This book attempts to re-examine the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes through the idioms of anarchy and authority and to develop a Hobbesian theory of international relations that reflects these idioms. Hobbes is perhaps the most eminent and controversial of the modern English philosophers. Although his political writings were inspired by the English civil war at the close of the seventeenth century, the following pages seek to recover the analytical Hobbes bracketing the historical Hobbes. The analysis pursues three main aims. The first is to clarify the grounds of Hobbesâs political philosophy, which is a philosophy of the state understood as a juridical authority , and to compare his position with that of contemporary political philosophers. The second is to spell out the multiple conceptions of a state of nature , or âanarchyâ in present-day parlance, that Hobbes employs in his major treatises on morality and politics : The Elements , De Cive and, Leviathan .1 The third is to extrapolate Hobbesâs domestic theory of the state into a normative theory of international relations , termed âHobbesian internationalism â.
1.1 The Justification of the State
There are so many books on Hobbes , so the question is what motives this one? One rationale is that Hobbesâs political philosophy can throw light on current philosophical debates on the character of civil authority and political obligation. Political philosophy investigates the nature of the state as an institution as well as arguments for its justification. To justify an institution implies an appeal to a normative ground or principle, which shows why this institution is as it ought to be (Schmidtz 1996, 82).
In Part II of Leviathan (1651), entitled âOf Common-Wealthâ, Hobbes defines the properties of the state as an inherently coercive public authority . He justifies it on two grounds, both of which presuppose a distinction between the state of nature , as an unregulated realm of free interaction, and the civil state as an authority that imposes common juridical constraints (laws) on its subjects. Hobbes , together with John Locke (1980), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1987) and Immanuel Kant (1996), writes in the tradition of the social contract , which posits a logical sequence of three conditions: a state of nature, social contract , civil state. Social contract theory holds that the state of nature is a domain devoid of rules, usually legal or moral rules but sometimes also linguistic or other kinds of rules, inside which a multitude of free individuals are interacting. Because of the deregulated character of this condition and the freedom that the agents enjoy, their interaction is marked by fundamental uncertainty: they fear one another, not knowing what to expect; are unable to communicate effectively; or simply hinder each otherâs pursuits. The result is anxiety, chaos, mutual frustration, and even anticipatory violence . The solution is to institute a common authority to supply the requisite framework of common rules that would stabilise agent relations. For Hobbes this authority must be public, juridical, coercive, and supremeâin short, it must be a state (civitas).
Concretely, Hobbes claims that individuals are better off living inside a state than outside it, in the state of nature, and that certain capacities that remain blocked in the state of nature can only be actualised by submitting to the coercive authority of the state. The former argument is about basic interests, the latter is about basic rights. On the interpretation proposed here, Hobbesian individuals seek not just the satisfaction of interests but aspire to acquire and exercise certain rights and freedoms. What ultimately justifies the Hobbesian state is the fact that it creates the conditions for exercising such rights and freedoms. Seen in this light, Hobbes is a theorist of freedom.
Contemporary political philosophers construe the state as a form of civil authority . On a classic definition, authority is a right to rule tied to a corresponding obligation to obey (Wolff 1970, 4, 6). The problem of authority is a normative one because it supposes that rulers and subjects are tied by normative relationsânamely, rights and obligations. To justify the state as a civil authority it is necessary to show either that the rulers have a right to rule, or that the subjects have a moral obligation to obey the law. Two strands in the literature address each of these options. The first, favoured by A. John Simmons , William Edmundson , and Joseph Raz , approaches this normative relation by emphasising the moral obligation to obey the law, the other, represented by Elizabeth Anscombe and Herbert L. A. Hart , enquires into the right of rulers to exert authority over the subjects (these essays are collected in Edmundson 1999; Raz 1990). Although Anscombe and Hart adopt certain premises associated with Hobbesâs view of authority, in Chapter 2 it will be shown that they do not embrace it wholesale.
A central thesis advanced in this book is that Hobbes justifies the state without appeal to antecedent moral principles such as moral obligation , autonomy, or consent. Hobbesâs basic claimâthat rational agents would prefer life inside a state over anarchy (a âstate of natureâ in his terms)âdoes not invoke moral principles but interests, the chief among which is self-preservation. His parallel claim that the state creates the conditions under which its subjects can properly enjoy rights, though it employs the moral and juridical language of rights, is similarly not deducible from more fundamental moral principles. Hobbes begins his account of the state of nature with a naturalist conception of a rightâa âright of nature ââwhich does not comply with the standard Hohfeldian conception of a right as a claim that entails a corresponding obligation (Hohfeld 1919). The right of nature is a capacity to act freely without being obstructed by external impediments (L XIV, 189 [64]; on freedom see XXI, 261 [107]). This right coheres with Hobbesâs general conception of authority, which represents the nexus between his view of individuals as parts of nature, and individuals as persons who can bear rights and obligations in a moral and juridical sense. Authority for Hobbes is not a political or legal concept. Rather, it designates human agency: it is âthe right of doing any actionâ (L XVI, 218 [81]). The Hobbesian state , as noted, is created via a social contract . But in Leviathan Hobbes explains its founding by introducing the concept of authorisation . Each individual participant in this founding act transfers oneâs authority toâor authorisesâa common representative, a sovereign (L XVII, 227 [87]; XVIII, 228â229 [88]). The result of such simultaneous authorisations by a multitude of individuals is to empower the sovereign to act on their behalf with a view of securing their common good, including common peace and defence. Authorising the sovereign is an act, nor an abstract procedure that operates in an idealised condition (say) behind a Rawlsian âveil of ignoranceâ (Rawls 1971, 12). This act takes place in the state of nature as a peculiar domain of interaction.
The second rationale for undertaking the present study is to reclaim Hobbesâs concept of a state of nature, which has not been properly appreciated and understood within contemporary discourses of political philosophy, international relations, and political science. Henceforth the expression âstate of natureâ is used interchangeably with âanarchy â. In this usage, the meaning of anarchy is much broader than the ârealistâ conception of anarchy which describes free interaction among states in the absence of an overarching global authority that generates uncertainty, mutual hostility, and interstate war. The philosophical account of anarchy proposed here ...