Introduction to History of Philosophy
Introduction to Modern Philosophy
Spring 2015
Patterson
Week 1: Hobbes on human nature
Life it selfe is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more
than 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
his Leviathan to 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 of Leviathan (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 their
whole 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 because going, 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 small beginnings 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 summe
of 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 Appetite in
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 evill
effect 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
such Finis 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 and
restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. (L 11)
