GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

483
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POLITICS
Hobbes is often praised for his logic. Given the premises
from which he starts* then, his admirers have said) there
is no way of avoiding his conclusions. I cannot myself
see that Hobbcs is a very logical thinker. Let us for the
moment assume that his premises are correct; that man
is motivated only by self-interest and that he prefers
security to all other goods. Now a person who is motivated
only by self-interest, can have no other mptive than that
of self-interest for keeping the contract, by virtue of which
society is formed and the powers of all are vested in a single
absolute ruler. There cannot, that is to say, be any feeling
for the sanctity of covenants, any loyalty to a pledged
word to bind those who know no motive but self-interest.
Hobbes agrees that there cannot. "The opinion that any
monarch rccciveth his power by covenant, that is to say,
on condition, proceedeth from want of understanding
this easy truth, that covenants being but words and
breath, have no force to oblige, contain, constrain, or
protect any man." Owning no basis in morality or in
law, the contract must be based partly upon force, a conclusion
which Hobbes explicitly accepts "Covenants,
without the sword," he writes, "are but words, and have
no strength to secure a man at all" and partly upon
self-interest "Justice, therefore, that is to say, keeping
of covenant, is a rule of reason, by which we are forbidden
to do anything destructive to our life: and consequently a
law ofNature." All this may be true; it is at least consistent.
But how, if it is true, are we to justify Hobbes's insistence
upon die irrevocability ofthe contract, his announcement of
the omnipotence and irresponsibility of the sovereign, hi
denial of the right of revolt, and his assertion Chat the
sovereign always represents all his subjects whether they
like it and know it, or dislike it and do not know it?
That the contract is irrevocable is not true; for if people
are purely self-interested, they can and will back out of
it, and as toon as it ceases to serve the purpose for which
they formed it That the sovereign is irresponsible and
omnipotent is not true; he has power for just so long as