Hobbesian Internationalism: Anarchy, Authority And The Fate Of Political Philosophy

205 Pages·2019·2.978 MB·English

by  Silviya Lechner

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY
SERIES EDITOR: GARY BROWNING
Hobbesian
Internationalism
Anarchy, Authority and the
Fate of Political Philosophy
Silviya Lechner
International Political Theory
Series Editor
Gary Browning
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford, UK
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Silviya Lechner
Hobbesian
Internationalism
Anarchy, Authority and the Fate of Political
Philosophy
Silviya Lechner
Department of War Studies
King’s College London
London, UK
ISSN 2662-6039 ISSN 2662-6047 (electronic)
International Political Theory
ISBN 978-3-030-30692-2 ISBN 978-3-030-30693-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30693-9
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To the memory of my parents, Pavel Popov (1944–2000) and
Paraskeva Doukova (1938–1999)
P
reface
A central question in contemporary political philosophy is what justi-
fies the state, given that it is a political authority that involves the use of
coercion. One way to elucidate this question is by identifying a mecha-
nism—the social contract—through which the state is created, and which
may account for some of its features as a supreme authority with coer-
cive prerogatives. Within social contract theory the institution of the
state is generated not only through a social contract but out of a condi-
tion known as a state of nature or ‘anarchy’. The first modern philoso-
pher who gave this condition a careful consideration is Thomas Hobbes
(1588–1679). This book aims to re-examine his political philosophy and
to develop a Hobbesian theory of international relations.
Concretely, the aim is to recover Hobbes as a theorist of authority and
anarchy, the two basic concepts that characterise the state and the con-
dition that precedes it. Unlike contemporary political philosophers who
regard the question of a state of nature as propaedeutic to an enquiry
into the state, the following pages treat this question as important in its
own right. What often goes unnoticed is that the state of nature is intelli-
gible under different descriptions—as a counterfactual condition of state-
lessness, as an international arena where states compete for power and
security unconstrained by a global sovereign (in line with political real-
ism), as a condition which is ‘prior to’ the state, to mention just a few. In
Part II it will be shown that between 1640 and 1651 Hobbes developed
a diverse set of conceptions of a state of nature that can be organised into
three distinct models, ‘race’ (competition), ‘uncertainty’ and ‘infelicity’
vii
viii PREFACE
(mutual frustration). I defend a structuralist reading of the infelicity
model drawing on Leviathan by portraying agents in the state of nature
as free and equal units that interact inside a finite, bounded domain. This
domain is ‘anarchic’ because it is unregulated.
The purpose of this study is not to evaluate Hobbes’s political philos-
ophy but to determine its ground and limits. As such, its purview is pre-
dominantly moral philosophy. Starting with the problem of how free and
equal agents who interact inside an unregulated realm end up frustrating
each other’s pursuits, it proposes a deontological solution. Deontology
here is understood in a weak sense: rule, not obligation is its master con-
cept. If the predicament of the state of nature is assumed to reside in
the structure of interaction—that is, if agents are frustrated not because
human nature is defective or because the parameters of the external envi-
ronment are unfavourable (such as scarcity) but simply because they
collide in lieu of the fact that they cannot avoid each other’s presence
inside a finite space—the response is to devise a set of rules so as to
prevent or minimise such collision. These rules can be either Hobbes’s
laws of nature, or the Hobbesian state where the rules in question are
coercive and tied into a system. In Part III this structuralist model will
be extrapolated to the sphere of international relations, to explain the
conduct of states. Because Hobbes did not develop a theory of interna-
tional relations himself, it would be necessary to supplant his theses with
Kant’s philosophy of international right. The result is termed Hobbesian
Internationalism. While it is distinct both from the realist conception of
an international anarchy and from utopian proposals for a world state, it
retains elements that are at once anarchical and state-like.
My reading is based on Hobbes’s arguments in The Elements of Law
(1640/1650), De Cive (1642/1647) and Leviathan (1651). No attempt
has been made to evaluate the state of the art of current Hobbes scholar-
ship. Indeed, as Francis McNeilly remarked in The Anatomy of Leviathan,
one has to decide whether one is writing a book about Hobbes, or a
book about books about Hobbes (McNeilly 1968, 5). This monograph
falls into the former category.
In preparing the manuscript for publication I received invaluable sup-
port from the team at Palgrave Macmillan. In particular I wish to thank
the International Political Theory series editor, Gary Browning, and the
editors Anne Kathrin Birchley-Brun, Imogen Gordon Clark, and Ambra
Finotello. The insightful comments of the two anonymous reviewers
PREFACE ix
helped me improve the quality of the manuscript. Finally, because anar-
chy is a discourse about free individuals, I wish to dedicate this book to
the memory of my parents who taught me the value of freedom.
London, UK Silviya Lechner
September 2019
reference
McNeilly, F.S. 1968. The Anatomy of Leviathan. New York: St Martin’s Press.
c
ontents
Part I Authority
1 Introduction: Reading Hobbes as a Theorist
of Anarchy and Authority 3
2 Authority and the Problem of Political Philosophy 21
Part II Anarchy
3 The State of Nature in The Elements 45
4 The State of Nature in De Cive 65
5 The State of Nature in Leviathan 83
Part III Hobbes’s Theory of International Relations
6 Hobbes and the International Anarchy 111
7 Hobbesian Internationalism: Hobbes Meets Kant 139
xi