Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART ONE MORAL PHILOSOPHY, METHOD AND MATTER
- PART TWO FROM PSYCHOLOGY TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY
- PART THREE FROM MORAL PHILOSOPHY TO CIVIL PHILOSOPHY
- 6 Self-Effacing Natural Law and the Duty to Submit to Government
- 7 Fools, Hypocrites, Zealots, and Dupes: Civic Character and Social Stability
- 8 The Unity of Practical Wisdom
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - The Unity of Practical Wisdom
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART ONE MORAL PHILOSOPHY, METHOD AND MATTER
- PART TWO FROM PSYCHOLOGY TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY
- PART THREE FROM MORAL PHILOSOPHY TO CIVIL PHILOSOPHY
- 6 Self-Effacing Natural Law and the Duty to Submit to Government
- 7 Fools, Hypocrites, Zealots, and Dupes: Civic Character and Social Stability
- 8 The Unity of Practical Wisdom
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.
(Martel, Life of Pi, 298)Hobbes understood that human lives are always less and always more than exercises in the individual pursuit of narrow self-interest. Although truly “generous natures” may be rare, rarer still is the person who does not find much of her life directed by her beliefs about her religious duties and moral obligations, her affectionate attachments, her sense of pride and desire to be esteemed, all operating alongside of, and sometimes pulling apart from, her narrow self-interests in temporal physical survival and material comfort. Unfortunately, these natural motivations often bring us into conflict with others, and when we hold transcendent interests in acting on them, our ensuing actions may destabilize the basic social framework that makes possible an environment conducive to the exercise of anyone's effective agency, including our own. If we were motivated solely by considerations of narrow self-interest, society could be effectually coordinated, and domestic peace maintained perpetually, by brute governmental force. The complexities of human nature being what they are, however, only a society that enjoys a critical mass of consensus in the judgment that deference to the government is licensed by the requirements of morality, honor, and affirmed religion will remain stable for long.
Hobbes develops a normative system intended to harmonize these various motivations, both within the individual and among citizens.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas HobbesCases in the Law of Nature, pp. 356 - 410Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009