Humanities 3 V. The Scientific Revolution

Transcription

1 Humanities 3 V. The Scientific Revolution

2 Lecture 23 The State of Nature

3 Outline Background to Hobbes Thought Hobbes and the English Civil War The Big Picture: Religion and Politics The Argument of Leviathan

4 What is Nature? A highly structured system, in which different kinds of things have different natural places and the relation of everything to everything else is ordered by God? Or, is nature without essential differences: everything is of the same kind and order is determined only through the conflict among the parts of nature? Either way, where do human beings fit into the picture: are they simply parts of nature, or are they in some sense independent of it?

5 Epicurus Universe Materialism is recognized as a viable theory of nature as early as the 5th c. BC The universe consists solely of moving particles of matter (atoms) and empty space When atoms collide they form larger complex structures, including animals, human bodies, and worlds (solar systems) Some of these structures survive, some don t. It all depends on how they interact with the rest of nature The universe exists eternally. The gods, if they exist, care nothing for the concerns of human beings

6 Epicurus Ethics The only thing good in itself is pleasure; the only thing bad, pain The end, or goal, of human life (=happiness) is a life in which physical pain and psychological disturbance are minimized. The latter is achieved by eliminating fear of death and fear of the gods, and limiting our desires to those that are natural and necessary. Virtue is valuable only as a means to this end. Justice and injustice are merely conventional, as determined by the laws of a state.

7 Thomas Hobbes The philosopher who most clearly advances these views in the 17th c. is Hobbes, who is most famous for his book Leviathan (1651) In it he argues against the idea, common to most ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity, that political life is natural to human beings and that it can be organized according to universal moral principles (for Christians, laws dictated by God) Hobbes holds that the natural condition of human beings is one of conflict He reaches this conclusion by starting from a position similar to Epicurus

8 Hobbes is a Materialist: the only real things are bodies in motion. Empiricist: all knowledge originates in sense perception, and has as its object particular bodies and their properties. Nominalist: speech can be meaningfully used to refer to bodies and their properties and to express the desires and aversions of human beings. Reason is nothing but reckoning (that is, adding and subtracting) of the consequences of general names agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts (ch. 5)

9 Hobbes: A Very Long Life s Hobbes born Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Death of Elizabeth I, coronation of James I; Hobbes enters Oxford Gunpowder Plot Bacon, Advancement of Learning Publication of King James Bible Death of Shakespeare Bacon, New Organon Hobbes serves as Bacon s secretary

10 Hobbes and the English Civil War English Civil War begins (central issue: the balance of power between king and parliament, especially in the levying of taxes); Hobbes publishes his first political treatise (De Cive) in Paris. Execution of Charles I; Commonwealth instituted under Oliver Cromwell. Leviathan published; Hobbes returns to England. Restoration of Charles II.

11 Hobbes debate with Boyle over the vacuum and the pressure of air Founding of the Royal Society Milton, Paradise Lost Hobbes publishes verse translations of Iliad and Odyssey 1679 Hobbes death (aged 91) Oxford condemns and burns De Cive and Leviathan Publication of Newton s Principia

12 The Big Picture: Religion and Politics By the end of the 16th century, the monolithic authority of the Roman Catholic church has broken down; Europe faces irresolvable disagreement over religion, and endless war (fought on religious and political grounds). Thinkers such as Montaigne urge the virtue of toleration (Catholics and Lutherans in Germany; Jews in Amsterdam). Missing is a philosophical framework in which individual liberty (esp. freedom of conscience) can be upheld within a stable political order.

13 Two stumbling blocks: the relation of religion and science the relation of religion and politics Galileo claims to have a solution to the first problem but has nothing to say about the second. Hobbes goes further in challenging traditional theological assumptions about human beings and claims that a stable political solution can be found, based on a revised scientific understanding of human beings.

14 Hobbes Ethical Theory Given Hobbes starting points (materialism, empiricism, nominalism), he is led to a radically new understanding of ethics as the science of passions. (ch. 6; see also ch. 4 [24]) Passions are just motions of matter: the small beginnings of motion within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions. Passions are of two basic types: the endeavor toward something is appetite or desire ; the endeavor away from something is aversion. The other passions are defined in terms of these.

15 The Relativity of Good and Evil But whatsoever is the object of any man s appetite or desire that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible are ever used with relation to the person that uses them, there being nothing simply and absolutely so, nor any common rule of good and evil to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves, but from the person of the man, where there is no commonwealth, or, in a commonwealth, from the person that representeth it, or from an arbitrator or judge whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up and make his sentence the rule thereof. (ch. 6)

16 Power I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only in death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power, but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. (ch. 11)

17 The Modern Problem of Politics Priority is given to the conflicting desires/values of individuals rather than a preconceived natural political or theological order. In circumstances in which you have irresolvable conflicts about religion or morality, how can political stability be achieved? How can the legitimate authority of the sovereign be established? religion (the divine right of kings ) will not suffice in contrast to Machiavelli, Hobbes solution focuses on the form of the state (or commonwealth), as opposed to the character of the sovereign/prince

18 Hobbes Solution Hobbes offers a different political theory than Machiavelli, but he is no less realistic in his assessment of human character and the difficulty of achieving peace and stable government For both, power determines any successful outcome Hobbes describes a scenario in which human beings can be understood as moving from the state of nature to a commonwealth ruled by a sovereign via a form of social contract A commonwealth is necessary for our survival, but we must see ourselves as the authors of it

19 The Argument of Leviathan For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defense it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body. (Introduction) The multitude so united in one person is called a COMMONWEALTH. This is the generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speak more reverently) of that Mortal God to which we owe, under the Immortal God, our peace and defense. (ch. 17) Job 41: 33: Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. (KJV)

20 State of Nature as a Condition of War The state of nature is the social condition in which there is no effective ruler capable of making and enforcing law. There is no justice in the state of nature: The desires and other passions of man are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them which, till laws be made they cannot know. Nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it. (ch. 13)

21 The war of all against all: During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every other man. In the state of nature: there is no place for industry, no culture of the earth, but only continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Principal causes of quarrel: competition (based on scarcity and natural equality of ability); diffidence (fear of harm from another); glory (sense of one's own power). The first makes men invade for gain, the second for safety, the third for reputation. (ch. 13)