A review of Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan” (audiobook)

In the seventeenth century, Thomas Hobbes gave the most powerful argument ever written for the necessity of some form of government. His opposition to anarchy is what motivated all of his political works, including “Leviathan.” People associate Hobbes with a very dark view of human nature, and it is small wonder that his worldview is unpopular with more starry-eyed romantics. But it is hard to escape the logical force of his anti-anarchical arguments. He believed that life without government is “a time of War, where every man is Enemy to every man.” And without this government, he believed the life of man to be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Algernon Sidney influenced the U. S. Declaration of Independence

“This book contains all the malice, and revenge, and treason, that mankind can be guilty of: It fixes the sole power in the parliament and the people … The king, it says, is responsible to them, the king is but their trustee; that he had betrayed his trust, he had misgoverned, and now he is to give it up, that they may be all kings themselves. Gentlemen, I must tell you, I think I ought more than ordinarily to press this upon you, because I know, the misfortune of the late unhappy rebellion, and the bringing the late blessed king to the scaffold, was first begun by such kind of principles …”

– Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, in the trial of Algernon Sidney (1683) – explaining the reasons for his decision to have Sidney executed for high treason at that time

Algernon Sidney

Algernon Sidney was executed by the English government in 1683 for writing a book

Algernon Sidney was executed by the English government in 1683 for writing a book. Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys convicted him of high treason for writing these “Discourses Concerning Government.” (See the quotation at the beginning of this blog post, to hear Justice Jeffreys’ account of why he did so.) But others would later sing the praises of this book. One writer would call it “the textbook of the American Revolution.” Some referred to Algernon Sidney as “Sidney the Martyr,” because he paid for that book with his life. And, most prominently, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were both fans of this book. Thomas Jefferson said that it was “probably the best elementary book of the principles of government, as founded in natural right, which has ever been published in any language.” (See the citation for this praise later on in this post.) I have not yet read this book, but I might like to do so at some point, after hearing the praise from these two men. In this post, I will examine Sidney’s influence upon John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. I will also try to show Sidney’s influence upon the Declaration of Independence.

Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys, who had Algernon Sidney executed for treason

A review of John Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” (audiobook)

John Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” is one of the greatest political works ever written. It had a massive influence on the founding documents of the United States – specifically, on our Declaration of Independence (as I show here), and on our Constitution (as I show here). Locke’s “Second Treatise” is often studied in departments of philosophy and political science. But what did Locke say in this great work? What about the lesser-known “First Treatise”? And what sorts of things was Locke trying to respond to here? These are the questions that this audiobook examines. They also try to place the “Treatises” into the fascinating context of their times.

John Adams praised James Harrington’s “The Commonwealth of Oceana”

“These are what are called revolution-principles. They are the principles of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and Cicero, of Sydney, Harrington and Lock[e].—The principles of nature and eternal reason.—The principles on which the whole government over us, now stands.”

– John Adams (writing under the pen name of “Novanglus”), in a letter “To the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, 23 January 1775”

John Adams was a great fan of the English political writer James Harrington

In 1656, the English political writer James Harrington wrote a book called “The Commonwealth of Oceana.” In this work, James Harrington advocated a republic, calling it the “ideal” form of government (or words to that effect). I should give a disclaimer that I have not read Harrington’s “Oceana,” and I don’t yet know how much I would agree with it. But it is clear that John Adams was a great fan of it. John Adams would later give great praise of both this book and its author. In 1775, Adams wrote a series of letters under the pen name of “Novanglus.” In one of these letters (the one quoted above), Adams credited Harrington with “revolution-principles.” But Adams also wrote another letter addressed “To the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay” (among others). One of them contains some more of his praise of James Harrington. Thus, I would like to quote from what John Adams said, to show how Harrington had an influence on the young John Adams.

James Harrington

A review of “Isaac Newton’s New Physics” (audiobook)

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

– Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke on 5 February 1675

Sir Isaac Newton revolutionized how human beings see the world … and the universe. He may have been the most influential scientist of all time. It is said that Albert Einstein kept a picture of Newton on his “study wall,” alongside his other pictures of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. But in Newton’s time, the word “scientist” did not exist yet, nor did the phrase “natural science.” Instead, the subject was described as “natural philosophy,” making Newton into a “natural philosopher.” In modern philosophical terms, Newton would be in the empirical tradition, although he showed the influence of some Continental Rationalists like René Descartes as well.

A review of “Descartes, Bacon, and Modern Philosophy” (audiobook)

“Cogito, ergo sum.” (“I think, therefore I am.”)

– René Descartes, in his works “Discourse on the Method” (1637) and “Principles of Philosophy” (1644) – both works give the Latin version, although the earlier work also gave a French version (“Je pense, donc je suis”) that is actually the original

People know René Descartes more for his mathematics than for his philosophy. If you’ve ever taken algebra, you’ve probably seen two-dimensional equations graphed on what is still called a “Cartesian” coordinate plane. It is named after him for good reason, for he pioneered this “merging together” of algebra and geometry. But Descartes was also a very influential philosopher, who took part in the age-old debates over what is the most reliable basis of human knowledge. He answered that it was “reason,” and many in the Western world have since followed his lead in this regard.

A review of “Astronomy: The Heavenly Challenge” (audiobook)

The battle over the Sun-centered universe was as much political as it was scientific. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a theory that had been defended since antiquity was suddenly challenged by the new theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun. In antiquity, the Earth had not yet been recognized as a “planet.” Thus, there was no apparent contradiction in saying that the Sun and the “planets” revolved around the Earth. At this time, it seemed to be the most natural theory in the world. Most importantly, it was defended by the Catholic Church – which held political as well as doctrinal power, and was at the peak of its military and political might.

How did Locke’s social contract theory influence the Constitution?

“Bills of attainder, ex-post-facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.”

– James Madison, in the Federalist Papers (Federalist No. 44)

David Hume criticized the idea that all governments began by a “social contract” …

The philosopher David Hume once criticized social contract theory for saying that all governments began by an actual social contract (see my previous blog post for the details of this quote). In his “Essays, Moral, Political, Literary,” for example, he said that this account was “not justified by history or experience, in any age or country of the world.”  (Source: Part II, Essay XII – entitled “Of the Original Contract”) Some of Hume's criticisms of the theory of social contracts may be valid (including this one), and the idea that all governments actually began in this way is indeed unsupported by the historical evidence, as Hume said. Many social contract theorists have actually agreed with this much, and have modified their theories accordingly to accommodate this criticism. They say that the “social contract theory” is still a workable model even without this claim that governments actually began in this way.

David Hume

… but the Constitution is itself a “social contract”

But regardless of the historical origins of government (which I have discussed earlier), one might note with some satisfaction that some “social contracts” really have been enacted between government and their people, and that the Constitution itself was one of these “social contracts” (even if it was after Hume’s time, which it was). People agreed to obey the laws by creating a government that had the power to make them, and which had the power to punish violations of those laws via some particular clauses in the document. The people also agreed to pay taxes, and to do a few other things which I will not elaborate upon in this post. In return, the government agreed (not always very truthfully) to refrain from doing certain things, and to consider itself in violation of these laws anytime that it did them anyway. (Even government is not above the laws, as the Founding Fathers made clear.) Our Constitution was thus an application of social contract theory, which came from the writings of people like John Locke.

John Locke

Some have questioned whether Locke was an influence on the Constitution …

Some have questioned today whether John Locke had much of an influence on the Constitution. The political scientist Donald Lutz, for example, said that “Locke is profound when it comes to the bases for establishing a government and for opposing tyranny, but has little to say about institutional design. Therefore his influence most properly lies in justifying the revolution and the right of Americans to write their own constitutions rather than in the design of any constitution, state or national. Locke's influence has been exaggerated in the latter regard, and finding him hidden in passages of the U.S. Constitution is an exercise that requires more evidence than has hitherto ever been provided.”(Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 78, No. 1, March 1984, p. 192-193) I have a lot of respect for Donald Lutz, I should make clear, and have actually quoted him elsewhere in this series as an authority on what influenced the Founding Fathers. But I nonetheless must disagree with him on this particular point, and hold that Locke influenced particular passages in the Constitution. In fairness to Mr. Lutz, I should acknowledge that he did not question that Locke was influential on the Founding Fathers, even in this quote – indeed, he believed that Locke was quoted by the Founding Fathers more than any other thinker, besides Montesquieu or William Blackstone. But I will endeavor to show some evidence here that Locke influenced our Constitution, and that his influence can be found in particular passages within the document.

John Locke

Did John Locke really claim that societies exist to protect private property?

The English philosopher John Locke was a vocal advocate of private property, and gave an eloquent defense of it in his "Second Treatise on Government." (More on that here.) Perhaps owing partially to that, it's sometimes been claimed that he said that this was the main reason that societies exist. It might even be claimed that he said capital punishment was an appropriate penalty for violating it through stealing - something which is vastly far from the truth, but which may seem (emphasis on "seem") to be supported by an actual quote from Locke's work - at least, when that quote is taken out of context.

John Locke

War of “every man against every man”: Thomas Hobbes and the state of nature

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes once said that the state of nature is a "war of every man against every man." Many have not wanted to believe it (even great democratic philosophers like John Locke), believing that even if men are better off with civil society, life before civil society wasn't all that terrible. "I'm not violent like that!" many say, taking their own aversion to violence as representative of everyone else. "Humanity by nature is peaceful!"

Thomas Hobbes

And even in the book where Hobbes himself made this statement, he acknowledged that "it may seem strange to some man ... that nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore ... desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience." Thus, he meets this challenge head-on with the following argument:

In defense of John Locke: The need for private property

"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

- Karl Marx, in "The Communist Manifesto," Chapter II

Communists believe in "abolition of private property," and Locke debunked this claim ...

Karl Marx once wrote that "the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." (Source: The Communist Manifesto, Chapter II) Much has been said for and against this theory, some of it interesting and some of it rather dull. But one of the most interesting things - for me, at least - was written by the English philosopher John Locke, over a century and a half before.

The philosophers that influenced our Founding Fathers

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of War, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

- Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651), Part I, Chapter XIII, section entitled "The incommodites of such a war" (with spelling modernized)

The Founding Fathers never tried to "reinvent the wheel"

The Constitution was not created in a vacuum - it did not "appear out of nowhere" in 1787 as if there had never been anything before it that was worthwhile. We may sometimes think that we have to credit the Founding Fathers with every good idea that ever arose in politics, as if it would be an insult to them not to do so. But the fact is that there were other smart people before they arrived on the scene; and the Founding Fathers had the "intellectual humility," if you will - not to mention the scholarship - to recognize the wisdom of these prior ages. Indeed, it is a testament to their genius that they listened to these prior philosophers carefully and with an open mind. Our heartfelt respect for our Founding Fathers does not mean that we have to discount everything else that has ever happened. If the Founding Fathers, after all, did not dismiss or ignore these prior philosophers, it would seem that there is no reason for us to do so (if I may be so bold). Even the greatest minds of our country's founding felt the need to listen to other opinions from other ages, and avoid wasting time in a fruitless effort to "reinvent the wheel."

Alexander Hamilton

They used the good ideas of those that came before, and then added their own improvements

Indeed, the Founding Fathers of the United States were - almost without exception - a smart bunch. Many were quite brilliant, and some were very original thinkers. But like any group of smart men, they used the good ideas of those that came before them; often improving on them, the way an inventor improves on previous technology. The list of philosophers that influenced the Founding Fathers is a long one; as they were influenced even by the ones they disagreed with, and many were quite familiar with the "wisdom of the ages." But besides the French philosopher Montesquieu, and the English jurist William Blackstone, the two philosophers that influenced them the most may have been Thomas Hobbes and John Locke: the two that I will focus on here. (For more about Montesquieu's ideas, click here; and for more about Blackstone's ideas, click here. I'll focus this post instead on Hobbes and Locke.) There was much about Thomas Hobbes that our Founding Fathers disagreed with; but there were some important ideas original to him that they agreed with, and that influenced their thinking in the most profound of ways.