Socrates' response to Hobbesian voluntarism and the state
In this short paper, I will establish a Socratic reply to the Hobbesian voluntarist theory of political obligation. Firstly, I will broadly outline the Hobbesian theory by referring to certain passages from Leviathan. Secondly, I will make Socrates react to this theory by drawing from Plato’s Criton; one of the few ancient sources that appeal to the problem of political obligation. In doing so I will focus mainly on the voluntary act of consenting to obey the state and the motives for doing so.
In his Leviathan, Hobbes seeks to explain how the state can be legitimized if people have good reasons to endorse it above a stateless condition. Hobbes’ voluntarist theory of political obligation states, simply put, that political obligation occurs due to a voluntary act to renounce one’s so-called natural right, in order to gain peace among natural individuals. In order to understand this voluntary act and its consequent promise, we need to delve shortly into the state of nature as described by Hobbes. In the state of nature, man is equal to one another in the sense that everyone is prone to the same life-threatening danger. Every man has different capacities (which are nonetheless equal to his ends) to either defend oneself against such danger or to inflict it onto others. (Lev., 87) Quarrel stems from competition, diffidence and glory. (Lev., 88) If there is no common power to forbid the actions followed by these principal causes, human life is fundamentally posited in a state of war, i.e. a state of (potentially violent) conflict. The notions of justice and injustice or any kind of moral notions at all have no place in the state of nature since they are ‘qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude’. (Lev. 90) The basic force driving men to the establishment of a government is fear of death. Peace through the establishment of government then occurs by renouncing the so-called natural right which allows every man to have a right to everything. (Lev. 90-91)
Socrates seems to agree with Hobbes that the legitimization of the state occurs due to some voluntary choice by the citizen to obey the state. There is an important difference between Hobbes and Socrates regarding the historicity of this voluntary action. For Socrates, making use of the privileges of Athenian citizenship actively amounts to at least an implicit agreement to obey the laws of government, and is voluntary because every citizen has had the choice to leave Athens at any given time during his life. (Criton, 52e-53a) Residence then gives tacit consent to political obligation and is an (implicit) voluntary act on an individual level. Hobbes’ moment of voluntary consenting is purely hypothetical and universal to all citizens; there’s no historical event in which each member of a pre-society actively consented to be dominated by some state.
Furthermore, Socrates puts forward a different relation between citizen and state than Hobbes. Since harming is a fundamental injustice, harming the state would be in itself immoral. (Criton 49a-e) By breaking his commitments to the state one might even endanger (and thus harm) his friends which in turn would be again in itself immoral. (Criton 53a) This principle does not apply to the Hobbesian theory because the relationship between citizen and state is one more analogous to one between serf and master: the citizen ought to fear the state and it would be reasonable not to harm it as it would inflict damage to oneself. Self-preservation, therefore, becomes the moral principle in obeying the state, rather than an intrinsic moral good like not harming others. Socrates might contest Hobbes' notion of the loyalty of the subject towards the state: if I reject the laws I have consented to, why should I be trusted to consent to any law at all? When breaking laws, my attitude towards the state seems to be one fundamentally immoral. A different kind of reasoning seems to be at play here. There is no explicit theory by Socrates on the state of nature in a stateless setting, but it is doubtful whether he would agree with Hobbes that one ought to obey the state mainly for self-preservation. Since self-preservation stays the main natural law for man in the state, he is given room by Hobbes through reason to resist any attempt by anyone to take away that right from him. (Lev. 93, 98) In contrast, Socrates even goes so far as to state that an ordeal by the state in itself can be just, even if it means the end of my life. (Criton 54b-d) A further criticism by Socrates for the Hobbesian voluntarist theory of political obligation is that as soon as the state threatens to take your life, it would be considered ‘cowardice to flee the state (hence his refusal to escape prison after being sentenced to death). (Criton 54b-d) There is a moral impediment in refusing to obey the rules of a state even if it threatens your life. For Hobbes, it might be argued that in this case the ‘coward’ is merely trying to preserve his life, and is reasonable in doing so, since his self-preservation is the first natural law. (Lev. 91) Finally, Socrates thinks a certain degree of gratitude for the state has to be in place for the benefits it provides for its citizens. Hobbes does not seem to appeal to an argument on the basis of gratitude by which a citizen is morally obliged to defend the state, which makes it hard to justify armies (forcing citizens to put their lives on the line in order to protect the state).
Thus, although Socrates agrees on a basic level with Hobbes that the citizen’s duty to obey the law is a consequence of a voluntary act, the nature of voluntarism differs between both thinkers. At least for Socrates there is a need for tacit consent, which doesn’t seem to be the case with Hobbes. Finally, the motives to establish and maintain the relationship between citizen and state are fundamentally grounded in morality for Socrates, not in the egoistic notion of self-preservation as is the case with Hobbes.
List of references
Hobbes. 1996. Hobbes: "Leviathan". Thomas, Richard Tuck, Raymond Geuss, and Quentin Skinner (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Plato. 2009. Complete Works (Criton). John Cooper (ed.) Indianapolis [u.a.]: Hackett.