The Leviathan’s Conscience: Hobbesian Human Nature and Moral Judgment

• Published date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912917717817
• Date: 01 December 2017
• Author: John Branstetter
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917717817

Political Research Quarterly

2017, Vol. 70(4) 778 –789

© 2017 University of Utah

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1065912917717817

journals.sagepub.com/home/prq

Article

Among the most interesting of Hannah Arendt’s observa-

tions about Thomas Hobbes are those concerning the psy-

chological interiority of subjects dominated by the

Leviathan. While there has been extensive argument

about what kind of people inhabit the state of nature, less

attention has been given to the question of what kind of

people the Leviathan actively produces after its institu-

tion. Arendt noted that although Hobbes’s human beings

share an essential material constitution, he also clearly

recognized the possibilities for psychological transforma-

tion on both the individual and social levels.

Arendt claims that Hobbes’s response to the problems

of England’s 1640s was to philosophically legitimize an

entirely new way of viewing human nature. This new

view constituted people as apolitical subjects who no lon-

ger made independent moral judgments. Hobbes divorced

the public from the private, and by channeling people’s

endeavors into material self-interest, he eliminated any

resistance to state power. The refusal to think that Hobbes

allegedly engendered by means of this reconstitution lay

at the heart of twentieth-century totalitarianism’s worst

crimes. Similar to Jean Hampton’s “surrender of judg-

ment” model, the problem is not Hobbes’s stated prefer-

ence for a strong central authority on its own, but rather

his suggestion that such an authority requires a morally

and intellectually fettered population to make it work

(Hampton 1986, 122; Sreedhar 2010, 100). In Arendt’s

view, Hobbes’s Leviathan established the architecture of

the totalitarian state and initiated the cultivation of people

so incapable of exercising moral judgment that they stood

idly by and let such a state commit horrors in their name.

Arendt’s account is both representative of the many oth-

ers who fear Hobbesian sovereignty, and at the same time

more damning because it highlights the necessity of cre-

ating political subjects which make it possible for such a

sovereign to function.1

The implication of Arendt’s argument is that we have

not escaped this condition. This is a particularly salient

issue in our current political situation, as America and

Europe are currently experiencing resurgences of nation-

alism and xenophobia justified by raison d’état. Some are

openly asking whether fascism is once again on the rise

(Douthat 2015; Forster 2016). What is most disturbing is

that these trends seem to be occurring with the apparent

sanction (or at least nonresistance) of large swathes of the

demos. Is Arendt right in suggesting that the modern

717817PRQXXX10.1177/1065912917717817Political Research QuarterlyBranstetter

research-article2017

1University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Corresponding Author:

John Branstetter, University of California, Los Angeles, 4289 Bunche

Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.

Email: jgbranstetter@ucla.edu

The Leviathan’s Conscience: Hobbesian

Human Nature and Moral Judgment

John Branstetter1

Abstract

Hannah Arendt claims that Thomas Hobbes was responsible for constituting modern people as apolitical subjects

who can no longer make independent moral judgments. The refusal to think that Hobbes allegedly engendered was

a major factor in twentieth-century totalitarianism’s worst crimes. In her view, Hobbes’s Leviathan established the

architecture of the totalitarian state and initiated the cultivation of people so incapable of exercising moral judgment

that they stood idly by and let such a state commit horrors in their name. I argue that Hobbes rejected the proto-

totalitarian form of domination Arendt attributes to him and expressed hope about the human capacities for practical

judgment and moral improvement. Instead of creating thoughtless subjects which authorize any crime the state might

commit, he suggests that the Leviathan should cultivate the public’s capacity for reason and judgment to make violence

unnecessary. Considering Hobbes’s accounts of reason and science in light of his materialism shows that the Leviathan

requires the exercise of individual moral thought and judgment to function properly. I suggest that the primary duty of

the Hobbesian sovereign might be understood primarily in terms of the cultivation of individual judgment and reason

rather than its suppression.

Keywords

Hobbes, totalitarianism, judgment, Arendt, Aristotle