Bobbio 1993

‘The central theme of Hobbes’s political thought is the unity of the state’ (p. xi). With this, Bobbio begins his defence of Hobbes and, following that, his defence of unity. We live in an international state of nature. Despite the auspices of the United Nations the system still functions on a ‘balance of terror’ (p. xii), so the central question for those seeking perpetual peace, on Bobbio’s account, is the one that has troubled Natural Law theorists for centuries: How do we get from the state of nature to a civil society?

In chapter 1 Bobbio schematises the two main traditions within political philosophy that deal with this problem – Natural Law theory (Hobbes, Locke) and what Bobbio terms the Aristotelian tradition (Aristotle, Bodin, Althusius, Marsilus of Padua, Sir Robert Filmer). The former typically present two stages of the state formation process – the state of nature and civil society – and use a social contract or similar device to justify the move into civil society. The Aristotelian tradition, contrariwise, presents the family as the model for state formation. This tradition holds that the family is the natural social group in the state of nature – proof that humans have the ability to cooperate as an organisation, however small. Families then form villages, and villages in turn form civil societies. The main idea separating the two traditions is that for the Aristotelian tradition the state is natural while for Natural Law theorists the state itself is a synthetic product of human reason. The ‘reactionary’ charge against Natural Law theory, as Bobbio stresses, is that the state is only synthetic or unnatural when viewed as a product of an imaginary contract between imaginary free and equal individuals (pp. 20-21).

Continue reading »