Левиафан или материя форма и власть государства церковного и гражданского сочинение английского

Frontispiece of Leviathan by Abraham Bosse, with input from Hobbes
Author	Thomas Hobbes
Country	England
Language	English, Latin (Hobbes produced a new version of Leviathan in Latin in 1668:[1] Leviathan, sive De materia, forma, & potestate civitatis ecclesiasticae et civilis.[2] Many passages in the Latin version differ from the English version.)[3]
Genre	Political philosophy
Publication date	April 1651[4]
ISBN	978-1439297254
Text	Leviathan at Wikisource

Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly referred to as Leviathan, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and published in 1651 (revised Latin edition 1668).^[1][5][6] Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan. The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory.^[7] Written during the English Civil War (1642–1651), it argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature («the war of all against all») could be avoided only by strong, undivided government.

Content[edit]

Title[edit]

The title of Hobbes’s treatise alludes to the Leviathan mentioned in the Book of Job. In contrast to the simply informative titles usually given to works of early modern political philosophy, such as John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government or Hobbes’s own earlier work The Elements of Law, Hobbes selected a more poetic name for this more provocative treatise.

Frontispiece[edit]

After lengthy discussion with Thomas Hobbes, the Parisian Abraham Bosse created the etching for the book’s famous frontispiece in the géometrique style which Bosse himself had refined. It is similar in organisation to the frontispiece of Hobbes’ De Cive (1642), created by Jean Matheus. The frontispiece has two main elements, of which the upper part is by far the more striking.

In it, a giant crowned figure is seen emerging from the landscape, clutching a sword and a crosier, beneath a quote from the Book of Job—»Non est potestas Super Terram quae Comparetur ei. Iob. 41 . 24» («There is no power on earth to be compared to him. Job 41 . 24»)—further linking the figure to the monster of the book. (Due to disagreements over the precise location of the chapters and verses when they were divided in the Late Middle Ages, the verse Hobbes quotes is usually given as Job 41:33 in modern Christian translations into English,^[8] Job 41:25 in the Masoretic text, Septuagint, and the Luther Bible; it is Job 41:24 in the Vulgate.) The torso and arms of the figure are composed of over three hundred persons, in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo; all are facing away from the viewer, with just the giant’s head having visible facial features. (A manuscript of Leviathan created for Charles II in 1651 has notable differences – a different main head but significantly the body is also composed of many faces, all looking outwards from the body and with a range of expressions.)

The lower portion is a triptych, framed in a wooden border. The centre form contains the title on an ornate curtain. The two sides reflect the sword and crosier of the main figure – earthly power on the left and the powers of the church on the right. Each side element reflects the equivalent power – castle to church, crown to mitre, cannon to excommunication, weapons to logic, and the battlefield to the religious courts. The giant holds the symbols of both sides, reflecting the union of secular, and spiritual in the sovereign, but the construction of the torso also makes the figure the state.

Part I: Of Man[edit]

Hobbes begins his treatise on politics with an account of human nature. He presents an image of man as matter in motion, attempting to show through example how everything about humanity can be explained materialistically, that is, without recourse to an incorporeal, immaterial soul or a faculty for understanding ideas that are external to the human mind.

Life is but a motion of limbs. For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer?^[9]

Hobbes proceeds by defining terms clearly and unsentimentally. Good and evil are nothing more than terms used to denote an individual’s appetites and desires, while these appetites and desires are nothing more than the tendency to move toward or away from an object. Hope is nothing more than an appetite for a thing combined with an opinion that it can be had. He suggests that the dominant political theology of the time, Scholasticism, thrives on confused definitions of everyday words, such as incorporeal substance, which for Hobbes is a contradiction in terms.

Hobbes describes human psychology without any reference to the summum bonum, or greatest good, as previous thought had done. According to Hobbes, not only is the concept of a summum bonum superfluous, but given the variability of human desires, there could be no such thing. Consequently, any political community that sought to provide the greatest good to its members would find itself driven by competing conceptions of that good with no way to decide among them. The result would be civil war.

However, Hobbes states that there is a summum malum, or greatest evil. This is the fear of violent death. A political community can be oriented around this fear.

Since there is no summum bonum, the natural state of man is not to be found in a political community that pursues the greatest good. But to be outside of a political community is to be in an anarchic condition. Given human nature, the variability of human desires, and need for scarce resources to fulfill those desires, the state of nature, as Hobbes calls this anarchic condition, must be a war of all against all. Even when two men are not fighting, there is no guarantee that the other will not try to kill him for his property or just out of an aggrieved sense of honour, and so they must constantly be on guard against one another. It is even reasonable to preemptively attack one’s neighbour.

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.^[10]

The desire to avoid the state of nature, as the place where the summum malum of violent death is most likely to occur, forms the polestar of political reasoning. It suggests a number of laws of nature, although Hobbes is quick to point out that they cannot properly speaking be called «laws», since there is no one to enforce them. The first thing that reason suggests is to seek peace, but that where peace cannot be had, to use all of the advantages of war.^[11] Hobbes is explicit that in the state of nature nothing can be considered just or unjust, and every man must be considered to have a right to all things.^[12] The second law of nature is that one ought to be willing to renounce one’s right to all things where others are willing to do the same, to quit the state of nature, and to erect a commonwealth with the authority to command them in all things. Hobbes concludes Part One by articulating an additional seventeen laws of nature that make the performance of the first two possible and by explaining what it would mean for a sovereign to represent the people even when they disagree with the sovereign.

Part II: Of Commonwealth[edit]

The purpose of a commonwealth is given at the start of Part II:

THE final cause, end, or design of men (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, in which we see them live in Commonwealths, is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants…

The commonwealth is instituted when all agree in the following manner: I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition; that thou give up, thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in like manner.

The sovereign has twelve principal rights:^[13]

1. Because a successive covenant cannot override a prior one, the subjects cannot (lawfully) change the form of government.
2. Because the covenant forming the commonwealth results from subjects giving to the sovereign the right to act for them, the sovereign cannot possibly breach the covenant; and therefore the subjects can never argue to be freed from the covenant because of the actions of the sovereign.
3. The sovereign exists because the majority has consented to his rule; the minority have agreed to abide by this arrangement and must then assent to the sovereign’s actions.
4. Every subject is author of the acts of the sovereign: hence the sovereign cannot injure any of his subjects and cannot be accused of injustice.
5. Following this, the sovereign cannot justly be put to death by the subjects.
6. The purpose of the commonwealth is peace, and the sovereign has the right to do whatever he thinks necessary for the preserving of peace and security and prevention of discord. Therefore, the sovereign may judge what opinions and doctrines are averse, who shall be allowed to speak to multitudes, and who shall examine the doctrines of all books before they are published.
7. To prescribe the rules of civil law and property.
8. To be judge in all cases.
9. To make war and peace as he sees fit and to command the army.
10. To choose counsellors, ministers, magistrates and officers.
11. To reward with riches and honour or to punish with corporal or pecuniary punishment or ignominy.
12. To establish laws about honour and a scale of worth.

Hobbes explicitly rejects the idea of Separation of Powers. In item 6 Hobbes is explicitly in favour of censorship of the press and restrictions on the rights of free speech should they be considered desirable by the sovereign to promote order.

Types[edit]

There are three (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy):

The difference of Commonwealths consisted in the difference of the sovereign, or the person representative of all and every one of the multitude. And because the sovereignty is either in one man, or in an assembly of more than one; and into that assembly either every man hath right to enter, or not every one, but certain men distinguished from the rest; it is manifest there can be but three kinds of Commonwealth. For the representative must needs be one man, or more; and if more, then it is the assembly of all, or but of a part. When the representative is one man, then is the Commonwealth a monarchy; when an assembly of all that will come together, then it is a democracy, or popular Commonwealth; when an assembly of a part only, then it is called an aristocracy.

And only three; since unlike Aristotle he does not sub-divide them into «good» and «deviant»:

Other kind of Commonwealth there can be none: for either one, or more, or all, must have the sovereign power (which I have shown to be indivisible) entire. There be other names of government in the histories and books of policy; as tyranny and oligarchy; but they are not the names of other forms of government, but of the same forms misliked. For they that are discontented under monarchy call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy call it anarchy, which signifies want of government; and yet I think no man believes that want of government is any new kind of government: nor by the same reason ought they to believe that the government is of one kind when they like it, and another when they mislike it or are oppressed by the governors.

And monarchy is the best, on practical grounds:

The difference between these three kinds of Commonwealth consisteth not in the difference of power, but in the difference of convenience or aptitude to produce the peace and security of the people; for which end they were instituted. And to compare monarchy with the other two, we may observe: first, that whosoever beareth the person of the people, or is one of that assembly that bears it, beareth also his own natural person. And though he be careful in his politic person to procure the common interest, yet he is more, or no less, careful to procure the private good of himself, his family, kindred and friends; and for the most part, if the public interest chance to cross the private, he prefers the private: for the passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason. From whence it follows that where the public and private interest are most closely united, there is the public most advanced. Now in monarchy the private interest is the same with the public. The riches, power, and honour of a monarch arise only from the riches, strength, and reputation of his subjects. For no king can be rich, nor glorious, nor secure, whose subjects are either poor, or contemptible, or too weak through want, or dissension, to maintain a war against their enemies; whereas in a democracy, or aristocracy, the public prosperity confers not so much to the private fortune of one that is corrupt, or ambitious, as doth many times a perfidious advice, a treacherous action, or a civil war.

Succession[edit]

The right of succession always lies with the sovereign. Democracies and aristocracies have easy succession; monarchy is harder:

The greatest difficulty about the right of succession is in monarchy: and the difficulty ariseth from this, that at first sight, it is not manifest who is to appoint the successor; nor many times who it is whom he hath appointed. For in both these cases, there is required a more exact ratiocination than every man is accustomed to use.

Because in general people haven’t thought carefully. However, the succession is definitely in the gift of the monarch:

As to the question who shall appoint the successor of a monarch that hath the sovereign authority… we are to consider that either he that is in possession has right to dispose of the succession, or else that right is again in the dissolved multitude. … Therefore it is manifest that by the institution of monarchy, the disposing of the successor is always left to the judgement and will of the present possessor.

But, it is not always obvious who the monarch has appointed:

And for the question which may arise sometimes, who it is that the monarch in possession hath designed to the succession and inheritance of his power

However, the answer is:

it is determined by his express words and testament; or by other tacit signs sufficient.

And this means:

By express words, or testament, when it is declared by him in his lifetime, viva voce, or by writing; as the first emperors of Rome declared who should be their heirs.

Note that (perhaps rather radically) this does not have to be any blood relative:

For the word heir does not of itself imply the children or nearest kindred of a man; but whomsoever a man shall any way declare he would have to succeed him in his estate. If therefore a monarch declare expressly that such a man shall be his heir, either by word or writing, then is that man immediately after the decease of his predecessor invested in the right of being monarch.

However, practically this means:

But where testament and express words are wanting, other natural signs of the will are to be followed: whereof the one is custom. And therefore where the custom is that the next of kindred absolutely succeedeth, there also the next of kindred hath right to the succession; for that, if the will of him that was in possession had been otherwise, he might easily have declared the same in his lifetime…

Religion[edit]

In Leviathan, Hobbes explicitly states that the sovereign has authority to assert power over matters of faith and doctrine and that if he does not do so, he invites discord. Hobbes presents his own religious theory but states that he would defer to the will of the sovereign (when that was re-established: again, Leviathan was written during the Civil War) as to whether his theory was acceptable. Hobbes’ materialistic presuppositions also led him to hold a view which was considered highly controversial at the time. Hobbes rejected the idea of incorporeal substances and subsequently argued that even God himself was a corporeal substance. Although Hobbes never explicitly stated he was an atheist, many allude to the possibility that he was.

Taxation[edit]

Hobbes also touched upon the sovereign’s ability to tax in Leviathan, although he is not as widely cited for his economic theories as he is for his political theories.^[14] Hobbes believed that equal justice includes the equal imposition of taxes. The equality of taxes doesn’t depend on equality of wealth, but on the equality of the debt that every man owes to the commonwealth for his defence and the maintenance of the rule of law.^[15] Hobbes also championed public support for those unable to maintain themselves by labour, which would presumably be funded by taxation. He advocated public encouragement of works of Navigation etc. to usefully employ the poor who could work.

Part III: Of a Christian Commonwealth[edit]

In Part III Hobbes seeks to investigate the nature of a Christian commonwealth. This immediately raises the question of which scriptures we should trust, and why. If any person may claim supernatural revelation superior to the civil law, then there would be chaos, and Hobbes’ fervent desire is to avoid this. Hobbes thus begins by establishing that we cannot infallibly know another’s personal word to be divine revelation:

When God speaketh to man, it must be either immediately or by mediation of another man, to whom He had formerly spoken by Himself immediately. How God speaketh to a man immediately may be understood by those well enough to whom He hath so spoken; but how the same should be understood by another is hard, if not impossible, to know. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it.

This is good, but if applied too fervently would lead to all the Bible being rejected. So, Hobbes says, we need a test: and the true test is established by examining the books of scripture, and is:

So that it is manifest that the teaching of the religion which God hath established, and the showing of a present miracle, joined together, were the only marks whereby the Scripture would have a true prophet, that is to say, immediate revelation, to be acknowledged; of them being singly sufficient to oblige any other man to regard what he saith.

Seeing therefore miracles now cease, we have no sign left whereby to acknowledge the pretended revelations or inspirations of any private man; nor obligation to give ear to any doctrine, farther than it is conformable to the Holy Scriptures, which since the time of our Saviour supply the place and sufficiently recompense the want of all other prophecy

«Seeing therefore miracles now cease» means that only the books of the Bible can be trusted. Hobbes then discusses the various books which are accepted by various sects, and the «question much disputed between the diverse sects of Christian religion, from whence the Scriptures derive their authority». To Hobbes, «it is manifest that none can know they are God’s word (though all true Christians believe it) but those to whom God Himself hath revealed it supernaturally». And therefore «The question truly stated is: by what authority they are made law?»

Unsurprisingly, Hobbes concludes that ultimately there is no way to determine this other than the civil power:

He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are His, nor that those that published them were sent by Him, is not obliged to obey them by any authority but his whose commands have already the force of laws; that is to say, by any other authority than that of the Commonwealth, residing in the sovereign, who only has the legislative power.

He discusses the Ten Commandments, and asks «who it was that gave to these written tables the obligatory force of laws. There is no doubt but they were made laws by God Himself: but because a law obliges not, nor is law to any but to them that acknowledge it to be the act of the sovereign, how could the people of Israel, that were forbidden to approach the mountain to hear what God said to Moses, be obliged to obedience to all those laws which Moses propounded to them?» and concludes, as before, that «making of the Scripture law, belonged to the civil sovereign.»

Finally: «We are to consider now what office in the Church those persons have who, being civil sovereigns, have embraced also the Christian faith?» to which the answer is: «Christian kings are still the supreme pastors of their people, and have power to ordain what pastors they please, to teach the Church, that is, to teach the people committed to their charge.»

There is an enormous amount of biblical scholarship in this third part. However, once Hobbes’ initial argument is accepted (that no-one can know for sure anyone else’s divine revelation) his conclusion (the religious power is subordinate to the civil) follows from his logic. The very extensive discussions of the chapter were probably necessary for its time. The need (as Hobbes saw it) for the civil sovereign to be supreme arose partly from the many sects that arose around the civil war, and to quash the Pope of Rome’s challenge, to which Hobbes devotes an extensive section.

Part IV: Of the Kingdom of Darkness[edit]

Hobbes named Part IV of his book «Kingdom of Darkness». By this Hobbes does not mean Hell (he did not believe in Hell or Purgatory),^[16] but the darkness of ignorance as opposed to the light of true knowledge. Hobbes’ interpretation is largely unorthodox and so sees much darkness in what he sees as the misinterpretation of Scripture.

This considered, the kingdom of darkness… is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light…^[17]

Hobbes enumerates four causes of this darkness.

The first is by extinguishing the light of scripture through misinterpretation. Hobbes sees the main abuse as teaching that the kingdom of God can be found in the church, thus undermining the authority of the civil sovereign. Another general abuse of scripture, in his view, is the turning of consecration into conjuration, or silly ritual.

The second cause is the demonology of the heathen poets: in Hobbes’s opinion, demons are nothing more than constructs of the brain. Hobbes then goes on to criticize what he sees as many of the practices of Catholicism: «Now for the worship of saints, and images, and relics, and other things at this day practiced in the Church of Rome, I say they are not allowed by the word of God».

The third is by mixing with the Scripture diverse relics of the religion, and much of the vain and erroneous philosophy of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle. Hobbes has little time for the various disputing sects of philosophers and objects to what people have taken «From Aristotle’s civil philosophy, they have learned to call all manner of Commonwealths but the popular (such as was at that time the state of Athens), tyranny». At the end of this comes an interesting section (darkness is suppressing true knowledge as well as introducing falsehoods), which would appear to bear on the discoveries of Galileo Galilei. «Our own navigations make manifest, and all men learned in human sciences now acknowledge, there are antipodes» (i.e., the Earth is round) «…Nevertheless, men… have been punished for it by authority ecclesiastical. But what reason is there for it? Is it because such opinions are contrary to true religion? That cannot be, if they be true.» However, Hobbes is quite happy for the truth to be suppressed if necessary: if «they tend to disorder in government, as countenancing rebellion or sedition? Then let them be silenced, and the teachers punished» – but only by the civil authority.

The fourth is by mingling with both these, false or uncertain traditions, and feigned or uncertain history.

Hobbes finishes by inquiring who benefits from the errors he diagnoses:

Cicero maketh honourable mention of one of the Cassii, a severe judge amongst the Romans, for a custom he had in criminal causes, when the testimony of the witnesses was not sufficient, to ask the accusers, cui bono; that is to say, what profit, honour, or other contentment the accused obtained or expected by the fact. For amongst presumptions, there is none that so evidently declareth the author as doth the benefit of the action.

Hobbes concludes that the beneficiaries are the churches and churchmen.

See also[edit]

• Behemoth by Thomas Hobbes
• Classical republicanism
• John Locke
• Scientia potentia est
• Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Editions of Leviathan[edit]

• Leviathan. Revised Edition, eds. A.P. Martinich and Brian Battiste. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-55481-003-1.[1] Archived 6 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
• Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, ed. by Ian Shapiro (Yale University Press; 2010).
• Leviathan, Critical edition by Noel Malcolm in three volumes: 1. Editorial Introduction; 2 and 3. The English and Latin Texts, Oxford University Press, 2012 (Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes).

Critical studies[edit]

• Bagby, Laurie M. Hobbes’s Leviathan : Reader’s Guide, New York: Continuum, 2007.
• Baumrin, Bernard Herbert (ed.) Hobbes’s Leviathan – interpretation and criticism Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1969.
• Cranston, Maurice. «The Leviathan» History Today (Oct 1951) 1#10 pp. 17–21
• Harrison, Ross. Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion’s Masterpiece: an Examination of Seventeenth-Century Political Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Hood, Francis Campbell. The divine politics of Thomas Hobbes – an interpretation of Leviathan, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
• Johnston, David. The rhetoric of Leviathan – Thomas Hobbes and the politics of cultural transformation, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.
• Newey, Glen. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hobbes and Leviathan, New York: Routledge, 2008.
• Rogers, Graham Alan John. Leviathan – contemporary responses to the political theory of Thomas Hobbes Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995.
• Schmitt, Carl. The Leviathan in the state theory of Thomas Hobbes – meaning and failure of a political symbol, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008 (earlier: Greenwood Press, 1996).
• Springborg, Patricia. The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Windolph, Francis Lyman. Leviathan and natural law, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951.
• Zagorin, Perez. Hobbes and the Law of Nature, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.

External links[edit]

• Reprint from the 1651 edition

• Leviathan at Project Gutenberg
• Leviathan public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• Full text online at oregonstate.edu
• A reduced version of Leviathan at earlymoderntexts.com
• Scan of 1651 edition

Frontispiece of Leviathan by Abraham Bosse, with input from Hobbes
Author	Thomas Hobbes
Country	England
Language	English, Latin (Hobbes produced a new version of Leviathan in Latin in 1668:[1] Leviathan, sive De materia, forma, & potestate civitatis ecclesiasticae et civilis.[2] Many passages in the Latin version differ from the English version.)[3]
Genre	Political philosophy
Publication date	April 1651[4]
ISBN	978-1439297254
Text	Leviathan at Wikisource

Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly referred to as Leviathan, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and published in 1651 (revised Latin edition 1668).^[1][5][6] Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan. The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory.^[7] Written during the English Civil War (1642–1651), it argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature («the war of all against all») could be avoided only by strong, undivided government.

Content[edit]

Title[edit]

The title of Hobbes’s treatise alludes to the Leviathan mentioned in the Book of Job. In contrast to the simply informative titles usually given to works of early modern political philosophy, such as John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government or Hobbes’s own earlier work The Elements of Law, Hobbes selected a more poetic name for this more provocative treatise.

Frontispiece[edit]

After lengthy discussion with Thomas Hobbes, the Parisian Abraham Bosse created the etching for the book’s famous frontispiece in the géometrique style which Bosse himself had refined. It is similar in organisation to the frontispiece of Hobbes’ De Cive (1642), created by Jean Matheus. The frontispiece has two main elements, of which the upper part is by far the more striking.

In it, a giant crowned figure is seen emerging from the landscape, clutching a sword and a crosier, beneath a quote from the Book of Job—»Non est potestas Super Terram quae Comparetur ei. Iob. 41 . 24» («There is no power on earth to be compared to him. Job 41 . 24»)—further linking the figure to the monster of the book. (Due to disagreements over the precise location of the chapters and verses when they were divided in the Late Middle Ages, the verse Hobbes quotes is usually given as Job 41:33 in modern Christian translations into English,^[8] Job 41:25 in the Masoretic text, Septuagint, and the Luther Bible; it is Job 41:24 in the Vulgate.) The torso and arms of the figure are composed of over three hundred persons, in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo; all are facing away from the viewer, with just the giant’s head having visible facial features. (A manuscript of Leviathan created for Charles II in 1651 has notable differences – a different main head but significantly the body is also composed of many faces, all looking outwards from the body and with a range of expressions.)

The lower portion is a triptych, framed in a wooden border. The centre form contains the title on an ornate curtain. The two sides reflect the sword and crosier of the main figure – earthly power on the left and the powers of the church on the right. Each side element reflects the equivalent power – castle to church, crown to mitre, cannon to excommunication, weapons to logic, and the battlefield to the religious courts. The giant holds the symbols of both sides, reflecting the union of secular, and spiritual in the sovereign, but the construction of the torso also makes the figure the state.

Part I: Of Man[edit]

Hobbes begins his treatise on politics with an account of human nature. He presents an image of man as matter in motion, attempting to show through example how everything about humanity can be explained materialistically, that is, without recourse to an incorporeal, immaterial soul or a faculty for understanding ideas that are external to the human mind.

Life is but a motion of limbs. For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer?^[9]

Hobbes proceeds by defining terms clearly and unsentimentally. Good and evil are nothing more than terms used to denote an individual’s appetites and desires, while these appetites and desires are nothing more than the tendency to move toward or away from an object. Hope is nothing more than an appetite for a thing combined with an opinion that it can be had. He suggests that the dominant political theology of the time, Scholasticism, thrives on confused definitions of everyday words, such as incorporeal substance, which for Hobbes is a contradiction in terms.

Hobbes describes human psychology without any reference to the summum bonum, or greatest good, as previous thought had done. According to Hobbes, not only is the concept of a summum bonum superfluous, but given the variability of human desires, there could be no such thing. Consequently, any political community that sought to provide the greatest good to its members would find itself driven by competing conceptions of that good with no way to decide among them. The result would be civil war.

However, Hobbes states that there is a summum malum, or greatest evil. This is the fear of violent death. A political community can be oriented around this fear.

Since there is no summum bonum, the natural state of man is not to be found in a political community that pursues the greatest good. But to be outside of a political community is to be in an anarchic condition. Given human nature, the variability of human desires, and need for scarce resources to fulfill those desires, the state of nature, as Hobbes calls this anarchic condition, must be a war of all against all. Even when two men are not fighting, there is no guarantee that the other will not try to kill him for his property or just out of an aggrieved sense of honour, and so they must constantly be on guard against one another. It is even reasonable to preemptively attack one’s neighbour.

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.^[10]

The desire to avoid the state of nature, as the place where the summum malum of violent death is most likely to occur, forms the polestar of political reasoning. It suggests a number of laws of nature, although Hobbes is quick to point out that they cannot properly speaking be called «laws», since there is no one to enforce them. The first thing that reason suggests is to seek peace, but that where peace cannot be had, to use all of the advantages of war.^[11] Hobbes is explicit that in the state of nature nothing can be considered just or unjust, and every man must be considered to have a right to all things.^[12] The second law of nature is that one ought to be willing to renounce one’s right to all things where others are willing to do the same, to quit the state of nature, and to erect a commonwealth with the authority to command them in all things. Hobbes concludes Part One by articulating an additional seventeen laws of nature that make the performance of the first two possible and by explaining what it would mean for a sovereign to represent the people even when they disagree with the sovereign.

Part II: Of Commonwealth[edit]

The purpose of a commonwealth is given at the start of Part II:

THE final cause, end, or design of men (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, in which we see them live in Commonwealths, is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants…

The commonwealth is instituted when all agree in the following manner: I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition; that thou give up, thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in like manner.

The sovereign has twelve principal rights:^[13]

1. Because a successive covenant cannot override a prior one, the subjects cannot (lawfully) change the form of government.
2. Because the covenant forming the commonwealth results from subjects giving to the sovereign the right to act for them, the sovereign cannot possibly breach the covenant; and therefore the subjects can never argue to be freed from the covenant because of the actions of the sovereign.
3. The sovereign exists because the majority has consented to his rule; the minority have agreed to abide by this arrangement and must then assent to the sovereign’s actions.
4. Every subject is author of the acts of the sovereign: hence the sovereign cannot injure any of his subjects and cannot be accused of injustice.
5. Following this, the sovereign cannot justly be put to death by the subjects.
6. The purpose of the commonwealth is peace, and the sovereign has the right to do whatever he thinks necessary for the preserving of peace and security and prevention of discord. Therefore, the sovereign may judge what opinions and doctrines are averse, who shall be allowed to speak to multitudes, and who shall examine the doctrines of all books before they are published.
7. To prescribe the rules of civil law and property.
8. To be judge in all cases.
9. To make war and peace as he sees fit and to command the army.
10. To choose counsellors, ministers, magistrates and officers.
11. To reward with riches and honour or to punish with corporal or pecuniary punishment or ignominy.
12. To establish laws about honour and a scale of worth.

Hobbes explicitly rejects the idea of Separation of Powers. In item 6 Hobbes is explicitly in favour of censorship of the press and restrictions on the rights of free speech should they be considered desirable by the sovereign to promote order.

Types[edit]

There are three (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy):

The difference of Commonwealths consisted in the difference of the sovereign, or the person representative of all and every one of the multitude. And because the sovereignty is either in one man, or in an assembly of more than one; and into that assembly either every man hath right to enter, or not every one, but certain men distinguished from the rest; it is manifest there can be but three kinds of Commonwealth. For the representative must needs be one man, or more; and if more, then it is the assembly of all, or but of a part. When the representative is one man, then is the Commonwealth a monarchy; when an assembly of all that will come together, then it is a democracy, or popular Commonwealth; when an assembly of a part only, then it is called an aristocracy.

And only three; since unlike Aristotle he does not sub-divide them into «good» and «deviant»:

Other kind of Commonwealth there can be none: for either one, or more, or all, must have the sovereign power (which I have shown to be indivisible) entire. There be other names of government in the histories and books of policy; as tyranny and oligarchy; but they are not the names of other forms of government, but of the same forms misliked. For they that are discontented under monarchy call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy call it anarchy, which signifies want of government; and yet I think no man believes that want of government is any new kind of government: nor by the same reason ought they to believe that the government is of one kind when they like it, and another when they mislike it or are oppressed by the governors.

And monarchy is the best, on practical grounds:

The difference between these three kinds of Commonwealth consisteth not in the difference of power, but in the difference of convenience or aptitude to produce the peace and security of the people; for which end they were instituted. And to compare monarchy with the other two, we may observe: first, that whosoever beareth the person of the people, or is one of that assembly that bears it, beareth also his own natural person. And though he be careful in his politic person to procure the common interest, yet he is more, or no less, careful to procure the private good of himself, his family, kindred and friends; and for the most part, if the public interest chance to cross the private, he prefers the private: for the passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason. From whence it follows that where the public and private interest are most closely united, there is the public most advanced. Now in monarchy the private interest is the same with the public. The riches, power, and honour of a monarch arise only from the riches, strength, and reputation of his subjects. For no king can be rich, nor glorious, nor secure, whose subjects are either poor, or contemptible, or too weak through want, or dissension, to maintain a war against their enemies; whereas in a democracy, or aristocracy, the public prosperity confers not so much to the private fortune of one that is corrupt, or ambitious, as doth many times a perfidious advice, a treacherous action, or a civil war.

Succession[edit]

The right of succession always lies with the sovereign. Democracies and aristocracies have easy succession; monarchy is harder:

The greatest difficulty about the right of succession is in monarchy: and the difficulty ariseth from this, that at first sight, it is not manifest who is to appoint the successor; nor many times who it is whom he hath appointed. For in both these cases, there is required a more exact ratiocination than every man is accustomed to use.

Because in general people haven’t thought carefully. However, the succession is definitely in the gift of the monarch:

As to the question who shall appoint the successor of a monarch that hath the sovereign authority… we are to consider that either he that is in possession has right to dispose of the succession, or else that right is again in the dissolved multitude. … Therefore it is manifest that by the institution of monarchy, the disposing of the successor is always left to the judgement and will of the present possessor.

But, it is not always obvious who the monarch has appointed:

And for the question which may arise sometimes, who it is that the monarch in possession hath designed to the succession and inheritance of his power

However, the answer is:

it is determined by his express words and testament; or by other tacit signs sufficient.

And this means:

By express words, or testament, when it is declared by him in his lifetime, viva voce, or by writing; as the first emperors of Rome declared who should be their heirs.

Note that (perhaps rather radically) this does not have to be any blood relative:

For the word heir does not of itself imply the children or nearest kindred of a man; but whomsoever a man shall any way declare he would have to succeed him in his estate. If therefore a monarch declare expressly that such a man shall be his heir, either by word or writing, then is that man immediately after the decease of his predecessor invested in the right of being monarch.

However, practically this means:

But where testament and express words are wanting, other natural signs of the will are to be followed: whereof the one is custom. And therefore where the custom is that the next of kindred absolutely succeedeth, there also the next of kindred hath right to the succession; for that, if the will of him that was in possession had been otherwise, he might easily have declared the same in his lifetime…

Religion[edit]

In Leviathan, Hobbes explicitly states that the sovereign has authority to assert power over matters of faith and doctrine and that if he does not do so, he invites discord. Hobbes presents his own religious theory but states that he would defer to the will of the sovereign (when that was re-established: again, Leviathan was written during the Civil War) as to whether his theory was acceptable. Hobbes’ materialistic presuppositions also led him to hold a view which was considered highly controversial at the time. Hobbes rejected the idea of incorporeal substances and subsequently argued that even God himself was a corporeal substance. Although Hobbes never explicitly stated he was an atheist, many allude to the possibility that he was.

Taxation[edit]

Hobbes also touched upon the sovereign’s ability to tax in Leviathan, although he is not as widely cited for his economic theories as he is for his political theories.^[14] Hobbes believed that equal justice includes the equal imposition of taxes. The equality of taxes doesn’t depend on equality of wealth, but on the equality of the debt that every man owes to the commonwealth for his defence and the maintenance of the rule of law.^[15] Hobbes also championed public support for those unable to maintain themselves by labour, which would presumably be funded by taxation. He advocated public encouragement of works of Navigation etc. to usefully employ the poor who could work.

Part III: Of a Christian Commonwealth[edit]

In Part III Hobbes seeks to investigate the nature of a Christian commonwealth. This immediately raises the question of which scriptures we should trust, and why. If any person may claim supernatural revelation superior to the civil law, then there would be chaos, and Hobbes’ fervent desire is to avoid this. Hobbes thus begins by establishing that we cannot infallibly know another’s personal word to be divine revelation:

When God speaketh to man, it must be either immediately or by mediation of another man, to whom He had formerly spoken by Himself immediately. How God speaketh to a man immediately may be understood by those well enough to whom He hath so spoken; but how the same should be understood by another is hard, if not impossible, to know. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it.

This is good, but if applied too fervently would lead to all the Bible being rejected. So, Hobbes says, we need a test: and the true test is established by examining the books of scripture, and is:

So that it is manifest that the teaching of the religion which God hath established, and the showing of a present miracle, joined together, were the only marks whereby the Scripture would have a true prophet, that is to say, immediate revelation, to be acknowledged; of them being singly sufficient to oblige any other man to regard what he saith.

Seeing therefore miracles now cease, we have no sign left whereby to acknowledge the pretended revelations or inspirations of any private man; nor obligation to give ear to any doctrine, farther than it is conformable to the Holy Scriptures, which since the time of our Saviour supply the place and sufficiently recompense the want of all other prophecy

«Seeing therefore miracles now cease» means that only the books of the Bible can be trusted. Hobbes then discusses the various books which are accepted by various sects, and the «question much disputed between the diverse sects of Christian religion, from whence the Scriptures derive their authority». To Hobbes, «it is manifest that none can know they are God’s word (though all true Christians believe it) but those to whom God Himself hath revealed it supernaturally». And therefore «The question truly stated is: by what authority they are made law?»

Unsurprisingly, Hobbes concludes that ultimately there is no way to determine this other than the civil power:

He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are His, nor that those that published them were sent by Him, is not obliged to obey them by any authority but his whose commands have already the force of laws; that is to say, by any other authority than that of the Commonwealth, residing in the sovereign, who only has the legislative power.

He discusses the Ten Commandments, and asks «who it was that gave to these written tables the obligatory force of laws. There is no doubt but they were made laws by God Himself: but because a law obliges not, nor is law to any but to them that acknowledge it to be the act of the sovereign, how could the people of Israel, that were forbidden to approach the mountain to hear what God said to Moses, be obliged to obedience to all those laws which Moses propounded to them?» and concludes, as before, that «making of the Scripture law, belonged to the civil sovereign.»

Finally: «We are to consider now what office in the Church those persons have who, being civil sovereigns, have embraced also the Christian faith?» to which the answer is: «Christian kings are still the supreme pastors of their people, and have power to ordain what pastors they please, to teach the Church, that is, to teach the people committed to their charge.»

There is an enormous amount of biblical scholarship in this third part. However, once Hobbes’ initial argument is accepted (that no-one can know for sure anyone else’s divine revelation) his conclusion (the religious power is subordinate to the civil) follows from his logic. The very extensive discussions of the chapter were probably necessary for its time. The need (as Hobbes saw it) for the civil sovereign to be supreme arose partly from the many sects that arose around the civil war, and to quash the Pope of Rome’s challenge, to which Hobbes devotes an extensive section.

Part IV: Of the Kingdom of Darkness[edit]

Hobbes named Part IV of his book «Kingdom of Darkness». By this Hobbes does not mean Hell (he did not believe in Hell or Purgatory),^[16] but the darkness of ignorance as opposed to the light of true knowledge. Hobbes’ interpretation is largely unorthodox and so sees much darkness in what he sees as the misinterpretation of Scripture.

This considered, the kingdom of darkness… is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light…^[17]

Hobbes enumerates four causes of this darkness.

The first is by extinguishing the light of scripture through misinterpretation. Hobbes sees the main abuse as teaching that the kingdom of God can be found in the church, thus undermining the authority of the civil sovereign. Another general abuse of scripture, in his view, is the turning of consecration into conjuration, or silly ritual.

The second cause is the demonology of the heathen poets: in Hobbes’s opinion, demons are nothing more than constructs of the brain. Hobbes then goes on to criticize what he sees as many of the practices of Catholicism: «Now for the worship of saints, and images, and relics, and other things at this day practiced in the Church of Rome, I say they are not allowed by the word of God».

The third is by mixing with the Scripture diverse relics of the religion, and much of the vain and erroneous philosophy of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle. Hobbes has little time for the various disputing sects of philosophers and objects to what people have taken «From Aristotle’s civil philosophy, they have learned to call all manner of Commonwealths but the popular (such as was at that time the state of Athens), tyranny». At the end of this comes an interesting section (darkness is suppressing true knowledge as well as introducing falsehoods), which would appear to bear on the discoveries of Galileo Galilei. «Our own navigations make manifest, and all men learned in human sciences now acknowledge, there are antipodes» (i.e., the Earth is round) «…Nevertheless, men… have been punished for it by authority ecclesiastical. But what reason is there for it? Is it because such opinions are contrary to true religion? That cannot be, if they be true.» However, Hobbes is quite happy for the truth to be suppressed if necessary: if «they tend to disorder in government, as countenancing rebellion or sedition? Then let them be silenced, and the teachers punished» – but only by the civil authority.

The fourth is by mingling with both these, false or uncertain traditions, and feigned or uncertain history.

Hobbes finishes by inquiring who benefits from the errors he diagnoses:

Cicero maketh honourable mention of one of the Cassii, a severe judge amongst the Romans, for a custom he had in criminal causes, when the testimony of the witnesses was not sufficient, to ask the accusers, cui bono; that is to say, what profit, honour, or other contentment the accused obtained or expected by the fact. For amongst presumptions, there is none that so evidently declareth the author as doth the benefit of the action.

Hobbes concludes that the beneficiaries are the churches and churchmen.

See also[edit]

• Behemoth by Thomas Hobbes
• Classical republicanism
• John Locke
• Scientia potentia est
• Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Editions of Leviathan[edit]

• Leviathan. Revised Edition, eds. A.P. Martinich and Brian Battiste. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-55481-003-1.[1] Archived 6 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
• Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, ed. by Ian Shapiro (Yale University Press; 2010).
• Leviathan, Critical edition by Noel Malcolm in three volumes: 1. Editorial Introduction; 2 and 3. The English and Latin Texts, Oxford University Press, 2012 (Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes).

Critical studies[edit]

• Bagby, Laurie M. Hobbes’s Leviathan : Reader’s Guide, New York: Continuum, 2007.
• Baumrin, Bernard Herbert (ed.) Hobbes’s Leviathan – interpretation and criticism Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1969.
• Cranston, Maurice. «The Leviathan» History Today (Oct 1951) 1#10 pp. 17–21
• Harrison, Ross. Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion’s Masterpiece: an Examination of Seventeenth-Century Political Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Hood, Francis Campbell. The divine politics of Thomas Hobbes – an interpretation of Leviathan, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
• Johnston, David. The rhetoric of Leviathan – Thomas Hobbes and the politics of cultural transformation, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.
• Newey, Glen. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hobbes and Leviathan, New York: Routledge, 2008.
• Rogers, Graham Alan John. Leviathan – contemporary responses to the political theory of Thomas Hobbes Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995.
• Schmitt, Carl. The Leviathan in the state theory of Thomas Hobbes – meaning and failure of a political symbol, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008 (earlier: Greenwood Press, 1996).
• Springborg, Patricia. The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Windolph, Francis Lyman. Leviathan and natural law, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951.
• Zagorin, Perez. Hobbes and the Law of Nature, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.

External links[edit]

• Reprint from the 1651 edition

• Leviathan at Project Gutenberg
• Leviathan public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• Full text online at oregonstate.edu
• A reduced version of Leviathan at earlymoderntexts.com
• Scan of 1651 edition

«Левиафан, или Материя, форма и власть государства церковного и гражданского» — название сочинения английского философа Т. Гоббса, посвящённого проблемам государства.

Левиафан — библейское чудовище, изображённое как сила природы, принижающая человека. Гоббс использует этот образ для описания могущественного государства («смертного Бога»).

При создании теории возникновения государства Гоббс отталкивается от постулата о естественном состоянии людей «Война всех против всех» (лат. Bellum omnium contra omnes) и развивает идею «Человек человеку — волк» (Homos homini lupus est).

Люди, в связи с неминуемым истреблением при нахождении в таком состоянии продолжительное время, для сохранения своих жизней и общего мира отказываются от части своих «естественных прав» и по негласно заключаемому общественному договору наделяют ими того, кто обязуется сохранить свободное использование оставшимися правами — государство.

Государству, союзу людей, в котором воля одного (государства) является обязательной для всех, передаётся задача регулирования отношений между всеми людьми.

«Левиафан» в своё время был запрещён в Англии; перевод «Левиафана» на русский язык был сожжён.

В 1868 году на русский язык был переведён Автократовым С. П.

Реминесценции

• В романе Дэна Симмонса «Террор» (2007) Крозье на проповедях иногда читал на память главы из «Левиафана», называя его «Книгой Левиафана».

Литература

• Юридическая энциклопедия / Отв. ред. Б. Н. Топорнин. — М.: Юристъ, 2001. ISBN 5-7975-0429-4.
• Малый энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона.
• Большая советская энциклопедия. — Издательство «Советская энциклопедия». 1970—1977.
• Иллюстрированный энциклопедический словарь. Издательство: Большая Российская энциклопедия, Оникс; 2000. ISBN 5-85270-313-3.

Политика и государство
Научные дисциплины и теории	Политология • Сравнительная политология • Теория государства и права • Теория общественного выбора
Общие принципы и понятия	Гражданское общество • Правовое государство • Права человека • Разделение властей • Революция • Типы государства • Суверенитет
государства по политической силе и влиянию	Великая держава • Колония • Марионеточное государство • Сателлит • Сверхдержава
Виды политики	Геополитика • Внутренняя политика • Внешняя политика
Форма государственного устройства	Конфедерация • Унитарное государство • Федерация
Социально-политические институты и ветви власти	Банковская система • Верховная власть • Законодательная власть • Избирательная система • Исполнительная власть • СМИ • Судебная власть
Государственный аппарат и органы власти	Глава государства • Парламент • Правительство
Политический режим	Анархия • Авторитаризм • Демократия • Деспотизм • Тоталитаризм
Форма государственного правления и политическая система	Военная диктатура • Диктатура • Монархия • Плутократия • Парламентская республика • Республика • Теократия • Тимократия • Самодержавие •
Политическая философия, идеология и доктрина	Анархизм • Коммунизм • Колониализм • Консерватизм • Космополитизм • Либерализм • Либертарианство • Марксизм • Милитаризм • Монархизм • Нацизм • Национализм • Неоколониализм • Пацифизм • Социализм • Фашизм
Избирательная система	Мажоритарная • Пропорциональная • Смешанная
Политологи и политические мыслители	Платон • Аристотель • Макиавелли • Монтескье • Руссо • Бенито Муссолини • Гоббс • Локк • Карл Маркс • Михаил Бакунин • Макс Вебер • Морис Дюверже • Юлиус Эвола • Цицерон • Адольф Гитлер
Учебники и известные труды о политике	«Государство» • «Политика» • «О граде Божьем» • «Государь» • «Левиафан» • «Открытое общество и его враги»
См. также	Основные понятия политики
Категория • Портал • Проект

Название: Левиафан

Автор: Гоббс Томас
М.: Мысль, 2001. — 478 с.
ISBN 5-244-00966-4
Серия Из классического наследия
Формат: DjVu, PDF

Качество: сканированные страницы

Язык: Русский

ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ

Философ, которого окружили волки

Прежде всего концепция государства Гоббса – это последовательность рассуждений и идей. Она многослойна и поэтому, чтобы правильно воспринять теорию в целом, нужно ознакомится с её составными частями. Причем, даже если кому-то придется не по вкусу итог, многие из элементов концепта Левиафана можно рассмотреть в отрыве и восхититься по отдельности.  Так, например, эту теорию воспринимают сторонники либерализма, для которых философ Гоббс, с одной стороны, – предтеча и прародитель этого политического течения, а с другой – мыслитель, в какой-то момент сворачивающий в неверную сторону.

Как и положено механицисту, начинает Гоббс с минимальной и фундаментальной составляющей государственного механизма – человека. Это логично, ведь государство – это человеческое творение с довольно специфическими функциями, поэтому мотив и необходимость его создания стоит искать в онтологии. Для этого Гоббс вводит понятие естественного состояния, которое описывает человека не только вне государства, но и вне какого-либо социума, вне договоренностей с другими людьми – по сути, как природное тело среди других тел.

В естественном состоянии человек предоставлен своей природе, ничем не ограниченной. И взгляд Гоббса на эту природу мрачен. По его мнению, чуть ли не единственное к чему она может привести, так это к войне всех против всех. Когда человека ничто не сдерживает, он скорее стремится обобрать и устранить другого, а не наладить контакт и договориться. Причиной такого поведения является страх перед тем, что другой человек может сделать то же самое. Таким образом, страх – это последствие свободы действий и понимания её наличия у других.

Возникает замкнутая система. Человеческая сущность базируется на эгоизме и страхе, которые вынуждают человека ожесточиться, что в свою очередь дает основание для опасения других.

«Пока люди живут без общей власти, держащей всех их в страхе, они находятся в том состоянии, которое называется войной, и именно в состоянии войны всех против всех».

Казалось бы, что на этой тотальной войне всех против всех и должна была закончится человеческая история, но всё же у человека также есть то, что не позволяет ему снизойти до животного уровня – разум. По Гоббсу, финальная компонента человеческой сущности, подогреваемая страхом, сподвигает людей призадуматься о том, как бы создать нечто, что позволит отсрочить незавидную участь пасть от жестокости другого человека.

Показательным современным примером гоббсовского понимания человеческой сущности является дискурс вокруг полицейской жестокости. В большинстве случаев людей возмущает и пугает не сам институт охраны порядка, а скорее образ его конкретного представителя, который заведомо подготовлен и вооружен. То есть, если гражданин и полицейский внезапно окажутся в естественном состоянии, то преимущество будет на стороне второго – что немаловажно, это чисто теоретическое опасение подкрепляют случаи превышения должностных полномочий, жестокости и судебных ошибок.

В рамках номинализма Гоббса тот конкретный человек, в котором воплощена власть, не лишается своей эгоистической природы. Право не совершает существенной трансформации природы человека, оно дает коррективы поведению, порождая тем самым, по сути, новые формы страха – попасть в тюрьму, лишиться работы, имущества или репутации. Причем присутствие таких страхов обосновано тем, что они имеют позитивную сторону – защиту законом.

Можно заметить, что в действительности к людям у власти применяют куда более высокие моральные стандарты. Считается само собой разумеющимся, что президент куда более обязан быть добродетельным, нежели медийная личность, которой и вовсе позволено быть скандальной. Можно сказать, что по Гоббсу, это скорее специфическое выражения страха перед тем, что правителя в конечном счете ничто не заставляет исполнять предписанные ему добродетели.

Говоря о сущности человеческого страха, Гоббс в том числе предполагает, что важную роль в формировании «бесконечного» ужаса играет Бог, который является непознаваемым и при том фундаментальным. Получается, что человек заворожен и устрашен.

Естественное состояние между тем подразумевает и доюридическое равенство людей ввиду «права на всё».  Каждый индивид примерно с одинаковым успехом может навредить другому. Поэтому равенство для Гоббса естественно, хоть и обременительно.  

Стоит понимать, что в рассуждении Гоббса о естественном состоянии и войне всех против всех важно не то, как это было (или не было), а то, во что это выливается в мирное и стабильное время. Между людьми всегда существует недоверие и ожидание враждебности, которые не только заставляют их закрывать дом на ключ, но и ставить сигнализацию, а на всякий случай ещё и завести собаку. Даже ежедневные, рутинные и бытовые практики полны опасений насчет доброжелательности других людей.

Lupus Sapiens

Разум подсказывает человеку, что избежать постоянного страха можно с помощью договоренности с другими людьми о том, чтобы пожертвовать некоторыми своими правами. В понимании Гоббса общественный договор возникает именно между людьми, которые уже только после этого становятся обществом. Возможно, такой вывод Гоббс делал на основе истории и реалий XVII века, где складывались различные не-государственные общности посредством гласного или не очень соглашения людей – монастырские и рыцарские ордена, цеха и гильдии, торговые сообщества, клубы.

Но, как мы знаем, людям характерно недоверие друг к другу, а поэтому они не могут договориться без некоего внешнего гаранта соблюдения договора. Гоббс поясняет, что в естественном состоянии какое-либо соглашение может быть достигнуто путtм страха применения насилия. Поэтому общественному договору, во-первых, не хватает этого внешнего принудительного элемента, а во-вторых, в чистом виде он может быть легко и безнаказанно нарушен.

В этом можно заметить нечто синонимичное теории игр, которая объясняет человеческое доверие как результат множественных взаимодействий между людьми. Таким образом, незнакомому человеку лучше не доверять и вообще вести так, будто бы он непременно обманет.

Любопытно, что Гоббс сомневается в том, была ли война всех против всех в действительности помимо ситуаций гражданских войн и прочих потрясений. Но вот в отношении общественного договора уверен, что тот, с одной стороны, не может существовать вне государства, а с другой, возникая, он его образует.

Как и в случае с равенством общественный договор двояк. В человеке присутствует рациональное мышление, подсказывающее его исполнять. Также в нем есть и соблазн пойти против него, коль ничто существенное, кроме здравого смысла и легкого страха, не принуждает к исполнению.

К слову, Гоббс немного схитрил и в определенном смысле приравнял общество и государство. В том числе, и чтобы получить своего рода доказательство того, что государство – это не дар Бога, а разумное устроение людей. Кроме того, удревнение государства было общим местом многих тогдашних теорий и идеологий.

Построй в себе государство

Чтобы общественный договор вообще мог возникнуть, Гоббс считает, должны быть условия, в которых его нарушение будет влечь за собой столь серьезные последствия, что, по сути, такой договор можно будет назвать невозможным к нарушению. Другими словами, участники договора (общество) должны контролироваться фигурой извне – сувереном, который обладает уникальными правами и является единственным, за кем сохраняется право на всё (включая право на убийство другого человека в ситуации нарушения договора).

Так, вместо того, чтобы жить в обществе, где каждый сосед может тебя прибить или ограбить, по Гоббсу, люди делегируют эти возможности суверену, который может быть и не одним конкретным человеком, но и парламентом.

Фигура суверена решает довольно важную задачу о принятии конечного решения, формирования понятий законного и незаконного, так как, по большому счету, насчет многих вопросов общественной жизни существует неоднозначность, позволяющая спекулировать на приемлемости или не приемлемости тех или иных вещей.

К примеру, разговор о декриминализации наркотиков, по логике Гоббса, могут вести только люди внутри общественного договора, в то время как суверен принимает какое-то конкретное решение по этой проблеме. И что важно, главное в решении суверена не его обоснованность, а сам факт того, что он может его принять и тем самым каким-то образом разрешить социальную проблему.  В этом плане показательная следующая цитата Гоббса:

«Соглашение, заключенное на законном основании, не может быть законным образом нарушено».

Иначе говоря, суверен становится «последней инстанцией» и одновременно гарантом сохранения выгод от общественного состояния. Ведь для всех остальных общественный договор также может быть представлен как сделка, в которой право на всё (с тотальным страхом) меняется на право на жизнь для законопослушных граждан (со страхом перед законами).

Именно ввиду такого процесса установления власти суверена и возникает государство, «Левиафан» – социальный механизм вокруг фигуры суверена, который заменяет страх своих граждан перед другими на страх перед собой. Как ни странно, но именно это, по Гоббсу, и приносит людям счастье, видимо, потому, что человеку проще переживать и даже не обращать внимание на институциональный страх, нежели на хаос естественного состояния.

Гоббс подчеркивает этот момент, выбирая в качестве яркого образа библейское чудовище Левиафана. А его история гражданской войны получит название другого мифического монстра – Бегемота. Хотя в ставшей канонической иллюстрации Левиафан изображен в виде великана с лицом короля и телом, состоящим из других людей. Возможно, здесь имела место неявная перекличка и с выражением «колосс на глиняных ногах», которое намного лучше выражает идею «государства как смертного бога».

«В этом Левиафане верховная власть, дающая жизнь и движение всему телу, есть искусственная душа, должностные лица и другие представители судебной и исполнительной власти – искусственные суставы; награда и наказание (при помощи которых каждый сустав и член прикрепляются к седалищу верховной власти и побуждаются исполнить свои обязанности) представляют собой нервы, выполняющие такие же функции в естественном теле; благосостояние и богатство всех частных членов представляют собой его силу; salus populi, безопасность народа, – его занятие; советники, внушающие ему все, что необходимо знать, представляют собой память; справедливость и законы суть искусственный разум (reason) и воля; гражданский мир – здоровье; смута – болезнь, и гражданская война – смерть».

В Левиафане люди также находят и коллективную идентичность, он порождает общество и нации, ведь является искусственным телом, построенным людьми, в том числе и с запросом на то, чтобы быть персонифицированными. По Гоббсу, персонификации нельзя найти в Боге или иной метафизической сущности, а только в каком-то реальном теле, которое может приводить слова, законы и соглашения в действия.

Поэтому, в большей мере философ предпочитает монарха как суверена, отождествляющего свою жизнь с государством, а не парламент, который всё еще представляет собой ряд людей с личностными и ситуативными целями. Есть мнение, что концепция персонификации народа создавалась Гоббсом под французский двор, а в последствии стала удобна ещё и сторонникам Вильгельма Оранского (в период и после Славной революции). Стоит также отметить, что для XVII века привычно понимать историю государств через призму персон (императоров, королей и вождей), а не институтов или народов.

Отголоски подобного подхода можно увидеть и в различных современных конституциях, в которых утверждается, что обязанность президента или иного главного правящего лица заключатся в том, чтобы представлять интересы людей его страны на международной арене, а часто и выступать гарантом законности.

Таким образом, в концепции Гоббса государство держится на могуществе, полном всевластии суверена и авторитете, который церковь легитимирует в своей форме (или, если давать современную интерпретацию, любой социальный институт, имеющий влияние на моральные взгляды общества). Это может быть и государственный философ, вроде Гегеля в Пруссии, и массовая культура, транслирующая через супергеройское кино базовые этические установки. Авторитет нужен для того, чтобы смягчить шок от понимания могущества Левиафана, который ничем не ограничен.

Могущество государства вызывает у человека ужас из-за всё того же разума – это понимание того, что он и другие люди отдали Левиафану права, позволяющие делать с ними почти что угодно. Почти, так как право на жизнь остается безусловным приобретением всякого законопослушного гражданина. Нарушение этого права сувереном (например, террор в отношении граждан) ставит под вопрос сам договор и может спровоцировать революцию.

По Гоббсу, люди сами выстраивают авторитарное государство. Хоть оно их и пугает, но они согласны с его существованием, ведь оно помимо всего прочего может быть и демократическим. Поэтому про Левиафана говорят как про смертного Бога, который посредством своей мощи обеспечивает мирную и спокойную жизнь. Что немаловажно, как и Бог, государство, по Гоббсу, часто остается непостижимо, особенно для простого человека, который в такой ситуации может лишь преклоняться перед мощью, авторитетом и мудростью Левиафана.

Подтверждением общественного договора с точки зрения Гоббса является лояльность государству, хотя государство заинтересовано в формировании лояльности граждан.  Таким образом круг замыкается – люди договариваются о том, что возникнет Левиафан, но как бы ввиду негласного общего порыва. При этом большая часть людей оказывается вне этого негласного порыва, уже рождаясь в определенной юридической вселенной, где их «право на всё» ограничено и возврат к нему возможен лишь путем насилия.

«Конечно, правильны оба утверждения: и человек человеку Бог, и человек человеку волк. Первое — в том случае, если речь идет об отношениях между собою сограждан, второе — когда речь идет об отношениях между государствами».

Любопытно, что сами государства между собой, по Гоббсу, находятся в естественном состоянии, что открывает значительно пространство для размышлений. Он, по сути, второй после Макиавелли серьезный критик моральных допущений в отношении политической власти: если первый отметил, что эффективность правителя на зависит от его моральных качеств, то второй показал сущностную сторону государства, а не его фасад.

Государство – это организация (или организм?) в равной степени заинтересованный и вынужденный вселять страх в своих соседей. И не только страх, но и осуществлять реальное насилие. Заинтересованный, потому что ресурсы ограничены, а экстенсивное развитие всегда легче (присоединить территорию, увеличить количество поданных и т. д.). Вынужденный, потому как пакт «общественного договора», дающий минимальные права человеку, имеет силу только в рамках гражданства. Человек без гражданства, равно как и гражданин по отношению к другому государству в состоянии войны, лишены любых гарантий (т. к. не существует гарантов – сверх-суверенов для договоров государств).

Несомненно, Гоббс был знаком с работами Гуго Гроция, но, видимо, к идее международного права и межнациональных организаций относился крайне скептически. Разработкой этих и других гоббсовских вопросов и по сей день занимаются многие философы, социологи и политологи.

Довольно любопытно, что имя Гоббса связывают с либеральной политической мыслью, во многом из-за того, что он вдохновил Локка. Хоть по факту воззрения Гоббса всё же ближе к современной форме консерватизма, который может быть достаточно гибким, но в целом тяготеет к тому, чтобы сохранять существующий порядок.

По сравнению с тем же Локком, у Гоббса общественный договор, в силу понимания человеческой природы, существует почти что случайно – скорее даже не ввиду того, что человек исключительно разумен, а ввиду того, что один страх пересилил другой, и тут пришлось как-то выкручиваться (уже с помощью разума). Вместе с тем Левиафан во многом ориентирован на предотвращение преступлений самого отвратительного гражданина, которым, по мнению Гоббса, может быть и скорее всего будет любой. Та же версия Локка (государство как третейский судья), например, вообще не может объяснить многочисленные реалии жизни в государстве иначе как злоупотребления и искажения идеала.

В целом, сущность и смысл существования государства в теории Гоббса описаны довольно понятно. Если коротко, то он был крайне прогрессивен в том, что указал на функцию государства по регулировке, рационализации и перенаправлению насилия, которое по своей сути всегда является конечным аргументом, в том числе и в вопросах единения и подчинения общим правилам.

Определенная проблема возникает в вопросах генезиса государства, так как в конечном счете всё сводится к человеческой природе, ввиду которой люди не могли поступить по-другому. Кому-то может понравится и такое объяснение, но даже без него, несмотря на все допущения, теория Гоббса имеет серьезную ассоциативную силу – нетрудно найти параллели описываемого англичанином с историческими примерами или явлениями актуальной политической жизни.

Библиографическое описание:

Хорьков, С. А. Происхождение государства и права в работе Томаса Гоббса «Левиафан, или Материя, форма и власть государства церковного и гражданского» / С. А. Хорьков. — Текст : непосредственный // Молодой ученый. — 2019. — № 33 (271). — С. 50-51. — URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/271/62070/ (дата обращения: 10.01.2023).

Томас
Гоббс (англ. Thomas Hobbes) (5 апреля 1588, Малмсбери
(англ.)русск., Уилтшир, Королевство Англия
— 4 декабря 1679, Дербишир, Королевство
Англия) — английский философ-материалист,
автор теории общественного договора.

Гоббс создал первую законченную систему
механистического материализма,
соответствовавшего характеру и
требованиям естествознания того времени.
В полемике с Декартом отверг существование
особой мыслящей субстанции, доказывая,
что мыслящая вещь есть нечто материальное.
Геометрия и механика для Гоббса —
идеальные образцы научного мышления
вообще. Природа представляется Гоббсу
совокупностью протяжённых тел,
различающихся между собой величиной,
фигурой, положением и движением. Движение
понимается как механистическое — как
перемещение. Чувственные качества
рассматриваются Гоббсом не как свойства
самих вещей, а как формы их восприятия.
Гоббс разграничивал протяжённость,
реально присущую телам, и пространство
как образ, создаваемый разумом
(«фантазма»); объективно-реальное
движение тел и время как субъективный
образ движения. Гоббс различал два
метода познания: логическую дедукцию
рационалистической «механики» и индукцию
эмпирической «физики».

Гоббс — один из основателей «договорной»
теории происхождения государства.

Государство Гоббс рассматривает как
результат договора между людьми,
положившего конец естественному
догосударственному состоянию «войны
всех против всех». Он придерживался
принципа изначального равенства людей.
Отдельные граждане добровольно ограничили
свои права и свободу в пользу государства,
задача которого — обеспечение мира и
безопасности. Гоббс придерживается
принципа правового позитивизма и
превозносит роль государства, которое
он признаёт абсолютным сувереном. В
вопросе о формах государства симпатии
Гоббса — на стороне монархии. Отстаивая
необходимость подчинения церкви
государству, он считал необходимым
сохранение религии как орудия
государственной власти для обуздания
народа.

Был представителем социальных физиков
(направление в истории).

Этика Гоббса исходит из неизменной
чувственной «природы человека». Основой
нравственности Гоббс считал «естественный
закон» — стремление к самосохранению
и удовлетворению потребностей. Добродетели
обусловлены разумным пониманием того,
что способствует и что препятствует
достижению блага. Моральный долг по
своему содержанию совпадает с гражданскими
обязанностями, вытекающими из общественного
договора.

Учение Гоббса оказало большое влияние
на последующее развитие философской и
социальной мысли.

«Левиафан, или Материя, форма и власть
государства церковного и гражданского»
— название сочинения английского
философа Т. Гоббса, посвящённого проблемам
государства.

Левиафан — библейское чудовище,
изображённое как сила природы, принижающая
человека. Гоббс использует этот образ
для описания могущественного государства
(«смертного Бога»).

При создании теории возникновения
государства Гоббс отталкивается от
постулата о естественном состоянии
людей «Bellum omnium contra omnes» («Война всех
против всех») и развивает идею «Homos
homini lupus est» («Человек человеку волк»).

Люди, в связи с неминуемым истреблением
при нахождении в таком состоянии
продолжительное время, для сохранения
своих жизней и общего мира, отказываются
от части своих «естественных прав» и
по негласно заключаемому общественному
договору наделяют ими того, кто обязуется
сохранить свободное использование
оставшимися правами — государство.

Государству, союзу людей, в котором воля
одного (государства) является обязательной
для всех, передаётся задача регулирования
отношений между всеми людьми.

«Левиафан» в своё время был запрещён в
Англии; перевод «Левиафана» на русский
язык был сожжён.

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