2001 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

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406
Pacic Philosophical Quarterly 82 (2001) 406419 02790750/00/01000000
2001 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Published by
Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
HOBBES, RELIGION,
AND RATIONAL
CHOICE: HOBBESS
TWO LEVIATHANS
AND THE FOOL
nx
PASQUALE PASQUINO
Abstract: Some recent interpreters of Hobbes have deployed techniques of
game theory in the service of showing that cooperation in the Hobbesian
state of nature is possible. I argue against this strategy in two ways. First, I
show that Hobbes did not intend the state of nature as a starting point of the
theory from which the possibility of exit must be explained, but rather as a
rhetorically useful depiction of the consequences of wrongful understandings
of mens civil and religious duties. Secondly, I show that the game theoretic
techniques of these interpreters can be used in a new way to demonstrate
both the inherent tendency toward civil war in existing Christian states, and
the superior stability of the Hobbesian political order.
to my friend Jean Hampton, in memoriam
Peace at home may then be expected durable, when the common people shall be made to
see the benet they shall receive by their obedience and adhaesion to their own Sovereign,
and the harm they must suffer by taking part with them, who by promises of reformation,
or change of government deceive them. And this is properly to be done by divines, and
from arguments not only from reason, but also from the Holy Scripture
Th. Hobbes, A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the
Common Laws of England, London, Printed for William Crooke 1681*
The state of nature
1
(the condition of mere nature) in Hobbess political
theory is at the same time a counter-factual, an exemplum, in the mediaeval
sense of this word, and a possible destination. I will comment upon this,
but it is worth stressing from the beginning that it is in no way either an
historical or a logical starting point. Recently that Hobbesian concept
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HOBBES, RELIGION, AND RATIONAL CHOICE 407
has been considered in terms of game theory. Independently of its disput-
able historical accuracy, that approach has the merit of showing that the
natural condition of mankind is presented by Hobbes as, so to speak,
a sub-optimal Nash equilibrium:
2
permanent distrust is, in fact, more
rational in that condition than cooperation; in his language the war of all
against all is more rational than peace and political order. Permanent
and generalized distrust is the true nature of this condition in which
human life is qualied as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
3
Because the state of nature corresponds to a Prisoner Dilemma matrix
there is no way out of it.
A body of recent literature (D. Gauthier,
4
J. Hampton,
5
G. Kavka
6
)
has tried to show that some form of cooperation is possible in the state of
nature. For my part, I believe that, notwithstanding some ambiguities in
the English Leviathan, there is no possibility of successfully ascribing this
position to Hobbes, and that is what I shall now argue.
First and simply from an analytical point of view, trust can be only
the fruit of past experience.
7
Elsewhere
8
I have argued that in the state
of nature individuals are not able to collect stable information about
others, hence it can be described as a condition of epistemic opacity
which destroys the preconditions of any rational trust. Now, it is exactly
this possibility of trust through experience that is denied to human beings
in the state of nature according to Hobbes; since in it duration and
recognition of individual identities are excluded.
9
The clearest text sup-
porting this interpretation can be found in the rst version of Hobbess
political theory the Elements of Law, a small work that circulated as a
manuscript at the very beginning of the 1640s. Here (I.14), he claims that
the perpetual difdence among human beings depends essentially on
the impossibility of establishing objective standards
10
of the greatness of
the danger represented by the other.
In the words of Leviathan: If a covenant
11
be made wherein neither of
the parties perform presently, but trust one another, in the condition of
mere nature (which is a condition of war of every man against every
man) upon any reasonable suspicion it is void (EL., Curley, ch. 14, p. 84,
italics mine); so that there is neither a good reason to keep the promise
nor any obligation to respect it. To make sense of this bold claim we have
to remember that the state of nature is a peculiar situation in which trust
is impossible (i.e. irrational) and any covenant void.
12
Hobbes adds, indeed,
in the same passage, to contrast that condition with the one of civil
society: but if there be a common power set over them both [the parties
to a covenant], with right and force sufcient to compel performance, it
[the covenant of mutual trust] is not void (ivi).
13
Notwithstanding that, a considerable amount of intellectual energy has
been devoted to nding a possible solution to a question which many
Hobbess interpreters consider crucial: how people can escape [italics mine]
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408 PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
the state of nature and enter civil society.
14
A goal of this paper is to
show that the equilibrium of the state of nature is not really a problem
for Hobbess political theory, since the question is not to try to gure out
how to escape it, but simply to understand that the concept is used rhetor-
ically, in order to change the mind of those involved in religious civil war.
A passage in chapter 15 of Leviathan, where Hobbes speaks of the
Laws of Nature, seems to give a possible solution to the question posed,
by Hampton, among others. In his answer to the fool who is supposed
to claim that there is no such a thing as justice, Hobbes replies in the
English Leviathan:
For the question is not of promises mutual, where there is no security of performance on
either side (as when there is no civil power erected over the parties promising [i.e., in the
state of nature]), for such promises are no covenants, but either where one of the parties has
performed already, or where there is a power to make him perform, there is the question
whether it be against reason [italics mine], that is, against the benet of the other to perform
or not. And I say it is not against reason. (EL., Curley, ch. 15, p. 91).
This text, although not perfectly clear,
15
seems nevertheless to open the
possibility of cooperation in the absence of any political authority, since
it is rational to keep contracts in the state of nature if one party has
already performed [italics mine].
16
Ive never been persuaded by that interpretation since it seems to con-
tradict Hobbess general argument that allows us to present the state of
nature as a sort of Nash equilibrium.
17
Needless to say, I was very pleased
when I discovered that the second edition of Leviathan, published in
Latin in 1668, has a different and unambiguous text.
Although nowadays we usually read the rst edition of Hobbess major
work published in English in 1651, it would be more appropriate to read
the second one, since a noteworthy fact we must take into account is that
Hobbes devotedly worked on that version for many years.
18
The lan-
guage of the academic community in the 17
th
century was, indeed, not at
all English but Latin, so that if the rst version of Leviathan was a book
published in the context of the civil war for a limited publicthe one
able to read Englishthe Latin version is the text that Hobbes worked
out in order to address the communitas doctorum, also not only an inter-
national scholarly public but all of posterity. Thomas Hobbes could not
foresee that the marginal language of a Western European island, parti-
ally as the consequence and unexpected effect of the religious civil war
that took people out of Great Britain, would become a few centuries
afterwards the lingua franca of the international academic community.
Had he been aware of that, he would certainly have spent his time rewriting
a second English edition. But Hobbes was a true humanist
19
and he prob-
ably believed that Latin would have been forever the language of the
communitas doctorum. As we know now he was wrong. That prevents
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HOBBES, RELIGION, AND RATIONAL CHOICE 409
most of the best American Hobbes specialists from reading the nal
version of the Leviathan. Which for our quotation matters. Indeed, the
Latin version, translated into English, looks like this:
For the question is not of promises mutual in the natural condition of men, where there is
no compelling power; for thus those promises would not be covenants. But if there is a
compelling power and if the one party has performed his promise [italics mine], the question is
then whether the one who deceives does so with reason and in accordance with his own
good. I say he acts against reason and imprudently.
20
In his Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, G. Kavka devoted a long
section to Cooperation and the Fool, to reach the conclusion that We
are led by various different paths, then, to the possibility of rational
cooperation in the state of nature (p. 156).
21
Rather than discuss Kavkas
interpretation based on the English text, I will present here Hobbess
revised argument as it is spelled out in the Latin version.
At the beginning of Chapter 15 Hobbes presents the third law of nature,
justice, which is this that men perform their covenants made (EL., p. 89)
[Praestanda esse pacta]. He adds, moreover, that the essence of justice
consists in keeping covenants only if they are valid, as they are when the
commonwealth has been established; it follows from this consideration
that commonwealth, justice and property are born at the same time.
22
At
that point the fool [insipiens] enters the argument. He says, as does
Carneades and French neo-skeptical moral philosophy,
23
that there is no
justice and that each one alone must take care of his self-preservation.
24
The fool says tooand Hobbes is anxious to rebut his claim
25
that it is
possible to get salvation by disobeying the political authority.
26
Unjust
violence indeed can occur only within the commonwealth, since we have
seen that outside the civitas, according to Hobbes, there cannot be any
actual injustice. And we will see that the only unjust violence which
may be wrongly believed to lead to the kingdom of God (to salvation) is
rebellion against the law of, let us say, a Catholic sovereign if the subject
is, for instance, a Calvinistand so actually the reason of most of the
disruptive violence in Europe during Hobbess life.
In answering the fool, Hobbes is not trying to answer the question of
the possibility of cooperation in the state of nature but to show that if
there is a compelling power and if the one party has performed his pro-
mise it is against reason and against prudence to disobey the positive
laws. Saying that, Hobbes is not yet discussing the main argument of the
fool, that is, that disobedience can grant eternal lifethat question is the
central issue of the third and fourth parts of the Leviathan. In the rst
two parts of the work the point is to show, independently of any religious
belief, that it is rational to obey a political authority since it is the only
way to guarantee the citizens self-preservation. And indeed injustice,
meaning disobedience, is imprudent and irrational for two reasons:
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410 PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
For rst, in a state anyone who does what, as far as can be foreseen and understood by
reason, tends to his own destruction [for instance, to disobey the positive/civil laws], even
though something unforeseen happens which makes the outcome fortunate, has neverthe-
less acted imprudently, because what happens is unforeseen.
27
The second reason is that no society can accept someone who, like the
fool, says he will break covenants.
28
So, either he has to hope he will be
accepted because of the ignorance of the others, which again is imprud-
ent, or else, and more likely, he will be driven out of the society and will
die [ejectus peribit], since outside the commonwealth he will be in the
state of nature where each one is an enemy to each one and no one can
live securely; unless he nds new allies and establishes a new society. But
this seems not possible, for the same reasons which caused him to be
driven out of the rst society: if he is still insipiens he will continue to
maintain that he shall not keep covenants!
Since no cooperation ( justice, in Hobbess language) is possible start-
ing from the state of nature, we can try to make sense of that concept
considering it not as an origin but a possible destination of society,
in the words of R. Hardin.
29
This point was made quite forcefully by
F. Maitland,
30
and was put forward for the rst time in the 17
th
century
by the most popular and authoritative champion of the natural law theory.
The dimension of the Hobbesian concept of the state of nature, which I
suggest calling rhetorical (from a logical point of view counter-factual),
quite clearly appears indeed in a smaller work by Samuel Pufendorf, who
has dwelt most on Hobbes, De statu hominum naturali (1675), a work
which is not well-known but deserves to be quoted at length:
Furthermore, a consideration of the natural state of individuals and its misery is very useful
for making citizens love and devote themselves completely to the civil states preservation,
and also for making them endure gladly the burdens necessary for the maintenance of
states. For these burdens are but a very small portion of the evils that would have attended
a life without civil bounds, immersion in which would have been far more miserable than
what seems to be the harshest existence in a state. One who has never thought about the
misery of the natural state bears the burdens which rulers impose on citizens with ill will,
as if they were superuous and contrived either to annoy the people or merely to nourish
the rulers ambition and extravagance. In contrast, someone who has correctly estimated the
matter admits that it is no more suitable to complain about such burdens than about the
price of clothes or shoes by which the body is protected against severe weather and injuries.
Indeed, one who has reected thoroughly upon this natural state will bear more patiently
the unreasonable inconveniences that he sometimes experiences at the hands of rulers. For
these are in fact rarities in the civil state, and counterbalanced by the occurrence of better
things. But in the natural state one could expect equivalent or worse evils not only on a
daily basis, but also without end and measure. Moreover, a judicious citizen will by no
means attribute those inconveniences to the character of the civil state as such and be
therefore more discontented with it; rather, he will acknowledge the general imperfection of
human affairs. For although states were specially devised against the evils that threaten one
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HOBBES, RELIGION, AND RATIONAL CHOICE 411
person from another [italics mine]an end necessarily requiring other peoples involvement
it was not possible to take precautions so precise as to prevent the emanation of an occasional
evil from those very persons to whom we subjected ourselves in order to avert human evils.
Also, one who has thoroughly weighed these things puts up willingly with any inconven-
iences of his status and is not inclined to revolt against the government. This is especially
so because such changes are almost always followed by other men rather than by other
practices, and because most changes in a commonwealth occur through civil wars, which
are deservedly held to be among the gravest civil evils (. 24).
31
If Pufendorf is right, as I rmly believe, the equilibrium of the state
of nature is not a problem for Hobbess political theory, since the ques-
tion is not of showing how to exit from it, but rather of how to make
sense of that concept. My own view is that this is a concept used by the
author with a rhetorical function ad deterrendum, as in the medieval
tradition of the exemplathe short stories told by preaching friars to
Christian believers in order to induce a certain type of behavior by the
dreadful description of the consequences of their misdeeds.
32
Just as did the state of nature, the Hobbesian commonwealth too seems
under the standard game theoretic interpretation to take the form of an
equilibrium.
Here the existence of Leviathan changes the payoffs of the matrix. The
fool is punished for his defection from promises, and cooperation seems
to be a rational behavior and a stable condition. One has then to ask why
the generalized condition of distrust, the state of nature, can emerge out
of that equilibrium. In other words, why is social collapse and the disorder
of civil war a possible destination? If order/cooperation and reciprocal
trust inside the political community with a common power is a Nash
equilibrium for rational actors, why should Hobbes worry about disorder
and disruptive conicts and care about the means of keeping peace in the
commonwealth? There are many possible answers to that question, but
generally they imply an element of irrationality in human behavior (pas-
sions, shortsightedness, etc.).
3,3 2,1
1,2 0,0
c
nc
A
c nc
B
non cooperation
is punished by
the Leviathan
Nash equilibrium
& Pareto optimum:
Commonwealth
state of nature
Figure 1. Hobbess commonwealth
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412 PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
o = to obey
p = to protect
Lc = Lutheran citizen
Cs = Catholic sovereign
Figure 2. The reason for conict in the Civitas
Quite recently Hobbess scholars
33
have drawn our attention to the
third and fourth part of the Leviathan, which are usually disregarded by
people interested in game theory (like Gauthier, Hampton, Kavka). My
claim is that there is no reason for this disregard, neither for Hobbess
readers nor for game theorists. First, since Hobbes wrote Chapters XXXI
XLVII (pp. 233484 in Curleys edition), we cannot simply skip them. Or
we need to make sense of the surprising allegation that we do not really
care about Hobbess theory, but just about what we may achieve using or
manipulating it. Second, and more important, the religious civil wars were
the central preoccupation of Hobbes political theory, a point that every-
body, among the game-theoretic interpreters, seems ready to accept with-
out drawing any consequence from it. To which complaisance I object
that if we do not take Hobbess concern for religious civil war into account
many aspects of Hobbess political theory become meaningless or even
preposterous (that is for instance the case for his theory of absolute, or
more precisely, undivided sovereign power).
The reasons of instability of the commonwealth and the looming threat of
a collapse in the state of nature are spelled out clearly in the following text:
The most frequent pretext of sedition and civil war, in Christian commonwealths, had a
long time proceeded from a difculty, not yet sufciently resolved, of obeying at once both
God and man, then when their commandments are [the Latin says seem to be] one
contrary to the other. It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary com-
mands, and knows that one is from Gods, he ought to obey that and not the other, though
it be the command even of his lawful sovereign (whether a monarch or a sovereign assembly).
(EL., ch. 43, pp. 39798).
34
Here the real civil war and not the hypothetical war of anyone against
anyone takes on the disruptive face of the state of nature.
This can be presented in the form of a matrix:
1,2 0,3
3,0 2,1
o
no
Lc
p np
Cs
Nash equilibrium
Pareto optimum
religious war
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HOBBES, RELIGION, AND RATIONAL CHOICE 413
To understand the payoffs of the matrix one has to take into account
that protection for the sovereign is a cost and that citizens take into
account both the interest of the living self (protection) and of the dead
self (salvation).
In (o,p) the Lutheran citizen obeys the positive laws and the Catholic
sovereign protects the citizens life; (o,p) seems to be the gure of political
order, but Lc will nonetheless get damnationor at least so he rmly
believes. In support of this, consider that Hobbes acknowledges that
The maintenance of civil society depending on justice, and justice on the power of life and
death (and other less rewards and punishments) residing in them that have the sovereignty
of the commonwealth, it is impossible a commonwealth should stand where any other than
the sovereign hath the power of giving greater rewards than life, and of inicting greater
punishments than death. Now seeing eternal life is a greater reward than the life present,
and eternal torment a greater punishment than the death of nature, it is a thing worthy to be
well considered [ . . . ] for what offenses, and against whom committed, men are to be
eternally tormented; and for what actions they are to obtain eternal life. (EL. ch. 37, p. 301).
Concerning the other cells consider:
(o, np) the L citizen obeys and the CS sovereign does not protect him, so
Lc will get damnation and absence of protection in this life.
In these rst two cases the Cs is the sovereign, since oboedientia facit
imperantem (Spinoza).
(no, p) the L citizen gets salvation and protection of his life.
(no, np) the L citizen does not get protection for his life but avoids second
death.
And although in metaphorical speech a calamitous life everlasting [in Hell] may be called an
everlasting death, yet it cannot well be understood of a second death (EL., ch. 37, p. 309)
In these last two cases the Cs is not recognized as sovereign.
The matrix shows that subjects afrming a different religious view than
that ordered by the sovereign will nd it rational, once their beliefs about
their eternal prospects are taken into account, to disobey and resist the
sovereign, issuing in an equilibrium of religious warfare. The payoffs
represent consideration of the interest of the dead self of subjects
which is perfectly rational for religious persons.
35
Jon Elster brought to my attention that Lutherans might or even should
disagree, since they take self-interested considerations and eternal life to
be mutually exclusive. One has to remember however that Hobbes was
an Anglican,
36
and so as holding theological beliefs very similar to those
of Catholics on this point, and further that Lutheranism and notably
Calvinism were often his polemical targets.
37
To come now back to my starting point, I believe that the entire
Hobbesian political theory aims to justify the existence of a sovereign
State as the only possibility for guaranteeing a social condition in which
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414 PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
trust among individuals is rational and to avoid the generalized distrust
which will inevitably appear in its absence. Coordination is possible only
in the form of obedience to a de facto power.
38
It involves, in the historical
context considered by Hobbes, a substantial transformation in the religi-
ous beliefs of Christian zealots of different sects. Which is the object of
the discussion in the third and fourth parts of Leviathan and a reason to
support, according to Hobbes, a strong central political power able to
enforce some form of religious toleration.
Consider Figure 3.
3,3 2,3
1,0 0,0
o
no
Ch c
p np
Ch s
peace &
salvation:
commonwealth
religious civil
war
Figure 3. The Hobbesian political order
(o, p) the Christian citizen obeys the civil laws and gets peace
and salvation, and the sovereign is recognized
(o, np) the Ch citizen obeys without getting protection, he gets
nonetheless salvation and the sovereign enjoys recognition
(no, p) the Ch citizen does not obey and even though he is
protected in his life he will be punished by God after his death
(no, np) the Ch citizen (a Calvinist) and the Anglican sovereign
ght each other: the true instantiation of the state of nature.
39
In the last part of a previous article,
40
I tried to show that Hobbes was
committed from his rst attempt to lay down his political theory, the
Elements of Law, to a major rhetorical venture. The goal of his enterprise
was to modify the payoffs of the religious civil war game, that is to
modify the preferences of citizens by modifying their religious beliefs. His
argument in favor of a minimalist Christian religion compatible with
obedience to the civil laws is restated in chapter 43 of Leviathan:
All that is Nrcrss:x 1o salvation is contained in two virtues: faith in Christ, and obedience
to laws (EL., p. 398).
But if a Christian king, who holds the foundation, that Jesus is the Christ, deduces certain
doctrines ineptly from that foundation, and commands them to be taught and held, his
command is to be obeyed. For he can be obeyed without danger to the soul [italics mine].
Moreover, no one can rightly judge in a question concerning his own civil obedience. For
no one can judge concerning the doctrines of the faith except the church, i.e., except the one
who bears the person of the church, i.e., except the king, if he is a Christian (LL, see Curleys
ed., p. 409, fn. 25).
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HOBBES, RELIGION, AND RATIONAL CHOICE 415
It is this message that Hobbes wanted to convey in order to promote
peace and order in a society deeply divided by religious fanaticism. Un-
fortunately his message still has something to teach us at the beginning of
the third millennium.
CNRS, Paris and NYU School of Law
NOTES
* I quote the text edited by J. Cropsey (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press 1997),
p. 57.
1
See, P. Pasquino, Thomas Hobbes. La condition naturelle de lhumanit in Revue
Franaise de Science Politique; 44, n 2, April 1994, pp. 294307.
2
I think a caveat has to be spelled out here: this mathematical language is slightly
pompous and should be avoided in this context, since it doesnt possess more than an analo-
gical meaning. I decided nonetheless to use it in order to convey synthetically my point that
the state of nature cannot be a starting point. Actually, it is more sensible to claim with
Carl Schmitt that The starting point of Hobbess construction of the state is fear of the
state of nature (Leviathan in der Staatslehere des Thomas Hobbes [1938], English translation,
Westport, Connecticut-London, Greenwood Press 1996, p. 31).
3
Leviathan, ed.
.
by E. Curley (Indianapolis, Hackett 1994), ch. 13, p. 76, (quoted hereafter
as EL.).
4
The Logic of Leviathan (Oxford, Oxford University Press 1969).
5
Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1986).
6
Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory (Princeton N.J., Princeton University Press 1986).
7
A. Pizzorno, On the individualistic theory of social order, in P. Bourdieu and James
Coleman (eds.), Social Theory for a Changing Society (Boulder, Westview Press 1991),
p. 213.
8
In the article cited in fn. 1.
9
See fn. 7.
10
Meaning here: common to the two partners. More generally, Hobbes describes people
in the state of nature as excessively partial to themselves.
11
In Hobbess language a covenant is a special type of contract, one which implies the
dimension of time:
one of the contractors may deliver the thing contracted for on his part, and leave the other
to perform his part at some determinate time after (and in the meantime be trusted); and
then the contract on his part is called PACT, or COVENANT; or both parts may contract
now, to perform hereafter, in which cases he that is to perform in time to come, being
trusted, his performance is called keeping the promise, or faith, and the failing of performance
(if it be voluntary) violation of faith (EL., ch. 14, p. 82).
12
In the Elements of Law [1640], XI. 9, Hobbes gives the following denition of trust and
distrust:
TRUST is a passion proceeding from whom we expect or hope for good, so free from
doubt that upon the same we pursue no other way. And DISTRUST, or difdence, is doubt
that maketh him endeavour to provide himself by other means; notice he said before:
Absolute privation of hope is despair, a degree whereof is difdence.
13
See also: But in a civil estate, where there is a power set up to constrain those that
would otherwise violate their faith, that fear is no more reasonable; and for that cause, he
which by the covenant is to perform rst is obliged so to do (EL. p. 85).
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416 PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
14
This is the question asked for instance by Jean Hampton in her seminal book, Hobbes
and the Social Contract Tradition, p. 132; here she claims that if Hobbes is unable to give an
answer to that question his argument collapses.
15
R. Tuck in his article on Hobbess moral philosophy (Cambridge Companion to
Hobbes, ed. by T. Sorell, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1996, p. 193) writes: it
must be admitted that this passage [ . . . ] is notoriously obscure.
16
Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, p. 65. I have to stress that this
idea of possible cooperation in the state of nature is just Hamptons interpretation of the
text quoted above from the English Leviathan. Her understanding of Hobbes is much more
profound and subtle and it is not the object of this paper to offer a full appraisal of it.
17
In Hobbess state of nature, non-cooperation is the equilibrium state because each person
nds it rational to renege on promises rather than to keep them. The crossed arrows show
that it is not possible (rational) for the actors to leave the bottom left square to move up to
a Pareto superior square.
18
That Hobbes devoted much effort to the Latin translation of his book is what we can
see, for instance, from the letter his publisher Pieter Blaeu sent him from Amsterdam at the
end of November 1667: Je vous diray au Second lieu que suis bin aise dentendre que
vous avez desia achev les deux tiers du livre que vous savez, et que vous travaillez tous les
Jours deux heures avec esperance de lachever avec laide de Dieu devant Pasque (in Th.
Hobbes, The Correspondence, ed. by Noel Malcolm, vol. II, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1994,
p. 693; Malcolms English translation [p. 695] says: let me say that I am very happy to hear
that you have already completed two-thirds of that book (you know which [the Leviathan] ),
and that you are working on it for two hours every day, and hoping to nish it, with Gods
help, by Easter).
19
He translated Aristotle, Thucydides and Homer; in his Verse Autobiography (in Opera
Latina, vol. I, p. lxxxv) he wrote: Did learn to speak four languages, to write // And read
them too, which was my sole delight (I have reasons to believe that the fourth language
next to Greek, Latin and English was Italian although it is not impossible to claim that
it was Hebrew, or that he did not count English; in fact, one of Hobbess tasks in the service
of the Cavendish family was to translate the correspondence with the Venetian friar Fulgenzio
Micanzio, friend and personal assistant of Paolo Sarpi. See N. Malcolm, A summary bio-
graphy of Hobbes, in The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, pp. 1719, who claims that
3,3 1,4
4,1 2,2
c
nc
A
c nc
B
c,c is the
Pareto optimum
Nash equilibrium
state of nature
dominant strategy
Figure 4. Hobbess state of nature
(c, c) A and B cooperate
(c, nc) A cooperates, but B does not keep the promise
(nc, c) B cooperates, but A does not keep the promise
(nc, nc) A and B do not cooperate
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HOBBES, RELIGION, AND RATIONAL CHOICE 417
During their stay in Venice in the winter of 161415 they both [Hobbes and William
Cavendish] learned Italian. Only later on did Hobbes learn French).
20
Unfortunately the Latin Leviathan, the nal version of Hobbess political theory has
never been translated into English. But most of the modications made by Hobbes in the
Latin Leviathan are now available in the footnotes to the English text edited by Edwin Curley
(T. Hobbes, Leviathan with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668, Indianapolis /
Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 1994; the quote above is at p. 91, fn. 5). The
Latin text says: Quaestio enim non est de Promissis mutuis in conditione hominum naturali
ubi nulla est Potentia cogens; nam sic Promissa illa pacta non essent; sed existente Potentia,
quae cogat, et [sic! not or as in English] alter promissum praestiterit, ibi quaestio est, an is,
qui fallit cum Ratione, et ad bonum proprium congruenter fallat. Ego vero contra rationem,
et imprudenter facere dico (Latin Leviathan, Amsterdam, 1668, in Opera Latina, ed. by
Molesworth, vol. III, p. 113; hereafter LL.).
21
See pp. 137156. Kavka was nonetheless aware that there are problems with his
interpretationproblems almost inescapable, I claim, if we stick to the English version of
Hobbess major work. He writes, for instance: One difculty with Hobbess reply to the
Fool, as so far interpreted, is that it assumes that viability of defense cooperatives in the
state of nature. If one is to count nonmembership in defense cooperatives as a substantial
cost of reneging on a state-of-nature agreement, it must be that such structures exist and are
stable enough [italics mine] that a person could reasonably hope to join one and gain
substantial benets from it if he does not renege on the agreement (pp. 140141).
22
Justitiae autem essentia consistit in praestatione pactorum, quae tunc valida esse
incipiunt, quando constituta est civitas; itaque civitas, proprietas bonorum, et justitia simul
nata sunt (LL., p. 112).
23
On Montaigne, Charron and the natural law criticism of the neo-skeptical philosophy,
see A. M. Battista, Alle origini del pensiero politico libertino (Milano, Giuffr 1989 [2d edition]),
and R. Tuck, Grotius, Carneades and Hobbes, Grotiana, New Series, Vol.4, 1983, pp. 43
62. On insipiens (the fool) and Carneades Hobbess source is likely Cicero quoted by
Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones, Migne, vol. VI, pp. 59596.
24
Dixit insipiens, Non est justitia; conservationis suae singuli et soli curam gerunt
(LL., p. 112).
25
Verumtamen ratiocinatio haec, utcumque speciosa, falsa est! (ibid., p. 113).
26
This seems to me the essential meaning of the generally uncommented words:
Regnum, inquit Dei acquiritur violentia. Quid si ab homine acquiri possit per violentiam
injustam, anne contra rectam rationem esset, cum impossibile esset ut inde ullum sibi malum,
sed summum bonum sequeretur? (ibid., pp. 11213; the English text is, as often, less clear
(to me): The kingdom of God is gotten by violence; but what if it could be gotten by unjust
violence? were it against reason so to get it [= salvation, i.e. eternal life], when it is impossible
to receive hurt by it (EL., p. 90).
27
EL., p. 91, fn. 6; LL., 113: Primo enim in civitate, si quis id faciat, quod, quantum
prospici et ratione intelligi potest, ad suam ipsius tendit destructionem, quamquam impro-
visum aliquod accidat quod eventum felicem efciat, factum nihilominus fuisse imprudenter,
quia improvisum.
28
Kavka seems to get almost the same conclusion when he writes (p. 141): Hobbes may
be viewed as pointing out that founders, or preserving members [italics mine], of a common-
wealth will not accept unreliable parties, such as offensive violators of agreements, as
members. [ . . . ] agreement violators are [ . . . ] risking their chances of permanent escape from
the state of nature via the only effective mechanism thereof, membership in a commonwealth.
Nonetheless Kavkas language shows that he was thinking in the contractarian perspective
of the possibility of escaping the state of nature, a perspective Im trying to reverse here.
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418 PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
29
Hobbesian political order, in Political Theory, 19, 1991, pp. 156180 (p. 166).
30
In a remarkable book on the concept of liberty (A Historical Sketch of Liberty and
Equality as Ideals of English Political Philosophy from the Time of Hobbes to the Time of
Coleridge. Submitted as a dissertation for a Fellowship at Trinity College [Cambridge] and
privately printed in 1875; I quote from The Collected Papers of Frederic William Maitland ed.
by H.A.L. Fisher, vol. I, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1911, p. 1 ss.) he wrote:
If I understand Hobbes aright, he meant that the mere fact of the existence of a government
must be taken as conclusive evidence of the consent to it of all those who enjoy its protection
(p. 92). This interpretation has been called the theory of de facto power.
31
I use the English translation by Michael Seidler (Samuel Pufendorf s on the Natural State
of Men, Lewinston, The Edwin Mellen Press 1990, pp. 134135). See the useful Introductory
Essay of this book.
32
On the medieval exempla, see J. Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press 1984).
33
D. Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan (Princeton N.J., Princeton University Press
1986) and, more compellingly, S. Lloyd, Ideals as Interests in Hobbess Leviathan (Cam-
bridge, Cambridge University Press 1992).
34
Already in 1641, in a letter to the earl of Devonshire, Hobbes wrote: the dispute
between the spiritual and the civil power has of late, more than anything in the world, been
the cause of civil wars in all places of Christendom (quoted by F.D. Weil, The stranger,
prudence and trust in Hobbes, Theory and Society, vol. 15, 1987, pp. 75988 [77273] ). About
the civil war as example of the state of nature, see EL., ch. 13, p. 77: It may peradventure
be thought, there was never such a time nor condition of war as this [ . . . ] Howsoever, it
may be perceived what manner of life there would be where there where no common power
to fear, by the manner of life which men that have formerly lived under peaceful government
use to degenerate into, in a civil war [italics mine].
35
That Hobbes used to equate long-term self-interest with salvation (eternal life) can be
seen from this observation by A.P. Martinich in The Two Gods of Leviathan, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press 1992) p. 117: All Christians have the responsibility to safe-
guard their own souls in this world in order to be with God in the next. This was Hobbess
view. When Bramhall denied that Saint Paul or Moses acted in his own self-interest; Hobbes
replied that both of those holy men died for a good to themselves, which was eternal life
(English Works, vol. 4, p. 378)!
36
In his Prose Autobiography (Opera Latina, vol. I, pp. xiiixxi), we read the following
story:
[In 1647] when he was conned in bed, gravely ill, in Saint Germain [en Laye], near Paris,
Mersenne [a very good friend of his, and a father of the Franciscan order of the Minims]
came to him, called by some common friend, so that his friend would not suffer death
outside the Roman Church. Seated by the bedside, he began with consolations, and then
expanded for a while on the Roman Churchs power to remit sins. To which [Hobbes]
replied: Father, I have debated all these things with myself some while ago now. To debate
the same things now will be tiresome. You have more pleasant things you can tell me. When
did you last see Gassendi?. Hearing this, Mersenne changed the subject. A few days later,
Dr. John Cosins, afterward Bishop of Durham, approached him and offered to pray with
him God. Hobbes thanked him and said: Yes, if you take the lead in prayers according to
the rite of our [Anglican] Church. This was a great sign of reverence for Episcopal dis-
cipline (OL, I, pp. xvi; see C., pp. lxivlxv).
37
See the chapter 29 of Leviathan (Of the things that weaken or tend to the dissolution of
a commonwealth) where Hobbes lists some Calvinist principles among the doctrines repugn-
ant to civil society: That every private man is judge of good and evil actions; whatsoever
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HOBBES, RELIGION, AND RATIONAL CHOICE 419
a man does against his conscience is sin [= Calvin, Institutio Christianae Religionis, II, ii,
22, and II, viii, 1], (EL., p. 212).
38
The same point is made by R. Hardin: maintenance of an extant government may,
after all, be [I do believe actually is] the principal concern of Hobbes and the central focus
of most of his argument (Hobbesian political order, quoted, p. 166). As Spinoza observed
the obedience itself is the true origin of political power (oboedientia facit imperantem); this
takes care of the objection that Hobbes would have to explain the origin of the resources
needed [by the State] for setting up a penal apparatus (Pizzorno, On the individualistic
theory of social order, quoted above, fn. 7, p. 212).
39
In chapter 43 of Leviathan, Hobbes goes beyond the doctrine he expounded in the
Elements of Law, claiming that obedience is due even to a sovereign which is indel (non
Christian): And when the sovereign is an indel, every one of his own subjects that resisteth
him sinneth against the laws of God! (EL., p. 410).
40
Political theory, order and threat, Nomos, XXVIII, (Political Order), 1996; see
pp. 2832.
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