>>>>Hobbes' "Leviathan" was a book that was written in the heat of the English Civil War
and in that sense, it's a text of its own moment in time. But it is also a timeless
text. It represents a fundamental turning point in the history of thinking about law
and justice, and to understand why it is so it's important to understand what Hobbes did,
what he accomplished, why this was novel. When Thomas Hobbes went to Oxford in the early
17th century, the curriculum that he encountered would have been steeped in the ancient tradition
of Aristotelianism. A form of Aristotelianism that owed of much to its transmission through
Cicero, through Stoicism, and its absorption in the late medieval and Renaissance Catholic
traditions, particularly in the work of Aquinas. A kind of natural law Aristotelianism, a kind
of Aristotelianism which, deeply indebted to Stoicism, says that there's a natural order
in the universe and that human law, positive law can and should conform to this order.
And so it was a form of Aristotelianism indebted to Stoicism that was deeply Christianized
and was highly compatible with the monarchies of the Middle Ages and early modern Europe.
It was a system of thought that was grounded in theology and that was universal, it was
comprehensive, it covered all the curriculum in a way. It was a coherent system of thought.
And Thomas Hobbes would turn violently against that tradition, and claim to bring scientific
reasoning into the realm of moral and political thought. Hobbes says in a very important chapter
of the "Leviathan" chapter 46 "On the darkness of vain philosophies", that he is turning
against this tradition. And he specifically identifies Aristotle as at the heart of this
tradition. In fact, he says that Aristotle's "Metaphysics" are absurd, his politics are
repugnant, and his ethics are ignorant, and so he turns radically away from the tradition
centered on Aristotle. And in the "Leviathan" Hobbs turns against Aristotle in two fundamental
ways: one, on the origins of political society and two, on the end of human life. And so,
let's think first about the origins of political society. If you think back to book one of
Aristotle's "Politics", remember that Aristotle says that man is a political animal. That
man is a politikon zoon, that we are literally a creature that is by its very nature meant
to live in a polis, in a political community. That is the first precept of Aristotle's political
thought, that humans are political animals and that the state itself is natural. And
Aristotle says that the state, the polis is an association that exists by nature. That
humans form families, form into villages form into poleis, that this is a natural order,
that humans are intended by nature to live in this kind of society. And in fact only
by doing so can they fulfill their end, their purpose, their telos. Hobbes says this is
entirely false. And this is the Hobbes who has lived through the horrors of a civil war.
Hobbes says that the state does not exist by nature. For Hobbes, the state is a creation
of human beings. Hobbes says that in fact by nature, humans are in a state-less condition.
Hobbes says that humans in fact begin, they originates in a state of nature, that humans
exist before the state and humans create the state in order to leave the state of nature.
Hobbes says in the state of nature individuals, humans, are motivated by self-interest. They're
motivated by glory, they're motivated by the search for power, they're motivated by self-interest,
self-preservation their desires. And this inevitably brings them into conflict with
one another so for Hobbes the original state of mankind isn't political; it's in fact competitive.
People are isolated, they are a war with each other. And in fact, Thomas Hobbes says that
the state of nature in the condition of war of all against all that humans are naturally
competitive and acquisitive creatures who struggle with each other for property, for
limited goods, for honor, for glory, and for power. And so Hobbes has a very bleak view
of what motivates human beings it is their self-interest, it is their desire for self-preservation,
it is their wish for honor, and Hobbes sees this as a condition of war of all against
all, and it's informed by the experience of Civil War in England, undoubtedly. Hobbes
famously says that in this condition, people are fearful. You can't plan for the future,
there no arts, there are no sciences. He says very famously: "In the state of nature, the
condition of life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." This Hobbes says is the
original state not political life. Humans in the state of nature come together and form
an agreement to vest sovereign authority in a single government, in a state. And this
is where Hobbes uses the word Leviathan, the biblical giant. Humans agree to invest their
power, to cede their natural liberty to a sovereign who will protect them. Who will
bring this society out of the state of nature into a society that is governed by a state.
And for Hobbes, therefore, the state is a creation of human beings driven by their self-interest,
by their desire to come out of this condition of fear, and of war of all against all and
to live in a political society. And to do that, Hobbes says they must create a Leviathan,
they must create a sovereign power. And so Hobbes gives a vision of why a sovereign power
like a king is a just situation because it is this creation that has pulled human beings
out of their original condition: the state of nature. And so whereas for Aristotle humans
are naturally equipped with speech and reason, with attributes that they fulfill only in
political society and whereas for Aristotle, the polis is an association that exists by
nature, for Hobbes the state is a convention. It's a creation that humans create out of
their self-interest in order to leave the state of nature. And so in this fundamental
way, Hobbes' political thought turns away from Aristotle and from the long tradition
that dominated Europe that saw humans as having a natural sociability, having a natural political
potential.