Friday, August 19, 2016
Choice maybe, but change impossible
THOMAS HOBBES – LEVIATHAN OR THE MATTER, FORME, & POWER OF A COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICAL AND CIVILL - Printed for Andrew Crooke, at the Green Dragon in St. Paul
I will only consider some chapters in this approach. The a
priori position is that God is the origin of everything, that the Bible is
absolutely true about the history of humanity and its “creation” and that the
best order is that dictated by God’s law and order in which man is only free in
the subjects and situations that have not been ruled out or regulated by God
himself. This represents the situation in England
The introduction takes us directly into the subject. The
general idea he states is that man is the central element of his thinking and
this man is positioned in nature. We will have to clarify what he means by
nature later on. The idea here is that man as an organism, as an architectural
construction is the basis of any other construction that develops from man,
that is developed by man. He thus identifies what he calls Leviathan, or the
common-wealth or state, as being built on the model of our body and the concept
of “sovereignty” is stated to be an “artificial soul.” This metaphor, because
it is a metaphor, is even densified by comparing this Leviathan created by man
to a simple machine or watch or clock, hence a complex mechanism created by man
too. When we bring in the concept of God as the creator of man to his own image
we feel a contradiction. Man creates Leviathan or a watch to his own image, not
God’s, though this man who is the model of the creations we are speaking of is
the image of God, hence Leviathan should be the image of the image of God. Yet
Hobbes divides his discourse between nature that governs or should govern us in
daily life, man and his civil dimension that organizes the common-wealth for
peace and prosperity, and God and the religious principles that govern the
ultimate human society and morality. We have the impression God is something
added to the previous two levels of nature and man and that it is a sort of
wrapping up that reminds us of the
creative dimension of this God and of the superior ethical dimension of
this God. But the whole discourse has to do with the reality of nature and the
civil society organized in some common-wealth and state. In fact, we could
consider this approach as very modern if we just set aside the divine
supplement and we see that man is extending his own body and his own
capabilities into everything he does or creates. In fact we have here the basic
concept of the “extensions of man” developed by Marshall McLuhan.
I will then consider chapter 4 that deals with Speech. His
starting point is that printing is not such a tremendous invention. He totally
neglects the tremendous impact it had on education and all levels of social
life, religion, politics, culture, and many others. This is surprising since
his book is such an intervention in the field of politics and ethics that is
bound to have an impact due to the number of copies that are going to be
circulated. But instead of seeing what was caused by the printing press, he
goes back in time (a typical and unscientific retrospective method) and
considers that the invention of writing was a lot more important than printing.
He traces alphabetical writing back to the Phoenicians, which is not false
indeed, though that was not the invention of writing per se since there were
non alphabetical writing systems before this one. This Phoenician invention
reached us through the Greek alphabet. He has a good point there because Homo Sapiens
started emerging 300,000 years ago and writing was only invented something like
a little bit more than 5,000 years ago. He is right when he speaks of isolating
the sounds of speech to represent them with letters that become some kind of
conceptual written forms of the isolated sounds. We are here at the root of
modern phonemics and phonetics.
He is more surprising by the fact that he still goes back to
speech, oral speech. He sticks to the idea of the speech incentive and energy
being given to Adam by God though God gave Adam the mission of naming
everything, and he considers this speech invention as “the most noble and
profitable invention.” In spite of his referring to the Babel Tower
He is very modern on the uses of language: to register past
or present thoughts, findings and the acquisition of arts (old meaning of
crafts and artistic productions); to communicate knowledge to others; to give
orders and instructions; for pleasure. His conception of speech is centered on
“names”, both “proper” or “common universal.” And he reduces what we are
(“wise” or “foolish”) to the meaning of the words we use, neglecting the fact
that the mind (what we are, wise or foolish) is just like language, it is
developed from experience, through experience and by the invention and use of
language which develops in the same way through that process.
For him names can designate things, material or sensible and
rational, hot or cold, moving or quiet. Then they can indicate the accidents or
qualities we perceive in things, both concrete or abstract. And this is done
through the properties of our own body. The eyes gives sight that perceives
color that becomes our idea or fancy of it in the considered thing. The ears
give hearing that perceives sound that becomes our idea, fancy or conception of
it, from noise to music. His approach is very interpretative and not genetic.
The final use of names, hence of speech, is to be the meta-language describing
language itself. As he says names can be “general, universal, special or
equivocal” and speeches can be “an affirmation, an interrogation, a
commandment; a narration; a syllogism, a sermon, an oration and many others.”
Here “speech” means either an utterance (sentence) or a discourse that can be
one or several sentences. He even concludes that names are “inconstant” because
they reflect the moods and states of mind of the speaker. All that is modern,
refuses a frozen and congealed language but once again it is connected to
circumstantial use, though there is no dialectic that would state the mind and
language develop together one with the other, one development in the mind
causing one development in language and vice versa. The approach then is very
utilitarian: what we can use language for. That’s why he consider abuses of
language which is one particular type of use and nothing else since the basic
abuses of language are to say something that is a lie, hence not true, or to
aggress and insult people.
If we turn to chapters 14 and 15 we come to the “Laws of
Nature” that are in fact the central piece of this book. Let me list them with
some comment. First he defines the “right of nature” which is the fact that an
individual has the right to do anything he needs to do in order to defend his
life. This is the survival instinct but exclusively at the level of the
individual. This is important because he does not see the fact that the species
per se has a survival instinct and that human beings cannot survive as a
species if they do not organize their life collectively. In other words he
misses the concept of survival instinct.
Then he has to define his concept of “liberty” and it is for him “the
absence of external impediments” which is a purely negative definition and he
is going to show that such impediments are natural, implying there is no
liberty, a conclusion he would absolutely refuse. He has to define the concept of
“law” that he opposes to that of “right.” A law gives an obligation for him,
whereas a right is a liberty for him. It sounds weird since a right is also
established by society and its laws and regulations. He misses history that
imposes onto people some limitations and opens to people some possible actions,
hence some duties (have to do or have not to do) and some rights (can or may
do). But this being said he can consider the laws of nature which are what the
consideration of nature implies as for the organization of man’s life.
1- The first law of nature is that
every man needs peace or otherwise it is a constant state of war for their
individual survival (one against all).
2- The second law of nature is the
reciprocal limitation of “the right to all things” to ensure peace. This is
what he calls a covenant with the religious reference behind though these
covenants are purely human and in no way divine. It is the simple observation
that human beings ALWAYS live in groups of various types and even the individuals
who live absolutely alone do so in reference to the groups they move out of and
away from.
3- The third law of nature is that men
have to perform their covenants. He comes then to a simple definition of “just”
(what respects covenants) and “unjust” (what goes against covenants). Justice
is then the keeping of covenants, hence and therefore the rule of reason. He
states though there must be a coercive power to compel men equally to perform
covenants. That is where the concept of common-wealth appears.
4- The fourth law of nature is gratitude.
5- The fifth law of nature is natural
accommodation or complaisance.
6- The sixth law of nature is the
facility to pardon.
7- The seventh law of nature is that in
revenges man must respect only the future good.
8- The eighth law of nature is against men’s
contumely contempt to one another.
9- The ninth law of nature is against
pride.
10- The tenth law of nature is against
arrogance.
11- The eleventh law of nature is equity,
to proceed equally when dealing with various men.
12- The twelfth law of nature is the
equal use by all of things that are common to all.
13- The thirteenth law of nature is “lot,”
i.e. the priority of anything to first possession or possessor.
14- The fourteenth law of nature is
Primogeniture and first seizing.
15- The fifteenth law of nature is about
mediators.
16- The sixteenth law of nature is about
one’s submission to arbitrament and arbitrators.
17- The seventeenth law of nature is the
fact that no man can be his own judge
18- The eighteenth law of nature is No
man can be a judge who has in himself a cause of partiality.
19- The nineteenth law of nature is
about witnesses who are supposed to be as numerous as possible.
Hobbes adds a twentieth law of nature in his concluding
remarks:
20- The twentieth law of nature is "that every man is
bound by Nature, as much as in him lieth, to protect in Warre, the Authority,
by which he is himself protected in time of Peace."
It is strange because it states clearly that the existing
authority cannot be changed and that everyone is supposed to defend it if it is
attacked. This is in full contradiction with the Puritan revolution that
attacked the Authority of the King, though they will object that they
represented the authority of Parliament that was under attack from the King,
but then the Civil war was necessary since the supporters of each authority had
the natural obligation to fight for it. What’s more it implies that the Puritan
Common-wealth cannot be changed and that all people will have to fight if an
attempt is done to change it. Historically this principle is de facto
unacceptable. The restoration took place and later the Glorious Revolution took
place and the Jacobites were declared illegal and traitors.
We have to point out these laws of nature are based on
individualistic considerations. They are laws of nature governing every
individual and the social and political facts are only the consequences of this
first principle. The second remark is that they are deeply anti-historical. If
these laws of nature are the basic covenant of all human commonwealths, if
respecting or implementing the covenant is the only basis for justice and
finally if “the laws of justice are eternal,” meaning the laws that are devised
in application and continuation of the twenty laws of nature, the very essence
of any covenant which is the only basis for justice, then there is no possible
historical change, which is absurd. He even goes further and declares that “the
science of these laws is true moral philosophy.” Such laws are not a science.
They are only his own reasoning, hence at best a theory. True enough we are
dealing with ethics and nothing else but ethics are not and cannot be “true”
because they depend on too many personal choices that have nothing to do with
truth, except that they are true at one particular moment in one particular
situation for one particular person. And even when one of these ethical
elements has been instated as a basic human right, for example the right to
enter a same sex alliance, marriage or not, no one is forced to do it: it is a
basic human right for those who choose to implement it for themselves. In other
words gay marriage is not becoming compulsory for everyone just because it is
considered today as a basic human right. Note in the same way that plain
marriage of any type is not compulsory either though it is a basic human right.
Then his discussion of “liberty” reveals a lot about his own
philosophy.
1- For him liberty is purely
individualistic.
2- For him liberty is defined
negatively: absence of opposition, “not hindered to do what he has a will to
do.” Note here the “he” pronoun is also very meaningful: he does not consider
women, just as he does not consider blacks (who are slaves in the colonies), or
Indians (who are being slaughtered already in the colonies) or even the Irish
who are being ruthlessly colonized) and probably a few more like all Catholics,
Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus.
3- For him it is based on the fear of
the law as the incentive to liberty, since liberty and necessity are consistent
and here comes his basic religious fundamentalism: man has to do what God wants
him to do and man has not to do what God does not want him to do, and beyond
these two obligations (to do and not to do) man can and may do what is not
covered or included.
4- When he is dealing with the “liberty
of subjects” he does not see the contradiction between “liberty” and “subject” (someone
who is subjected to another, who submits to the authority of another), even when
he asserts “the liberty of sovereigns.” The only important liberty he asserts
is the liberty for any man to defend his own body and body’s integrity. This is
the Habeas Corpus principle that will only be passed in Parliament in 1679. For
him the liberty of subjects is in the silence of the law. This asserts the
power of Judicature. This is the premise of what will become with Montesquieu judicial
power. But he does not understand how it works: you are tried in a first level lower
court. You can then appeal to an appeal court. You can finally appeal to some
“supreme court” (House of Lords in England ,
Supreme Court in the USA Texas
5- He concludes his book with a call
for leniency from the Censors since “there is nothing in this whole Discourse,
as far as I can perceive, contrary either to the Word of God, or to good
Manners; or to the disturbance of the Publique Tranquillity. Therefore I think
it may be profitably printed, and more profitably taught in the Universities.”
This book then is essential to prove the historicity of such
concepts as “liberty,” “common-wealth,” including those I did not consider like
“democracy,” “monarchy,” “aristocracy,” tyranny,” and “oligarchy” in the direct
political field. In England per se we can see that some principles are becoming
established: distance from the purely fundamentalist religious approach, the
idea that any state organization and social organization are the results of
covenants (what J.J. Rousseau will call one century later “social contracts”),
the idea that any covenant is the result of some general historical rules that
govern the survival of the human species, of any human group and of any human
individual, and finally the idea that all human activities are governed by the
ability of man to speak, communicate, imagine and create crafts, arts, and
sciences. We could add religion that probably came as belief in the
supernatural and in a higher level of determinism as soon as Homo Sapiens
developed language that enabled him to start his trip on the road to conceptualization.
We are, within this Puritan Common-wealth, at a real round
about in history. There are several roads emerging in front of us and choices
are both free and determined by the context. It is true we have not reached yet
the declaration that “all men are created equal” (US Declaration of
Independence, 1776) nor the next declaration that “all men are born and remain
free and equal in rights” (Les hommes naissent
et demeurent libres et égaux en droits) (French Revolution, Declaration
of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, 1789). Thomas Hobbes only states here
that all men must be treated with equity. But therefore the treatment of all
men is supposed to be similar, which implies differences are not due to their
inner essences or statuses. We are here on the road leading to the assertion of
the equality of all men, and today we should say of all human beings.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 1:04 PM 
