Thomas Hobbes: the unity of scientific & moral wisdom

Thomas Hobbes The Unity of

Scientific and Moral Wisdom There can be no doubt that Thomas Hobbes intended to create a complete philosophical system. In recent years, piecemeal analysis has ignored that intention and reduced his philosophy to an unsystematic jumble of irreconcilable parts. It is generally believed that Hobbes's mechanistic physics is at odds with his notorious egoistic psychology, and that the latter cannot support his prescriptive moral theory. In this book Gary B. Herbert sets forth an entirely new interpretation of Hobbes's philosophy that takes seriously Hobbes's original systematic intention. The author traces the historical and conceptual development of Hobbes's science, psychology, and politics to reveal how those separate parts of his philosophy were eventually united by developments in his concept of conatus. After an analysis of Hobbes's accounts of space, matter, and body, Herbert concludes that, although Hobbes is clearly a materialist, his natural philosophy is not the naive mechanics it is often thought to be, but a precursor to modern phenomenology. The book's thorough analysis of Hobbes's account of the passions concludes that it is not simply a reproduction of Aristotle's views—an interpretation that originated with Leo Strauss. Rather, it is a development of the conatus concept of his natural philosophy. It is also a refutation of Descartes' account of philosophical and scientific "generosity" and, more generally, part of the seventeenth-century debate over the role of science in matters of morality that culminates in Hobbes's own version of the unity of scientific and moral wisdom. Through an analysis of Hobbes's doctrine of natural right the author shows how man's passionate concern for his own natural right to life, pursued to its natural limits, is sufficient in itself both to transform him into a paragon of moral virtue and also to serve as the original source of philosophical and scientific desire. Hobbes's political thought is thereby reintegrated with his natural philosophy and psychology in such a way as to constitute a philosophical system. GARY B. HERBERT is an associate professor of philosophy at Loyola University, New Orleans.

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Thomas Hobbes

The

Unity of Scientific

Moral Wisdom Gary B. Herbert

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA PRESS VANCOUVER 1989

© The University of British Columbia Press 1989 All rights reserved Typeset by The Typeworks Printed in Canada

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Herbert, Gary B. (Gary Bruce), 1941Thomas Hobbes, the unity of scientific and moral wisdom Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-7748-0315-0 (cloth) ISBN 0-7748-0316-9 (paper) 1. Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679 - Ethics. 2. Science and ethics. I Title. B1248.E7H47 1989

192 C89-091065-o

This book is dedicated to Stanley Rosen

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Contents

Preface ix

ix

Acknowledagmen 1

Xiii

Hobbes's Philosophical Intention

3

The Medicinal Reinterpretation 5 Hobbes s Rejection or Antiquity 10 The Critique of Ancient Moral Philosophy 10 Critique of Ancient Metaphysics 13 Hobbes's Introduction to Leviathan i *53> l61 judgment, 73 Kant, 179; space, 44, 46, 50; unity of apperception, 57 knowledge: knowing is making, 91, 122 Kojeve, Alexandre, 17 language, 78-9; discourse, mental and verbal, 74; inconstant signification, 34, 77; and passions, 77; significance, 79; signifying, 74; signs, 80 laws of nature, 129-30, 150-3, 155, 161, 163, 171; civil law part of, 175; contrary to natural passions, 153; as prudential counsels, 151 Leibniz, x, 54-61; apperception, 56; conatus, 54-5; consciousness, 70; distinction between body and mind, 58; externality, 39; God, 78; Hobbes a precursor of, 53; individuation, 55; perception, 58, 70; pre-established harmony, 70; reciprocal determinacy of motions, 70; spontaneity, 80 liberation, 122, 123; from natural necessity, 65; from scorn or contempt, 125 liberty: consistent with necessity, 175; defined, 174; of subjects, 173-8 life: never without desire or fear, 86; never without some incommodity, 172; motion, 113; motion of limbs,

63; as race, 18-19, 92-5, 116, 147, 159 Little Treatise, 19, 34-6 Locke, John, 154, 156 Lucretius, 50, 113, 121; on joy and grief, 94

Machiavelli, Niccolo, 13, 18, 171 Macpherson, C.B., 86, 135 magnanimity: and contempt, 99; mediated by curiosity, 111; as generosity, xii, 101, 103, 107, 112, 126, 178-9; glory, 99, 108-9; in philosopher-scientist, 23, 112, 123, 125, 178 magnetism, 32, 35 marks: names, 73-4 mastery, xi; and equality, 144; of nature, 16, 23, 62, 87, 101, 113, 124, 127, 146, 159, 181; revolutionary transformation of philosophy, 123 materialism, 21, 26, 50, 61; Epicurean atomism, 27; and light, 38 mechanics, 25, 53, 63, i88n6o mechanistic materialism, 5, 14, 21, 26 mediation: and curiosity, ill; impossibility of, 153; of natural liberty, 175; and religion, 166; of right and law, 157-60, 162, 169; of self-interest, 168-9 mental discourse, 74 Mersenne, Marin, 33, 39 metaphysics: rejection of classical metaphysics, 113 Minogue, 171 morality: Descartes' account of, 105, 107; of natural reason, 161, 174; and passions, 126, 145-6; of philosophical few, 178, 179, 181; and science, 27 motion: acceleration, 30; and body, 49; and conatus, 20, 52-3; contraction and dilation, 36, 40; impetus, 31; incidental to body, 52; inclination to move, 38; inertia, 32-3, 41-2; instantaneous motion, 30, 31; kinematic theory of motion, 41, 42; medium, 36; and memory, 69; metaphysically prior to body, 37; Ockham, William, nominalist theory of, 31; opposition of, 43, 53, 59; projectile motion, 30, 31; reciprocally determined, 60; and sense, 55, 56;

199

INDEX

and time, 41; vital, 66-7; voluntary, 66-8 name: and body, 51; mark, 73-4, 79-80; sign, 73-4 naming, 51, 76, 79; insignificant, 78; sign, 80; signifying and referring, 79-80 natural condition, 16, 22, 65, 115, 149, 161, 163, 166, 169, 180; equality in, 154—7; man never leaves, 175 natural law theory, 8 natural right, 21, 115, 147, 148, 149, 158, 171, 174, 175; and bad infinite, 161; defined, 161; and equality, 134; infinite, 153, 161; and natural law, 154; and sovereign, 176-8 nature: and compulsion, 115; and contradiction, 113, 115; dissociates, 154, 168; an inference made from passions, 64, 80, 85; opposition, 113; uncontrollable dictates of necessity, 147 Newtonian space, 48 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 161 nominalism, 31, 73, 130 Oakeshott, Michael, 34 object: and habit, 56, 69; of the passions, 92. See body obligation, ix, 5, 151-2; no obligation to incriminate self, 176 Ockham, William of, 31 opposition: of motions, 43, 53, 55, 56, 59, 86, 115, 174 Pascal, Blaise, 90 passion, xi; absence of serious study of, 87; contrary to laws of nature, 153; Descartes' famous treatment of passions, 101-9; in The Elements of Law, 92-5; and equality, 135, 139; genesis of philosophy in, 87; and heart, 15; in Leviathan, 95-100; and moral principles, 146; and rational behaviour, 12-13; signs °^ different passions, 82; simple passions, 92, 96 contempt, 94, 99-100, 102, I9ini8; desire and aversion, 97-8; joy and grief, 94, 98; love and hate, 98-100, I9ini9 temporal manifestations, 91; and volition, 66, 97; and will, 68

peace, 93, 150; causes of, 140, 163; first law of nature, 153, 160 perception. See senses person, 169-70 persuasion, 143 pessimism, 10, 61 Peters, R.S., 26, 74-5 phenomenal object, 69, 71, 76 phenomenological analysis, xi, 50 phenomenology, 39, 76 philosophy: and curiosity, 109, 112, 117, 122; genesis of philosophy in passions, 89; foundation in fear, 126, 179; and historicism, 123; and mastery of nature, 87, 124, 147, 160; and passions, 103, 178; philosophical and scientific few, xii, 23, 108-12, 123, 125-7, 178-81; and political power, 180-2; and sedition, 160; and sociability, 126; and war, 101, 124 Plamenatz, 149, 156 Plato, 12, 13 pleasure and pain, 94; associated with the heart, 15; and consciousness, 70-1; fruition of good or evil, 70 political realism, 13, 18, 144, 161, 174 politics: divine politics, 120; human politics, 120 power, 106, 123, 150, 161, 166, 168-9, 174, 178-81; abuse of, 172; and equality, 135 power inherent, 35—6, 187^3 privilege of absurdity, 78, 162 Prometheus, 119 psychological egoism, ix, 8 reciprocal determinacy: of motions, xi, 37, 38, 43, 60, 69 reflexivity: of behaviour, 88; in consciousness, 71; of desire, 90 religion: as contract, 117-18, 165; cause of war, I92n2o; redirecting desire, 163, 167-8; seeds of religion, 166: curiosity about causes, 118-20; subordinate to politics, 165, I92n23 resolution, 105, 106, 107, 109, 125 right. See natural right Rosen, Stanley, 189^ Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, I92n23 School metaphysics, 34, 120, 187^2 School philosophy, 14, 126, 151

200

INDEX

science, xii, 78, 159-60, 178-82 self-consciousness, 55 self-preservation, 21, 68, 83, 88-91; contentious, 160—1; natural right to, 134; self-contradictory, 149 sense: contrast Hobbes and Leibniz, 58—61; and consciousness, 56—8; and imagination, 70-1; immediacy, 56; and judgment, 57; locus of, 39; and memory, 58; and motion, 55, 56; and opposition, 55; and opposition of motions, 69; and reciprocal dependency, 69; and selfconsciousness, 55 separated essences, 9, 13, 34, 61, i92n2O signification: inconstancy of, 78 signs, 73-4, 78; natural and arbitrary, 80 social contract, 12, 117, 144, 149, 154-7,

158

solicitation, 19, 39, 117, 119, 163 sovereign: authority, 87, 156, 168, 170; education of, 162, 167, 177, 178, 181-2; and liberties of subjects, 173—8; must read mankind in himself, 171-3; and natural right, 176-8; not party to contract, 156; obligation to, 144, 157 space, 43-50; and body, 27, 45; and extension, 43-4, 47-8; externality, 50; imaginary, 43, 46—7; and magnitude, 43; phantasmal, 44; real space, 43, 47-8; subjective, 44; vacuum, 50 speech, 74; mental discourse, 74 Spinoza, Benedict, 55, 60, 103-4 Spragens, Thomas A., I9in7 state of nature. See natural condition Strauss, 8, 17, 23, 127, i88ni; bourgeois man, 9; connection between Hegel and Hobbes, 23; Descartes' influence on Hobbes, 101, 109-12; dichotomy

of fear and desire, 89; Hobbes's account of magnanimity, 109-10, i9On42; humanist interpretation of Hobbes, 17, i86ni3; Little Treatise of no importance, 34; morality of obedience, 10; pessimistic view of human nature, 10; review of Raymond Polin, 17 subjectivity of species, 37, 38 system of philosophy, 3, 5, 63 Thucydides, 18, i88ni Tractatus Options, 36—40, 50 trust, 166, 177; pre-contractual, 155-7 understanding: Hobbes's theory of, 73 vacuum, 50, i88n47 vision, 9; and volition, 66 vital motion, 66; instinct for selfpreservation, 68 volition: and curiosity, 67; and imagination, 67; and passion, 67; and vision, 66 war: and arguments for equality, 140; and authority, 180; causes of, 140; defined, 152-3; not from equality, 134; and glory, 141; and Locke, 154; and philosophy, 101, 124; reason as precondition of, 88; and state of nature, 156 Warrender, Howard, 152-3 Watkins, J.W.N., 34, 53, 74-5, i88n59 will: no autonomous, 72; and conatus, 175; dissolved into appetite, 68, 71; moral, 179 wisdom: beyond man, 61; conceit of, 137; and contempt, 142; identity of scientific and moral, 23, 126, 179; and worth, 142, 160 Zeus, 119

201