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Skinner, Quentin
2002.
Visions of Politics.
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Hobbes's Dagger in the Heart
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
Richard Cumberland, the Anglican divine, concludes his anti-Hobbesian work, Treatise of the Laws of Nature, with the following remarkable observation: ‘Hobbes, whilst he pretends with one hand to bestow gifts upon princes, does with the other treacherously strike a dagger to their hearts.’ This remark sums up a dominant theme of seventeenth-century reactions to Hobbes's political theory; a host of similar complaints could be marshalled from among the ranks of secondary figures such as Clarendon, Filmer and Pufendorf. Today, however, Cumberland's criticism has a relatively unfamiliar ring. Following the lead famously given by John Locke, we are much more likely to be impressed by the totalitarian features of Hobbes's political philosophy than by its subversive character. To preclude initial objections, there is of course a relatively uncontroversial sense in which Hobbes's thought is subversive; in metaphysics, ethics and theology Hobbes's daggers are deliberately aimed at the hearts of the Schoolmen and the Puritans. But Cumberland's concern in the quotation is with Hobbes's theory of sovereignty: the thrust of his criticism is that the theory is top-heavy, and this issue has not received much attention in recent years. One notable exception is David Gauthier who writes that ‘from unlimited individualism only anarchy follows. The theory is a failure.’ Gauthier, however, argues tht Hobbes's presentation of his theory in Leviathan marks a major advance over the earlier De Cive, and if our criterion of success is the strength of the sovereign's position, then this claim seems highly suspect. In the first part of this paper I shall argue that the sovereign of Leviathan is a more vulnerable figure than the sovereign of the earlier De Cive. In the second part of the paper I take up the problem posed by military service for a Hobbesian theory of political obligation. Employing a distinction between act- and rule-prudentialism, I shall argue that here again the position of Leviathan is in some ways less satisfactory than that of the earlier works.
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References
1 Cumberland, Richard Treatise of the Laws of Nature, trans. Maxwell, J (London: Phillips 1727), 377Google Scholar
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6 De Cive, II.5.11, EW II, 70
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10 Thomas Hobbes: Tile Element of Law, Ferdinand Tönnies, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1928). 1.13.11, 53. In what follows, this edition is referred to as T. Cf. M.T. Dalgarno, ‘Analysing Hobbes's Contract.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1975/6) 218.
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12 Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, C. B. Macpherson, ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1968). 11.17, 227. In what follows, this edition is referred to as M.
13 In 11.21 of Leviathan, M 269, Hobbes says: ‘ … the consent of a Subject to Soveraign Power, is contained in these words, I Authorise, or take upon me, all his actions … .’ Here there is no reference to the giving up of rights. However, there seems reason to give priority to the more official formulation in 11.17.
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26 Cf. Williams, Bernard Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (New York: Harper and Row 1972), 98–9Google Scholar. For the purposes of this paper I by-pass the controversy as to whether rule-utilitarianism collapses into act-utilitarianism.
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32 Ibid.
33 See, for example, Hobbes's ad hoc insistence in the Review and Conclusion 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’ (M 718-19).
34 Leviathan, 11.21, M 270
35 Ibid., 272
36 I am indebted to Richard Arneson for this idea.
37 Gauthier, 112
38 Tuck, 128
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