Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- 1 Negative Association
- 2 “Carthage Must Be Saved”
- 3 Enemies at the Gates: Machiavelli's Return to the Beginnings of Cities
- 4 The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend: Negative Association and Reason of State
- 5 Survival through Fear: Hobbes's Problem and Solution
- 6 Hobbism
- 7 The Politics of Enmity
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Survival through Fear: Hobbes's Problem and Solution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- 1 Negative Association
- 2 “Carthage Must Be Saved”
- 3 Enemies at the Gates: Machiavelli's Return to the Beginnings of Cities
- 4 The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend: Negative Association and Reason of State
- 5 Survival through Fear: Hobbes's Problem and Solution
- 6 Hobbism
- 7 The Politics of Enmity
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It is true that the advantages of this life can be increased with other people's help. But this is much more effectively achieved by Dominion over others than by their help. Hence no one should doubt that, in the absence of fear, men would be more avidly attracted to domination than to society. One must therefore lay it down that the origin of large and lasting societies lay not in mutual human benevolence but in men's mutual fear.
– Thomas HobbesHowever else they may have felt about Machiavelli's views, reason of state theorists found themselves in the awkward position of having to concede, if only tacitly, the validity of his fundamental concern with the survival of the state. Yet, acceptance of this goal put many of these theorists in a difficult position. In Burke's words, these were “men who could neither accept reason of state nor do without it.” If the survival of the state is necessary, how far can one go to ensure it? When do measures of the kind proposed in The Prince become unacceptable? In some cases, such as those examined above, responses to Machiavelli's challenge took the form of essential agreement clothed in vocal polemic. In yet others, more innocuous theories with similar views were used as proxies. The most widespread tendency of this kind was the increasing interest in the histories of Tacitus, which had yielded a new variety of reason of state thought and, by the end of the sixteenth century, had led to the almost mechanical association of Tacitus with Machiavelli recorded by Botero in his dedication of The Reason of State.
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- Information
- Fear of Enemies and Collective Action , pp. 94 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007