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Hobbes the Bogeyman
Hobbes’s political philosophy is a casualty of our narrowing public discourse.
Every generation needs a bogeyman, an identifiable other, to help define who and what we are.
How much easier it is to say what we are not!
And for some time now, ours has been Thomas Hobbes. Not that he ever auditioned for the role. It would bemuse (and perhaps wryly amuse) him: he lived to ninety-one, loved life and was well-liked, skilled at bringing out the best in people. It’s funny how things turn out.
The reason for his cancellation is not just his Leviathan concept of “absolute power” (which we’ll turn to in a moment), but his entire approach to people and governance.
What is the purpose of politics? Hobbes asserts a narrow definition. Politics should satisfy certain basic, morally neutral needs only. It is not for politics to “improve” the populace it governs, or to organise people around a given set of principles.
What obligations do we owe to each other? The long and the short of it is — basically zero. For Hobbes, individuals have no natural duties toward one another, and there is no such thing as a “common good”.
