Limiting Leviathan: Hobbes on Law and International Affairs

273 Pages·2013·1.09 MB·English

by  Larry May

Limiting Leviathan
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Limiting Leviathan
Hobbes on Law and
International Aff airs

Larry May

1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp,
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First Edition published in 2013
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Acknowledgments
This book on Hobbes began life 35 years ago when I wrote my doctoral
dissertation on Hobbes’s political and legal philosophy, which started under
the supervision of Hannah Arendt and concluded under Anthony Quinton’s
direction after Arendt’s death. Upon completing the dissertation I revised it
and sent it to Oxford University Press, which, after taking a year to review
the revised dissertation, turned it down. I then did something I have told
my graduate students never to do: I put the manuscript in a drawer. I had
not thought again about producing a book-length treatment of Hobbes’s
legal philosophy until 2011, when Bernard Gert’s kind words convinced me
that I should return to my book on Hobbes’s legal theory. I am grateful to
Bernie, who died far too young, for bringing back to life this project on
Hobbes.
The fi rst fi ve chapters of this book are mainly interpretive, off ering a
distinctly diff erent view of Hobbes than is often presented in the literature.
The other fi ve chapters occupy various topics in political and legal philoso-
phy and work out a Hobbesian position in those debates. Two of the chap-
ters are based on my unpublished doctoral dissertation. Parts of eight of the
chapters have been published over the years.1 These appeared in a somewhat
diff erent form, and derive from the following essays:
“Hobbes’s Contract Theory,” J ournal of the History of Philosophy , vol. 18,
no. 2, April 1980, pp. 195–207.
“Hobbes on Equity and Justice,” Hobbes’s Science of Natural Justice , ed. Craig
Walton and Paul Johnson, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishing
Co., 1987, pp. 241–252.
“Hobbes on the Attitudes of Pacifi sm,” Thomas Hobbes:  De La
Metaphysique A La Politique, ed. Martin Bertman and Michel Malherbe,
Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 1989, pp. 129–140.
“Hobbes on Fidelity to Law,” Hobbes Studies , vol. V, 1992, pp. 77–89.
These pieces have been revised extensively for the current book.
1 The three essays on contract theory, equity, and fi delity were reprinted in Hobbes on Law , ed. Claire
Finkelstein, Surrey: Ashgate Press, 2005.
vi acknowledgments
I am grateful for the help my research assistants have given me, and also
to those graduate students who have taken my courses on Hobbes over
the years. I would like to single out Andrew Forcehimes, who worked tire-
lessly to help me put the fi rst draft of the manuscript together out of a very
large number of disparate parts that I had accumulated over the years, and
for providing superb comments. I would also like to thank Paul Morrow,
Elizabeth Edenberg, and Emily McGill for providing me with excellent
feedback on a late draft. Over the years, my graduate students at Vanderbilt
University, Washington University, and Purdue University have convinced
me that my radical reinterpretation of Hobbes can be made plausible. These
students have also helped me to take account of many objections to my
views as well as alternative readings of Hobbes’s texts.
Contents
Introduction 1
I. L imitations on Sovereign Law-Making 2
II. S ummary of Arguments of the Book 15
1. Law, Morality, and Prudence 2 0
I. S overeignty and Assumpsit 21
II. S elf-Interest and Natural Right 25
III. M oral Epistemology and the Laws of Nature 28
IV. C onscience, Promise, and Contract 32
V. Law and Morality 3 8
VI. Prudence and Morality 42
VII. C onclusions 4 6
2. Social Contract 4 8
I. The Legal Background 49
II. The Original Contract 52
III. The Constitutional Contract 56
IV. Conclusions 65
3. Equity and Justice 6 7
I. The Earlier View 68
II. The Later View 7 6
III. Conclusions 81
4. Concept of Law 85
I. H obbes’s Dialogue 86
II. K nowledge of the Law 89
III. The Origins and Sources of Law 93
IV. The Nature of Law 9 9
V. Aquinas and Hobbes on the Typology of Law 108
VI. Common Law 113
VII. N atural Law and Equity 1 17
5. Fidelity to Law 122
I. O bligation to Obey the Law 122
viii contents
II. Limits on Legal Authority 1 25
III. The Soldier and the Condemned Man 127
IV. Mere Obedience versus Fidelity to Law 132
V. Conclusions 135
6. Sovereignty and Artifi cial Reason 1 39
I . Natural Reason and Sovereignty in Leviathan 140
II. Edward Coke on Artifi cial Reason 142
III. Artifi cial Reason and Sovereignty in the Dialogue 146
IV. Matthew Hale’s Defense of Artifi cial Reason 149
V. Divided Sovereignty and the Rule of Law 151
7. Authorization, Joint Action, and Representation 156
I. Grotius’s Consent Principle 157
II. Hobbes on Artifi cial Persons and Authority 160
III. The Multitudes 163
IV. A Hobbesian Account of Mass Action 1 67
V. Objections 170
8. Crimes and the International Order 173
I. Hobbes and International Relations Theory 174
II. Trust and the First Performer 1 78
III. International Civil Society 180
IV. International Law in Kant’s P erpetual Peace 1 84
V. A Hobbesian Defense of International Criminal Law 187
VI. Objections 190
9. Rules of War 195
I. The Laws of Nature 1 96
II. Hobbes on Self-Preservation and Cruelty 199
III. Rationality in War 204
IV. A Hobbesian View of Cruelty 2 07
V. Minimalist Rules of War 211
VI. The Laws of War 214
VII. Objections 219
10. The Attitude of Pacifi sm 224
I. Attitudes and Moral Psychology 225
contents ix
II. Trust, First Performance, and Peace 227
III. The Reasonableness of Developing Pacifi st Attitudes 230
IV. The Choice between Peace and War 233
V. The Problem of the First Peace-Seeker 2 35
Concluding Thoughts 240
Bibliography 249
Index 2 55