first performance in the state of nature is a risky enterprise. My first aim in this discussion is to revisit the debate over the rationality and riskiness of first performance. The second aim is to draw attention to the role of dispositions in Hobbes’s moral theory and to examine the dispositions that incline Hobbesian individuals to seek peace in the state of nature. Recently Larry May (2013) has drawn a contrast between the disposition to seek peace (by following the first law of nature) and the disposition to perform in a covenant of mutual trust, arguing that only the former is a rational one to adopt. My thesis is that actually both dispositions – the pacifist disposition and the trust disposition – are infected by the problem of uncertainty, as it pertains to the risk of trusting strangers in the state of nature. This problem remains fundamental to Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Dyzenhaus, David, and Poole, Thomas, eds. (2012). Hobbes and the Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Dyzenhaus, David (2022). The Long Arc of Legality: Hobbes, Kelsen, Hart. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Ewin, R. E (1991). Virtues and Rights: Hobbesian Moral and Political Philosophy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
-
Gauthier, David (2001). Hobbes: The Laws of Nature. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 82 (3-4), pp. 258-284.
-
Gert, Bernard (1988). The Law of Nature as a Moral Law. Hobbes Studies 1, pp. 26–44.
-
Gert, Bernard (2001). Hobbes on Reason. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 82 (3–4), pp. 234–257.
-
Gert, Bernard (2010). Hobbes: Prince of Peace. London: Polity Press.
-
Goldsmith, Maurice M. (1996). Hobbes on Law. In: Tom Sorell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 274–304.
-
Hampton, Jean (1986). Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Hanson, Donald W. (1984). Thomas Hobbes’s ‘Highway to Peace’. International Organization 38 (2), pp. 329-354.
-
Herbert, Gary (1989). Thomas Hobbes: The Unity of Scientific and Political Wisdom. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
-
Hobbes, Thomas (1949 [1651/1647]). De Cive or the Citizen. 1651 [English translation from the second Latin edition of 1647], ed. Sterling P. Lamprecht. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts.
-
Hobbes, Thomas (1968 [1651]). Leviathan, ed. C.B. Macpherson. London: Penguin.
-
Hobbes, Thomas (1969 [1650]) The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (2nd ed.), ed. Ferdinand Tönnies. London: Frank Cass.
-
Hookway, Christopher, and Pettit, Philip, eds. (1978). Action and Interpretation: Studies in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Hollis, Martin (1987). The Cunning of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Hollis, Martin (1998). Trust within Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Jaede, Maximillian (2018). Thomas Hobbes’s Conception of Peace. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
-
Kant, Immanuel. (1997 [1785]). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Kavka, Gregory S. (1983). Hobbes’s War of All Against All. Ethics 93 (2), pp. 291–310.
-
Kavka, Gregory S. (1986). Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
-
Knight, Frank H. (1921) Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin.
-
Lechner, Silviya (2019). Hobbesian Internationalism: Anarchy, Authority, and the Fate of Political Philosophy. Cham: Palgrave.
-
Macpherson, C.B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Martinich, A. P. (1992). The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Martinich, A. P. (2005). Hobbes. New York and London: Routledge.
-
May, Larry (2013). Limiting Leviathan: Hobbes on Law and International Affairs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
McNeilly, F. S. (1966). Egoism in Hobbes. The Philosophical Quarterly 16 (64), pp. 193-206.
-
McNeilly, F.S. (1968). The Anatomy of Leviathan. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
-
Nozick, Robert (1969) Newcomb’s Problem and the Two Principles of Choice. In: Nicholas Rescher, ed., Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 114-146.
-
Oakeshott, Michael (1975). The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes. In Hobbes on Civil Association, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, pp. 80–140.
-
Oakeshott, Michael (2001) Letter on Hobbes. Political Theory 29 (6), pp. 834–835.
-
Raphael, D.D (2004). Hobbes: Morals and Politics, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge.
-
Strauss, Leo (1963). The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
-
Taylor, A.E. (1938). The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes. Philosophy 13 (52), pp. 406–424.
-
Tuck, Richard (1999). The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and International Order from Grotius to Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Van Mill, David (2001). Liberty, Rationality and Agency in Hobbes’s Leviathan. Albany: State University of New York Press.
-
Watkins, J. W. (1973). Hobbes’s System of Ideas (2nd ed.) London: Hutchinson.
-
Warrender, Howard (1957). The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: His Theory of Obligation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
-
Zagorin, Perez (2010). Hobbes and the Law of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 327 | 327 | 78 |
| Full Text Views | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 7 | 7 | 2 |
The Disposition to Seek Peace in Hobbes’s Leviathan: A Question of Risk and Trust?
In: Journal of Pacifism and NonviolenceSearch for other papers by Silviya Lechner in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Even though Hobbes is primarily remembered as a philosopher of war, the focus of my interpretation is on the laws of nature and covenants as two central devices which Hobbes enlists in Leviathan as creating the conditions of peace. Hobbes calls the laws of nature ‘articles of peace’, whereas covenants – or contracts with deferred performance – presuppose (at least temporarily) the relinquishing of hostile, war-like motives. Because the first performer in a covenant acts on trust, first performance in the state of nature is a risky enterprise. My first aim in this discussion is to revisit the debate over the rationality and riskiness of first performance. The second aim is to draw attention to the role of dispositions in Hobbes’s moral theory and to examine the dispositions that incline Hobbesian individuals to seek peace in the state of nature. Recently Larry May (2013) has drawn a contrast between the disposition to seek peace (by following the first law of nature) and the disposition to perform in a covenant of mutual trust, arguing that only the former is a rational one to adopt. My thesis is that actually both dispositions – the pacifist disposition and the trust disposition – are infected by the problem of uncertainty, as it pertains to the risk of trusting strangers in the state of nature. This problem remains fundamental to Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 327 | 327 | 78 |
| Full Text Views | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 7 | 7 | 2 |
