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On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

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Re: On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

#21

Post by brudgers »

jszymborski wrote: post #19
brudgers wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what I meant, see my comments further down. Opposition is a superior right when faced with certain death at the direction of the sovereign. This has implications in terms of the relationship of Hobbes to political anarchy in cases where politcal anarchy opposes conscription as oppression by the state. [1] Then it becomes a matter of the degree to which death is certain. [1]: https://books.google.com/books?id=DiYl…

Glad you could clear that up! My inability to interpret your comment is only surpassed by my inability to interpret Hobbes ;)

I enjoyed these, http://philosophybites.com/hobbes/

Re: On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

#22

Post by apsophus »

brudgers wrote: post #4
rrggrr wrote: post #2

What is this doing on HN you may ask? I'm not the OP, but the Leviathan was a study on power and trade-offs. Hobbes would have been aghast at the largely unchecked power Facebook, Google, etc. hold. The absence of any social contract, one that is otherwise present between the individual and government, means these multinational corporations are free to (very effectively) compete with Governments for power, with littl…

The Hobbesian sovereign has only one source of authority, keeping the peace. To the degree multi-nationals keep the peace they have legitimate claims to Hobbesian sovereignty. I'm not saying that Hobbesian sovereignty is a good thing, just pointing to the philosophical mileposts. Locke != Hobbes The only time an individual has the right to oppose the Hobbesian Sovereign is on their way to the gallows. Otherwise, the…

Except that the whole point of Hobbes's sovereign is that there can be only one, because in his system divided sovereignty leads to anarchy. So any other entity that looks capable of sharing aspects of sovereignty with government is anathema to Hobbes - even if that entity also 'keeps the peace.'

Re: On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

#23

Post by jabretti »

brudgers wrote: post #20
hyperion2010 wrote: post #8

If Syria has taught is anything I hope it is that Hobbes is right -- however bad you think your current government is, civil war or revolution is worse.

The American Civil War suggests the opposite may be true when the "your" in "your government" starts to become unpacked. "All civil wars are bad" produces logical contradictions such as both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union were bad.

The US Civil War killed 620,000 people, and ruined the lives of many others. That's pretty freaking bad. On the upside, it freed about 3.9 million slaves, but really there should have been a less costly political solution to the slavery problem, as was found in every other country in the Americas at around the same time.

>"All civil wars are bad" produces logical contradictions such as both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union were bad.

The fall of the Soviet Union didn't occasion a Civil War.

Re: On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

#24

Post by brudgers »

jabretti wrote: post #23
brudgers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Civil War suggests the opposite may be true when the "your" in "your government" starts to become unpacked. "All civil wars are bad" produces logical contradictions such as both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union were bad.

The US Civil War killed 620,000 people, and ruined the lives of many others. That's pretty freaking bad. On the upside, it freed about 3.9 million slaves, but really there should have been a less costly political solution to the slavery problem, as was found in every other country in the Americas at around the same time. >"All civil wars are bad" produces logical contradictions such as both the rise and the fall of t…

Keeping in mind that this is a philosophical counter example regarding Hobbesian political philosophy. See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_cr...

Re: On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

#26

Post by wz1000 »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #8

If Syria has taught is anything I hope it is that Hobbes is right -- however bad you think your current government is, civil war or revolution is worse.

Ironically, the recent victories against ISIS in Syria are due in large part due to the efforts of YPG and YPJ, the Kurdish militias that make up most of the SDF The SDF is the preferred name used by US/Western media to reduce association with the PKK(Kurdish Workers Party), of which YPG/YPJ are military arms.

The PKK is the main political force behind Rojava or the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, a group of self governing cantons in Syria. These are the first significant truly democratic and secular developments in the region in a long time. It is also a bold experiment towards tolerance(Rojava is comprised of Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Syrian Turkmen and Yazidis as equal members) and gender equality,

The movement has strong anarchistic tendencies, and the PKKs leader Abdullah Öcalan(currently imprisoned in Turkey) is heavily influenced by American anarchist Murray Bookchin(though he later preferred not to use the term).

There is no central government, and it is a union of self governing cantons. The cantons are collectively managed through Athenian style direct democracy, with strong participation of all ethnic groups and women. The YPJ is the purely female counterpart to the YPG.

If Rojava succeeds, it could be an outcome exponentially better than the Ba'athist/Islamic Nationalist status quo. Even if ends up failing, it is a symbol of hope to me, hope that we as a species can radically rethink social relations, like the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, or Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan

Re: On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

#27

Post by ubernostrum »

brudgers wrote: post #17
ubernostrum wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a contract must be beneficial to both parties. Except this isn't Hobbes' position. In his system, the benefit to the populace as a whole occurs only once: at the time the sovereign is invested with authority, ending the "war of all against all". Once the sovereign has been given power, that's it. In Hobbes' system there are no further responsibilities on the sovereign's part to wield that power for a good purpose. Th…

The ongoing benefit of the social contract is that the sovereign keeps the peace. If the sovereign fails to keep the peace, the sovereign is no longer sovereign (in the Hobbesian sense of 'sovereign'). As Dennis the Peasant says "Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses." [1] That's why Leviathan's frontspiece [2] depicts the body sovereign as comprising many individuals rather than solid. [1]:…

Humor aside, Hobbes would not agree with you. He explicitly denies that the covenant can be breached by the sovereign, and explicitly denies that the people would have the right to remove or alter the government of the sovereign. Any principle of the sovereign "breaching" the covenant is non-Hobbesian, and probably a confusion with the theories of John Locke, which were radically different.

Re: On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

#28

Post by jacobush »

brudgers wrote: post #18
jszymborski wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I think the point trying to be made by that last sentence is that in a world ruled by a Hobbesian Sovereign, no single individual has the right to oppose the sovereign. Such rebellion in a Hobbesian world should and would be a punished as a capital offence.

Not what I meant, see my comments further down. Opposition is a superior right when faced with certain death at the direction of the sovereign. This has implications in terms of the relationship of Hobbes to political anarchy in cases where politcal anarchy opposes conscription as oppression by the state. [1] Then it becomes a matter of the degree to which death is certain. [1]: https://books.google.com/books?id=DiYl…

Are you saying that if the sovereign is trying to kill you, the sovereign overstepped its bounds, or mandate if you will, and you are morally right to oppose?

Re: On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan

#29

Post by abiox »

brudgers wrote: post #20
hyperion2010 wrote: post #8

If Syria has taught is anything I hope it is that Hobbes is right -- however bad you think your current government is, civil war or revolution is worse.

The American Civil War suggests the opposite may be true when the "your" in "your government" starts to become unpacked. "All civil wars are bad" produces logical contradictions such as both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union were bad.

> ... logical contradictions such as both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union were bad.

they can both be bad, it's just that "the bad" is different in each case.

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