Hobbes On Scientific Happiness

Abstract

Many consider Hobbes the father of political individualism, claiming that his new conception of happiness involved abandoning its metaphysical dimension, which had been central in ancient times and in the Middle Ages. Highlighting previous commentators’ inattention to the link between scientific knowledge and happiness in Hobbes’s thought, I demonstrate the inaccuracy of considering him the founder of a new ideal of happiness grounded in individual experience. Hobbes adopts the ancient principle that man’s happiness is necessarily conditional upon his submission to a normative system derived from the truth regarding his nature. His originality lies in an innovative understanding of human nature and scientific truth. This article suggests that progress in a person’s life, which is possible only in the realm of pleasures of the mind, is an objective element of Hobbes’s notion of happiness, which derives from his definition of humans as rational and curious beings. Leaving the state of nature freed man from the misery that results from constant war and the horror of violent death that accompanied it, but not from the misery whose source is ignorance regarding the purpose of life.

1. Introduction

Nicholas Robbins argues that, like many other thinkers, Hobbes adopted the monster genre narrative. The commonwealth is interpreted as representing humanity, which is frequently threatened not only because if humans stop obeying the sovereign, they are likely to return to a monstrous and miserable state of nature, but also because the sovereign, Hobbes’s hero, who keeps humanity from regressing into barbarism, never completely leaves the state of nature (he can act as he pleases), and, in this sense, retains his monstrous character. Therefore, although Hobbes seeks to construct clear rules, ‘he rests his political theory upon an undecidable figure whose visage transforms as we consider it from different angles.’¹ In some ways, this view is consistent with Arnaud Milanese’s claim that, for Hobbes, barbarism does not belong solely to a pre-state situation since a historical institution always runs the risk of producing a domestic monster, a Behemoth, a state in which man is deprived of ‘the inalienable right of each to defend his life and freedom of movement, and felicity.’² Milanese notes that on the cover of the first edition of Leviathan, the king’s great head resembles ‘Hobbes himself,’³ and according to Robbins, if the choice to use this image was intentional, it indicates that Hobbes sought to present himself in ‘a heroic light.’⁴ I want to develop this idea and argue that in the context of human happiness, new science is the hero and Hobbes considers himself one of its most significant harbingers.

Bacon attributes to the new science a progressive element that can free man from a cyclic and eternal existence with no progress or significant change⁵ and sees the primary purpose of science as promoting happiness.⁶ Like many of his contemporaries, Hobbes is optimistic regarding man’s ability to recognize nature’s laws through science. I claim that progress, which characterizes scientific knowledge, is a key concept for understanding Hobbes’s notion of happiness. Progress is the objective element that enables us to comprehend the unnecessary misery or even monstrosity of modern humans, who do not lead rational lives based on scientific conclusions regarding their purpose, which should not be reduced to a race toward the maximization of pleasures.

The shared decision to transfer humans’ power to the sovereign is certainly a necessary condition for happiness, but it is not a sufficient condition, for, as Milanese makes clear: ‘the Commonwealth does not make felicity, because felicity is  …  the power we ourselves increase.’⁷ In this article, I seek to clarify what it means to increase our power from an angle that, to the best of my knowledge, has been neglected in the interpretive discourse until now. Andrea Bardin suggests that the study of Hobbes’s political thought could be greatly enriched by concepts that are not directly relevant to political thought per se.⁸ Indeed, many have interpreted Hobbes’s conception of happiness on the basis of his originality in the field of natural philosophy. I seek here to add to this project the notion that Hobbes adopted from Aristotle the fundamental principle that a good life is possible only if human beings act in accordance with the qualities that set them apart from all other creatures.

I began by addressing the prevailing interpretation that Hobbes believes that happiness is an individual project that can only be fulfilled within a political framework that provides each person the security and ability to maximize his satisfaction. I challenge this interpretation since it is incapable of addressing erroneous judgment, especially with regard to a fundamental error of the individual in relation to his nature. By analyzing curiosity, which, according to Hobbes, distinguishes man from all other creatures, I claim that only humans enjoy ‘pleasure[s] of the mind,’ which, since they contain a progressive element, transcend ‘pleasure[s] of sense,’ or the entire realm of ‘carnall Pleasure.’⁹ But, no less importantly, Hobbes also believes that in a social framework, man strives to receive what no other creature seeks: absolute confirmation that his happiness lies in this very progression. I argue that in addition to the rationality manifested in man’s ability to maximize his satisfactions and powers, a more fundamental sense of rationality is expressed in humans’ consent to subordinate their actions to a purpose set for them and intended to benefit them. In this sense, happiness will necessarily be achieved as long as the sovereign acts subject to scientific knowledge of man, his purpose, and the necessary means to fulfill that purpose.

2. The Thesis of New Happiness

In Leviathan, we find Hobbes’s most systematic definition of happiness:

Continuall successe in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continuall prospering, is that man call FELICITY; I mean the Felicity of this life. For there is no such thing as perpetuall Tranquillity of mind, while we live here; Because Life it selfe is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more than without Sense.¹⁰

This definition includes two main elements. The first is that human happiness derives from the satisfaction of desires and is not achieved in relation to any normative system. According to Hobbes, ethics is an area of philosophy that ‘concerns the passions, the manners and the aims or purposes of man.’¹¹ Therefore, a ‘good’ object is one desired by the individual, that is, perceived as a potential source of pleasure or joy, whereas an ‘evil’ object is seen as such because it is disliked by the individual due to its association with potential pain and sorrow.¹² Since individuals have different conceptions of good and evil (based on their experience), and since all acts are aimed at maximizing the former and minimizing the latter,¹³ the true happiness of Plato and Aristotle, which derives from contemplation concerning the truth or from actions that are in line with the truth, is no loftier for Hobbes than the happiness of a layperson who has not attained truth but believes he has.¹⁴

The second element of this definition is that happiness is not the product of satisfaction but rather a dynamic between satisfactions, consistent with the idea that life (the good) is nothing but continuous movement.¹⁵ The elusive nature of happiness stems from the fact that it always lies in the future, in line with its early definition as ‘the desire for good that is to come.’¹⁶ Lasting satisfaction is not natural to man, and therefore an excessively satisfied desire will become the rejection of an object previously coveted. Hobbes thus rejects the conventional view of happiness as expressing a static condition of tranquility that indicates that the individual is free of all suffering, that is, in a state in which he does not wish for anything he lacks.¹⁷

These elements are widely accepted in the interpretive field, which can be divided into two main trends with regard to Hobbes’s conceptualization of happiness. One is embraced by scholars such as Leo Strauss, Crawford Macpherson, and Alfred Taylor, who claim that Hobbes rejects the Aristotelian ideal of life that was widespread in the Middle Ages due to his pessimistic view of man as an egoistic creature who seeks to accumulate infinite power. The second trend is evident in the work of scholars such as Severin Kitanov, Donald Rutherford, and Tom Sorrell, whose focus on Hobbes’s natural philosophy is a significant factor in their more moderate conclusion that, alongside the rejection, Hobbes also adopts certain aspects of Aristotle’s eudaimonia. Despite substantial differences between the two approaches, there seems to be a common denominator: the understanding that Hobbes created an individualistic-subjective conception of happiness, which according to him can only be realized in a commonwealth, i.e., a social organization that frees humanity from the misery that inevitably characterizes the state of nature and provides each individual the means for increasing his wealth.

Strauss claims that Hobbes’s iconoclasm—his introduction of political hedonism—is expressed by the fact that in his thought, justice is not reflective of behavior that accords with a standard independent of human will.¹⁸ While Aristotle sees happiness as the primary essential good and existence as secondary, for Hobbes, the good is life, and the commonwealth is good since it is the most effective means of preventing evil (violent death) and preserving life. Leaving the state of nature represents not essential progress in human nature but only improvement in the material conditions that enable individuals to maximize their satisfactions with greater efficiency.¹⁹ Macpherson agrees and explains that, according to Hobbes, the moral norm that should guide education is free and regulated competition, in keeping with the egoism of man and the possessiveness of society.²⁰ Similarly, Aloysius Martinich argues that conceiving of happiness as a race toward satisfactions reflects the underlying principle of a modern consumer society, which Hobbes predicted.²¹ Taylor claims that the Hobbesian commonwealth is nothing more than a means to regulate the individual’s egoistic, animalistic existence. What it lacks is a positive element designed to elevate human existence spiritually, and, in this sense, it is directly opposed to the political thought of Plato and Aristotle.²² According to Allen Wood, what Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics share is the notion that individual happiness is objective and, therefore, not conditional upon what the individual believes is relevant to his happiness. In contrast to this view, modern ethics treats happiness as subjective, and this subjectification begins in Hobbes’s political theory.²³

The idea that Hobbes bases happiness on individuals’ free will has been criticized by scholars who believe this view diminishes the importance of the mechanistic and materialistic aspects that underlie Hobbes’s psychological and, indeed, individualistic approach. For example, according to Kitanov, ‘The most striking feature of Hobbes’s view of happiness is the idea that happiness depends largely on our subjective conceptions of things as good or bad.’²⁴ Hobbes represents the transition from objective happiness to its modern conception as ‘something purely subjective’ in the ontological sense (happiness lies in individual choice) and the epistemological sense (only the individual can judge his own happiness).²⁵ Yet this shift in the conception of happiness stems from political theory based not on the individual’s will but rather on the primary motive for every human action: conatus.

Without delving into the complexity of Hobbes’s notion of conatus, we can say that it is a basic mechanism that requires every creature to desire objects designed to preserve its existence and avoid those that threaten it.²⁶ Since man is born with a basic set of capabilities that form the source of his judgments regarding good and evil, he is not free to define these concepts. The individual’s so-called ‘choice’ of objects relevant to the realization of his happiness has, as Hobbes puts it, a ‘necessary cause’²⁷ and, in this sense, conatus represents ‘a deterministic conception of matter in motion.’²⁸ While it is true that the dichotomy between the image of a good object and an evil one lies not in the objects themselves but in the individual’s judgment, it is equally true that the individual cannot desire an object he judges to be evil and vice versa.²⁹

As Sorrel explains, Hobbes’s definition of man as self-centered and striving to expand his satisfaction by achieving happiness is the product of transforming moral philosophy into moral psychology. Like all sciences, psychology is considered a branch of mechanism since its goal is to explain differences and changes through material motion.³⁰ According to Martinich, the fundamental difference between Hobbes’s conception of happiness and that of his predecessors is that ‘for them, motion indicates a defect  … [while for] Hobbes, motion is good.’³¹ Strauss argues that ‘there is no possibility of a summum bonum  …  only a kind of felicity … [not of] repose, but of motion, movement.’³² Thus, the dynamics of satisfying one’s desire become moral, in contrast to the ancient worldview, according to which human desire is morally negative, and therefore happiness lies not in satisfying desires but in overcoming them, i.e., by being moral.³³

Consequently, we have a kind of anthropocentric materialism that views the individual’s physical sensations, memory, and imagination as the most significant sources of happiness. According to Hobbes, every creature can imagine, but only man, as a rational being, is capable of ‘compounded imagination,’ that is, of creating future-oriented tropes constructed from conclusions that are based on the comparison and analysis of his memories.³⁴ The desire to preserve life is relevant to all creatures, and what makes humans unique is related to the way in which rationality, which makes man the ‘most excellent worke of Nature,’³⁵ is involved in this aspiration.

Rationality expresses a judgment based on an assessment of the good and evil that will stem, in the distant future, from the attainment of objects in the present. According to Rutherford, Hobbes adopted from the eudaimonic approach the fundamental notion that all human beings strive for happiness, but nominalism, empiricism, and materialism were the reasons that he abandoned the idea of an objective criterion for moral norms, i.e., the loss of aretē, with regard to which one absolute definition of the content of happiness, as well as the means required to achieve it, may be provided.³⁶ Similarly, Bernard Gert emphasizes that in Hobbes’s thought, relativism begins only in the realm of rational activity defined in relation to the preservation of life. Hobbes’s real good is related to rational desires (that promise long-term self-preservation) for which the commonwealth was established and not, as many commentators believe, to the satisfaction of desires in general.³⁷

From this point of view, scholars tend to agree that the ability of each individual to act rationally to promote his happiness is preceded by the joint decision of many to entrust their power to the sovereign. This ‘collective rationality’³⁸ has allowed humanity to escape the misery of a constant state of war. According to Quentin Skinner, Hobbes chose (due to his support of absolute monarchy) to define freedom in a negative way as continuous movement unimpeded by any external or internal obstacle (e.g., the blocking of action or fear preventing action, respectively).³⁹ The transition to a commonwealth results from rational recognition that happiness is not precluded by obstacles but, on the contrary, made possible only through their regulation.⁴⁰ Sorrell’s claim that unhappiness stems from a situation in which everyone freely strives for their happiness is very similar to Otfried Höffe’s assumption that the right to everything is, in fact, the right to nothing. In other words, happiness is an individual project that is possible only where laws limit each individual’s natural desire to accumulate infinite power, thus freeing human beings from the leading cause for their misery—war and the constant horror of violent death that all men experience due to a lack of restrictions.⁴¹

So far, I have shown how commentators who read Hobbes as rejecting the traditional project of ethics altogether and those who see him as reconceiving it share the notion that he proposed a new, individualistic conception of happiness. Indeed, scholars such as Rutherford and Gert do not ignore the difference between the preservation of life and a happy existence and take seriously the fact that Hobbes claims (in his later works as well), in a truly Aristotelian manner, that the purpose of the commonwealth vis-à-vis its citizens ‘must be understood not [as] the mere preservation of their lives, but generally their benefit and good.’⁴² Yet due to their tendency to understand Hobbes’s notion of happiness mainly in its negative form, i.e., the minimization of pain and suffering by ending war and its psychological effect, horror, they conceive it similarly to scholars such as Strauss and Macpherson, who tend not to see happiness as something essentially different from the preservation of life, i.e., a state in which one has the means, in Hobbes’s terms, to accumulate power.⁴³ The point I am attempting to emphasize is that the differences regarding the relationship between Hobbes’s ethics and his predecessors’ is not expressed in a different understanding of happiness but rather in a different explanation regarding the reasons that led him to espouse individualistic-subjective notions of happiness and misery.

3. From a Philosophy of Happiness to a Psychology of Happiness?

I believe that the possibility of erring raises questions regarding the widespread view that, for Hobbes, misery and happiness are based on elements that originate in man’s living conditions and experiences. According to Hobbes, ‘nearly every error arises from too much freedom in the use of tropes.’⁴⁴ Man is miserable because he necessarily seeks good, but evil ultimately results, or because he desires good that is unattainable, such that the good in itself becomes evil for him.⁴⁵ Happiness is defined as a dynamic process of satisfying desires, and good and evil are determined by means of individual judgments (considered individual will or a mechanical impulse). But if it is possible for the judgment to be wrong, it is not clear why misery is necessary in the state of nature, as Hobbes explicitly claims.⁴⁶

An example will clarify the point I am attempting to make regarding this problem. The conclusion that in the state of nature, every individual is miserable since he constantly experiences the terror of violent death and a struggle over scarce resources is based on two assumptions: humans are equal both in that they share a striving for life and an aversion to death and in that each can end the life of another; every individual naturally aspires to maximize his power and is entitled to do so.⁴⁷ Nevertheless, conatus negates the possibility that desiring an object is bad but not the possibility of erring, i.e., desiring a bad object perceived as good due to a misjudgment. For Hobbes, ignorance is a significant factor in error, and therefore the fact that logically both assumptions are based on a correct judgment does not mean that the opinions of people will express their acceptance because ‘[w]ords have no effect, but on those that understand them.’⁴⁸ Therefore, to develop a sense of horror, the individual must first understand and agree with these assumptions. An individual who does not identify a threatening object as such is not expected to develop an aversion to it through his sense of fear. In the state of nature, a powerful man may not feel that he is under constant threat of death, as he may believe his power makes him less vulnerable than others. Additionally, due to the pride that stems from his power, he may not consider the rights of others to maximize their power. But the example of the layperson, whose happiness is not inferior to that of the philosopher, expresses a more radical relativism, i.e., the happiness of a powerful man is no greater than that of a powerless man who, due to his ignorance or stupidity, is unable to accurately judge his situation as threatening. Hence, human beings’ misperceptions of reality stem not only from great power and pride but also from ignorance and stupidity. Errors concerning man’s ability to increase his power are particularly relevant regarding images that express far-reaching consequences of activities that take place in the present.⁴⁹ Therefore, there is no real problem here since it is likely that humans will not err in identifying the threat of death, as it is not found in the distant future, but rather in their daily experiences. Moreover, the examples I have presented concern small groups and do not apply to most people, who are likely to be miserable due to their accurate understanding of the threatening reality in which they live. Hence, it may be said that, on the whole, for Hobbes, in the state of nature, misery is highly probable for most people since ‘the threat of violent death as the summum malum remains real and mistrust renders cooperation patterns unstable.’⁵⁰ Nonetheless, it is more difficult to explain, without encountering contradictions, the notion that a person who claims to be happy due to his corporal satisfaction is not really happy. As Hobbes puts it: ‘sensuality consisteth in the pleasure of the senses, which please only for the present, and taketh away the inclination to observe such things as conduce to honour; and consequently maketh man less curious, and less ambitious, whereby they less consider the way either to knowledge  …  this is it which men call DULNESS.’⁵¹ The difficulty stems from the fact that this is not a misjudgment regarding the long-term consequences of one’s actions but a more radical error: life lived without considering human beings’ curious and rational nature. Dullness is always associated with stupidity, perceived as a ‘defect of the mind  …  which betrayeth [the] mobility in the spirits [and is caused by] restiveness of the spirit.’⁵² Slow or difficult spiritual movement⁵³ indicates a lack of spiritual development that stems from knowledge,⁵⁴ and this defect causes misery not because it prevents the individual from maximizing satisfactions effectively but because it expresses his betrayal of the natural desire for unceasing spiritual development. Thus, when Hobbes seeks to define the opposite of the slowness that characterizes dullness, he refers to people who have managed to ‘see in knowledge, as in a glass, the virtue of their minds.’⁵⁵

It is important to note that accurately perceiving reality does not necessarily mean correctly perceiving one’s essence. As many scholars have pointed out, the awareness that their lives are often at risk in a natural state could lead people (from the mighty to the helpless) to mistakenly assume that their ultimate purpose (happiness) depends solely on surviving. I argue that this assumption ignores the traits that distinguish humans from other creatures and lead to happiness when fully expressed. Moreover, this error is inevitable since, in the state of nature, it is impossible to acquire definite knowledge of the human essence, and even if some could obtain such knowledge, agreement on it, which is, as I explain below, necessary for human happiness, would be unattainable.⁵⁶ Undoubtedly, the commonwealth protects law-abiding citizens from the unhappiness that results from mutual harm. Yet Hobbes scholars tend to ignore another significant source of unhappiness—ignorance regarding the purpose of life— which can be resolved only by definite knowledge provided by the authority entrusted with it.

Bahar Rumelili distinguishes between the fear of a life-threatening object and anxiety, which originates in the lack of definite knowledge regarding the future and is typical of the state of nature.⁵⁷ I assert that knowledge of the future is significant for the attainment of happiness, but a specific criterion according to which man would be able to judge his expectations and future options is also required. Similarly, I agree with Kitanov that from Hobbes’s perspective, great satisfaction from objects that have been acquired produces misery, as it involves ‘brief joy which results in brutish stupidity by indulging through vainglory.’⁵⁸ But I believe that the fundamental reason for this kind of misery—‘brief joy [that] ends in a brutish dullness of sense’⁵⁹—is a lack of true knowledge regarding happiness, or, in modern times, stubbornness that is manifested in the foolish refusal to act in accordance with such knowledge.

According to Hobbes, ‘man that busie in the pursuit of power, honor and the meanes to satisfy and secure their animal appetites, have eyther no leasure, or no will to looke after any so remote a cause of that they looke for, as this of knowing the nature of theyr owne Phancye  … .’⁶⁰ Being aware of man’s nature means recognizing him as a creature who seeks a progressive dynamic of satisfactions that he can judge as positive, i.e., one that advances him not only by means of his personal judgment but also in accordance with the commonly agreed-upon definition of his nature. The radical cause of every fear is ignorance concerning the cause and effect of all phenomena, and for Hobbes, ‘[t]his perpetuall feare, always accompan[ies] mankind in the ignorance of causes, as it were in the Dark  … .’⁶¹

For Hobbes, of the many sciences intended to improve well-being, ethics is the most important, as it can provide a clear, precise, and objective definition of happiness: ‘What then constitutes prudence, consisting as it does in foreknowledge of the road to happiness, we cannot very clearly know without first knowing what happiness is.’⁶² Hobbes sees his moral theory as promoting happiness by enlightening humanity regarding the purpose of existence, previously defined subjectively: ‘[s]o many manifest arguments, that what hath hitherto been written by moral philosophers, hath not made any progress in the knowledge of the truth,’⁶³ since instead of providing knowledge concerning ‘the similitude of Passions, which are the same in all man,’⁶⁴ their ‘Moral Philosophy is but a description of their own Passions.’⁶⁵

Understanding the crucial importance of moral science in the context of achieving happiness will allow us to comprehend that apart from recognizing the hierarchy between movement (life, happiness) and its absence (death, misery), Hobbes perceives a hierarchy between types of motion. This fact points to his adoption of the classical hierarchies between true and false happiness.

In De Homine, Hobbes argues that ‘life is perpetual motion that, when it cannot progress in a straight line, is converted into circular motion.’⁶⁶ There are three explanations for why only man is made miserable by the latter. First, as a rational creature, he requires a criterion by which he can examine his behavior through the prism of his nature. Second, as a creature who, in society, seeks honor, he needs this to be an agreed-upon criterion so that he can compare his achievements with those of others. Third, as a curious entity, he must experience his life as a constant progression enabled only in the realm of the mind by continually advancing his knowledge. I agree with Kitanov that achieving glory does not lead to happiness.⁶⁷ Yet this symbolic power, despite being in line with the first two explanations, cannot alleviate the misery that results from ignoring one’s curiosity, which is the natural aspiration, relevant to man alone, for the continual expansion of knowledge.⁶⁸

In what follows, I explain that happiness expresses constant progress in human life, a hierarchical replacement of old knowledge with new knowledge, and clarify that this conception is in line with scientific knowledge, which can always be improved and increase in accuracy.⁶⁹ Hobbes indeed expresses a new conception of happiness. Nevertheless, in my view, it must be understood in relation to his conception of his new moral science, which allows humanity to escape the miserable, unprogressive relativism that hitherto characterized the knowledge of the purpose of life and the means to its fulfillment.

4. On Scientific Life and Seeming Happiness

To understand the crucial role of science in human happiness, we must examine language as a means of perfecting human existence in all spheres: ‘The nature of man surpasses that of all the other creatures in every faculty dependent on the use of names.’⁷⁰ Language makes it possible to distinguish between truth and falsehood and gives these concepts meaning by agreeing on them.⁷¹ Scientific knowledge is characterized by progress and frequently improved by the adoption of valid conclusions.⁷² According to Hobbes, ‘By the advantage of names it is that we are capable of science  …  It is therefore a great ability in a man  …  to deliver himself from equivocation, and to find out the true meaning of what is said: and this is what we call UNDERSTANDING.’⁷³

In the state of nature, the only type of knowledge is experiential, and it is sufficient to lead to prudence that is always prone to error. In contrast, scientific knowledge is capable of producing ‘certain and infallible signs.’⁷⁴ We can say that language enables man to go beyond experiential knowledge or instrumental intelligence to achieve scientific-philosophical thinking whose aim is to define phenomena accurately to enable the progress of humankind: ‘The light of humane minds is Perspicuous Words, but by exact definitions first snuffed and purged from ambiguity; Reason is the pace; Encrease of Science, the way; and the benefit of man-kind, the end.’⁷⁵ According to Hobbes, ‘There be two sorts of knowledge, whereof the one is nothing else but sense, or knowledge original  …  the other is called science or knowledge of the truth of propositions  …  of this latter, man only is capable; of the former, brute beasts also participate.’⁷⁶ In Leviathan, we can trace the same comparison between philosophy, identified as ‘knowledge acquired by Reasoning  …  by which Definition it is evident [and] original knowledge called experience, in which consisteth Prudence [the only type that existed when] man lived upon grosse Experience [and] there was no Method.’⁷⁷ Only man produces knowledge that relies on agreement regarding it, but, importantly, only he can base this agreement on proven facts that compel every rational human to accept them.

Hobbes notes that the assumption that Descartes’s method, as interpreted by White, does not enable the improvement of the telescope does not mean that the telescope cannot be improved but reflects that, at the time, there was no method regarding the telescope.⁷⁸ I believe that here Hobbes is referring to a method befitting a true and eternal element in man: curiosity and rationality manifested in the radical aspiration to improve existence. In this sense, ‘false philosophy’ conceals the truth from man, but in a more profound sense, its falsehood lies in ‘mak[ing] man think [he has truth], and desist[ing] from further search,’⁷⁹ i.e., ceasing to improve his life in the image of his true nature.

Before clarifying why scientific proof regarding the traits that distinguish man from all other creatures is necessary for the achievement of happiness, I will note two possible criticisms of the interpretive move I seek to make. First, Hobbes’s belief in the objectivity of scientific truth is not in tension with his relativistic conception of happiness. Commentators agree that for Hobbes, scientific knowledge differentiates man from animals, and in their view, he sees it as means of constantly improving material well-being.⁸⁰ For example, Hobbes identifies three essential conditions for happiness: work, frugality, and knowledge that makes the improvement of life possible.⁸¹ The common assumption is that such knowledge is based on ‘instrumental rationality,’⁸² meaning that it is not an end in itself or a way of knowing the universal moral behavior for which one should strive, but rather an effective means of endlessly expanding one’s set of goods, i.e., one’s happiness. I argue, however, that Hobbes does not see scientific knowledge as a mere means of enabling the effective fulfillment of desires but as characterizing the ideal life, in which man acts out of certainty regarding words and concepts, that is, acts rationally, not only in the sense of self-preservation in the long term but mainly in a way that suits his natural curiosity.⁸³ Second, it is possible to say that a normative hierarchy of ways of life characterizes only Hobbes’s early texts, in which he still takes traditional Aristotelian positions,⁸⁴ and thus interpret this hierarchy, when it appears in later texts, as a ‘[trace] of the ancient philosophical distinction between the real and apparent good.’⁸⁵ For example, in Thomas White’s De Mundo Examined (1643), happiness is defined in relation to ‘joy noticed in a prolonged progress of searching from potential to the next potential  …  the mind’s delight, which is quite alien to that of pricking of the flesh and of the organs that constitutes sensual pleasures.’⁸⁶ In De Homine (1658), Hobbes writes, ‘[t]o progress is pleasing for it is an approach to an end, that is, to what is more pleasing.’⁸⁷ Progress related to happiness is maintained, while the hierarchy between a spiritual and sublime way of being versus a physical and inferior way is rejected, in line with the definition of happiness presented earlier in Leviathan (1651). Nevertheless, the following quote, which clarifies Hobbes’s intention in De Homine, makes this interpretation very difficult:

The sciences and arts are good, for they are pleasing. For nature hath made man an admirer of all new things, that is, avid to know the causes of everything. So it is that science is the food for so many minds, and is related to the mind as food is to the body; and as food is to the famished, so are curious phenomena to the mind. They differ in this, however, that the body can become satiated with food while the mind cannot be filled up by knowledge.⁸⁸

This claim is not unusual, and, as I will now argue, Hobbes’s conception of happiness did not undergo significant upheavals but maintained the same ambivalent attitude towards ancient eudaimonism. On the one hand, happiness is linked to pleasures of the mind created by new and true knowledge and never to physical satisfactions. On the other, this is due to the fact that perfect satisfaction cannot be achieved through pleasures of the mind since man does not strive for perfection in this realm but instead finds happiness in continuous inner improvement.

5. Rationality, Curiosity, and Sociability

Regarding the conception of happiness, the differences between early and late texts are mainly semantic, not only because the basic Aristotelian principle is preserved—happiness is achievable by means of the realization of qualities that distinguish man from all other creatures—but also because these elements have not changed significantly. The supremacy of true happiness that stems from virtue conceived in terms of improving intelligence has been replaced by the supremacy of a life that befits man’s curiosity, a most significant feature of understanding happiness, which has not been sufficiently explored in this context. Let us compare Hobbes’s ideas regarding human superiority as they appear in an early text versus a late one.

How may any happiness be thought to consist in the enjoyment of those things that are common to the beasts and to ourselves?  …  [H]appiness consists not in the pleasures of the senses but in the gratifying thought of advancing from enjoyment of one good thing to that of another  … [which is] proof of one’s own virtue and excellence [and is enabled by] the strength of one’s intelligence  …  his knowledge.⁸⁹

Man is distinguished, not onely by his Reason; but also by this singular Passion [curiosity] from other Animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of Sense, by praedominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a Lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continuall and indefatigable generation of Knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnall Pleasure.⁹⁰

It is clear that Hobbes does not abandon the idea that happiness lies in the progression of the system of needs and asserts that it is possible only within the framework of spiritual pleasures achieved by advancing one’s knowledge. The difference between the early and later texts lies in the fact that in the latter, this notion is anchored in his perception of man as a curious being. Curiosity is conceptualized as a radical desire for knowledge, which not only distinguishes man from other creatures (as a source of the development and improvement of language and the establishment of scientific bodies of knowledge) but also as distinguishing the sublime element of human existence, which expresses continual progress, and material and inferior desires that do not contain real innovation, and therefore, as is the case with other creatures, provide pleasure and never happiness.⁹¹

Curiosity is related to happiness since the desire for knowledge is never separate from the desire to constantly improve one’s life. In Hobbes’s words, ‘Because curiosity is delight, therefore also all novelty is so, but especially that novelty from which a man conceiveth an opinion true or false of bettering his own estate.’⁹² We find true improvement in humans’ lives at the intersection of curiosity and rationality. But for Hobbes, thinking of man in society means that to attain happiness by improving one’s life, one must receive positive recognition from others. Some animals are social but do not require recognition since their similar activities prove the absence of significant internal differences.

In contrast, human speech expresses the degree to which thoughts differ between individuals. This profound difference is the reason that to achieve peace and security (necessary for happiness), man needs a ‘[c]ommon power to control individuals by instilling a fear of punishment,’⁹³ but this does not mean that humans’ happiness should be reduced to behavior determined by the sovereign. For Hobbes, humans’ variety is the source of their constant search for positive, general approval concerning their activities, ‘[f]or all joy and grief of mind consist[s] in a contention for precedence to them with whom they compare themselves.’⁹⁴ Comparison and approval are not side effects but rather an immanent part of humans’ satisfaction: ‘nothing is thought to be good which does not give its possessor some superiority and eminence above that enjoyed by other man.’⁹⁵ Therefore, even the great happiness of ‘he who is placed at so high a peak of true knowledge’ involves his awareness of ‘the limited wanderings of the ignorant.’⁹⁶

The epistemic distinction between original and scientific knowledge is always analogous to the ontological distinction between pleasure and happiness. Animals are irrational because they are incapable of comparing phenomena and using verbal signals that stem from this comparison to advance their knowledge and improve their lives.⁹⁷ Since they do not seek happiness, they have no need to deviate from individual pleasures that derive from the satisfaction of their physical needs repeatedly and in the same way.⁹⁸

Since, for Hobbes, psychological traits are eternal, even in the state of nature, man imagined his future through the analysis of past images and possibly also by means of language. Yet he lacked a method that required a precise and clear definition of his ultimate purpose, which was necessary for him to judge all his actions by how they contributed to or detracted from its fulfillment. His conduct was not fundamentally different from that of animals since he pursued the satisfaction of his needs without being able to attribute a progressive element to this pursuit because doing so requires an objective definition of happiness, which can be attained only through scientific knowledge and in a situation in which this definition is accepted by everyone.

The interpretation I am proposing does not reject the notion that Hobbes sees man as an egotistical creature who uses his intelligence to multiply his sensual satisfactions. Instead, it focuses on the fact that he also defined man as a curious and rational being who seeks gentle and sublime mental satisfaction by advancing his knowledge regarding the causes of phenomena and an entity who seeks honor in social relationships. Moreover, my interpretation is in line with two significant reasons that Hobbes proposes for modern man’s misery. The first is laziness or lack of curiosity, expressed in ‘placing Felicity, in the acquisition of the grosse pleasures of the Senses, and the things that most immediately conduce thereto.’⁹⁹ The second is skepticism, which characterizes those who believe scientific knowledge in the ethical realm is impossible. Like dullness, laziness and skepticism reflect misguided ways of life, the former because satisfaction with the present situation is incompatible with man’s natural need to advance his consciousness and his condition by means of constant comparison with his fellows,¹⁰⁰ and the latter because the scientific definition of man should have negated it. In other words, laziness and skepticism originate in ignorance or blindness to scientific knowledge concerning man’s nature, which is sufficient to eliminate them from the world.¹⁰¹

In the state of nature, misery was necessary since ‘every man is his own judge, and differeth from other concerning names  … [there was no] common measure of all things.’¹⁰² Humanity lacks scientific knowledge that can determine and confirm the purpose of life. Kitanov believes that extreme subjectivism is consistent with the state of nature, whereas in the commonwealth, good and evil, which are related to happiness, are determined by the sovereign authority.¹⁰³ I agree and would only add that the happiness of human beings depends on this authority legislating and ruling rationally, i.e., so that the laws of the commonwealth accord with the laws of nature.

Happiness is possible only in the commonwealth because it is a necessary condition for the transition from a human existence based on experiential knowledge to one based on scientific proof.¹⁰⁴ It is not sufficient, however, because the happiness of citizens depends on the sovereign acting to institutionalize and disseminate scientific truth: ‘the Science of Natural Justice, is the only Science necessary for Soveraigns.’¹⁰⁵ For Hobbes, happiness is not implied in the definition of good and evil in the legal-positivist sense, as in commonwealth laws, but lies rather in the sovereign adopting the theoretical conclusions of science: ‘the skill of making, and maintaining Common-wealths, consisteth in certain Rules, as doth Arithmetique and Geometry; not (as Tennis play) on Practise onely.’¹⁰⁶ While the sovereign determines what is right and wrong, a true definition of good and evil, i.e., one based on an objective definition of happiness, must result from a ‘true Moral Philosophy, [which is] the true Doctrine of the Lawes of Nature.’¹⁰⁷ As long as the sovereign acts rationally, his subjects may be expected to be happy since their happiness has never been based solely on obeying commonwealth laws, which proves a subject’s righteousness but does not necessarily promote his happiness. According to Hobbes, the primary duty of the sovereign, whether or not he embraces scientific truth, is to ensure the safety of the people ‘but also all other Contentments of life.’¹⁰⁸ Nevertheless, he explains that this duty is ‘obliged by the Law of Nature.’¹⁰⁹ Therefore, a sovereign who acts under these laws is merely following the scientific conclusions that clarify the social laws and practices required by the laws of nature.

As we can see, a very complex construction underlies the seeming simplicity of Hobbes’s definition of happiness. The dynamics involved in the ever-repeated satisfaction of sensual needs are inappropriate for creatures whose happiness is based not on the maximization of the set of needs (power) but rather on its development. In the sphere of mental pleasure, advancement is enabled by knowledge, but it has no meaning as long there is no criterion by which man can judge his progress. Moreover, such a criterion would not only have to be accepted by all but, to ensure happiness, would have to be accurate and true. For this reason, according to Hobbes, if ‘someone assesses his potential by his own image of himself  …  in no way does it lead to happiness  … [since] happiness consists in joy or in the mind’s pleasure.’¹¹⁰ Again, the dynamic relevant to happiness differs from the one relevant to the preservation of life, and what we have here is the same hierarchy of animalistic satisfactions with no real progress. Therefore, it cannot provide man with the satisfaction that befits his species’ superior qualities, which entails human happiness.

According to my interpretation, although all state institutions are created to make it clear to human beings that their purpose is the constant maximization of physical satisfactions and citizens may think they are happy in situations where any other elements they can compare their achievements to are eliminated, according to Hobbes, they will undoubtedly be wrong. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in Leviathan, the terms that precede happiness are apparent good and evil. These are not traces of an ancient worldview but an integral part of Hobbes’s conception of truth, which is in line with a basic principle that appears in various forms throughout his writings: happiness can be attained only by subordination to those who know the path to it. I refer here to eternal happiness not to shed light on Hobbes’s theological outlook but rather to emphasize how he perceives obedience to a source of authority as necessary for happiness.

6. Subordination and True Happiness

The claim that science should not address everlasting happiness originates in the notion that the kingdom of God is ‘the object of faith, and not of knowledge.’¹¹¹ Nevertheless, Hobbes’s descriptions of the ‘unspeakable joys of Heaven’¹¹² reveal the importance of rationality in achieving them. The transition to the commonwealth liberated man from the horror of violent death but not from the basic fear of natural death, which is experienced by all rational beings and will be negated in the next life. In this sense, perfect or ‘true’ happiness¹¹³ represents a permanence achieved through liberation from death, scarcity, and sickness.¹¹⁴ According to Hobbes, most human beings are not foolish enough to prefer the good of this world to the possibility of attaining eternal happiness in the afterlife. But even if they are, they must not be forced to unite their curiosity with rationality: ‘Curiosity, or love of the knowledge of causes, draws a man from consideration of the effect to seek the cause; and again, the cause of that cause; till of necessity he must come to this thought at last, that there is some cause whereof there is no former cause, but is eternal; which is it men call God.’¹¹⁵ Natural curiosity and rationality will finally lead man to believe in God and understand His laws. The problem is that most humans are unable or unwilling to recognize these laws by themselves, since the laws of nature ‘cannot be known by men who are constantly in pursuit of pleasure, wealth or honour, nor by those who do not have the habit, the ability or the concern to reason correctly, nor, finally, by fools—which is where the Atheist belongs.’¹¹⁶ Hobbes’s solution is not universal education for rationality that allows all people to reach the same conclusion regarding their shared purpose but rather rationality demonstrated by their obedience to those who mediate ‘laws, not made, but Eternall.’¹¹⁷

Every citizen is allowed to think, feel, and believe in anything but not to express through speech, gestures, or behavior any element of their thoughts, feelings, or beliefs that contradicts the commonwealth’s laws.¹¹⁸ Therefore, activity in the political sphere may not promote or prevent the achievement of everlasting happiness, based as it is on the belief in Christ as a redeemer who will return to grant his faithful the eternal life lost due to original sin.¹¹⁹ Happiness in the next life is made possible by the subordination of inner faith to the timeless truth of the scriptures as mediated by the clergy.¹²⁰ By directing the faith of individuals, the Church leads them to eternal happiness, while the commonwealth is designed to provide citizens with optimal conditions for attaining happiness in this world. Thus, eternal happiness is linked to the belief in religious truth, and earthly happiness is expressed in activity that attests to the adoption of scientific truth, whose realization political law is intended to enable. This difference, however, only reveals the common denominator of earthly and eternal happiness: happiness is achieved as a result of a practice that attests to the individual’s willingness to subject his conduct to principles that originate in an external authority. As Hobbes puts it, ‘The obedience  …  which is necessarily required for salvation is nothing other than the will or effort to obey, i.e., to act according to the laws of God, i.e., the moral laws which are the same for all.’¹²¹

The following example clarifies the importance of subordination in humans’ happiness. Regarding the path that leads to eternal happiness, according to Hobbes, all humans belong to one of three types. People of the first type know the way and require no guidance. These include the prophets of Israel, the apostles, and the Church fathers, to whom the path was revealed in the form of a supernatural revelation. Those of the second type do not know the path and need a guiding authority. These are the masses, who are willing to admit that their happiness depends on accepting the opinions of those of the first type. Finally, individuals of the third type do not know the path yet refuse to acknowledge any source of authority, adopting the principle that no one can reach certainty in such matters. These are the atheists, who, by spreading their error, threaten the ability of others to fulfill their hearts’ desires, and according to Hobbes, ‘[everlasting happiness] is lost when someone neither knows the path himself nor believes those who do.’¹²²

It is important to emphasize that these three types embody the same principle: attaining eternal happiness requires the individual to rely on a source outside himself. This notion is consistent with Hobbes’s understanding regarding the necessity of misery in the state of nature (where there is no agreed-upon source of authority) or in a commonwealth where the laws do not reflect the conclusions of a true moral doctrine concerning the universal meaning of the laws of nature. Based on the interpretation I propose here, it seems clear that an analogy can be drawn between the three types and the possibilities available to those who seek happiness in this world. The first type knows what happiness is and how to achieve it. This type is not the layperson, priest, or sovereign but rather the philosopher, who implements scientific methods to this end. The other two types lack clear knowledge regarding the purpose of human existence. The difference is that people of the second type are characterized by obedience, which alone allows them to achieve happiness. Rationality manifested in relation to success in increasing one’s power through constantly advancing knowledge precedes rationality manifested in the willingness to happily accept the conclusions of science, which are always intended to benefit human beings. At the end of Leviathan, Hobbes states that ‘such Truth, as opposeth no man’s profit, nor pleasure, is to all man welcome.’¹²³

The hierarchy between happiness in this world and the afterlife, which stems from the one between scientific and divine truth, does not apply to humans because the foundation of happiness is the same for all: external and universal truth. The prophet does not create the words of God in the same way that the philosopher does not create the laws of nature. Those who lack knowledge rely on those who possess it to explain to them how to achieve happiness, but the pleasure of increasing scientific knowledge is no greater or less than that of increasing a farmer’s knowledge of his crops.

The trait that characterizes the third type is skepticism, ultimately expressed in stubborn rebelliousness. Like the atheist, the skeptic challenges the very ability to attain truth in the moral realm and is thus not only ignorant of the path to happiness but convinced that no one is capable of acquiring such knowledge. Such radical skepticism is consistent with the state of nature, in which it was impossible to scientifically and accurately define man’s nature. In light of truths attained by means of a true moral doctrine that for the first time properly defines human happiness, it is clear that the rebel acts in a manner inappropriate not only for himself¹²⁴ but also for the historical period in which he is living. These are people, and the sovereign may be one of them, who exist in a modern political framework, but retain the irrational perspective that was appropriate for ancient and miserable states of existence, people who act as if their ‘private Appetite is the measure of Good, and Evill [as if they are in] the condition of meer Nature.’¹²⁵

One of the primary purposes of education in Hobbes’s thought concerns its ability to make man obedient. In a positive political situation, rational laws, i.e., natural laws designed to enable human beings to achieve happiness, become part of their nature.¹²⁶ Through education, human beings internalize absolute truths regarding their nature, society, and the proper conduct necessary to achieve their single, shared purpose. Relativism begins only after living in accordance with fundamental shared qualities that concern not the principle of preserving life or maximizing pleasure but the complexity of human happiness. In Hobbes’s political theory, the thing that most threatens humans’ happiness is irrationality, which is conceived as monstrous and expressed as a lack of compatibility between human life and human nature. Therefore, in addition to encouraging rational legislation, the sovereign must also act against those who refuse to be rational, i.e., who are unwilling to be educated according to scientific truths and thus violate the fifth natural law, according to which ‘every man [must] accommodate himself to the rest  … [and if the] stubbornness of his Passions  …  cannot be corrected [should] be left, or cast out of Society.’¹²⁷

7. Conclusion

This article sheds light on Hobbes’s understanding of progress as an objective element of his conception of human happiness. The idea that every individual can be happy in this world originates in the optimistic notion that scientific conclusions can be reached in the realm of ethics and that rational and educated human beings will choose to act in accordance with them. The attempt to liberate the purpose of existence from metaphysical principles is analogous to Hobbes’s attempts to liberate natural science from Aristotelian principles. In both cases, it is not an attempt to free man from an existence subject to the objective truth about himself. Hobbes does not seek to separate the ideal of happiness from the concept of truth. I have sought to clarify how his original understanding of human nature was the source of the change in the ideal of happiness, reflected in his perception of the progressive dynamics of satisfactions that can take place only in the realm of desires of the mind, which not only can never be fully satisfied but are also congruent with human curiosity and the infinite progress that characterizes scientific knowledge.

Charles Taylor argues that while in Plato and Aristotle, the good is not based on personal desires, modern freedom, one of whose most significant harbingers was Hobbes, developed on the basis of the principle that only the individual should determine the good for himself since there is no better judge than he to determine his own happiness.¹²⁸ In this article, my aim is not to reject the common argument that Hobbes developed a psychological, individualistic conception of happiness but rather to add to it the idea that it should also take into account the fact that Hobbes does not seek an ideal of life based on each individual determining by and for himself the purpose of his existence. For him, such a worldview is evidence of a highly negative state of affairs that humanity managed to escape not by leaving the state of nature but by creating a new scientific method and living in accordance with its conclusion. As he puts it, ‘And such diversity of ways in running to the same mark, Felicity, if it be not Night amongst us, or at least a Mist? Wee are therefore yet in the Dark.’¹²⁹ Relativism attributable to happiness begins only following the adoption of a lifestyle that befits man as a rational, curious, and social being and is in itself a kind of first-order rationality.

Hobbes advocates a political system in which the promotion of eternal happiness does not threaten that of earthly happiness and vice versa. The separation of the entities intended to promote the different types of happiness and the human elements involved in it (beliefs and behavior) means that instead of a necessary positive link between them, Hobbes outlines a theory in which the delicate balance between political and religious systems is maintained through their indifference to each other.¹³⁰ Hobbes attempted to explain how scientific and religious truths can merge since the laws of nature originate in God.¹³¹ Yet he understood the importance of creating a clear divide between political and religious authorities to minimize the likelihood of conflict.¹³² I believe that Locke considered Hobbes’s moral system dangerous because of this rift between man’s state in this world and the next, and therefore his main goal was to heal it by understanding worldly happiness as a command of God and thus something that could promote heavenly happiness.

The analysis of Hobbes’s political philosophy that Robbins offers is based on David Gilmore’s understanding regarding the linear progression that characterizes the monster narrative: ‘the monster appears from the dark; humanity becomes aware of the monster; the hero confronts and destroys the monster.’¹³³ The approach I propose here emphasizes that for Hobbes—and this is relevant to all his writings—chaos, war, unnecessary violence, and the horror of violent death are not conceptualized as the causes of darkness but as its consequences since they originate in ignorance. Thus, in the narrative that emerges from his political thought, the main hero is Hobbes, who provides the means for the radical elimination of monstrosity, which originates neither in humans’ nature nor their conditions, but rather in a life based on a lack of understanding of these. I have sought to argue that such a life is, from Hobbes’s point of view, irrational and unsatisfying.

According to Hobbes, monsters were created from the ‘fiction of the mind’ and through the power of imagination¹³⁴ and used by past rulers to control their subjects through fear and ignorance.¹³⁵ As science advanced, people could reject these fears and make rational decisions about being ruled by their sovereign. Nevertheless, the possibility of happiness is entirely open since victory over the misery that produces monstrosity occurs only in the realm of theory. Therefore, Hobbes leaves his political theory on a hopeful note: ‘I recover some hope, that one time or other, this writing of mine, may fall into the hands of a Sovereign  … [who will] convert this Truth of Speculation, into the Utility of Practice.’¹³⁶ Hobbes’s hope, expressed in the introduction to Leviathan, does not concern discovering the truth about humanity—nosce teipsum—but rather about the sovereign’s willingness to act rationally, that is, to subject his conduct to this truth: ‘He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind.’¹³⁷

Notes

1 N.W. Robbins, ‘Hobbes’s Social Contract as Monster Narrative,’ Polity 52 (2020), p. 492.

2 A. Milanese, ‘The Beast and the Sovereign According to Hobbes,’ Philosophy Today 60 (2016), pp. 82–83.

3 Ibid., p. 75.

4 N.W. Robbins, ‘Hobbes’s Social Contract,’ cit., p. 486.

5 F. Bacon, The New Organon, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, pp. 39, 61.

6 F. Bacon, The New Atlantis, The Floating Press, Auckland 2009, pp. 30–31.

7 A. Milanese, ‘The Beast and the Sovereign,’ cit., p. 82.

8 A. Bardin, ‘Liberty and Representation in Hobbes: A Materialist Theory of Conatus,’ History of European Ideas (2021), p. 2.

9 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 41–42. Abbreviations and editions used for Hobbes’s works: De Cive, R. Tuck & M. Silverthorne (eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998; Elements of Philosophy. The First Section Concerning Body, in The Elements of Law: Natural and Politic, J. Gaskin (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford 1994; Leviathan, R. Tuck (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2019; Thomas White’s De Mundo Examined, H. Jones (trans.), Bradford University Press, Bradford 1976; De Homine, C. Wood, S. Craig, & B. Gert (trans.), Doubleday & Company, Gloucester 1978.

10 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 46.

11 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 24.

12 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 3–839.

13 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, pp. 378–379.

14 Ibid., p. 478.

15 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 70.

16 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 463.

17 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 69–70. Cfr. The Elements of Law, p. 60; Thomas White’s, p. 463.

18 L. Strauss, Natural Right and History, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1965, pp. 166–169, 182.

19 L. Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and its Genesis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1963, pp. 17, 23, 57, 121, 132, 150.

20 C. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1964, p. 67.

21 A.P. Martinich, Hobbes, Routledge, New York 2005, p. 44.

22 A. Taylor, Thomas Hobbes, Dodge, Illinois 1906, pp. 65–69, 89, 101, 113.

23 A.W. Wood, Hegel’s Ethical Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 53–54.

24 S.V. Kitanov, ‘Happiness in a Mechanistic Universe: Thomas Hobbes on the Nature and Attainability of Happiness,’ Hobbes Studies 24 (2011), p. 117.

25 Ibid., p. 130.

26 T. Hobbes, De Cive, p. 221, 448.

27 Ibid., p. 407. Cfr. Elements of Philosophy, p. 228; Leviathan, p. 203.

28 A. Bardin, Liberty and Representation, cit., p. 6.

29 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 448.

30 T. Sorell, ‘Seventeenth-Century Materialism: Gassendi and Hobbes,’ in G. Parkinson (ed.), The Renaissance and Seventeenth-Century Rationalism, Routledge, New York 1993, pp. 256–257, 266.

31 A.P. Martinich, A Hobbes Dictionary, Blackwell, Oxford 1995, p. 135.

32 L. Strauss, Seminar in Political Philosophy: Rousseau, in J. Marks (ed.), Estate of Leo Strauss 2014, p. 122.

33 R. Peters, Hobbes, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1967, pp. 141–142; J.W.N. Watkins, Hobbes’s System of Ideas: A Study in the Political Significance of Philosophical Theories, Hutchinson University Library, London 1973, pp. 80–81; J. Brunner, ‘Modern Times: Law, Temporality and Happiness in Hobbes, Locke and Bentham,’ Theoretical Inquiries in Law 8 (2007), p. 282.

34 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 16. Cfr. Elements of Philosophy, p. 220.

35 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 9.

36 D. Rutherford, ‘In Pursuit of Happiness: Hobbes’s New Science of Ethics,’ Philosophical Topics 31 (2003), pp. 380–390.

37 B. Gert, ‘Hobbes’s Psychology,’ in T. Sorell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996, pp. 163–170.

38 G.S. Kavka, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1986, p. 111.

39 Q.R.D. Skinner, Hobbes and Republican Liberty, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 110–115, 211–216.

40 Q.R.D. Skinner, From Humanism to Hobbes: Studies in Rhetoric and Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2018, pp. 270–277.

41 T. Sorell, ‘Seventeenth-Century Materialism,’ cit., pp. 262–263; O. Höffe, Thomas Hobbes, N. Walker (trans.), SUNY Press, Albany 2015, pp. 86, 128, 147, 199.

42 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 172. Cfr. De Cive, p. 143; Leviathan, p. 231.

43 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 62 (see note 32, above).

44 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 310.

45 Ibid., pp. 464–465.

46 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 89.

47 T. Hobbes, De Cive, p. 173. Cfr. Leviathan, pp. 86–87; The Elements of Law, p. 168.

48 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 304.

49 T. Hobbes, Elements of Philosophy, p. 85.

50 O. Ditrych, ‘Forget Hobbes,’ International Politics 53 (2016), p. 294.

51 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 61. Cfr. Thomas White’s, p. 482.

52 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 62.

53 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 50.

54 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 62.

55 T. Hobbes, De Homine, p. 64.

56 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 180.

57 B. Rumelili, ‘Integrating Anxiety into International Relations Theory: Hobbes, Existentialism, and Ontological Security,’ International Theory 12 (2020), p. 261.

58 S. Kitanov, ‘Happiness in a Mechanistic Universe,’ cit., p. 136.

59 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 482.

60 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 440, note 1.

61 Ibid., pp. 75–76.

62 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 463.

63 T. Hobbes, De Cive, p. 5.

64 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 10.

65 Ibid., p. 461. Cfr. De Cive, pp. 55–56.

66 T. Hobbes, De Homine, p. 54.

67 S. Kitanov, ‘Happiness in a Mechanistic Universe,’ cit., p. 136.

68 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 42.

69 T. Hobbes, De Homine, p. 50.

70 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 373.

71 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 23, 27–28. Cfr. Thomas White’s, p. 276.

72 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 35.

73 Ibid., pp. 35–36. Cfr. Leviathan, pp. 32–36, 53,180; Thomas White’s, p. 433.

74 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 37.

75 Ibid., p. 36.

76 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 41.

77 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 458–459. Cfr. The Elements of Law, pp. 35–37; Thomas White’s, pp. 157–158, 372; De Cive, p. 4.

78 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, pp. 118–119.

79 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 473.

80 A.P. Martinich, Hobbes, cit., p. 53; L. Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, cit., p. 119.

81 T. Hobbes, De Cive, pp. 149–150.

82 D. Rutherford, ‘In Pursuit of Happiness,’ cit., p. 371.

83 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 269.

84 L. Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, cit., pp. 35, 78, 113–114, 121–127, 167.

85 S. Kitanov, ‘Happiness in a Mechanistic Universe,’ cit., p.132.

86 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 465.

87 T. Hobbes, De Homine, p. 51.

88 Ibid., p. 50.

89 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 468.

90 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 42.

91 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, pp. 57–58.

92 Ibid., p. 58. Cfr. Leviathan, p. 74; De Cive, p. 87.

93 T. Hobbes, De Cive, pp. 71–72.

94 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, pp. 163–164.

95 T. Hobbes, De Cive, p. 72.

96 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 477.

97 Ibid., pp. 371–372.

98 J. Brunner, ‘Modern Times,’ cit., pp. 290–291.

99 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 57.

100 Ibid., pp. 236–237, 454.

101 Ibid., p. 36.

102 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 180.

103 S. Kitanov, ‘Happiness in a Mechanistic Universe,’ cit., pp. 129–130.

104 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 169.

105 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 254.

106 Ibid., p.145.

107 Ibid., p. 111.

108 Ibid., p. 231.

109 Ibid.; Ibid.

110 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, pp. 466–467.

111 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 192. Cfr. Leviathan, pp. 46, 77.

112 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 71.

113 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, p. 482.

114 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 278–280.

115 Ibid., p. 74.

116 T. Hobbes, De Cive, p. 164.

117 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 268.

118 Ibid., pp. 183, 223, 147–148, 150, 344.

119 Ibid., pp. 403, 407.

120 T. Hobbes, De Cive, p. 231.

121 Ibid., p. 236. Cfr. Leviathan, pp. 360, 378, 414.

122 T. Hobbes, Thomas White’s, pp. 482–485.

123 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 491.

124 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, pp. 170–171.

125 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 111.

126 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 176.

127 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 106.

128 C. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1989, p. 82.

129 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 418.

130 Ibid., pp. 344, 353, 360, 378.

131 Ibid., p. 236.

132 Ibid., pp. 84, 198, 328, 346.

133 N.W. Robbins, ‘Hobbes’s Social Contract,’ cit., p. 467.

134 T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law, p. 28.

135 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 80–81.

136 Ibid., p. 254.

137 Ibid., p. 11.