War, Madness, and Death: The Paradox of Honor in Hobbes’sLeviathan

Abstract

The citizens of a Hobbesian state, timorous and risk averse in times of peace, are expected to become valiant soldiers ready to face death for the sake of king and country in war. Far from being an outright error, this glaring contradiction is an intentional incoherence in Hobbes’s political philosophy. Hobbes creates a consistently logical model of politics based on a simplified vision of man as a psychological egoist, which he superimposes onto what he knows is a more complex human nature. In political society, man’s innate desire for honor must be tamed through education. Hobbes’s rhetorical strategy thus casts as insane anyone willing to take up arms for any reason other than direct threats to their own lives. Hobbes, however, aware of the inadequacy of his own narrowly self-interested depiction of man, expects that man’s yearning for honor and fame after death will resurface in times of war.