Hobbes and Rational Choice Theory

Abstract

HT HE depiction of the natural condition of mankind by Thomas Hobbes (Hobbes 1968) has long been a source of fascination to students of political theory. In the past two decades, the concepts and categories of rational choice theory have been increasingly employed as one means of interpreting, illuminating, and understanding Hobbes' teaching (Hampton 1986; Brams 1985: 139-46; Kavka 1983; Laver 1981: 17-18, 43-47; McLean 1981: 339-51; Taylor 1976; Gauthier 1969). The issue I propose to explore herein is that of determining the extent to which this approach does indeed succeed in bringing clearly into focus the essence of that teaching. I shall suggest that though not without value, the appropriation of Hobbes' teaching to the terms of rational choice theory reaps a good deal less than Hobbes attempted to sow. There are a number of mundane senses in which this conclusion is at once obvious and trivial, all rooted in the fact that Hobbes, seminal thinker that he was, planted widely. To take the extreme, no one employing the conceptual framework of rational choice or game theory attempts to use this framework to say anything about Parts III (Of a Christian Commonwealth) or IV (Of the Kingdome of Darknesse) of Leviathan. If the conclusion that rational choice theory fails to illuminate fully Hobbes' lessons amounted to no more than this, we would be wasting our time. But the conclusion would be significant if it turned out that aspects of Hobbes' theory which rational choice theorists themselves choose to discuss purport to illuminate resisted assimilation. I shall argue that this is just the case, especially in regard to attempts to treat Hobbes' state of nature as an exemplar of a prisoners' dilemma situation. More importantly, the conclusion would take on even greater significance if it turned out that insofar as one specified and reflected upon the differences (underlying the, admitted, similarities) between Hobbes' understanding of the sociopolitical world and that offered by rational choice theory, one were led to question the coherence, cogency, and ultimately the adequacy, of rational choice theory itself as an attempt to make sense of that world.