58 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas HobbesLeviathan
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1651A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-16
Part 1: “Of Man”
Chapter 10 Summary: “Of Power, Worth, Honour, Dignity, and Worthiness”
As Hobbes’s treatise turns to matters of power and honor, the author’s influential political philosophy begins to take shape. Though much more will be written on the nature of power and commonwealths in Part 2, here Hobbes offers an early yet succinct explanation of the importance of sovereign states. He writes:
The greatest of human powers is that which is compounded of the powers of most men, united by consent, in one person, natural or civil, that has the use of all their powers depending on his will; such as is the power of a Commonwealth (50).
From there, Hobbes lists the many different types of power. Given that Hobbes asserts power finds its greatest expression in a commonwealth’s ability to protect itself from foreign armies, he counts creators and operators of instruments of war as among the most valuable—and thus most powerful—members of a sovereign state. In times of peace, he identifies honest and prudent judges as having exceptional worth. Thus, power and worth are conditional, excepting that of the sovereign ruler of a commonwealth whose power is absolute. In all cases, he writes, the public value placed on an individual is known as dignity.
One’s honor or dishonor, meanwhile, is a reflection of how much power a person is believed to possess. Thus, a person expresses honor for an individual through love, hate, and above all obedience.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Of the Difference in Manners”
By manners, Hobbes does not mean etiquette nor local, cultural customs but behaviors and attitudes he observes as arising naturally in humankind. In the absence of mitigating circumstances, Hobbes characterizes human behavior as “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death” (58). As such, an all-powerful king of a commonwealth will endeavor not only to retain power by preserving internal law and order but also to wage war with neighboring empires while continually extending his own empire through conquest.
As for the rest of humankind, Hobbes argues that most individuals are constrained by the circumstances of their lives and what he calls an “ignorance of causes” (60)—that is to say, an ignorance of science. Yet even those who are curious and knowledgeable about science and reason will still find themselves at the mercy of invisible powers and thus will often turn to religious authority figures for answers to the unanswerable.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Of Religion”
According to Hobbes, the creation of religion is attributed to four factors: humankind’s belief in ghosts, its ignorance of consequences, its devotion to that which it fears, and its tendency to view coincidence as fate. Independent of the various religions created by man, Hobbes takes it as a given that a “First Mover” (64) created all matter and set the universe in motion.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Of the Natural Condition of Mankind Concerning Their Felicity and Mercy”
Hobbes continues to lay the groundwork for the book’s central thesis and most enduring legacy: that absent a strong leader to obey, humans will inevitably find themselves in a state of constant and total war with one another. In what is likely the book’s most frequently quoted passage, Hobbes explains the ramifications of such a state of existence:
There is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short (76).
This condition, Hobbes argues, is a consequence of natural law. Moreover, it is not unique to uncivilized peoples and indeed afflicts England itself, which between 1642 and 1651—roughly the timeframe during which Hobbes wrote the book—fought a series of civil wars. Though Hobbes does not speak of his own country’s internal conflicts specifically, he states that civil war is the expected result when a community has no single common power to fear and obey.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Of the First and Second Natural Laws, and of Contracts”
Unlike civil law, a natural law can be inferred by all through reason and is therefore inviolable under all circumstances, according to Hobbes. The first natural law pertains to each individual’s right to self-preservation. Given the difficulty of surviving for very long in the state of total war described in the previous chapter, it therefore follows from the first natural law that humankind must seek peace among itself.
From this first law follows the second law of nature, which is that humans must be willing to either relinquish or transfer certain rights that exist in a state of total nature—like the right to kill one another—to achieve the goals of peace and self-preservation. Hobbes broadly characterizes this second law as a variation of the golden rule: treat others the way you would like to be treated.
To ensure these natural laws are not violated, humankind requires civil laws, established and enforced by a common power. For that reason, a pact or covenant must be established between ruler and subject by which the subject transfers the right to behave however they please to the ruler in exchange for protection and safety. Hobbes notes here that the one right humans cannot transfer is the right to self-preservation. Therefore, a crime committed in self-defense is always considered just under natural law. Finally, Hobbes argues that a fear of death is the most important factor in ensuring that this covenant is not broken by the subject.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Of Other Laws of Nature”
According to Hobbes, the third law of nature is that humans must preserve the covenants or contracts they enter. Because this law is subordinate to the first law of nature pertaining to self-preservation, conditions must be met in which the punishment for breaking a covenant outweighs the benefits. By this logic, Hobbes argues that rebelling against a ruler is unjust by both natural and civil law, because doing so is likely to threaten one’s own life, either through punishment or civil war.
Hobbes proceeds to list nine more natural laws, all of which function toward the preservation of peace and are variations of the golden rule. Collectively, he characterizes the 12 natural laws as “the true moral philosophy” (100).
Chapter 16 Summary: “Of Persons, Authors, and Things Personated”
In keeping with his persistent tendency toward duality, Hobbes divides persons into two types: natural and artificial. While the definition of a natural person is self-evident and refers to every individual human being, an artificial person is one who acts on behalf of another and by that separate person’s authority. This may include, for example, a tax collector who acts on behalf of the king. It also includes the king himself, who acts on the authority of his subjects who consent to his rule. For this reason, subjects are responsible for the actions of their king, given that his authority comes from them. In other words, they are the authors of his actions.
In a civil government, Hobbes writes, inanimate objects may be personated, by which he means they can be represented by persons. For example, a church may be represented by a rector, or a building of any kind may be represented by an overseer. However, inanimate objects are not authors, meaning the authority by which a rector represents a church comes not from the church itself but from the sovereign ruler. Finally, Hobbes argues that God himself may be personated, as he has been in the past by both Moses and Jesus.
Chapters 10-16 Analysis
Hobbes introduces the concept for which is most famous, both in his own time and in the centuries after his death: a natural state of the life of humankind that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (76). Especially in discussions of so-called Hobbesian worldviews, Hobbes is often characterized as extraordinarily pessimistic based on this widely known quote. However, this characterization is often based on an abbreviated version of the quote that fails to include the fact that by “natural state of humankind” Hobbes means an absence of civilization whatsoever. Thus, many only include the portion of the quotes that reads, “The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (76) without acknowledging its context.
As before, it’s worth examining Hobbes’s theory of the natural state of humankind in the context of his predecessors and successors in the field of philosophy. Many historians contend that the earliest iteration of what they call “state of nature theory” was developed in the fifth century BCE by the Chinese philosopher Mozi. Having lived during the chaotic Warring States period in Chinese history, Mozi witnessed firsthand the violence humans are capable of inflicting on one another in the absence of a central ruling authority. In fact, there are a number of striking similarities between Mozi’s theory and Hobbes’s theory. Like Hobbes, Mozi believed that violence among humankind is largely the result of disagreement of civil law and natural morals, writing, “Everybody approved his own moral views and disapproved the views of others, and so arose mutual disapproval among men. As a result, father and son and elder and younger brothers became enemies.” (Mozi. The Ethical and political works of Motse. London: Arthur Probsthain. 1929.) Also like Hobbes, Mozi bemoans the losses this chaos causes to efforts that benefit the collective whole in areas of agriculture, commerce, and the arts.
Despite the similarities between the two men’s philosophies, it seems reasonable to suggest that Hobbes developed his theory independently, given that the first translation of Mozi’s work in a Western language did not arrive until a 1922 German translation by sinologist Alfred Forke. Thus, the earliest widespread exposure to state of nature theory in Europe arrived by way of Leviathan and an even earlier work by Hobbes, 1642’s De Cive. This launched a centuries-long dialogue regarding state of nature theory among philosophers in England and beyond, continuing with the English philosopher John Locke. Written in the 1680s during a similarly divisive—yet less bloody—period of English history as Hobbes’s Leviathan, Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government also explores the relationship between the state of nature and civil government, albeit with dramatically different conclusions.
Unlike Hobbes, Locke believes that in a hypothetical state of nature, humankind is still governed by natural laws—inherited by God—that prohibit an individual from depriving others of “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” (Locke, John. The Second Treatise on Civil Government. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. 1986.) While this is not completely dissimilar from Hobbes’s second natural law—summarized broadly as the golden rule—Hobbes believes this natural law is subordinate to the first natural law governing the self-preservation of each individual. Therefore, Hobbes believes that a pre-civil state of nature is essentially amoral, aside from that first moral of protecting our own lives. In sum, Hobbes sees in nature a state of war, while Locke sees a state of peace.
This isn’t to say that Locke doesn’t believe humans in a state of nature aren’t capable of falling into bloody conflict. Indeed, he believes that the very purpose of civil governments is to create a central authority better equipped than individuals or individual families to punish transgressors of natural law. From this perspective, perhaps Locke’s philosophy and Hobbes’s philosophy are not so different in that they lead to the same end: a civil authority created to protect natural rights. At the same time, Locke comes to a very different conclusion than Hobbes as it pertains to citizens’ right to rebel against a sovereign who acts against the interests of their people. To both philosophers, such rebellion only returns humankind, at least temporarily, to a state of nature. Yet this outcome is far more acceptable to Locke, given that his conception of the state of nature is, theoretically at least, a peaceful place, while Hobbes considers it a condition of total and utter violence.
Despite the philosophical dialogue evident between Hobbes’s writing and Locke’s, Locke did not explicitly address Hobbes in his work. Not so of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the 18th-century French philosopher who actively derided Hobbes’s views on the state of nature of humankind. A luminary of Enlightenment thought and an enormous influence on the instigators of the French Revolution, Rousseau wrote that humans are naturally sociable creatures, and therefore Hobbes’s hypothetical state of nature in which every individual fights one another to the death is an utter fiction. Rousseau grants that there was likely a time when the human population was so small and dispersed that life was indeed as solitary as Hobbes suggests, though hardly as brutish. With ample resources at their disposal, Rousseau argues, humankind had no reason to fight one another. The main point of contention seems to be that Hobbes believes humans are born with a natural urge to amass power, while Rousseau would argue that humans are born with a blank slate, and ambition toward power comes only as a result of living in a society where resources are not allocated with any kind of equity. In other words, in a state of nature individuals have no reason to compare themselves to others, which Rousseau believes is the root of all human conflict. Later, as Hobbes examines in greater detail the covenants formed between sovereigns and subjects, there will be occasion once again to compare his philosophy to those of Locke, Rousseau, and others.
Finally, it is worth considering Hobbes’s utter fear of civil unrest within the context of his historical period. The time between 1642 and 1651 when Hobbes wrote Leviathan roughly corresponds with an era during which England fought three costly civil wars. The main point of contention behind the English Civil Wars involved increasing hostilities between King Charles I and the English Parliament. Although England was technically an absolute monarchy, Parliament had increasingly amassed various de facto powers over the king, including the ability to raise revenue by taxing the English gentry. In part due to the extravagant spending of Charles I’s father and predecessor, James I, Parliament had used this power of the purse to negotiate a greater role in the governance of England. So when Charles I sought to unite England, Scotland, and Ireland near the start of his reign, a conflict broke out between the king and Parliament over authority over the English Army. In 1641 this conflict became even more pitched when Catholics in Ireland, who were loath to be forced to follow the dictates of the Church of England, incited a rebellion against England on religious grounds.
The English Civil Wars cost the lives of an estimated 34,000 Parliamentarians and 50,000 Royalists, including Charles I himself, who was publicly executed for treason in 1649. Also among the dead was Sidney Godolphin, an English poet fighting for the Royalists and Hobbes’s best friend. Given this context, Hobbes’s antipathy toward civil war—and by extension, his strong preference for an undivided central authority in England—are quite understandable.
