Page 106 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes individual figures—his subjects. The sovereign owed his existence to them, and derived his power
from them. The individuals did not disappear into an anonymous mass or into a cohesive
community, but retained their individuality and identity, implying that the awesome power was
“less impressive than the rhetoric surrounding it”.
Two themes interlaced one another to form the story of the Leviathan. One was the concern for
order, and the other individualism. Absolutism and individualism complemented one another.
The war of all against all resulted in an orderly society, but the race of life continued. Individuals
as mechanical apparatuses, and as discrete, were still in competition with each other, striving for
power and economic goods, though the conflict was no longer deadly but peaceful and intense.
His individuals were post-medieval men of the early capitalist society, independent and essentially
masterless. Absolutism did not end or marginalize individualism; it fused the separate elements of
the political order into an organic community to provide enough order to eliminate the state
of war.
Hobbes portrayed the idea of commonality in a society of particulars, and tried to complete the
story begun by Machiavelli, namely the impact that the pursuit of interest left on political and
social arrangements. Politics was about dealing with conflicting yet legitimate claims in a situation
of scarcity:
One result of Machiavelli’s reformulation of political theory was to draw attention to
the dynamic element of the uninhibited pursuit of interest and to establish interest as
the departure point for most subsequent theorizing .... Machiavelli’s prescriptions
were woefully lacking in one vital element: some comprehensive principle, some notion
of a unifying consensus for coping with the interest-ridden nature of the new politics.
Hobbes took the atomistic individuals, their instincts and reason, and the contractual agreement
between them to be the model, excluding even the family as a source of morality and sociability.
There was no place “for relationships of ascribed, historically given, status”.
Liberty and the Right of Self-preservation
Hobbes defined freedom as the private pursuit of the individual, which implied that each individual
could create his own conception of freedom within a framework of state authority. Liberty was
defined as whatever the law permitted, and on whatever the law was silent. Liberty signified
absence of restraints and coercion. Hobbes accepted the right to private beliefs, for conscience was
beyond the reach of the Leviathan, who could not oblige men to believe, since thought was free.
However, the Leviathan could command the individual to perform ceremonies that were necessary
for public worship.
Hobbes made a beginning to identify and safeguard what was essentially a private sphere of the
individual, where none, including the state, could exercise control. The private-public divide
became more forceful in Locke’s philosophy, with his statement on inalienable individual rights
and a conception of a limited state.
The limits of the state could be seen from Hobbes defence of property. Although in principle the
sovereign was absolute, with rights over private property, there would be no undue interference
in the individual’s private affairs, including economic activity. The individuals would have the
liberty to buy and sell, and otherwise contract with one another. The state could provide public
charity for the destitute, but beyond that it was not its task to actively promote the “felicity” of the
subjects.
To the vast array of absolute powers that Hobbes assigned to the sovereign, there was only one
limitation, namely the right of self-preservation, seen as an absolute right of the individual. The
sovereign could not command a man to kill himself, for life was a gift by nature to man; no one
could order the killing of an individual. The right remained an inalienable right of individuals,
since the basic motive for total surrender of their powers was self-preservation. If the sovereign

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