Consequence-based Ethical Theory 1: Thomas Hobbes' Social Contractarianism (handout)

1. Hobbes' Argument for Ethical Egoism (condensed)

1. To live in a state of nature is to live outside civilized society. It is to live under brutal and nasty circumstances in which there are no communal ways of life and therefore no reliable expectations about other people's behavior other than that people will follow their own natural inclinations (appetites and aversions) or self-centered interests. [I.e., presume Psychological Egoism is true.]
   
   
2. In such a state, reason will be the enemy of cooperation and mutual trust, since it is too risky to hope that other people will not protect their own interests by eliminating real or imagined dangers to them. Thus, reason will counsel everyone to avoid risks by being suspicious and taking counteractions. But this leads to distrust, competition, fear and war.
   
   
3. If everybody follows their own self-interests, then we have an undesirable state of affairs. But, if everybody follows moral rules which override selfish interests whenever pursuing them is detrimental to others, then we produce a more desirable state of affairs. So, it is more desirable to produce a situation in which all obey rules of morality.
   
   
4. However, in the state of nature, it helps nobody if one or only a few people begin to follow moral rules, since this only leads to their demise. Thus, in such a state, it is contrary to reason to be moral. Cooperation deteriorates without punishment.
   
   
5. Only when expectations about other people's behavior are reversed can reason support morality. We have a rational choice. In a non-natural or contractual situation people adopt rules of morality contrary to their selfish predispositions. Therefore, the state in which we live can change for our mutual benefit. It is through a social contract that the state of nature is transformed into a civil society. In this way, a commonwealth, civil authority, and the law establish morality.  
   
   [Given that Psychological Egoism is true, we ought to adopt Normative Ethics or Ethical Egoism (e.g., we should determine morals by agreement).]

- for more detail see Hobbes' Argument for Ethical Egoism (expanded)

2. Hobbes' First 3 Laws of Nature:

1. Seek peace as far as you have hope to secure it; otherwise use all the advantages of war.
2. Lay down your right to all things so that peace and security can be attained.
3. Perform the covenants you make.
   
   
   

"In the state of nature, where every man is his own judge, and differeth from each other concerning the names and appellations of things, and from those differences arise quarrels, and breach of peace; it was necessary there should be a common measure of all things that might fall in controversy; as for example: of what is to be called right, what good, what virtue, what much, what little, ...what a pound, what a quart, etc. For in these things private judgments may differ, and beget controversy. This common measure, some say, is right reason: with whom I should consent, if there were any such thing to be found or known in rerum natura. But commonly they that call for right reason to decide any controversy, do mean their own. But this is certain, seeing right reason is not existent, the reason of some man, or men, must supply the place thereof; and that man, or men, is he or they, that have the sovereign power, ...and consequently the civil laws are to all subjects the measures of their actions, whereby to determine, whether they be right or wrong, profitable or unprofitable, virtuous or vicious; and by them the use and definition of all names not agreed upon, and tending to controversy, shall be established. As for example, upon the occasion of some strange and deformed birth, it shall not be decided by Aristotle, or the philosophers, whether the same be a man or no, but by the laws."

—Thomas Hobbes (1640) in The Elements of Law and Natural Politic, Part II. chap. XXIX, sect. 8