Hobbes and Hypothetical Consent
| Published date | 01 December 1975 |
| Author | Alan Zaitchik |
| Date | 01 December 1975 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1975.tb00084.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
HOBBES
AND HYPOTHETICAL CONSENT*
ALAN
ZAITCHIK
Ben-Gurion
University
of
the Negev
I
IN
a
recent articleZ Patrick Riley has argued persuasively that Hobbes’ ‘voluntar-
istic’ views regarding consent and contract do not cohere with his ‘deterministic’
account of the will. The sheer weight of textual evidence Riley brings to bear
certainly must discourage one from attempting to remove the contradiction.
Nonetheless, in this paper
I
should like to suggest a reading
of
Hobbes, at any rate
of much of what Hobbes said, that renders the discrepancy manageable. This read-
ing involves an exploration
of
two different types
of
‘consent’ theories: actual
consent and hypothetical consent the~ries.~
First let
us
examine what Hobbes said regarding the will. In a well-known
passage Hobbes rejects the scholastic definition
of
will
as
rational appetite
and
goes on
to
claim that the will is merely ‘the last appetite in deliberati~n’.~ Delibera-
tion, it will be recalled, is not the undetermined rational evaluation of alternatives
but is, rather, the pIay
of
appetites
and
aversions
(or
fears),s
this ‘play’ being
a
mechanistically determined affair.
Not that liberty is thus precluded; in another well-known passage6 Hobbes
says that
‘liberty
and
necessity
are consistent’, only those acts that involve the
interference of some external
force
or impediment being ‘involuntary’. Where there
is
no ‘impediment
to
motion’ there
is
liberty.
When
there is no compulsion, but the strength
of
temptation to do an evil action, being
greater than the motives to abstain, necessarily determines him to the doing
of
it,
yet
he
deliberates whilst sometimes the motives to do, sometimes the motives
to
forbear, are
working on him, and consequently he electeth what
he
will.’
Talk of
motives
calls for a distinction between
reasons
and
causes,
but there is no
room for such
a
distinction in Hobbes’ mechanical psychology
of
appetites and
aversions, as Bishop Bramhall noted long ago.8 Rather, we must take Hobbesian
‘motives’ as mere appetites or aversions, and the view must rest on something
like the following.
*
I
wish
to
thank
M.
Morgan,
J.
Samet,
G.
Dworkin,
and
especially
J. J.
Thomson
for
many
helpful
discussions
concerning
the
topics
addressed
in
this
paper.
P.
Riley,
‘Will
and
Legitimacy
in
the
Philosophy
of
Hobbes:
Is
he
a
Consent Theorist?
in
Political Studies,
December
1973.
Hanna
Pitkin
makes
this
distinction
in
her
seminal
‘Obligation
and
Consent
1’,
in
American
Political Science Review,
Vol.
59,
1965.
T.
Hobbes,
Leviathan
(Oakeshott
edition)
(Oxford,
1957),
p.
38.
All
references
to
Leviathan
are
to
this
edition
unless
noted otherwise.
5For
example,
see
Leviathan,
XXI,
XLVI;
Hobbes,
The Elements ofLaw,
ed.
Tonnies
(Cambridge,
1928),
XI1
(cited
henceforth
as
Elements);
Hobbes,
Liberty, Necessity,
and
Chance
in
Hobbes’
Engrish
Works,
ed.
Molesworth
(London,
1841),
Vol.
V,
p.
80
(cited
below
as
LNC).
What then shall we make
of
passages such as the following:
Leviathan,
pp.
137-8.
LNC.
pp.
272-3.
LNC,
pp.
278-9
et passim.
Political
Smdies.
Vol.
-I,
No.
4
(475-465)
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