Carrol
Third Post Today
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of ken hanly Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2012 7:45 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] yakking about the right
Certainly Spinoza read and was influenced by Hobbes and his Dutch disciples. See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza-political/
However, Spinoza did not think that Hobbes view of the social contract was consistent with his naturalism: consider Spinoza's reply to his friend to Jarig Jelles, when asked what sets his views apart from Hobbes': ""With regard to political theory, the difference between Hobbes and myself, which is the subject of your inquiry, consists in this, that I always preserve the natural right in its entirety [ego naturale jus semper sartum tectum conservo], and I hold that the sovereign power in a State has right over a subject only in proportion to the excess of its power over that of a subject. (Epistle 50) What Spinoza is criticizing here is the Hobbesian view of contracts (covenants) or the transference of one's natural right. The transferability or alienability of one's natural right to judge how to defend oneself serves as the foundation of Hobbes' political theory; it allows him to explain the formation of the commonwealth and the legitimacy of the sovereign. In Spinoza's view, however, Hobbes violates naturalism here. By conceiving of one's natural right as something like an entitlement that can be transferred, which in turn leads him to drive a wedge between right and power in the commonwealth, Hobbes never fully rids his account of the vestiges of the juridical tradition that Spinoza sought to overturn.""
However Spinoza himself seems to encounter similar problems in his own talk of a social contract. The power of the sovereign in Spinoza is less than almost absolute as in Hobbes. If the people become powerful enough to overthrow a sovereign and have the will to do so obviously the sovereign's power is quite limited in such conditions:
""whereas Hobbes argues that the sovereign is always vested with nearly absolute legislative authority, Spinoza claims that “since the right of a commonwealth is determined by the collective power of a people, the greater the number of subjects who are given cause by a commonwealth to join in conspiracy against it, the more must its power and right be diminished” (TP 3/9). If a sovereign is to maintain its right, it must legislate wisely, so as not to incite insurrection. So while Spinoza does not accord to the people a proper right of revolution, he proposes a naturalistic equivalent, since the right of the state is essentially constituted, and limited, by the power of the people (TP 2/17).""
While Hobbes argues that monarchy or at least a single sovereign is the best form of government, Spinoza argues for democracy:
""In the TTP Spinoza provides both principled and instrumental arguments in favor of democracy. The principled reason is that democracies preserve men's natural equality (16/185) and natural freedom (5/65). The major instrumental defense of democracy is that “in a democracy there is less danger of a government behaving unreasonably” (16/184). In the TP, Spinoza focuses exclusively on the instrumental defense, highlighting what has recently been called the epistemic advantage of democracy, i.e., the tendency of popular assemblies to legislate more wisely than other legislative bodies (e.g., Cohen, 1986; Estlund 1997; cf. entry on democracy. For instance, he repeats his claim that larger councils are more likely to be rational because collective decisions force members to “aim at ends which are honorable, or at any rate appear to be so” (8/6). Also, he claims that the deliberative features of large governing bodies improve competency, since “human wits are too blunt to get to the heart of all problems immediately; but they are sharpened by the give and take of discussion and debate” (9/14). Spinoza also rebuffs those who claim that there is “no truth or judgment in [the masses]” (7/27), claiming that “all men have one and the same nature” and that differences in competency stem primarily from the fact that most people “are kept in ignorance of the main affairs of the state,” rather than from any natural defect (ibid.; cf. 7/4).""
Cheers, ken
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
________________________________ From: Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Sunday, April 1, 2012 7:48:25 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] yakking about the right
One place I think I break with Robin's work, is in the dynamics of conservative psychology. I think there is a such a thing, and I think it is key to understanding. It is what unites the mind frame.
The psychological element is the central core which could be called a gross insecurity perhaps a fear built around the concept of human nature. It's there in Hobbes' idea that when left to its own devices, humanity tends to all that is bad, say Hogarth's Gin Ally, and or the Seven Cardinal Sins.
Order, control, and rule by higher moral hierarchical authority is essential for the stability of social, economic, and political life. Without this order we will all head immediately into the world of Hieronymus Bosch and the garden of earthly delights.
Strauss re-constructed this concept of human nature from studying Judaism in the middle of Weimar, when it must have looked very much like a Bosch painting. But a similar view of human nature is shared by Christians and Muslims since all of these traditions follow from various readings of the Old Testament.
Rather than actually reading the OT which generates a nausia all its own, try this link. It is a description of the cardinal sins and their position in a hierarchical mind frame matched with their demons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Acedia
For a different but related tract, try Leviathan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan
Was this the social body that had to be ruled? Evidently. In Hobbes view the social body was subject to physical (physics) forces that determined its actions and motions. This is a mechanistic view that had a central virtue, namely it elimenated the need for a God to account for human actions. It is very similar to Spinoza. They are close enough, in my mind to get easily confused with each other. Hobbes published his works often in Amsterdam and those works would have been available to Spinoza through friends and correspondents. What they share is reading Descartes and his interest in mathematics, science, and philosophy.
It would be nice to read left Arab and Islamic sources on these topics and current events that reflect the movements in the Middle East.
CG
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