The rationality of rule-following: Hobbes's dispute with the Foole

Abstract

Fools, we are told, rush in where angels fear to tread. Apparently, however, this is not the case as regards the Foole of chapter 15 of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, who "hath sayd in his heart, there is no such thing as Justice."' This Foole, who argues that it is sometimes rational to violate an agreement that your partner has kept, is wise enough to force the wily Hobbes into confusion, according to recent interpretations of their debate offered by philosophically sophisticated Hobbes scholars. Thus, Jean Hampton finds Hobbes giving a reply that coheres less with his other views than does the position defended by the Foole.2 And David Gauthier regards "the most natural interpretation" of Hobbes's reply as unpromising, and observes that Hobbes "never says" what he "needs to say" to make explicit (what Gauthier regards as) an effective reply based on other elements of Hobbes's philosophy.3 My aims in this paper are two. The first is to restore Hobbes's rightfully deserved reputation as the winner of his dispute with the Foole, by showing how Hampton's and Gauthier's interpretations of Hobbes's reply to the Foole fail, and by providing a third interpretation of this reply that is accurate, plausible, and instructive. This rival interpretation essentially accomplishes my second aim of providing a defensible individualist account of the rationality of following moral rules. After spelling out the lessons of this