Hobbes's Contribution to International Thought, and the Contribution of International Thought to Hobbes
2014; Routledge; Volume: 41; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01916599.2014.948289
ISSN1873-541X
Autores Tópico(s)Global Peace and Security Dynamics
ResumoSummaryThe aim of this article is to explore in what respects Thomas Hobbes may be regarded as foundational in international thought. It is evident that in contemporary international relations theory he has become emblematic of a realist tradition, but as David Armitage suggests this was not always the case. I want to suggest that it is only in a very limited sense that he may be regarded as a foundational thinker in international relations, and for reasons very different from those for which he has become infamous. In the early histories of international thought Hobbes is a cameo figure completely eclipsed by Grotius. In early histories of political literature, the classic jurists were often acknowledged for their remarkable contributions to international relations, but Hobbes is referred to exclusively as a philosopher of a positvist ethics and absolute sovereignty. It is among the jurists themselves that Hobbes is believed to have made important conceptual moves which set the problems for international thought for the next three centuries. He conflates natural law and the law of nations, arguing that they differ only in their subjects—the former individuals, the latter nations or states. This entailed transforming the sovereign into an artificial man, not in the Roman Law sense of an entity capable of suing and being sued; rather, as a subject not party to a contract, but created by a contract among individuals who confer upon it authority. This subject is not constrained by the contractors, but is, as individuals were in the state of nature, constrained by the equivalent of natural law, the law of nations in the international context. Throughout, the methodological implications are drawn for modern historians of political thought and political philosophers who venture to theorise about international relations.Keywords: Sovereigntythe statenatural lawlaw of nationsinternational juristsHobbesGrotiusPufendorfVattelRawlsView correction statement:Corrigendum AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Knud Haakonssen and the National University of Singapore for the invitation to contribute to the project and for funding my participation.Notes1 James Mackintosh, A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, edited by John G. Marvin (Boston, MA, 1843, first published in 1799)2 Michael Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes (Cambridge, 1933); R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, revised edition, (Oxford, 1993).3 David Armitage, Foundations of Modern International Thought (Cambridge, 2013), chapter 4.4 Chris Brown, ‘International Relations as Political Theory’, in International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki and Steve Smith (Oxford, 2007), 34–51 (49); Howard Williams, International Relations as Political Theory (Milton Keynes, 1992).5 Armitage, Foundations of Modern International Thought, 60.6 Martin Wight, ‘Why Is There No International Theory?’, in Diplomatic Investigations Essays in the Theory of International Politics, edited by Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (London, 1966), 20. The analogy which David Armitage draws between the paucity of international theory and the history of international thought is a misleading one. Wight was complaining of the paucity of ‘primary sources’ and was simply wrong, whereas Armitage is complaining of the paucity of intellectual history in this area of study; see Armitage, Foundations of Modern International Thought, 2–3.7 James Tully, ‘Introduction’, in Samuel von Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, edited by James Tully (Cambridge, 1991).8 Williams, International Relations as Political Theory; R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge, 1993); David Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations from Thucydides to the Present (Oxford, 1998); David Boucher, The Limits of Ethics in International Relations (Cambridge, 2009); Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace, (Oxford, 1999); Beate Jahn, The Cultural Construction of International Relations: The Invention of the State of Nature (London, 2000); Edward Keene, International Political Thought: A Historical Introduction (Cambridge, 2005); Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme, edited by Duncan Bell (Oxford, 2009).9 Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth or Method (London, 1975).10 Robert Ward, Enquiry into the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations in Europe, from the time of the Greeks and Romans, to the Age of Grotius, 2 vols (London, 1795); Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations. This was an introduction to a course of lectures Mackintosh gave in 1799 (and repeated at the East India Company College in London on his return from Bombay in 1812), designed to distil the principles of the law of nations ‘from the mass of undigested learning, and presented […] in a most attractive form’; see Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, xxi. Armitage also mentions Henry Wheaton in three contexts.11 F. Melian Stawell, The Growth of International Thought (London, 1929).12 Ward, Enquiry, I, xxxiii, xlvi; Ward, Enquiry, II, 2,13 Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, 63–64.14 Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, 55.15 Stawell, Growth of International Thought, 7.16 Stawell, Growth of International Thought, 127–28.17 Ward, Enquiry, II, 622.18 Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, 59.19 Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, 67–68.20 Ward, Enquiry, I, 4–5, 7.21 Ward, Enquiry, I, 73; Ward, Enquiry, II, 611.22 Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, 80.23 Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, 81.24 Stawell, The Growth of International Thought, 146–47. Elsewhere he suggests that Kant leaned more towards Hobbes than Rousseau in portraying the savage state as a war of all against all; see Stawell, The Growth of International Thought, 196.25 Michael Oakeshott, Hobbes on Civil Association (Oxford, 1975), 132–33.26 John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, edited by H. L. A. Hart (London, 1968), 279, note.27 Robert Blakey, The History of Political Literature from the Earliest Times, 2 vols (London, 1855), II, 142.28 Blakey, History of Political Literature, II, 136.29 Blakey, History of Political Literature, II, 322.30 Blakey, History of Political Literature, II, 325.31 Blakey, History of Political Literature, II, 330.32 Blakey, History of Political Literature, II, 330.33 Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to The Principles of Morals and Legislation (Whitefish, MT, 2005, first published in 1781), 329.34 Dugald Stewart, Dissertation First: A General View of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical and Political Philosophy, Since The Revival of Letters (Whitefish, MT, 2009, first published in 1824), 85.35 Stewart, Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical and Political Philosophy, 84–85.36 Stewart, Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical and Political Philosophy, 91.37 Stewart, Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical and Political Philosophy, 85.38 W. E. H. Lecky, for example, is typical in portraying Hobbes as a nascent utilitarian. Hobbes, he claims, equates the origin of virtue with self-interest. In deliberating what should done, a man asks himself only whether it is more advantageous for him to do a certain something or not to do it. Hobbes's opinions on the origins of virtue, Lecky suggests, have been taken up with little variation by ‘the narrow school of Utilitarians’. In our natural condition what one man regards as good is no better than what another thinks good. In the natural condition there is no morality. It is to the advantage of each to be subject to constraints in order to minimise conflict and maximise life expectancy and commodious living. Lecky argues: ‘According to Hobbes, the disposition of man is so anarchical, and the importance of restraining it so transcendent, that absolute government alone is good; the commands of the sovereign are supreme, and must therefore constitute the law of morals’; see W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (London, 1913, first published in 1869), 7, 11.39 Stewart, Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical and Political Philosophy, 40–43.40 Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, second edition, 3 vols (first published in 4 vols) (London, 1843).41 Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, II, 528–39.42 Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, II, 541–86.43 Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, II, 586.44 Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, II, 580.45 Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, II, 76.46 Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, II, 78.47 Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, II, 543.48 Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, II, 540. This is also the view of Blakey, who quotes from this passage in Hallam; see Blakey, History of Political Literature, 143.49 W. A. Dunning, A History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu (London, 1905), 133.50 Dunning, History of Political Theories, 153.51 Dunning, History of Political Theories, 318.52 Dunning, History of Political Theories, 287.53 John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 103.54 Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, 10, 13, 21, 54. See also David Boucher, ‘Uniting What Right Permits with What Interest Prescribes: Rawls's Law of Peoples in Context’, in Rawls's Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia?, edited by Rex Martin and David A. Reidy (Oxford, 2006), 19–37.55 See, for example, John Bowle, Hobbes and His Critics: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Constitutionalism (London, 1951). See also the collected essays on Hobbes by Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, 3 vols (Cambridge, 2002), III; Noel Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes (Oxford, 2002). The most important study is Jon Parkin, Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700 (Cambridge, 2007).56 Thomas Hobbes, Man and Citizen, edited by Bernard Gert (London, 1978); Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited by Richard Tuck (Cambridge, 1991).57 Armitage, Foundations of Modern International Thought, 59: ‘The relative silence of Hobbes and of his philosophical commentators on this matter [the external relations of Leviathan] contrasts starkly with his canonical position among the founding fathers of international thought’. As we have seen, however, he did not have this status among historians of international thought, nor among historians of political thought.58 Hobbes, Leviathan, 87–88.59 Hobbes, Leviathan, 92. Confer Thomas Hobbes, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 74; Thomas Hobbes, De Cive, in Man and Citizen, 123.60 Hobbes, De Cive, in Man and Citizen, 166–67.61 Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Genesis (Chicago, IL, 1963), 22.62 Sir Robert Filmer, Observations Concerning the Originall of Government, upon Mr Hobs ‘Leviathan’, Mr Milton against Salmasius, H. Grotius ‘De Jure Belli’ in Patriacha and Other Writings, edited by Jóhann P. Sommerville (Cambridge, 1991), 184–234.63 Hobbes, Leviathan, 67–68.64 Hobbes, A Dialogue Between a Philosopher and A Student of The Common Laws of England, edited by Joseph Cropsey (Chicago, IL, 1971), 159.65 Hobbes, De Cive, in Man and Citizen, 217.66 See Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations, chapter 7.67 Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 22.68 Hobbes, Dialogue Between a Philosopher and a Student, 57.69 Hobbes, Elements of Law, 190.70 Hobbes, Man and Citizen, 275. Compare Hobbes, Leviathan, 244.71 I draw upon some of the examples used in Camilla Boisen and David Boucher, ‘Hobbes and the Subjection of International Relations to Law and Morality’, in International Political Theory After Hobbes, edited by Raia Prokhovnik and Gabriella Slomp (London, 2011), 81–101.72 Samuel von Pufendorf, The Law of Nature and of Nations, translated by Basil Kennet (London, 1717), book II, chapter III, section xxiii; Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, The Principles of Natural Law and Politic Law, edited by Petter Korkman (Indianapolis, IN, 2006), 273.73 Barbayerac, in Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations, 150, Footnotenote 2.74 Burlamaqui, Principles of Natural Law, 273–74.75 Samuel von Pufendorf, The Elements of Universal Jurisprudence, translated by W. A. Oldfather (Oxford, 1931, first published in 1685), DEF XIII, 14; Pufendorf, On The Duty of Man and Citizen, book I, section 16; Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations, book II, chapter III, section xiii.76 Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations, book I, chapter II, section xi.77 The dictates of reason alone are not sufficient to oblige: ‘For to give those dictates of Reason the Force and Authority of Laws, there is need of proceeding on some other Principle, than what he [Hobbes] lays down’; see Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations, book II, chapter III, section xvi.78 Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations, book II, chapter III, section xix.79 Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations, book II, chapter III, section xx80 Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations, book II, chapter III, section xx.81 Burlamaqui, Principles of Natural Law, 131.82 Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations, book II, chapter III, section xxiii.83 Burlamaqui, Principles of Natural Law, 274.84 Armitage, Foundations of Modern International Thought, 68. Zouche was the Royalist Professor of Civil Law at Oxford.85 Samuel Rachel, Dissertations on The Law of Nature and of Nations (Washington, DC, 1916).86 Rachel, Dissertations on The Law of Nature and of Nations, sections vi and xiii.87 Boucher, The Limits of Ethics, chapter 3.88 Rachel, Dissertations on The Law of Nature and of Nations, section xxiii.89 Rachel, Dissertations on The Law of Nature and of Nations, section lxxxix.90 Rachel, Dissertations on The Law of Nature and of Nations, section xci.91 Rachel, Dissertations on The Law of Nature and of Nations, section xci.92 Rachel, Dissertations on The Law of Nature and of Nations, section cvii.93 Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law with a Sketch of the History of the Science, 2 vols (London, 1836), I, 38–39, 103; of the Jurists which Wheaton cites as contributors to, or sources, of international law, Grotius and Vattel are by far the most relied upon. Theodore Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law: Designed as an Aid in Teaching, and Historical Studies, third edition (New York, NY, 1871, first published in 1860), appendix I, 363; Woolsey talks of Pufendorf and not Hobbes in this regard.94 Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, edited by Béla Kapossy and Richard Whatmore (Indianapolis, IN, 2008), 9.95 Vattel, Law of Nations, 9.96 Jean Barbeyrac in Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, edited by Richard Tuck from the Jean Barbeyrac edition (Indianapolis, IN, 2005), book I, chapter I, section xiv, Footnotenote 3.97 Vattel, Law of Nations, 10.98 Austin, Province of Jurisprudence Determined, 143.99 Among them Sir Sherston Baker, First Steps in International Law: Prepared for the Use of Students (Boston, MA, 1899); see section 8, where he argues that customs which are unjust and in contravention of natural and Divine law have no binding force. That is not to say that such rules possess no validity within a system of rules.100 P. E. Corbett, ‘The Consent of States and the Sources of the Law of Nations’, British Yearbook of International Law, 6 (1925), 20–30 (21).101 See, for example, Martin Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions (London, 2002, first published in 1991). The realist tradition is exemplified by Machiavelli and Hobbes, the Grotian by Hugo Grotius, and the Revolutionary by Kant. In the posthumously published International Theory, Hedley Bull's own characterisation of the traditions precedes Wight's text. For a critique and alternative characterisation, see Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations.102 Walker, Inside/Outside.103 Hobbes, Leviathan, 111–12. See also Quentin Skinner, ‘Hobbes and the Purely Artificial Person of the State’, in Visions of Politics, III, 177–208.104 Hobbes, Leviathan, 114. Confer Hobbes, Leviathan, 284–85.105 See Ernest Barker, ‘Introduction’, in John Locke, David Hume, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract: Essays by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau (Oxford, 1961), viii–xliv; Otto Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society 1500–1800, translated by Ernest Barker (Cambridge, 1934); J. W. Gough, The Social Contract (Oxford, 1957), 43–48; Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford, 1975), essay III.106 Peter Pavel Remec, The Position of the Individual in International Law according to Grotius and Vattel (The Hague, 1960).107 Morality is not, for Pufendorf, a property of physical objects or motions, but an imposition of value by intelligence or reason upon them; see Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations, chapter 10.108 Burlamaqui, Principles of Natural Law, 272.109 Remec, The Position of the Individual in Natural Law.110 Christian Wolff, The Law of Nations Treated according to Scientific Method in which the Natural Law of Nations is Carefully Distinguished from that which is Voluntary, Stipulative and Customary, translated by Joseph H. Drake (Oxford, 1934), Prolegomena, section 3.111 Vattel, Law of Nations, Preliminaries, section 2.112 Mackintosh, Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, 46.
Referência(s)