Abstract
Hobbes’s Leviathan is among the first philosophical texts to provide a systematic argument concerning the crucial role of fear in shaping social institutions, and to examine how this emotion may be manipulated for social control. Hobbes’s political ‘remedy’ for social chaos is the establishment of a powerful sovereign capable of enforcing a strong political system by using the fear of social punishment. It is argued that Hobbes’s political construction does not help to reduce human fears, since it basically consists in a strong state allegedly able to reduce anxiety to ‘tolerable’ levels, but in which the ‘horizon of expectations’ is stabilised by fear.
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Notes
- 1.
In keeping with previous editions, the Oxford version used in this chapter (Hobbes 1996) numbers each head paragraph with a new run of Arabic numerals for each chapter. Thus “1.15.34” means Part 1, Chapter 15, head 34.
- 2.
In his book on fear, Corey Robin considers Hobbes as the philosopher who formulated the most coherent political account of fear, as well as a “great visionary” on the problem of social and political fear (Robin 2004, p. 29).
- 3.
Contracts refer to the transfer of individual rights to the Leviathan, with the assumption that citizens will obtain safety in return. The promise of reciprocal benefits between citizens and state constitute a covenant (Hobbes 1889) (Elements 1.8–9).
- 4.
As noted by Kavka (1986, p. 80) fear of death is a “vital premise” for Hobbes’s argumentation about anarchy and the state.
- 5.
In the state of nature people “avoid that which is hurtful; but most of all that terrible enemy of nature, death” (Elements I.14.6). It is interesting that here, Hobbes seems to consider any death as an enemy of nature, like a target to be vanquished, rather than a natural and irreversible event. This use of rhetoric, I believe, helps to construe fear of death as the most catastrophic event of human life. In other words, if death is rationally considered as the end of life, it can be accepted by some without much fear, such as in the case of the Stoics of antiquity. On the other hand, Hobbes considers death (or at least violent death) as an enemy to be avoided (see also footnote 220).
- 6.
Examples, proposing a mythical “golden age” of civilization abound in the works of many philosophers, from Seneca to Suarez (Zagorin 2009). Any later social contract philosophers, like Locke and Rousseau, had more benign understandings of the state of nature.
- 7.
“For there is no such Finis Ultimus (utmost aim) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest good) …Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire, from one object to another…” (Leviathan 1.11.2), “for as to have no desire, is to be dead” (Leviathan 1.8.35).
- 8.
“That the object of man’s desire, is not to enjoy once onely, and for once instant of time; but to assure forever, the way of his future desire” (Leviathan 1.11.2).
- 9.
Hobbes’ concept of anxiety is of an indefinite worry for the future (the “Anxiety of the time to come” (Leviathan, Section 2, Religion, 52), whereas fear is defined as an “Aversion with opinion of Hurt from the object” (Leviathan 1.6.25) (italics in the original).
- 10.
“…there is no reason why any man, trusting to his own strength, should conceive himself made by nature above others. They are equals, who can do equal things one against the other” (Hobbes 1972) (De Cive 1.3).
- 11.
“the characters of man’s heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are eligible onely to him that searcheth hearths” (Leviathan, Introduction, p. 20).
- 12.
The right of nature is “the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature, that is to say, of his own life, and consequently of doing anything which, in his own judgment and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto” (Hobbes 1972) (De Cive 1.7).
- 13.
“Therefore the first foundation of natural Right is this, that every man as much as in him lies endeavour to protect his life and members” (De Cive 1.7).
- 14.
“…to seek peace and follow it”; otherwise, “By all means we can, to defend our selves.” (Leviathan 1.14.64).
- 15.
Laws are “mere words”, and “Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all” (Leviathan 2.17.85).
- 16.
“…appetite seizeth upon a present good without foreseeing the greater evils that necessarily attach to it” (De Homine 12.1).
- 17.
“Anxiety for the future time, disposeth men to inquire into the cause of things: because the knowledge of them maketh men the better able to order the present to their best advantage” (Leviathan 1.11.51).
- 18.
Every human “…continually endeavoureth to secure himselfe against the evill he feares, and procure the good he desireth, not to be in a perpetuall solicitude of the time to come” (Leviathan 1.12.52).
- 19.
“So that every man, especially those that are over provident, are in a state like that of Prometheus” (Leviathan 1.12.52) [my italics].
- 20.
The myth of Prometheus is described by various Greek poets and philosophers. I have decided to use Aeschylus’ version (Aeschylus 1961) given that this is one of the most commonly associated with Hobbes’ Leviathan.
- 21.
The meaning of Prometheus in Greek is ‘fore thinker’.
- 22.
Prometheus is always looking to the future in a state of anguish “for pain present and pain to come”, “no torment will come unforeseen”, and “whatever comes, brings fear” (Aeschylus 1961) (Prometheus 441, 461).
- 23.
Ahrensdorf even suggests that Hobbes tried to blur the fear of death to such an extent that death could be considered an almost avoidable event, a sickness to be cured by the Leviathan. Ahrensdorf makes reference to Hobbes’s statements such as death being “the chiefest of natural evils” (De Cive 1.7), and “the terrible enemy of nature” (Hobbes 1994) (De Corpore Politico 1.1.6).
- 24.
“…a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in death. And the cause of this, is…because [man] cannot assure the power and means to live well…without the acquisition of more” (Leviathan 1.11.46).
- 25.
I used Mitchell’s translation of The Book of Job (Mitchell 1987).
- 26.
This is conveyed in Leviathan (2.31.188): “And Job, how earnestly does he expostulate with God, for the many Afflictions he suffered, notwithstanding his Righteousnesse? This question in the case of Job, is decided by God himselfe, not by arguments derived from Job’s Sinne, but his own Power.” In the biblical story, the Leviathan is described as a powerful beast, “Nothing on earth is his equal—a creature without fear. He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud” (Job 41:1–34). Hobbes construed the Leviathan as a monster subdued by God’s omniscient power and transformed the Leviathan into a powerful ruler not to be understood, but to be feared and obeyed.
- 27.
“…the Canonization of Saints, and declaring who are Martyrs…induce simple men into an obstinacy against the Laws and Commands of the Civill Sovereaigns even to death…” (Leviathan 2.47.383).
- 28.
“If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it Prognostiques and Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which crafty ambitions persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted that they are for civill Obedience” (Leviathan 1.2.7–8).
- 29.
Hobbes’s materialism is thoroughly discussed in Mintz’s The Hunting of Leviathan (Mintz 1970, p. 63). Materialism is the theory that everything that exists in the world is body, and entities considered immaterial such as space and time are attributes or “phantasms” of the mind, itself a material phenomenon constituted by physical motion.
- 30.
Blits (1989, p. 417) considers that “more than any philosopher, Thomas Hobbes emphasises the determining power of fear,” as it is “both the sole origin of civil society…and the only reliable means of its preservation.”
- 31.
Guinzburg claims that this form of manipulation is rife in contemporary states: “We live in a world where states threaten terror, spread terror, are sometimes the target of terror. A world inhabited by those who try to steal the venerable, powerful weapons of religion, as well as by those who use religion as a weapon. A world in which huge Leviathans either move frantically or squat waiting. A world not too different from the one Hobbes imagined and dissected” (Ginzburg 2008, p. 14).
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Starkstein, S. (2018). Thomas Hobbes and Fear: The Political Use of a Human Emotion. In: A Conceptual and Therapeutic Analysis of Fear. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78349-9_5
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