Political Philosophical Compass (Spectrum) --- Part 3

... contuned from Part 2:

Hobbes' work had influenced many remarkable political philosophers such as John Loche, David Hume, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. As Loche's philosophy highly influenced David Hume, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant, it can be said that Hobbes, who influenced Loche, influenced Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant as well. All in all, without Hobbes. all these political philosophers in the modern time period would not have existed. In other words, all these modern political philosophers' works were the footnotes of Hobbes' work.

Hobbes had learnt from a lot from two mainstream Antiquity philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. He adopted a theory of Platonian ideal state and Aristotlean virture theory to his own philosophy. However, the clear distinction of Hobbes from these two Antiquity philosophers is that he had never considered what the true moral should be. All philosophers previous the modern ones, not only Plato and Aristotle but also the other ones having existed in the previous and the later time periods, always considered what is the nature of human-beings should be and what is the moral objective of human-beings. Furthermore, majority of these Antiquity and Medieval philosophers always tried to define the existence of the universe and how outcomes of this world are derived to form the universe. One of the few remarkable philosophers who were more apathetics about clearly defining the existence of the universe was Macus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor. Marcus Aurelius stated that the universe is formed by the random outcomes which we cannot exactly discover what and how these outcomes are derived from. Although Marcus Aurelius did not stick to spending a lot of time on defining the existence of the universe, he still yet put emphasis on the universal moral which human-beings ought to follow. As same as Marcus Aurelius, Hobbes also thought the universe is composed of the random outcomes derived from unknown reason. But, unlike Marcus Aurelius, Hobbes did put emphasis on neither the universal moral human-beings ought to follow nor how human-beings ought to be regardless of different situations across time, place, and occasion. Meanwhile, all these Antiquity and Medieval philosophies are solid, synthetic, and focusing on a massive picture, Hobbesian philosophy is flexible, analytic, and focusing on human-beings and their cummunities by parts.

Hobbes insisted that human-nature is permanent and cannot be changed as same as Aristotle mentioned. This aspect shows Hobbes is moral-naturalist as much as Aristotle. But, Hobbes was certainly modest about human-nature than Aristotle. Aristotle stated human-beings are naturally social so that they can govern themselves by letting them alone to decide what to do. By contrast, Hobbes did not agree with what Aristotle defined human-nature. Hobbes claimed that human-beings will hinder each other when there were no particular role to order them to be harmonised, and then fall into chaos. Hobbes strongly put emphasis on necessity of strictly coded laws which bring an order to govern human-beings instead of expecting the human-nature to self-govern human-beings. Laws are created differently according to what form of laws is suitable for different time, place, and occasion to bring an order. Unlike Aristotle put emphasis on the moral objective as "being social" to be humans, Hobbes argued that needs to be good human-beings are different across time, place, and occasion. In addition, there is no clear objective measure to define what is the moral for human-beings to follow. Only the objective for human-beings is to follow the laws bringing them an order whose objective measure also depends on time, place, and occasion. This aspect makes Hobbes to be more subjective than Aristotle, but it yet remains a little objectiveness than Machiavelli.

Hobbes quoted a lot of phrases from Aristotle such as human virtue. Aristotle explained human-beings' virtue is to do what they are good at. Hobbes stated the ultimate virtue which is common among all human-beings is obeying laws and following order. Aristotle was more optimistic about direct democracy which enables all human-beings represent their opinion equally as much as possible. However, Hobbes was highly sceptical about Aristotlean direct democracy due to the problem to work politics out effciently and defining whose opinion is more legitimate than the others when they fall into conflict of decision making process.

Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Machiavelli drew a picture of human society by means of the nature of human-beings and how human-beings should be. Hobbes seems to the first person who mentioned something other than human-beings themselves, their nature, and the community structure. He was the first person who mentioned the existence of "law" to be a foundation of moral among human-beings and a stabiliser of their community. The philosophers previous to Hobbes did not consider about how law is given by nature, guardian, people, God, and/or sovereign, and did not define what and how law should be. Hobbes was the first
political philosopher who insisted that political philosophers whould firstly think about and define what is law before thinking about to know about human-nature, how community should be structured, and the existence of the universe. Plato talked about rationality when he talked about ethics (political philosophy). However, unlike Plato, Hobbes did not expect all people to be rational enough to establish an utoppia. Hobbes argued that it is impossible for all people to become perfectly rational beings, but people will be happier and their community will be stabilised as long as the law and the structure based upon it they are following are rationally constructed. Thus, rather than expecting human-beings and talking about an alternative world, Hobbes was the first political philosopher who focused on rationality of law instead of rationality of human-beings and a rationally imaged world view.


Hobbes argued that the best virture of human-beings is obeying the law and following the order, and sin is breaking law and order. Many later modern philosophers argued against this Hobbes' argument, but their theories seem to be just an different interpretation of what Hobbes said. These philosophers agreed with Hobbes for the point that political philosophies have to take an account of rationality and law (including physcially enforced, written, natural=spontaneous and/or any other form based on either a subjective feeling or an objective principle) in order to study about people, their community, and how they function. Therefore, they took a lot of ideas from Hobbes, and reformed Hobbes' theory into their own style.

Hobbes required to have an autocratic institution who is responsibility for legislating the law enforcement, and a strong charismatic sovereign, monarchy and/or any other form of premiership, who represents as a top authority of the autocratic institution. As long as law enforcements created by the autocratic institution are rational and the charisma of a sovereign attract both the institution and people obeying their order, the system will be stabilised, Hobbes argued.

By contrast, Loche, Hume, and Rousseau claimed there should be another form of body ensuring people following the law to stablise their community under order. These philosophers challenged Hobbes' authoritarianism, and suggested to create another form of principle brining an order rationally instead of relying on a strickly stratified autocratic system. Loche insisted on the fundamental principle of morality and the consitution defining what laws should be to convince people to follow. Hume claimed that there is a natural law people naturally adapt to keep themselves under order. Rousseu put emphasis on the existence of the "spontaneous" order which is different from the "enforced" order.


... to be contuned to Part 3: