On Hobbes and Machiavelli

Thoughts of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavelli are both similar and distinct. However to objectively describe these thoughts as similar and distinct would be incorrect as there is a large amount of overlapping involved in them. Both are equally concerned about the security and preservation of the state, only that Hobbes spends more time in understanding the state of nature and creating a scientific base for the sovereign power. Thus he goes on to discuss at length human nature, its psyche and the need for sociological order in society however still keeping the sovereign, the all-powerful political ruler at the helm of all other aspects and activities of life. Machiavelli on the other hand presumes the power in hands of the prince and concerns himself with how politics is practiced. He thus goes on to discuss at length about the ways in which a ruler ought exhibit strength, gain and maintain his position within a particular territory and secure the state itself.

Civil Government

Machiavelli wrote about Civil Government in both of his renowned treatises namely The Prince and Discourses on the first ten books of Titus Livy. He talks from different perspectives in each of them which makes it enigmatic for an observer to understand his real beliefs. However considering his stand in The Prince, which has acquired the tag of the iconoclastically notorious Renaissance advice book, we observe a heterodox advice being given to the ruler. He himself appears to be a defender of republican citizenship and liberty and at the same time takes them as a salutary results of the political acts of a well advised virtuous prince. He prefers republics than monarchies. He creates a new set of virtues which bring about a paradigm shift in the hitherto accepted platonic and cardinal virtues of courage, wisdom and goodness. He gives a perspective of a government rule that adjoins politics with warfare and justifies the deployment of force, exercise of cruelties, practice of deceit and the manipulation of appearances. A political mentality that is disposed to adapt itself according to the wind and be able to do evil if constrained. He thus creates a flip in the traditional deployment of virtues to a prince by in fact providing him the tools of vices in form of advices (Virtues and vices in the general sense of usage).

Hobbes believes that monarchy is the best form of government although he does say that the sovereign power may reside in one man or in an assembly of men. He believes that a king can act more consistently than a body of men. He says that the only way to erect a commonwealth and insure peace is by putting all the combined strength and power of men into one man; by coalescing all will into one will. This shall be made by a covenant of every man with every man. This commonwealth shall be called the Leviathan. This shall have the inseparable rights of legislature, jurisdiction, foreign affairs, choosing counselors and ministers. Hobbes is troubled by the state of internal war that shall prevail considering the nature of man if such a contract is not made. He thus says that the evils which may follow from such absolute sovereignty cannot be compared with the miseries and horrible calamities of civil war.

Obligation to Sovereign (Ruler)

It is worth noting the different positions that Hobbes and Machiavelli take on the matter of obligations (if at all there exists any) to the sovereign. Hobbes was a theorist who had a political idea around which he stiches the fabric of his entire political theory. The idea is about the natural instincts of a human being and his reason; that he remains at all times in a vulnerable state of conflict with everyone else considering his self-oriented desires and thus as dictated by his reason, he goes into a contract with other people thereby giving a certain level of unquestioned authority in the hands of the sovereign. He also puts a certain level of faith over the relationship between the subjects and the sovereign and its authority. For the subjects to believe in this faith can be either dictated by their reason or it can be a sort of obligatory promise that they would make to themselves. However Machiavelli preaches about a different type of reality. Albeit he agrees up to some extent with Hobbes about the nature of subjects and the ruled by putting them into a category which will drop their morals and ethics at the first sign of trouble, he puts himself into a position where he sort of provides the ruler with the prudence and necessary advices to deal with them. He suggests the ruler to be sagacious and shrewd, realist and practical. He accepts the fact that the people may not always be faithful enough to the state and follow their obligations (if any) towards it, hence it is necessary for a prince to be feared rather than being hated.

 Politics as Prudence versus Politics as Science

Machiavelli says that freedom or liberty as the exercise of human control over circumstances is a real possibility only for half of the time. The other half is controlled by fortune. However he also talks about the art of making fortune work in one’s favor. The idea of prudence in politics thence makes its appearance. He warns that the prince’s possibilities for success in the matters of state are always mediated by fortune. Hence the prudent prince is one who is prepared to resist and control fortune by adapting his procedure to the time and his nature to the necessity of the case. He bifurcates prudence into abilities, which he believes makes it possible for the virtu of a prince to master his fortune and navigate with complete control in the flux of political affairs. First set of abilities are to be able to read circumstances, anticipate probabilities and master events. Second set of abilities are in terms of character which he says are to be inherently flexible and move according to the wind and demand of the situation.

Hobbes was highly motivated my sciences. May it be Geometry, Optics or gases. He was a contemporary of Galileo and was an inhabitant of an emerging scientific temperament in the early 17^th century England. His propensity towards sciences inspired him to understand humans as being matter and motion and obeying the same ubiquitous physical laws. His efforts to understand human psychology in an eccentric way is clearly indicative of his appetite for Physical sciences. He says mind is a motion of a subtle substance in brain and so are the images and various ideas, whether in brain or in heart. The state of consciousness is an effect of these motions. So are the vital motions of pleasure and pain, desire (an endeavor towards) and aversion (an endeavor away from). This is materialism. However more interesting is to understand what proceeds this. He says that this epistemological method of knowing the external world is subjective to different individuals and hence is solipsistic (as per each’s understanding, relative; not in the traditional extreme meaning of the term). Also each person shall be motivated by actions of self-interest and therefore due to the nexus of solipsism and egoism there shall soon be chaos, aggression and war amongst everyone. However reason guides everyone to coexist peacefully and thus all individuals would enter with each other in a contract to coexist by surrendering their will and power to an independent and supreme sovereign ruler, preferably a monarch. They shall obey the covenant by not breaking it under any circumstance either due to dictation of reason or under obligations. This is the scientific procedure adopted by him to explain politics.

Sovereignty

Machiavelli held the idea of a united, independent and sovereign Italy and protecting it from absolutely zero control and domination of the church be it in the field of science, religion, or politics. He held that Christianity would discourage political activity on part of the citizen and would make them passive. He is fascinated by the form of government as exemplified by ancient Sparta and Rome, which were a Republic. It was a time of absolute corruption in Italy where despotism was indeed necessary to realize the ideal of a strong and independent state, even if the civic freedom was to be sacrificed. Under such conditions it was justified and right for the prince to employ whatever means will lead to the nationalistic goal. Force, deceit, severity, breach of the moral laws, were all justified by the great end and anything was preferable to the existing anarchy and corruption. Machiavelli’s advocacy of political despotism is rooted in his pessimistic conception of human nature. He justified these methods only because he found no other ways to save the state, the sovereign.

Hobbes is primarily concerned about the ego of an individual which becomes a problematic issue. He is concerned about the nexus of solipsism and relativism and the social conflict generated by these epistemological facts. His scientific orientation has provided him a natural propensity to form a scientific basis for his political theory, which he explains by studying deeply the human psychology. According to him there shall be 3 reason which would form the foundation of conflict, 1) Diffidence and fear in all causing an aggression in all against all, 2) Competition for goods and desires and 3) the ubiquitous egoism. This motivates him to say that the sovereign power must always be absolute and that it should not be weak enough to be protested against or fortified by the subjects or individuals. Hobbes said that the sovereign shall not commit injury for he represents the subject who has given him the authority. If he does commit injury or injustice than it shall not be in the proper meaning of the term. The duty of the sovereign consist in good governance of the people; when its acts are tend to hurt the people then it is to maintain the larger good for the preservation of the state.