Hobbes and Rousseau Laws and Lawmaking

Uploaded by bulldawg on Oct 27, 2011

This essay examines the beliefs of the two philosophers with regard to the law, and
concludes that if taken to the extreme, we could label the two men as liberal and
conservative as the words are used today.

I Introduction

Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau seem diametrically opposed in most of

their viewpoints; certainly their view of humanity is almost a direct contrast.
Hobbes sees man as intrinsically evil, with a life that is nasty, brutish and
short, while Rousseau sees man as essentially good.
Given these widely divergent viewpoints, its perhaps somewhat surprising
that their opinions with regard to law are as similar as they are, though they grow
apart as the philosophers develop their theories.
In this paper well look at Hobbess and Rousseaus visions of law and
lawmaking, and extrapolate from those observations to discuss what each finds
important politically. I believe that after examining their ideas about laws and
lawmaking, we can consider Rousseau a Liberal and Hobbes a conservative, as the
words are used today.

II Rousseau and the Law

Rousseau was the opposite of Hobbes. For him, man before the coming of law
existed in a state of nature. He lived as an animal does, and in so doing was at
peace with himself and his surroundings. The downfall of man began, according to
Rousseau, with the introduction of the dual concepts of property and dependence.
So long as men undertook only what a single person could accomplish, and
confined themselves to such arts as did not require the joint labour of several
hands, they lived free, healthy, honest and happy lives, so long as their nature
allowed, and as they continued to enjoy the pleasures of mutual and independent
intercourse. But from the moment one man began to stand in need of the help of
another; from the moment it appeared advantageous to any one man to have enough
provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, work became
indispensable, and slavery and misery were soon seen to germinate and grow up
with the crops. (Rousseau, Inequality, PG).

Rousseau tells us that as humanity developed, it became necessary for a man

to develop not merely his share of property but also wit, beauty, strength or
skill, merit or talents and that if he didnt possess these qualities, he had to
appear to have them. (Rousseau, Inequality, PG). This meant that men sometimes
appeared to be what they were not, or as he says, To be and to seem became two
totally different things. (Inequality, PG). The necessity for men to seem what
they were not led to trickery on the part of some while others, who remained
independent, were brought into subjection as the necessity arose for some men to
serve others. It thus became incumbent upon some to make it seem advantageous to
others to serve them, and from this need was born the capacity of men to injure one
another in pursuit of advantage. In a word, there arose rivalry and competition
on the one hand, and conflicting interests on the other, together with a secret
desire on both of profiting at the expense of others. (Rousseau, Inequality, PG).
These evils, says Rousseau, were the first effects of property, and the
inseparable attendants of growing inequality. (Inequality, PG).
Rousseau goes on to develop this theme further, saying that the conflict
between the powerful and the lower classes led to bloodshed and horrible battles.
(In this he echoes Hobbes, but doesnt stay with him for long.) Both rich and
poor reflected on this terrible situation, and decided that the only way out was to
join together to form a society that would protect the weak, restrain ambition, and
insure that every man was able to take possession of what was rightfully his. To
that end, then, society began to devise rules of justice and peace; i.e., laws,
to which everyone would have to conform. For Rousseau, laws were a sort of organic
outgrowth of the process of socialization.

III Hobbes and the Law

Hobbes had no such faith in man as Rousseau possessed. As I mentioned above,

he felt that man was evil and that his natural state was that of perpetual war and
barbarism. Like Rousseau, he felt that a society was created when men banded
together for mutual protection, and he seems to feel much the same way as Rousseau
about men who convinced others to work for them and thus perpetuated inequality:
Again, men have no pleasure in keeping company where there is no power able to
overawe them all. For every man looketh that his companion should value him at the
same rate he sets upon himself, and upon all signs of contempt or undervaluing
naturally endeavours, as far as he dares to extort a greater value from his
contemners, by damage; and from others, by the example. (Hobbes, Leviathan, PG).

The most important part of this quotation, however, is the first sentence, in
which Hobbes insists that men would not form a society on their own, but must
instead band together only when there is someone in power. This is the opposite of
Rousseau, who says that men come together for mutual protection first, and then
evolve a society through a series of steps that follow at a later time.
Like Rousseau, Hobbes feels that it is the nation, whether it be a democracy,
oligarchy or some other form of government, that should pass the laws. This too is
almost identical to what Rousseau says. But as he starts from an entirely
different premise with regard to the nature of man, he also reaches a different
conclusion with regard to the laws.
Laws governing the behavior of men, according to Hobbes, are contrary to our
natural passions and therefore will not be generally observed unless we are in
terror of being caught breaking them. (Hobbes, Leviathan, PG). Compare this
with Rousseaus idea that laws were made for everyone to obey, because it was to
their mutual advantage to do so. There is nothing in Rousseau that hints at men
having to be threatened into submission; rather, he seems to have reached the
conclusion that men obey laws because they see the necessity and benefit to
themselves in doing so.

IV Lawmaking

The foregoing positions of the two philosophers are well known; Id like to
turn now to see what I can find about the process of actually making laws. (This
is not a description of the legislative process of enacting laws, but an
examination of the ideas behind them.)
For Hobbes, laws are the rules that the Commonwealth has set that define what
is right and wrong for its citizens. Further, these laws are made by the
Commonwealth alone, and cannot be made by anyone else. (Commonwealth here is
defined as the government in whatever form it is constituted.) (Hobbes, Leviathan,
PG).
For Rousseau, all law comes from God, because it must be fair, impartial and
above reproach, and there is only one judge who can maintain these standards.
However, he says that if God truly did hand down the laws of human behavior, there
would be no need for governments and their laws. But because God does not enact
civil law, men must do so. (Rousseau, Social Contract, PG).
He goes on to discuss the law in a way that is strange to us today, since we
are familiar with litigation and court actions. He says that the law is general:
I mean that law considers subjects en masse and actions in the abstract, and
never a particular person or action. (Social Contract, PG). Thus, although the
law may decree that certain people have privileges, it cannot name them: In a
word, no function which has a particular object belongs to the legislative power.
(Rousseau, Social Contract, PG). He concludes that since they are impersonal, laws
are acts of the general will. This is the direct opposite of Hobbess assertion
that they are made by the sovereign.

V Political Philosophies

Its always unfair to take extrapolation too far, but having read some of
Rousseaus and Hobbess views, I think were justified in reaching general
conclusions with regard to the political philosophies of the two men, based on the
ways in which they view society, and the laws that govern it.
First, both men viewed the creation of laws as the proper concern of the
sovereign, however that person or institution was defined. That is, they did not
see men as being capable of true self-government, but only of obeying laws passed
by those in authority.
Since Rousseau saw society as a natural outgrowth of the human need for
mutual protection, to restrain overriding ambition and insure that each man got his
fair share, we can conclude that he espoused a liberal, perhaps even what we might
call a Marxist, viewpoint. The idea that each man should have his fair share is
almost a Socialist position, and when coupled with the idea that the wealthy should
be restrained from pursuing wealth to the exclusion of fairness, we have a very
liberal doctrine indeed. This is the type of thinking in which principles of fair
play, distribution of wealth, and concern for the underdog come into play.
Hobbess vision of man is much bleaker, in that he sees obedience to laws as
the only logical alternative to continued struggle and warfare over possessions and
property. He seems to view man as incapable of self-control; a somewhat child-like
creature who must be protected from his own worst instincts. This type of
paternalistic attitude, that people cannot make their own decisions and must be
guided or led to the truth by someone more knowledgeable is a conservative
viewpoint. (Im using the terms as we know them today, and Im making some gross
oversimplifications.) But it seems to me that there is a fundamental dichotomy
here, and that it is most strikingly apparent when we stop to think about what the
final outcome of these schools of thought would be, taken to an extreme.
If we were to allow Rousseau to run wild, then we might see such things as
redistribution of wealth and legal restraint on the amount of profit a corporation
could make. Both of these ideas are very liberal; far more liberal than anything
in effect today.
Likewise if we take Hobbes to the extreme, we might find voters jailed until
they can be marched to the polls in lockstep. This is the worst-case scenario of
conservatism: total control of the body politic backed up by brute force. If we
follow this thought experiment to its conclusion, we end up at opposite poles of
the political spectrum.

VI Conclusion

The fact that Hobbes and Rousseau end up at opposing ends of the political
spectrum as we define it today is, I think, the logical outcome of allowing
ourselves to follow their arguments to the bitter end. If we conduct that
experiment, we find that we have examples of liberalism and conservatism
represented in these philosophers.

VII References

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. [On-line]. Undated. Accessed: 13 Apr 2003.

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On the Origin of Inequality. [On-line]. Undated.

Accessed: 13 Apr 2003. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq.htm

______________________. The Social Contract. Book II. [On-line]. Undated.

Accessed: 14 Apr 2003. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

Submitted by : bulldawg

Date Submitted : 10/27/2011

Category : Political Science

Views : 1415