Aristotle: Ownership and Love

"[T]he two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection—that a thing is your own and you love it." Aristotle, Politics, ch. 2, at 60.

"Leviathan": Defining Liberty

“By Liberty, is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external Impediments.” Leviathan, ch. 14, at 64.

On a similar liberty under U.S. Const., amends. 5, 14 (“life, liberty, or property without due process of law”), see Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 690 (2001) (“Freedom from imprisonment—from government custody, detention, or other forms of physical restraint—lies at the heart of the liberty that Clause protects.”); Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 80 (1992) (“Freedom from bodily restraint has always been at the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental action.”); Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 316 (1982) (quoting Greenholz v. Inmates, 442 U.S. 1, 18 (1979) (Powell, J concurring in part, dissenting in part) (“Liberty from bodily restraint always has been recognized as the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental action.”)); Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 673-674 (1977) (“While the contours of this historic liberty interest in the context of our federal system of government have not been defined precisely, they always have been thought to encompass freedom from bodily restraint and punishment.”).

On a similar liberty in English law, see Union Pacific Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891) (“No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law. As well said by Judge Cooley; ‘The right to one’s person may be said to be a right of complete immunity: to be let alone,’” quoting Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise on the Law of Torts, 29 (2nd ed. Chicago: Callghan & Co. 1888)) (quoted by Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9 (1968); Cruzan v. Mo. Dep’t of Health, 497 U.S. 261, 269 (1990)).

"Leviathan": Descartes and the Equality of Human Reason

Hobbes begins his treatment on the state of nature with this observation:

“Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind then another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the fame danger with himself. And as to the faculties of the mind, (setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born with us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else,) I find yet a greater equality amongst men, than that of strength. For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps make such equality incredible, is but a vain conceit of ones own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree, than the Vulgar; that is, than all men but themselves, and a few others, whom by Fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wife as themselves: For they fee their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance. But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of any thing, than that every man is contented with his share.” Leviathan, ch. 8, at 60-61 (rendered from old to modern English).

In his Discourse on Method 14-years earlier, Descartes makes by and large the same observation:

"Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for everyone thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, those those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken: the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing Truth from Error, which is properly called Good Sense or Reason, is by nature equal in all men...." Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, 1 (John Veitch trans. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co. 1910) (1637).

"Leviathan": Faulty Premises

It's funny to see how the progress of science and human understanding has undermined the observations of the old philosophers—and, thus, the conclusions they built on those premises—particularly their observations on the differences between humans and other animals.

In the Politics, bk. 1, pt. 2, Aristotle concludes that "man is more of a political [i.e., social] animal" than other social, animals, like bees, and the only being capable of creating a government. Hobbes concludes that social animals, again using bees as an example, don't need a government.

In part, these conclusions are built on their observation that animals don't have the ability to communicate anything other than to express pleasure or pain: they don't have words or speech. Aristotle, supra ("Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust."); Hobbes, ch. 17, at 83 ("though they have some use of voice, in making know to one another their desires and other affects; yet they want that art of words, by which some men can represent to others that which is good in the likeness or evil"). Of course, this observation is false, as we know today that bees communicate with each other. They just don't do it through speech; they do it through pheromones.

They both also observe that other social animals, though they are social, lack a moral sense of right and wrong. Artistotle, supra ("it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like"); Hobbes, ch. 17, at 83 (calling social animals other than humans "irrational creatures [that] cannot distinguish between injury and damage"). Oliver Wendell Holmes disagrees. See Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law, 3 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co 1881) ("[E]ven a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.").

"Leviathan": Political Animals

Hobbes makes reference to Aristotle's description of man as "political animals." See Leviathan, ch. 17, at 86. Aristotle's treatment on the subject is found in The Politics, bk. 1, pt. 2.

Blogging Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan

I'm reading Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: Green Dragon 1651) for the first time, but only the material relevant to the social contract theory, which holds that the relationship between society and its members is one of contract. I'm going to blog concurring and dissenting authorities on particular points as they arise.