The Political Economy of De Cive
Whoever translated De Cive as Philosophicall Rudiments, etc., gave the title of Chapter 13 as "Of the duties of those men who sit at the Helm of State." In their own translation, Tuck and Silverthorne rendered it "On the duties of those who exercise sovereign power." Where the Latin is concerned, translating "officiis" as "duties" would not have raised an eyebrow, and yet the notion of a sovereign's duties in Hobbes's theory is not entirely unproblematic. Indeed, in Leviathan, Hobbes himself opted for the literal translation (officium → "Office of the Sovereign Representative"), which itself contains an element of duty, but is far less direct in its attribution of duties to the sovereign.
Hobbes's term masks an important tension in his political theory, which on the one hand depends on the unconditional surrender of the subjects' natural right to the sovereign, but on the other hand requires that that sovereign meet certain standards. Hobbes is frugal with the details of the duties that follow, but quite clear throughout that the business of the commonwealth is salus populi that extends beyond mere survival and includes a "vita beata" so far as possible (DC, 13.4).
This recognition marks the starting point of a balancing act between anarchy and what others might describe as tyranny. Hobbes's well-ordered commonwealth will thus consist in an equilibrium between obedience and commodious living, brought about by a division of labor in which the sovereign oversees security and thereby frees his subjects for industry. The former, however, imposes limits on the latter. In this paper, I explore the ways in which Hobbes's peculiar understanding of fear and war in the Preface to De Cive frames the political economy that underpins the rest of that work and paves the way for Leviathan.
The discussant for this workshop is TBD.
Ioannis (Yannis) Evrigenis is the Alice Tweed Tuohy Professor of Government and Ethics and Woolley Director of The Open Academy at Claremont McKenna College. His research centers on natural law and rights, psychology, rhetoric, and sovereignty in the history of political thought. He is the author of Images of Anarchy: The Rhetoric and Science in Hobbes's State of Nature (2014) and of articles and chapters on a wide range of issues and thinkers in political theory, as well as co-editor of Johann Gottfried Herder's Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings (2004). Evrigenis received the Delba Winthrop Award for Excellence in Political Science for his book Fear of Enemies and Collective Action (2008), as well as the RSA/TCP Article Prize for Digital Renaissance Research, from the Renaissance Society of America, for his article “Digital Tools and the History of Political Thought: The Case of Jean Bodin.” He is currently working on a new translation of Bodin's Six Books on the Commonwealth.
Evrigenis holds a BA from Grinnell College, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and AM and PhD degrees from Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation was awarded the Herrnstein Prize. He has received grants and fellowships from Fulbright, Princeton’s University Center for Human Values, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Earhart Foundation, among others, as well as five Certificates of Distinction in Teaching from Harvard University's Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.