Appropriating Hobbes: Legacies in Political, Legal, and International Thought

247 Pages·2018·1.37 MB·English

by  David Boucher

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APPROPRIATING HOBBES
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Appropriating
Hobbes
Legacies in Political, Legal, and
International Thought
DAVID BOUCHER
1
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3
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Acknowledgements
In writing this book I have accumulated a great many debts along the way.
PrimarilyIwouldliketothankChrisBrownforhisunstintingchampioningof
the cause of international political theory, and for providing a valuable
impetus to my own work. Various versions of the chapters have been pre-
sented at different places throughout the world, including the University
of Bologna and the Johns Hopkins University, Bologna. I am indebted to
Professor Giovanni Giorgini and Professor Marco Cesa for the kind invita-
tionsandperceptivecommentsonthepapers.Iwouldliketothankmyfriends
andcolleaguesamongtheBritishIdealistSpecialistGroupfortheirintellectual
support and incisive remarks. These include Josie D’Oro; Avital Simhony;
Maria Dimova-Cookson; Colin Tyler; James Connelly; Matt Hann; Roy
Tseng;andsomeofmyformerstudents,including NatalieReindeau;Kerstin
Budde; Camilla Boisen; Sarah Gallimore; Davide Orsi; Hanno Teroa; Junichi
Kasuga;RichardMurphy;JohnKarabelas;JamesJia-HauLiu;Chih-YangLiu;
YunlongGuo;WendyMartineau;andChrisRolliston.Anearlyversionofthe
chapter on Schmitt and Oakeshott on Hobbes was presented at a conference
organized by Tom Poole and David Dyzenhaus at the London School of
Economics. I gained a great deal from the comments of the organizers and
the other participants. I extended a theme in the chapter to incorporate
Koselleck for a conference at Hull University, organized by Noel O’Sullivan.
Avarietyofideasanddistinctionsthatpermeatethebookhavebeenexpressed
in a variety of universities in South Africa, including the universities of
Johannesburg, where I hold a visiting chair; Fort Hare; the Free State; and
Witwatersrand. I am deeply indebted to Peter Vale, Pieter Duvenage, Chris
Allsobrook, Ayesha Omar, and Lawrence Hamilton. I owe a special debt of
gratitude to Camilla Boisen for introducing me to South Africa and with
whom I have collaborated over the years. Knud Haakonssen kindly invited
me to the National University of Singapore, where I presented a paper on
Hobbesandhisrelationtothegreatinternationaljurists.Iwouldliketothank
Knud,TerryNardin,AntonyBlack,ChandranKukathas,DavidArmitage,and
LukeO’Sullivanfortheircriticalcomments,andinparticularWilliamBainfor
extensivediscussionsovertheyearsandonthreecontinentscoveringmanyof
the ideas contained in the book. A version of Chapter1 was presented at a
conference at Manchester Harris College, Oxford organized by Stamatoula
Panagakou and William Mander, and at Kyoritsu Women’s University Tokyo,
JapanorganizedbyHannoTeraoandColinTyler.Iamgratefultotheorganizers
and participants for their critical comments. I would also like to thank the
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vi Acknowledgements
participantswhocommentedonmypaperonlawandinternationalobligationat
theEuropeanConsortiumofPoliticalResearchinMontreal,2015.
ItwouldberemissofmeifIdidnotmentionmypoliticaltheorycolleagues
at Cardiff University who have made it such a congenial environment in
which to work over the last sixteen years. Thank you to Peter Sutch, Peri
Roberts,GraemeGarrard,BruceHaddock,MatteoBonotti,AndrewVincent,
Howard Williams, Carole Pateman, and Rex Martin. My former colleague
GabriellaSlomp,nowatSt.AndrewsUniversity,wasverygenerousingiving
adviceanddiscussingsomeaspectsofHobbes’sandSchmitt’sthought.
Special thanks are due to Rhianwen Daniel, who read through the entire
typescript and corrected infelicities. The anonymous readers for Oxford
UniversityPressprovidedinvaluablesuggestionsandsavedmefromavariety
of errors. It goes without saying that those that remain are entirely my
own responsibility. Amanda Kirk of the Learned Society of Wales was also
generous with her advice. Dominic Byatt of Oxford University Press has
been supportive and encouraging throughout, and I owe an enormous debt
ofgratitudetohimforstickingwithmealltheseyears.
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Contents
Introduction:AppropriatingHobbesinContexts 1
1. HobbesamongthePhilosophicalIdealists:AWillthatIsActual,
butNotGeneral 27
2. UnderstandingHobbes:PhilosophyversusIdeology 50
3. ConstrainingLeviathan:PowerversusAuthorityinHobbes,
Schmitt,andOakeshott 89
4. HobbesamongtheClassicJurists:NaturalLawversusthe
LawofNations 127
5. HobbesamongtheLegalPositivists:SovereignorSociety? 154
6. HobbesamongInternationalRelationsThinkers:International
PoliticalTheory 186
Conclusion 220
Index 229
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Introduction
Appropriating Hobbes in Contexts
Hobbes might have sat for a portrait of Plato, and is, I think, the best-
lookingphilosopherknowntome.1
InsteadofseeingLeviathanasatextthatworkedtofixHobbes’sidentity,
itmightbebettertoseeitasatextthatworkedtoconfoundawholerange
ofprejudicesaboutthecharacterofhisproject.2
Thefactthatthehermeneuticaltaskcanneverbecompletedentailsthatthe
meaningcontainedwithintexts,monuments,andfragmentsisconstantly
rebornthroughlifeandisforevertransformedinachainofrebirths.3
WhathasbeensaidofMachiavellimaywithequalvaliditybesaidofThomas
Hobbes, namely that he is ‘a chameleon: he takes on the coloration of his
critics’.4Hobbes’snamehasbecomesynonymouswithsomanyvividimages
that the vocabulary of politics and internationalrelations would be impover-
ishedwithoutthem.Hischaracterizationofthestateofnatureasawarofall
against all; the life of man solitary, nasty, brutish, and short; the necessity
for an all-powerful domestic absolute sovereign; and the international realm
anarchicanddevoidofhumanity,whereforceandfraudistheprudentcourse
to navigate, are all characterizations endlessly repeated and given the prefix
Hobbesian. So much so that for exiles from a turbulent war-torn twentieth-
century Europe he became a fellow Cold Warrior with his finger on the
pulseofwhatpoliticswasallabout:‘thephilosopherofpowerparexcellence’.5
1 SirLeslieStephen,Hobbes(London:Macmillan,1928[firstpublished1904]),64.
2 Jon Parkin, Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of
ThomasHobbesinEngland1640–1700(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2007),101.
3 EmilioBetti,‘HermeneuticsastheGeneral MethodologyoftheGeisteswissenschaften’,in
Hermeneutics as Method, Philosophy and Critique, ed. Josef Bleicher (London: Routledge
andKeganPaul,1980),69.
4 J. H. Geerken, ‘Machiavelli: Magus, Theologian or Trickster?’ Machiavelli Studies, vol. 3
(1990),95.
5 CarlJ.Friedrich,TheAgeofBaroque(NewYork:Harper,1952),27.