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me that they are in some sense right-as far as they go. There is, however,
more to the story than the logic of the state of nature,enough, indeed, that
the usual view of Hobbes presents us with a diminished figure.To borrow
a point Hobbes makes himself, it is the whole design that needs to be taken
into account, and not just the "barewords" or "singletexts."7In particular,
there are good reasons for saying that Hobbes posed the problem of war to
himself in terms of an identifiable set of assumptions-and aspirationsthat are not fully captured by the inclination to concentrate, sometimes
exclusively, on the implications of the idea of the state of nature (as, for
example, would seem to be the case in Kenneth Waltz'sMan, the State, and
War),or on the spare logical design that provides the scaffolding,but only
the scaffolding,for Leviathan.8
This is not to claim that a wider frame will find Hobbes's work providing
anything like a successful theory of internationalpolitics. On the contrary,
Hobbes conceived of his task in such a way as to result, on the one hand,
in a serious misunderstandingof the fundamental problems involved in
achieving peace, and, on the other, in a very substantialunderestimationof
its difficulty.But the flaws that produce these results can be made understandable. Furthermore,the theoretical missteps lie at a deeper level of
Hobbesianpoliticaltheory and, I shall suggest,have had broaderintellectual
consequences than are accounted for on the usual view.
There is, in any case, a recognizable"Hobbesiantradition"in the study
of internationalrelations,whetherit has been faithfulto Hobbes or not, and
it tends to conform to the characterizationsjust discussed.9Yet in all this
one finds a distressinglylarge amount of irony and paradox.First, the most
obvious difficulty,of course, is that Hobbes has comparativelylittle to say,
at least directly, about the competition of states. It is true that he expressly
licenses the translationof his analysisof the state of war among individuals
to the level of internationalrivalry.Yet preciselywhat his readeris to make
of the analogy is, to put it mildly, not entirely clear. Thanks largelyto the
critical efforts of Montesquieu and Rousseau, Hobbes's analogy must now
seem problematicalat best, and, at worst, misleading.'0Yet Hobbes's sponsorshipof this outlook is not simply inadvertenceor shortsightednesson his
part nor, for that matter, an inexplicable failure to notice the difference
7. Leviathan,chap. 43, p. 436 (EW 3: 602).
8. Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War (New York: Columbia University Press,
1959), pp. 85, 165-66. Waltz does not undertake an analysis of Hobbes in the otherwise
comprehensive development of his three images of the causes of war; indeed, the book contains
no reference at all to Hobbes's text or even a bibliographical entry. Beitz, Political Theory and
International Relations, p. 35, fn. 49, suggests that Hobbes's account conforms to Waltz's third
image. Beitz says Waltz illustrates his third image by Spinoza and Rousseau. Actually, Waltz
(pp. 161-62) employs Spinoza as an example of his first image, and by way of contrast with
Kant (for the second image) and Rousseau.
9. Bull, "Hobbes and the International Anarchy," p. 717.
10. Especially helpful is Stanley Hoffmann, The State of War (New York: Praeger, 1965),
pp. 56-67.
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On this subject, obviously, Thucydides'painstakingaccount of the interdependence and mutual escalation of internal and external war supplied a
treasurehouse of material, but it was not helpful as a matter of theoretical
graspto the same degree, since his inclinationto settle ultimatelyfor general
reference to human nature overexplains, as it were: it lacks the power of
differentiation.This does not necessarily, much less automatically, make
him wrong. But it does frustratea quite differentintellectualimpulse:to find
more specific and, more importantly, remediable explanations. Thus, the
materialprovidedby Thucydidescould easily be construed,on the one hand,
as having shown as a matter of substance that civil strugglewas the most
likely, bitter, and dangerousform of armed violence, but on the other hand,
as having posed, ratherthan resolved, the theoreticalproblemsof causation
and of the relation between civil and external war. This double aspect of
Thucydides' history is very clearly marked. No doubt each reader of The
Peloponnesian Warhas a particularcandidatefor the role of most absorbing
or most revealing episode. But there can be little doubt that it is in the
account of the civil war in Corcyrathat Thucydides employs the language
of extremity most strikingly."There was death," he says, "in every shape
and form. And, as usually happens in such situations, people went to every
extreme and beyond it." As civil war developed "in city after city," he
continues, "knowledgeof what had happenedpreviously ... caused still new
extravagancesof revolutionaryzeal, expressedby an elaborationin the methods of seizing power and by unheard-of atrocities in revenge." Ever the
moralist, Thucydides concludes that "as a result of these revolutions, there
was a generaldeteriorationof characterthroughoutthe Greek world." In all
this chaotic collapse of civilized standards, he holds, "human nature
... showed itself proudly in its true colours, as somethingincapableof controllingpassion...."22 Lateron, he has the Syracusanleader, Hermocrates,
express the substantive theoretical point that is of primary interest here.
"We should realize that internal strife is the main reason for the decline of
cities." And again, in the eighth book, as the denouement of a generation
of war becomes clear, Thucydides remarks, in his own person, that it is
internal struggleabove all that the Athenians needed to avoid.23
In this connection, it is worth recalling that the exposition of the best
attainable form of the polis in Plato's Laws is explicitly framed in terms of
the problem of war. In response to an initiatingquestion by the Athenian
Stranger,concerningthe military practicesembodied in the much admired
constitution of Crete, Clinias says that their lawgiver meant thereby "to
reprove the folly of mankind, who refuse to understand that they are all
engagedin a continuous lifelong warfareagainstall cities whatsoever.... In
fact, the peace of which most men talk-so he held-is no more than a
22. The Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), 3: 81-84.
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human nature and conduct which are unaffectedby alterationof time and
place.38But however shrewd one might find some of Machiavelli'sobservations on the generallylamentable inclinationsof our kind, his views are
neithergeneralizednor systematic.More importantly,his work does not rest
on a psychologicalfoundation, much less shift the very basis of inquiry in
that direction. To the contrary,he supposed that the principaltask was to
extract lessons in political success from the exemplaryachievements of republican Rome.39Again, Montaigne,that prince of skeptics in an age much
given to skepticism,appearsto have concluded,as Donald Framehas pointed
out, that despite bewilderingdiversity there are common human traitsafter
all.40But Montaigne's style is something like the opposite of systematic.
Much more to the point, Descartes had relied on the idea of a common
human capabilityto know. At this epistemologicallevel, at least, our natural
endowments are similar enough to invite the expectation of an unlimited,
if gradual,accumulationof indubitablescientificknowledge.4'But while Descartes took a perfectlygeneralview, he did not undertaketo apply it to the
problems of moral philosophy. His idea amounts to a bold and ingeniously
defended epistemologicalact of faith, but not to a general psychology.
It is in Hobbes that we find the assumption of a common, underlying
human nature at work in politics everywhereand always, and with it he is
able to accomplish the crucial double task that is central to his purpose of
showingus the highwayto peace.Formally,Hobbes'spsychologyis completely
abstract.Human natureper se is a compound productof bodily constitution,
sense experience,reason, and the passions.42He uses the idea of individual
variationsin our bodily constitutionsand in our experienceto help to account
for the variety in the objects of our desiresand aversions;but he uses neither
source of individuation in any pointed or specific way.43Instead, virtually
all his attention is concentratedon reason and the passions, and here the
theoreticalaccount is given entirely in terms of general capacities,and not
at all in terms of particulartraits, whether virtues or vices. To be sure,
Hobbes embracesthe commonplace that people seek their self-preservation
above all. But, as in the case of most of his substantiveobservationsabout
38. Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy, ed. by Bernard Crick (New York: Penguin,
xi); chap. 4, p. 40 (EW, 3: 28); chap. 6, p. 48 (EW, 3: 40-41); chap. 8, p. 62 (EW, 3: 61);
chap. 15, p. 123 (EW, 3: 140).
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rant of the cause of wars and peace and that there are very few who
56. Elements, pp. 16-18; De Cive, pp. 345, 367-68, 373-74 (EW, 2: 269, 295-96, 302-4);
Leviathan, chap. 3, p. 31 (EW, 3: 16); chap. 4, p. 35 (EW, 3: 21-22); chap. 5, p. 41 (EW, 3:
30); chap. 31, p. 269 (EW, 3: 355); chap. 32, p. 271 (EW, 3: 359); chap. 34, p. 286 (EW, 3:
380); chap. 46, p. 484 (EW, 3: 673); De Homine, pp. 37-39 (LW, 2: 88-90); EW, 1: 14, 16,
36-37, 55-56, 388, 531; EW, 7: 183-84.
57. Elements, pp. 24-26; De Cive, pp. 367-68, 373-75 (EW, 2: 295-97, 303-5); Leviathan,
chap. 4, pp. 35-40 (EW, 3: 21-29); chap. 5, pp. 45-46 (EW, 3: 35-38); chap. 8, p. 62 (EW,
3: 61); chap. 15, pp. 122-24 (EW, 3: 144-47); chap. 20, pp. 157-58 (EW, 3: 195); chap. 25,
p. 195 (EW, 3: 246-47); chap. 30, pp. 247-49 (EW, 3: 322-25); chap. 46, pp. 478-79 (EW,
3: 664-65); De Homine, pp. 41-43 (LW, 2: 92-94).
58. Elements, pp. 51, 92, 183-84; De Cive, pp. 262-63 (E W, 2: 171-72); Leviathan, chap.
3, p. 31 (EW, 3: 16); chap. 4, pp. 33, 37 (EW, 3: 18, 24-25); chap. 15, pp. 122-24 (EW, 3:
144-47); chap. 18, pp. 137-38 (EW, 3: 164-65); chap. 19, pp. 143, 145-46 (EW, 3: 173,
176-77); chap. 30, p. 249 (EW, 3: 325-26); chap. 31, p. 270 (EW, 3: 357-58); chap. 43, pp.
427-28 (EW, 3: 589-90); "Review," pp. 503, 510-511 (EW, 3: 702, 712-14); Behemoth, pp.
39-40, 62, 64, 160.
59. Leviathan, chap. 3, p. 31 (EW, 3: 16).
60. Elements, p. 94; De Cive, p. 229 (EW, 2: 135); Leviathan, chap. 17, p. 129 (EW, 3:
153). The quotation is from De Homine, p. 40 (LW, 2: 91).
61. Elements, p. 22; De Cive, pp. 168-69 (EW, 2: 67); Leviathan, chap. 4, p. 34 (EW, 3:
20); chap. 5, p. 43 (EW, 3: 32-33); chap. 6, p. 55 (EW, 3: 50); chap. 7, p. 57 (EW, 3: 53);
chap. 8, pp. 67-68 (EW, 3: 69-70); chap. 11, p. 83 (EW, 3: 90); De Homine, pp. 40-41 (LW,
2: 91-92); E W, 1: 36. W. H. Auden, "'The Truest Poetry is the most Feigning,'" in Collected
Shorter Poems, 1927-1957 (New York: Vintage, 1975), p. 317.
62. De Cive, pp. 168-69 (EW, 2: 67).
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have learned their responsibilities,by which peace flourishesand is preserved, that is, the true rule of living. But moral philosophy is knowledge of this rule.63
And, of course, Hobbes's moral science provides the requisiteknowledge.
Hobbes is fully aware of the novelty of the theory he has developed, and
of the stunninglyparadoxicalcharacterof the view that the manifoldtragedies
of human history have been largely needless. But if this is the case, it is
plainlynecessarythat he give us an accountof how it can be so, both because
the evidence is so overwhelmingly adverse and because, as he wishes to
claim, accuratediagnosishas gone undiscoveredacrosscenturiesof experience
and thought. He is preparedwith a twofold response to this challenge. He
arguesthat experienceproves nothing againsthim, both because experience
is always inconclusive as argument and because all improvements are a
function of "time and industry."64Second, all moral philosophy, till the
appearance of his own work, has been doubly and systematicallywrong:
"wholly estranged,"he says, "from the moral law," and the general proof
is continuouscontentionand war.65Indeed, Hobbes explicitlymaintainsthat
moral philosophersare ultimatelyresponsiblefor the condition of perpetual
war.66 But, more specifically,moral philosophy has misled us, both because
it lackedthe correctmethod and becauseit was assumedthat such knowledge
is something we possess or acquire naturally,merely by what he derisively
calls "mother wit."67But this is a complete mistake; all such ideas derive
from human agreementsor customs, not from the philosopher'snative gifts.
This does not, however, mean that all one need do is record or generalize
about customary linguistic meanings. On the contrary, that is one of the
generalcriticismsHobbes bringsagainstthe ancientphilosophers:they merely
transcribedthe practices of their own social orders.68Apart from its fatal
lack of universality,this fails to deal with the ambiguitiesand equivocations
that collect around our usages. Such work is not simply fruitless,it is deeply
dangerous,since it feeds the disagreementthat leads to contentionand war.69
Hence, the philosopher'stask is something like the opposite of complacent
acceptanceof whatever happens to pass for currentpoliticalor moral usage.
Such usages, Hobbes insists, can never supply the foundation of any true
63. This translationfrom Part I of De Corporeis taken from Thomas Hobbes, Computatio
Sive Logica/Logic,trans. by Aloysius Martinich,ed. by Isabel C. Hungerlandand George R.
Vick (New York:Abaris Books, 1981), p. 185. Cf. EW, 1: 8.
64. On inconclusiveexperiencesee Elements, p. 16; Leviathan,chap. 20, p. 158 (EW, 3:
195); EW, 7: 398. On improvementssee Leviathan,chap. 30, p. 248 (EW, 3: 324).
65. De Cive, p. 151 (E W, 2: 49).
66. Ibid., p. 98 (EW, 2: xiii); see also p. 344 (EW, 2: 268); EW, 1: x; EW, 7: 76 expresses
a more moderate view: moral philosophy "has been a great hindranceto the peace of the
westernworld...."
67. On method see Elements, p. 1; De Cive, p. 92 (EW, 2: v-vi); Leviathan, chap. 5, pp.
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81. Leviathan,chap. 29, pp. 237-38 (EW, 3: 308-9); chap. 30, pp. 247-49 (EW, 3: 322-35).
82. Elements, p. 51.
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in any case, depends upon the purely acquired knowledge of civil science
and so has no relationto mere naturalwit, especiallyif that happensto have
been developed on the basis of a classical education, which, of course, it
would have done.89And third, underthe new arrangements,the sovereign's
position is so exalted that everyone will appear equal by comparison and,
for good measure,will be taughtthe correctnessof this estimation.90But he
is no less emphatic that wealth bolsters no more than equally irrelevant
claims to politicalroles in the commonwealth.The richareno betterqualified
than anyone else (which really means everyone else), since they, too, lack
familiaritywith the principlesof civil science. Moreover, they are inclined
to be chronicallymyopic, since theirexperienceis exhaustedby attentiveness
only to their own presentprofit.9'Furthermore,no one-aristocrat or plutocrat-is any longer to be permitted ostentatious display, or to be accorded
any impunity from the consequencesof misdeeds.92
The implicationsof all this with regardto interstatewar are not what one
could call crystal clear. Indeed, what Hobbes does say might be thought to
point in more than one direction. True, he invariablysummarizesthe sovereign'sduty in terms of providingfor internalpeace and externaldefense.
Moreover, the latter is incontestably a matter of vigilance, foresight, and
adequate preparation.93
Furthermore,Hobbes consistently maintainsa distinction between the possibility of attaining a permanent peace when its
internal requirementsare considered in isolation and the fact that it may
So it must
neverthelesssufferdisruptionin the form of externalaggression.94
be conceded that one could quite reasonablyarguethat Hobbes confines his
hope for peace to the domestic sphere, that he resignshimself to the armed
camps of the state of nature in internationalpolitics. Yet these points do
not exhaust what Hobbes has to say in connection with interstatewar. As
alreadysuggested,thereare some indicationsthat his aim may have involved
rather more than the suggestive statements cited at the beginning of this
discussion.
3: 37-38); chap. 8, pp. 61-62 (EW, 3: 60-62); chap. 15, pp. 123-24 (EW, 3: 146-47); chap.
20, p. 158 (EW, 3: 195-96); chap. 21, pp. 162-63 (EW, 3: 201-3); chap. 25, pp. 192, 195
(EW, 3: 242-43, 246-47); chap. 27, p. 219 (EW, 3: 282); chap. 30, p. 258 (EW, 3: 340); De
Homine, p. 68 (LW, 2: 115-16); Behemoth,pp. 3, 23, 43, 70, 155, 158-60; EW, 7: 399.
90. Leviathan,chap. 18, p. 141 (EW, 3: 169);chap. 30, pp. 250, 254 (EW, 3: 327, 333).
91. Ibid., chap. 19, p. 144 (EW, 3: 174);chap. 30, p. 258 (EW, 3: 340); Behemoth,p. 142.
92. DeCive, p. 267 (EW, 2:178); Leviathan,chap.27, pp. 221,224-26 (EW, 3: 285,290-91);
chap. 30, pp. 253-54 (EW, 3: 332-33); see also chap. 15, pp. 118-19 (EW, 3: 139).
93. On the sovereign'sduty see De Cive,pp. 169, 177, 223 (EW, 2: 68, 76, 128);Leviathan,
chap. 17, p. 132 (EW, 3: 158);chap. 18, pp. 134, 137 (EW, 3: 159, 163-64); chap. 19, p. 143
(EW, 3: 173); chap. 25, p. 195 (EW, 3: 246); chap. 26, p. 200 (EW, 3: 254). On defense see
Elements, p. 184; De Cive, pp. 260-62 (EW, 2: 169-71); Leviathan, chap. 18, pp. 138-39 (EW,
(EW, 3: 195); chap. 21, p. 167 (EW, 3: 208); chap. 29, p. 237 (EW, 3: 308).
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99. The quotationis from Behemoth,p. 40. See also ibid., pp. 14, 16-18, 20, 40-41, 148;
see also Leviathan,chap. 29, pp. 237-38 (EW, 3: 309); chap. 30, pp. 252-53 (EW, 3: 331-32);
chap. 46, p. 482 (EW, 3: 670); chap. 47, pp. 497-98 (EW, 3: 693-95); "Review,"pp. 510-11
(EW, 3: 713); EW, 7: 399-400.
100. Elements, p. 184; De Cive, p. 267 (EW, 2: 177);Leviathan,chap. 24, p. 187 (EW, 3:
235-36); chap. 29, p. 245 (EW, 3: 321).
101. Leviathan,chap. 20, p. 155 (EW, 3: 191), and chap. 24, p. 187 (EW, 3: 236); De Cive,
pp. 217, 267 (EW, 2: 121, 177).
102. De Cive, p. 267 (EW, 2: 177);Leviathan,chap. 29, p. 245 (EW, 3: 321).
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