Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- A note on texts and references
- Introduction
- 1 “Of Man”: the foundation of Hobbes's political argument
- 2 What is the cause of conflict in the state of nature?
- 3 The shortsightedness account of conflict and the laws of nature
- 4 The argument for absolute sovereignty
- 5 Authorizing the sovereign
- 6 Hobbes's social contract
- 7 The failure of Hobbes's social contract argument
- 8 Can Hobbes's argument be salvaged?
- 9 How the traditional social contract argument works
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - The failure of Hobbes's social contract argument
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- A note on texts and references
- Introduction
- 1 “Of Man”: the foundation of Hobbes's political argument
- 2 What is the cause of conflict in the state of nature?
- 3 The shortsightedness account of conflict and the laws of nature
- 4 The argument for absolute sovereignty
- 5 Authorizing the sovereign
- 6 Hobbes's social contract
- 7 The failure of Hobbes's social contract argument
- 8 Can Hobbes's argument be salvaged?
- 9 How the traditional social contract argument works
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Whilst Mr. Hobbes with one hand speciously offers up to kings and monarchs royal gifts and privileges, he with the other, treacherously plunges a dagger into their very hearts.
Richard Cumberland, De Legibus NaturaeA good sign that Hobbes's justification of sovereignty fails is that it is rare to see someone walk away from a reading of Leviathan a convinced absolutist. Ever since they were first published, Hobbes's political writings, though often evoking admiration (Skinner 1972), have generally aroused intense opposition from conservative and liberal thinkers alike. As one scholar of the seventeenth century notes, Hobbes was regarded as the “Monster of Malmesbury,” the “bug-bear of the nation” (Mintz 1969, vii), and another scholar of the period relates that when Clarendon decided to spend his time during his banishment in France refuting Leviathan, he was embarking upon a “reputable and well-thought-of task” (Bowle 1951, 33). Twentieth-century readers, although intrigued by the power of Hobbes's argument, are even more opposed to instituting any of Hobbes's ideas than his contemporaries. What these attitudes indicate is that Hobbes's argument, compelling and sophisticated though it is, fails to justify its conclusion, and in this chapter we will explore exactly where and how it fails.
The arguments I will be discussing do not attack the truth of the premisses of Hobbes's argument; that is, they do not challenge the argument's soundness, only its validity.
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- Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition , pp. 189 - 207Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987