Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Cases in the Law of Nature (review)

Sharon Lloyd's new book on Hobbes is one of the most significant in the last twenty-five years. She presents an original thesis about the foundation of Hobbes's moral philosophy, namely, that his basic moral principle is what she calls the "reciprocity theorem": "From our common definition of man as rational, Hobbes argues that we won't count a person as rational unless he can formulate and is willing to offer, at least post hoc, what he regards as justifying reasons for his conduct (and beliefs)" (4; see also 219–20). Three features of this explanation should be highlighted. The first is that she appreciates the role of definition in Hobbes's scientific moral philosophy; scientific propositions are theorems deduced from definitions. The second is that rationality is an important component of these deductions. The third, and the crucial one for her book, is that moral reasoning is essentially first-person reasoning. More needs to be said about the second and third features. I begin with the third.

While it may initially appear paradoxical, Lloyd does not accept the common interpretation that Hobbes is an egoist even though first-person reasoning is the foundation of morality (see her Ideals as Interests [Cambridge, 1992]). Egoism depends upon the belief that the satisfaction of one's own self-interested desires is of the essence of human action. But arguing from a first-person perspective is independent of desires, as indicated by her explanation of the justification of government: "Because we would judge it unreasonable of others to whom we have no special obligations to condemn us for directing our actions by our own private judgment rather than deferring to theirs, the reciprocity theorem requires us to grant a universal right of private judgment" (4, my italics). It is as if the universal application of the laws of nature derives from the conjunction of the reasonings that individuals perform from the first-person perspective. Alternatively, it is a kind of universal generalization from an arbitrarily selected individual. This brings us to the second feature, rationality.

Implicit in the definition of a human being as a rational animal is the idea of reason itself, which classically held that reason applies universally to essentially connected elements. Consequently, the reason that reasoning from the first-person perspective yields the right law of nature is that reason applies universally. In other words, reason itself in my opinion is more foundational than the first-person reasoning.

Lloyd's book consists of three parts. Some key aspects of Part One have just been discussed. In Part Two, she defends the view that the complete definition of a law of nature is "a rule found out by reason" on the grounds that Hobbes's formulation of what others would consider the specific difference of the definitions varies. When Hobbes describes the scope of the laws as being morality or their function to produce peace, he is talking about their scope or function, not giving their definition (101–6). But, one may object, if a law of nature is any rule found out by reason, then the rule that a human being should eat to survive would be a law of nature and not only a physical law (cf. 103). Defining a human being in different places as an animal that speaks, or lives in a polis, or has a sense of humor does not entail that one thinks that the complete definition of a human being is that it is an animal.

Lloyd convincingly argues that the goal of the laws of nature is to achieve the common good, not to guarantee that everyone who follows them will preserve her own life (110–50). She criticizes the most important rival views leading up to her own derivations of the first law of nature, "the Universal Right of Nature," and "the duty to submit to government," in thirty-five...