Transcript ppt - stevewatson.info

Power: Machiavelli and Hobbes
Machiavelli
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Florentine diplomatist
1469-1527
Wrote
The Prince
The Discourses
The Renaissance
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14th – 17th Century AD
Rebirth of humanism, classical learning, interest
in temporal matters rather than the divine
The Renaissance
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Began in Florence and the cities of North Italy
Principles
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Rejects the idea that a good prince is necessarily
a good man
Requirements of power and morality are distinct
The Good for a ruler
maintain his state
 achieve great things
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The prince with virtù may achieve this end
Fortuna
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A goddess of luck for the ancients
A force of nature for Christians
Affects the power of princes to achieve their
ends
We see a prince fortunate one day and ruined the next,
without his nature or any of his qualities being
changed
The Virtù of a Prince
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The character of a prince must be able to handle
the effects of Fortune
Fortune is a woman, and if you wish to master her, you
must strike and beat her
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Adaptability is called for
if one man, acting with caution and patience, is also
favored by time and circumstances, he will be
successful; but if these change, then he will be ruined,
unless, indeed, he changes his conduct accordingly
The Virtù of a Prince
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A prince cannot always behave morally
He need not make himself uneasy at incurring a
reproach for those vices without which the state can
only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is
considered carefully, it will be found that something
which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin;
whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet
followed brings him security and prosperity
Empiricism
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Machiavelli doesn’t just reason from first
principles; he uses historical evidence to reach
his conclusions
He who diligently examines past events can easily
foresee future ones [and] can apply to them the
remedies used by the ancients [or] devise new ones
because of the similarity of the events
Empiricism
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Conclusions
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Cruelty is useful
With a few examples he will be more merciful than
those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to
arise
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Lying is useful.
A wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when
such observance may be turned against him
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Machiavelli didn’t care that this was opposed to
all Church teaching on ethics.
Empiricism
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Machiavelli was the first political scientist
Machiavelli is a cold technician, ethically and
politically uncommitted, an objective analyst of
politics, a morally neutral scientist, who … anticipated
Galileo in applying inductive methods to social and
historical material, and had no moral interest in the use
made of his technical discoveries
Justifications of Power
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The authority of the prince is justified by the
ability of the prince to exercise that authority
Or
The authority of the prince is justified
pragmatically in so far as his exercise of that
authority works to allow the people to live freely
(vivere libero)
The wisdom of crowds checks the prince’s errors
 A free, involved populace has an interest in the state
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Hobbes
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English ethicist
1588-1679
Wrote
Leviathan
The Citizen
The Reformation
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A movement of religious renewal
Availability of Bibles to all
 Faith is a matter for individuals
 Corruption of Catholic Church
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Indulgences
 Papal power
 Cult of Mary and Saints
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Martin Luther’s 95 Theses at Wittenberg, 1517
Threatened the primacy of the Catholic Church
The Reformation
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West divided between Protestants and Catholics
Protestants reject authority of Rome
 Wars and revolutions
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Thirty Years War
 Wars of Religion
 St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
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The Reformation
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English Civil War (1642-1651)
Puritans vs. Church of England
 Parliament vs. King
 Cromwell vs. Charles I (executed in 1649)
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England becomes a republic
Restoration of monarchy (1660)
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Charles II accepts parliament must share power
Morality by Contract
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Morality is an imposition:
Does not come naturally to us
 Is not good in itself
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Life is better in a moral community
Once we agree to live in a moral community, we
inherit moral obligations
Morality by Contract
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Contractarianism:
morality is a set of obligations that we enter into by
a kind of contract or agreement
 The agreement is
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between self-interested, rational parties
 tacit, not explicit
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Call it a Social Contract (Hobbes calls it a Covenant)
The State of Nature
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What would life be like if there were no system
of morality and no system of social control?
Humans will be driven by Self-interest,
Appetites, Passions, Rationality
This yields:
Three principal causes of quarrel: first, competition;
secondly, diffidence [i.e. mistrust]; thirdly, glory. The
first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for
safety, and the third, for reputation
The State of Nature
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Competition
Humans are creatures of desire, so we would all be
after goods
 Many goods are inevitably scarce
 Therefore:
state of nature is marked by incessant competition
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The State of Nature
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Mistrust
I covet my neighbour’s ass
 I would steal it if I could get away with it
 My neighbour must be coveting my ass
 My neighbour also would steal my ass
 Therefore:
Do not love thy neighbour
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The State of Nature
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Dominance
My neighbour might be seeking to expand an
empire, and dominate me
 Therefore:
I will need to resist others
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The State of Nature
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What is to be done?
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Defensive strategies? No
Won’t work
 Will impoverish me
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I must attack first – anticipation
My neighbour reaches the same conclusion
Therefore War, and
the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short
Escape from the State of Nature
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Accept these ‘Natural Laws’ (of prudence)
Seek peace
 Surrender some liberties
 Abide by agreements
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Escape from the State of Nature
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Enter an agreement with others on those terms
Create a Commonwealth
A social group in which the peace of all is secured
 Requires more than a handshake to work
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there must be some coercive power to compel men
equally to the performance of their covenants, by the
terror of some punishment greater than the benefit
they expect by the breach of the covenant
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This agreement creates moral obligation
Prisoner’s Dilemma
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Two people are arrested for a bank robbery
Both are guilty
Police offer them this deal (& both know it)
If you confess and he doesn’t, you go free and he
gets 20 years
 If you don’t confess and he does, he goes free and
you get 20
 If neither of you confess, you both get 1 year
 If both of you confess, you will both get 10 years
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Prisoner’s Dilemma
Prisoner B
Resist
Confess
1, 1
20, 0
0, 20
10, 10
Resist
Prisoner A
Confess
The Dominant Solution
Sovereign’s Solution
Citizen B
Obey Law
1, 1
Obey Law
Break Law
10, 5
The Dominant Solution
Citizen A
Break Law
5, 10
20, 20
The Sovereign
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Created by covenant
But not a party to the covenant
 Could be an individual or an assembly
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Has almost absolute power
Can’t be deposed or overthrown
 You may only oppose the sovereign to protect your
life
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