E-Book Overview
Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.
E-Book Content
PREFACE HOBBES'S political doctrine presents the unusual feature that it has given rise to an 'official' interpretation, in terms of which, for example, students are expected to show their proficiency in the schools, and at the same time, a general suspicion that the text itself bears only a very approximate relationship to it--a situation which appears to have persisted in spite of the fact that both the 'official' interpretation and the grounds of suspicion have changed from time to time. It is not that Hobbes has been regarded as a particularly careless thinker; he is not obviously more contradictory than say Locke, nor more ambiguous than Rousseau, yet here, commentary has been more successful in defining the sphere within which interpretations may legitimately differ. The root of the paradox in the case of Hobbes lies in the fact that in his moral and political philosophy there is most doubt about his most central themes, and in particular about the construction to be put upon his theory of moral and political obligation. In view of this uncertainty, it is surprising that while attention has been given to Hobbes's theory of the physical world, for example, or to his psychological assumptions or his contribution to contractarian thought, so little has been written upon his theory of obligation. It is, therefore, not inappropriate that this subject should be re-examined, and if the present work has made any contribution towards such a problem, it will have served its purpose. The thesis of this book, substantially as it appears here, was written in 1949 on the strength of reading the Leviathan a number of times until its argument assumed some coherence. It remained to set this thesis against the rest of Hobbes's English and Latin works. Although I consider that there is sufficient support in the Leviathan for the views expressed below, I have chosen for exposition those parts of Hobbes's -vii-
text which appeared to state his position most clearly and concisely, without regard to their source. There is some variation to be found in the different versions of his political doctrine, but it is of secondary importance, and I could find no evidence of a development or change in his thought, of which special note had to be taken for the purpose in hand. I have made a more extensive use of direct quotation from Hobbes's text than is customary. This appeared to be more desirable than the alternatives. To have relied entirely upon page references to the text would have left the reader with the acrobatic task of manipulating several of Molesworth's volumes in addition to the present one. A considerable use of paraphrase appeared also to have disadvantages. Apart from the fact that I could not hope to emulate Hobbes's style and so should allow him to speak for himself as far as possible, the reader who is well acquainted with Hobbes's works can read the argument more easily and quickly where he can recognize the relevant passages at a glance, than where he must stumble through a more or less faithful paraphrase. I have attempted to construct an interpretation of Hobbes's theory of obligation out of his various writings, and have been concerned entirely with his statements and the inner coherence of his doctrine. No explanation is offered, therefore, of the place of this doctrine in the history of political thought, nor is it made to 'live' as a contribution to the theory of the twentieth-century Welfare State. I had hoped originally to provide some historical explanation of Hobbes's views, and such material as I ha