Hobbes on Artificial Persons and Collective Actions

Abstract

homas Hobbes's theory of artificial persons yields an imT portant and classic account of collective actions, and of what I call actions,' phenomena which have received little attention despite large amount of work which has been done recently on action theory. Moreover, Hobbes's theory of central importance to his own political philosophy; a grasp of it necessary for a proper understanding of content of social contract. Hobbes himself says in introduction to Leviathan that commonwealth or state is but an artificial man, and he defines his task as that of describing the nature of this artificial man (L, pp. ix-x).' My task to explicate theory of artificial persons and to evaluate account it provides of collective and secondary actions. I will discuss its role in Hobbes's political philosophy, but my object primarily to learn what Hobbes can offer to those currently working in theory of action. I will show that theory Hobbes offers an elegant and suggestive one, even though it suffers from serious flaws.