Hobbes and the 'Hobbesian Tradition' in International Thought

John Vincent , 'The Hobbesian Tradition in Twentieth Century International Thought', Millenium: Journal of International Studies (Vol. 10, No. 2 Summer 1981), pp. 91-101.

For this, and many helpful criticisms, I am indebted to Dr. Geoffrey Ostergaard at the University of Birmingham,

Michael Oakshott (ed.), Leviathan (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946), Chapter 30, pp. 231-232. Hereinafter referred to as Leviathan.

Ibid, Chapter 13, p. 83.

Emerich de Vattel , The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns, trans. by Charles G. Fenwick (Washington, DC: Carnegie Classics of International law, 1916), Vol. III, p. 3a.

Quoted in Jean Jacques Rousseau , 'The State of War', in M. G. Forsyth (ed.), The Theory of International Relations (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970), p. 170.

Leviathan , Chapter 14, p. 84.

Bertrand de Jouvenal , Power. Its Natural History and Growth (London: Hutchinson, 1947), p. 39.

Leviathan , Chapter 26, p. 177.

For an account of those lectures and a discussion of Wight's categories, see Brian Porter, 'Patterns of Thought and Practice: Martin Wight's International Theory', in Michael Donelan (ed.) The Reason of States (London : George Allen & Unwin, 1978 ), pp. 64-74.

Leviathan , Chapter 4.

Ibid., Chapter 6.

Hans J. Morganthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1956), p. 4.

E.H. Carr , The Twenty Years' Crisis (London: Macmillan, 1942), p. 85.

I do not mean, here, a Wightian Rationalist. Wight's characterisation of rationalist was as idiosyncratic as his depiction of realists. I mean a philosophical school which holds that philosophy is mind apprehending the world.

Leviathan , Chapter 6, p. 38.

Thus, Carr writes: 'The exposure by realists criticism of the hollowness of the utopian edifice is the most urgent task of the moment in international thought .', see, E.H. Carr , op. cit, p. 113.

George Bull (ed.), The Prince (London: Penguin, 1981), p. 55. Hereinafter referred to as The Prince.

Leviathan , Chapter 13, p. 80.

Ibid, Chapter 26, p. 173.

For an enlightening discussion of this point, see A. Passerin d'Entreves , The Notion of the State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), Part II, Chapter 6.

The Prince, pp. 48-49.

Friedrich Meinecke , Machiavellism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), pp. 214-215.

Leviathan , Chapter 17, p. 109.

Ibid, Chapter 28, p. 204.

Michael Walzer grapples with this problem in Just and Unjust Wars ( Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1977) where he speaks of the dangers and limitations of the 'domestic analogy', the supposition that the same standards of justice must apply in foreign as in domestic affairs. One point in his argument, a point with which Hobbes would have agreed, is that justice changes its qualities where no social controls exits, as, for example, on the part of one state over the citizens of another. Justice becomes rougher and cruder, Walzer tell us. But Hobbes would not have agreed with the overall direction of Walzer's thought, as Walzer uses this observation to reconceptualise justice. He tells us that we must accept this rougher, cruder justice and call it justice. Hobbes tells us that such a reconceptualising is just the sort of activity that occurs in nature and that this is one of the problems with living in nature. It is one of the subsidiary effects which derive from a situation in which real justice cannot be achieved.

An example of this method of approaching knowledge may be found in Robert W. Cox 'Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory', Millennium: Jourof laissez-faire to the extension of British imperial power. Serving that power, he tells us, the Empire carried such ideas to remote parts of the globe and implanted them there, together with laissez-faire legal arrangements. Cox relates the greater tendency towards the establishment of institutions and the belief in institutional orders, which characterises our own time, to the displacement of Britain by the United States as the world's policeman. He maintains that institutions play an integral part in American conceptualisations of power and its organisation, and that these ideas and forms of organisation are carried, pari passu, as that power extends itself.

It should be noted, however, that many treaties were commissioned by those so empowered.

This argument may appear to resemble that of Murray Forsyth's in 'Thomas Hobbes and the External Relationship of States', British Journal of International Studies (Vol. 5, No. 3 1980), but in fact it is different. Forsyth is arguing that a proto-theory of confederation exists in Hobbes' work; I am arguing that international legal phenomena have changed since Hobbes wrote but that they may have changed in ways that conform to Hobbes' notion of legal perfection. In fact, I do not agree with Forsyth's contention. Of course, there are contracts and confederacies in nature, but Hobbes distinguishes these from civil orders by his criteria of right and force. So long as men have set up no institutions of judgment and no coercive force over them, nature is in place (see Leviathan, Chapter 14). One may not think this dualism accurately reflects the world—here I may agree with Forsyth-but the question here is Hobbes' thought structure. Hobbes wished his distinctions to be absolutely clear. It would not be true to a Hobbesian mode of thought to fudge them. More pertinent to ray argument is Forsyth's Union of States (London: Holmes & Meier, 1981) where he demonstrates how important federal and confederal theories are to comprehension of modern international relations and to their practice.

At this point, those who know their constitutional theorist may rise up. This is not Hobbes, they may say, this is Montesquieu and Madison; theirs is the theory of division of competence and theirs in consequence, the model you are applying, not Hobbes. Without doubt, but my Hobbes is not the original Hobbes; mine is a modern Hobbes, a Hobbes who wants to keep his original distinctions intact but a Hobbes who lives in the modern world. The only way he can accomplish this, given modern constitutional developments is to take the division of competence on board. Moreover, given Hobbes' actual theory of the States of Law, his notion of the competences required by such bodies (law, judgment, coercion), and his insistence on legal perfection, all of which Montesquieu and Madison fully agreed with, what is being offended here is history. Neither logic, nor consistency, above all not the desire for structural clarity suffers. All I will concede is that they are, perhaps, being enhanced.

This is the meaning of his argument in Chapter 18 of Leviathan, that it is the existence of the civil laws which allows for the implementation of the natural taws.

See Garret Mattingly , Renaissance Diplomacy ( London : Jonathan Cape Publishers, 1955 ), Chapter 25.