7. Hobbes’ Leviathan

“Hobbes’s ethical thought is of special interest to the present-day reader, because it attempts to interpret human behavior in terms of physical bodies and their movements—inner emotion in terms of outer motion. Hobbes’s materialistic account of human psychology and conduct, based on the mechanico-mathematical world picture of his day, provides us with a first look at a type of interpretation that became more prominent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This view is presented with the force and vigor of Hobbes’s magnificant and ideosyncratic prose style.” (Mortimer J. Adler and Seymour Cain, Ethics: The Study of Moral Values, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1962, pages 107-08)

The above comes from Adler and Cain’s introduction to their guide to Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan as it is given in Volume 23 of Great Books of the Western World (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952). The full text of Leviathan can be read online at https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hobbes/Leviathan.pdf. Here I’ll give just the titles of its chapters that Adler and Cain give a guide to and the questions which they ask about those chapters.

These are the titles of the chapters of Leviathan than Adler and Cain comment on in their guide:
(Part I. Of Man)

6. Of the Interior Beginnings of Voluntary Motions, Commonly Called the Passions; and the Speeches by Which They Are Expressed
7. Of the Virtues, Commonly Called Intellectual, and Their Contrary Defects
8. Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour, and Worthiness
9. Of the Difference of Manners
10. Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning Their Felicity and Misery
11. Of the First and Second Natural Laws, and Contracts
12. Of Other Laws of Nature
    The other parts of Leviathan are:
    II. Of Commonwealth
    III. Of a Christian Commonwealth
    IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness

These are the questions which Adler and Cain ask about the chapters of Leviathan listed above and a few observations on their answers to the questions:

• Does Hobbes’s description of human nature provide any ethical norms?
  Adler and Cain observe that Aristotle also find a basis for ethics in human nature. They also ask if peace and order are ethical norms for Hobbes and why men “ought to endeavour peace.”
• Can psychological analysis provide the basis for ethics?
  Adler and Cain seem to agree with Hobbes that making ethical judgments is a matter of psychological predispositions and preferences even though we generalize them and allow for the action of the object.
• How are the ethical and the social related in Hobbes?
  Adler and Cain say that according to Hobbes man’s natural fears and desires, as well as his rational apprehension of the laws of nature, change man into a social/ethical human being.
• Is it possible to see the ethical state of the natural man in a different way than Hobbes did?
  Adler and Cain observe that throughout history many have seen natural man as a perfectly good and happy being. They question whether that view or Hobbes’ view is closer to reality.