Baruch and Hobbesy, freedom of speech, etc.

[Ken Hanly]

But what on earth can "legitimation" mean? The only legitimacy is that if you don't obey you will lose more than you will gain supposedly. But often that is simply false. It is simply not rational for an ethical egoist to consent to the will of the ruler except insofar and only insofar as it is in the egoists interest to do so.
The myth is indeed a myth since all it does is suck the egoist in so that he or she will obey the sovereign whether or not it is in the egoists' interest. It is irrational both from the individual and the collective point of view because individually one may do better by not obeying and collectively because it may be possible through revolution to set up a state that would be better for all or most. Hobbes comes out OK because he sucked up to the monarchy but of course if he had more tactical smarts he would have argued for the divine right of kings rather than bringing that all into question!

   Cheers, Ken Hanly

JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:


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> I also note that H is no idiot and knows perfectly well that all actual states are formed by conquest. See L., ch 20, distinguishing a commonwealth by acquisition from  one by institution. The thing about the social contract  myth is to bring out the point that what legitimates a despotical dominion by acquisition is the rational consent of the subjects to the power of the sovereign--rational individually, because it's perfectly sensible to fear what the sov can do to you, and also collectively because it's even more sensible to fear what it would be like without him.
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> Hobbes' motto is: better the Stalinist terror than the Liberian civil war. And is he wrong, if those are the choices.
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> --jks
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> --jks