Strauss and Watkins on Hobbes' Political Philosophy: A Review

STRAUSS AND WATKINS ON HOBBES 183
later Hobbes from this earlier dualism.
In Chapter IV, “Aristocratic Virtue,” <strong>Strauss</strong> sets out to show us
more exactly the nature of Hobbes’s humanistic studies <strong>and</strong> stance.
According to <strong>Strauss</strong>, Hobbes was interested in aristocratic virtue as
honor displayed in history. However, there were two different con-
ceptions of aristocratic virtue in Hobbes’s time: (1) the philosopher-
aristocrat; <strong>and</strong> (2) the warrior-aristocrat. <strong>Strauss</strong> says Hobbes’s
original view of virtue was that of the latter warrior-aristocrat. As
Hobbes developed his “peculiarly bourgeois morality” (50, 113) this
“warrior-aristocrat” conception of heroic virtue weakened. As a
result of Hobbes’s intellectual development he sublimated <strong>and</strong>
spiritualized the virtue of honor. When <strong>Strauss</strong> says this he means
that the virtue of honor no longer denoted a quality of the heroic in-
dividual’s actions but a quality of the heroic individual’s actions
when he is conscious of superiority. Once again, Hobbes traced the
virtues from the consciousness.
However, <strong>Strauss</strong> urges that this version of self-conscious honor
was dispensable for Hobbes. Hobbes dispensed with this conception
of honor as he developed his own thought, so that it appeared only
in Leviathan where it contradicted the main thrust of Hobbes’s
argument. This raises the question of why Hobbes wrote it into
Leviathan at all. <strong>Strauss</strong> answers that the literary source is
Descartes. Descartes had provided a plausible answer <strong>and</strong> Hobbes
accepted it because he “had wrestled all his life in vain to find a
clear formulation of his own deeper answer to the moral problem
. . .” (56). According to <strong>Strauss</strong>, Hobbes was attracted to this view
because it originated in self-consciousness (127). For Hobbes, the
problem with this view was that, on his own “deeper” analysis, self-
consciousness of superiority is evil, while only self-consciousness of
fear of violent death could be good. So Hobbes finally rejected
aristocratic virtue—even in its spiritualized form—<strong>and</strong> the Carte-
sian answer as well.
Hobbes’s moral attitude caused his other views to develop as they
did.
In Chapter V, “The State <strong>and</strong> Religion,” <strong>Strauss</strong> considers
Hobbes’s views on these two subjects. He argues that Hobbes ef-
fected the union of two hitherto rival theories of the origin of
legitimate government: the monarchist <strong>and</strong> the democratic. The
former claimed that only patrimonial monarchy was a legitimate