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that condition, but so may societies which are less remote…A state of nature is one into which
any civil society will lapse if government breaks down” (Curley 1994, xxi). In such cases,
people have complete freedom in the sense that they are free to pursue their appetites, limited
only by the power of others and by natural laws (though, these are relatively weak imperatives
because they are secondary to one’s natural right of self-preservation) (Hobbes XIV and XV).
However, the limitation on one’s freedom by others is likely to
be significant because
people in the state of nature have roughly equal physical and mental strength.
Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind that…the
weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or
by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself. And as to
the faculties of the mind…I find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of
strength. For prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all
men in those things they equally apply themselves unto. (
ibid
. XII 1 – 2).
People, in other words, have roughly equal
mental capacities and, though there are differences in
physical strength, even the weakest people can conspire to kill the strongest. In such a situation
no one is safe: the weakest can expect to be dominated, while the strongest must constantly fear
for their own safety. For Hobbes, then, the key problem with the state of nature is the
radically
decentralized nature of violence
:
it can come at anytime, from anyone and from any direction.
Indeed, the natural equality discussed above renders everyone constantly vulnerable and fearful
of others. For Tuck (2002, 69), the result is “a radical instability in the state of nature…The state
of nature thus becomes a state of war, savagery and degradation…” Or, as Hobbes (
ibid
. XIII 9)
puts it, that life in the state of nature is characterized by “continual fear and danger of violent
death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” This most famous passage
from
Leviathan
sets up the problem in the starkest of terms: Life without a state makes society
impossible and makes the lives of individuals
so consumed with fear, poverty and violence that
life is utterly unbearable.
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The question that Hobbes clearly sets up is: “How can we get out of this condition called
the state of nature so that we may have a life that is worth living?” The beauty of the Hobbesian
argument is precisely that his account of the “state of nature” makes it extraordinarily difficult to
resist his statist and centripetal logic. If the essential problem in the state of nature is that
violence is so widely dispersed that it is a consistently destabilizing force, then the solution is
simple: centralize society’s violence capacity in the state and isolate legitimate violence as only
that emanating from the Leviathan. While Hobbes does allow that one always retains his right to
self-preservation or defensive violence – “a man cannot lay down the right of
resisting them that
assault him by force, to take away his life” (
ibid
. XIV 8) – this use of violence constitutes the
exception, rather than the rule. In general, it is only the sovereign who has the legitimate and
unquestionable right to the use of violent force. And, certainly, violence can
never
be used
against the sovereign: “no man that hath sovereign power can justly be put to death, or otherwise
in any manner by his subjects punished” (
ibid
. XVIII 7). Thus, we can interpret Hobbes’
thinking here as exemplary of a centripetal logic: it pulls society’s capacity for violence toward
the center.
Hobbes, centripetal logic is on display with regards
to more than just violence, however.
Indeed, the crux of his argument for sovereignty follows the same general logic. If we are to
leave the state of nature, then the task is to create a “common power to keep [us] all in awe.”
Note in the following passage the emphasis on unification, on moving not just the capacity for
violence, but more broadly, the capacity for power to a single center.
The only way to erect such a common power…is [for people] to confer all their
power and strength upon one man,
or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce
all their wills, by plurality of wills, unto one will…and therein to submit their
wills, everyone to his will, and their judgments, to his judgment. This is more
than consent, or concord; it is
a real unity of them all, in one and the same person,
made by covenant of every man with every man, in such manner as if every man
