Democratical Gentlemen and the Lust for Mastery

• Author: Brandon P. Turner,Daniel J. Kapust
• Published date: 01 August 2013
• Date: 01 August 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0090591713485445
• Subject Matter: Symposium: The Republican Inheritance Reconsidered

Political Theory

41(4) 648 –675

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DOI: 10.1177/0090591713485445

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Symposium: The Republican Inheritance Reconsidered

Democratical Gentlemen

and the Lust for Mastery:

Status, Ambition, and

the Language of Liberty

in Hobbes’s Political

Thought

Daniel J. Kapust1 and Brandon P. Turner2

Abstract

Neorepublican treatments of Hobbes argue that his conception of liberty was

deliberately developed to counter a revived and Roman-rooted republican

theory of liberty. In doing so, Hobbes rejects republican liberty, and, with it,

Roman republicanism. We dispute this narrative and argue that rather than

rejecting Roman liberty, per se, Hobbes identifies and attacks a language

of liberty, Roman in character, often abused by ambitious persons. This is

possible because Roman liberty—and, by extension, Hobbes’s relationship to

it—is more complex than neorepublican authors have allowed. Drawing on

Roman sources, along with Hobbes’s major works, we argue that Hobbes’s

theory of liberty owes much to his engagement with Roman sources, and

that this theory speaks to the egalitarian elements in his political thought.

Keywords

Thomas Hobbes, Roman political thought, republicanism, liberty, English

political thought

1University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

2Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Daniel J. Kapust, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison,

110 Baldwin Hall, 1050 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

Email: djkapust@wisc.edu

485445PTX41410.1177/0090591713485445Political TheoryKapust and Turner

research-article2013

Kapust and Turner 649

Philosophical republicanism is a significant recent development in political

theory, and Hobbes’s theory of liberty plays a central role in republican nar-

ratives. Scholars such as Skinner and Pettit argue that Hobbes’s theory of

liberty overtook a republican theory, which held liberty possible only in self-

determining communities ruled by law—that is, republics.1 For Hobbes,

however, freedom (as he puts it in Leviathan) is the same in Luca or

Constantinople, having nothing to do with political self-determination.

Hobbesian liberty is negative: it “signifieth (properly) the absence of

Opposition,” measuring merely the range for unimpeded motion.2 According

to these theorists, negative and republican views of liberty clashed in seven-

teenth-century England as figures such as Harrington and Milton revived

Machiavelli’s republicanism, and as Parliament’s defenders turned to ancient

republics—and especially Rome—for guidance. Hobbes developed his nega-

tive view “in conscious reaction to the republican theory of liberty” in what

Skinner calls an “epoch-making moment in the history of Anglophone politi-

cal thought.”3

We critique this narrative, arguing that Hobbes does not reject Roman

liberty per se. Instead, Hobbes, who knew Roman sources well, identifies

and attacks a language of liberty, Roman in character, rhetorically deployed

by ambitious persons to conceal their true purposes. In doing so, he offers

an account of what he takes liberty to mean, emphasizing equal subjection

rather than political efficacy, linking the latter to a desire for mastery. This

move on Hobbes’s part is possible because Roman liberty—and, by exten-

sion, Hobbes’s relationship to it—is more complicated than neorepublican

authors have allowed. Recognizing a tension within the Roman language of

liberty, through which the elite-driven conception of liberty threatens to

erode the equal liberty of all, Hobbes describes noninterference as a kind of

liberty compatible with equal subjection—and, in particular, equal subjec-

tion that protects all subjects from ambitious elites and each other. Hobbes’s

theory of liberty owes much to his engagement with Roman sources, and

speaks to the egalitarian elements in his political thought. Our argument

thus has implications beyond debates about Hobbes and republicanism,

going to the core issue of how his theory of liberty, and his criticisms of

those who link liberty with self-determination, connect to his account of

human equality.

We make this case in four sections. In the first section, we discuss Skinner’s

argument concerning Hobbes and republican liberty. In the second part, we

explore the diverse and status-based uses of libertas in Roman sources, sug-

gesting that liberty’s use depends on status and rhetorical context. We high-

light two uses of libertas—one popular, linked to protection (especially

protection from elites), and one elite, linked to political efficacy. We present