|
I can see the beginning of the western conception of the state and its relationship to the individual in Hobbes' Leviathan. I do, however, question many of his conclusions. This is to be expected since Hobbes is best read as a piece of historical political philosophy, demonstrating the development of the western conception of the state.
Most of Hobbes' conclusions are merely assertions, such as his explanations of what is and is not injustice regarding an individuals acts toward the state. It is ambiguous why certain rights are forfeited to the state while others are not through the social covenant. Why has Hobbes judged some of these rights as forfeited and others not?
Hobbes also seems to have entered his argument with the foregone conclusions that 1) monarchy is the best form of the state and that 2) a monarch or government need not be accountable in any way to his/its subjects. These assertions seem rather out of character with the rationalistic tone of his logical walk through the meaning and origin of the social covenant. Why is absolute power transferred once and assumed to be forever safeguarded by a benevolent authority? For the covenant to work, would not each king have to be approved by the populace in a new covenant?
Hobbes also seems to assume that the natural position of man is one of chaos where everyone has right to everything and might makes right. It seems to me that this idea is questionable. Can mankind in general ever live in chaotic disunity? Was there ever such a time as when man did not cooperate for continued survival. If not, then it seems rash to conclude that a breakage of a social covenant leads into such a state. For example, even when rebels oust a government and institute a new one, they do so not out of chaos, but out of a new and different order.
Hobbes' definition of justice also deserves questioning. Is injustice really as he defines it, as a sort of follow the laws . . . regardless of other considerations (i.e. morality, values, etc)? Again, this definition of justice is an assertion which Hobbes assumes follows from his definition of the social covenant -- the logic is not apparent.
| 
