8/10/2019 hobbes on human nature

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Introduction to History of Philosophy Spring 2015

Introduction to Modern Philosophy Patterson

Week 1: Hobbes on human nature

Life it selfe is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no morethan without Sense. (Leviathan, Ch. 6)

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) lived in a time of unrest. He claimed

that he was born prematurely because of his mothers fear of invasion by the Spanish Armada.

He fled to Paris in 1640 to avoid civil war, returning only in 1651, when he presented a copy of

hisLeviathanto Oliver Cromwell. Despite this, he was welcomed into the court of Charles II

following the restoration of the monarchy. Hobbes believed that civil war had been encouraged

by false moral views, and aimed to deduce the true basis of morality and the way to peace from

a correct understanding of human nature. Hence the subject of the first part ofLeviathan(L,

1651), On Man, is human nature.

Human Nature

Hobbes account of human nature is (intended to be) thoroughly materialist. All thoughts, he

claims, originate in sensation, and sensation is a motion in the Brain, and Heart in response to

motions of the sense organs originating in external bodies (L Ch. 1). Imagination is this

internal motion, continuing when the external object is absent (L Ch. 2); prudence is foresight

based on remembered experience (L Ch. 3); and reasoning is the calculation of the

consequences of definitions (L Ch. 5), as in geometry.

Since Hobbes interest is in moral philosophy, he is interested in the basis of human

action. He distinguishes between two further types of motions in animal (and therefore human)

bodies, vital motion(begun in generation, and continued without interruption through theirwhole life) and voluntary motion(L Ch. 6). This latter originates in imagination:

Sense, is Motion in the organs and interiour parts of mans body, caused by the action of

the things we See, Heare &c.Fancy [sc. imagination] is but the Reliques of the same

Motion, remaining after SenseAnd becausegoing,speaking, and the like Voluntary

motions, depend always upon a precedent thought of whether, which way, and what; it is

evident, that the Imagination is the first internall beginning of all Voluntary

MotionThese smallbeginnings of Motion, within the body of Man, before they appear

in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions, are commonly called

ENDEAVOUR.

This Endeavour, when it is toward something which causes it, is called APPETITE, or

DESIREAnd when the Endeavour is fromward something, it is generally called

AVERSION. (L 6)

These interiour beginnings of voluntary motions are commonly called the Passions. When

we deliberate about how to act, passions or appetites occur in train, as the prospective action

elicits desire, aversion and so on:

When in the mind of man, Appetites and Aversions, Hopes, and Feares, concerning one

and the same thing, arise alternately; and divers good and evill consequences of the doing,

or omitting the thing propounded, come successively into our thoughtsthe whole summeof Desires, Aversions, Hopes and Fears, continued till the thing be either done, or thought

impossible, is that we call DELIBERATION. (L 6)

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Hobbes rejects the Scholastic definition of will as rational appetite; if it were correct, he

argues, there could be no voluntary acts against reason. Will is simply the last Appetitein

Deliberating(L Ch. 6). He adds that

in Deliberation, the Appetites, and Aversions, are raised by foresight of the good and

evill consequences, and sequels of the action whereof we Deliberate; the good or evilleffect thereof dependeth on the foresight of a long chain of consequences, of which very

seldome any man is able to see to the end. But for so farre as a man seeth, if the Good in

those consequences, be greater than the Evill, the whole chaine is that which Writers call

Apparent, or Seeming Good. he who hath by Experience, or Reason, the greatest and

surest prospect of Consequences, Deliberates best himself; and is able, when he will, to

give the best counsel unto others. (L 6)

[Note that this implies that it is possible to deliberate well or badly. Hobbes says in De Homine

(1658) that emotions can obstruct right reasoning and militate against the real good, and in

favour of the apparent and most immediate good, which turns out frequently to be evil when

everything associated with it hath been considered (Ch. 12).]Hobbes claims that

whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he for his part

calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion,Evill;For these words of Good,

Evillare ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing

simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and Evill, to be taken from the

nature of the objects themselves (L Ch. 6)

We call things good or evil, then, in relation to ourselves, because we desire or shun them.

Hobbes holds that man naturally shuns the chiefest of natural evils, which is death; and this he

doth, by a certain impulsion of nature, no less than that whereby a stone moves downwards(De Cive, 1642). We have a natural aversion to death, and we have a natural inclination to

pursue the conditions required for the satisfaction of our desires:

the Felicity of this life, consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no

suchFinis ultimus, (utmost ayme,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest Good,) as is spoken of

in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires

are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a

continuall progress of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former,

being still but the way to the latter. The cause whereof is, That the object of mans desire, is

not to enjoy once onely, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his

future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions, and inclinations of all men, tend not

only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life; and differ onely in the

way: which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions, in divers men; and partly from the

difference of the knowledge, or opinion each one has of the causes, which produce the

effect desired. (L 11)

Since we continually seek to secure the satisfaction of our future desires, and The Power of a

Manis his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good (L 10), we continually seek

power:

So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall andrestlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. (L 11)