1)Hobbes and Locke

The two philosophers appear to be talking about the same things:

Natural Rights and Natural Laws

Reason

Liberty

The State of Nature

A State of War

Contract

The Sovereign

Property (for Hobbes propriety)

Justice

But these appearances are profoundly misleading.  In each case they are talking about completely different things. 

Reason, for Hobbes, is a tool for effectively satisfying our appetites and passions, in particular our desire for self-preservation; reason, for Locke, tells us which appetites we are justified in satisfying, just as reason tells us which beliefs we are justified in holding.

Liberty, for Hobbes, is what Locke calls license; Locke contrasts liberty with license.

The state of nature, for Hobbes, is not a political state, only a natural condition, and that condition is perpetual war; what is the state of nature for Locke?

For Hobbes, the contract creates justice; what is the relationship between the contract and justice for Locke?

For Hobbes, the contract creates property; what is the relationship between the contract and property for Locke?

For Hobbes, the Rights and Laws of Nature are justified as means to the end of the agent’s own self-preservation; for Locke these are not, properly understood, rights and laws of nature at all.  What is his alternative?

2)Hobbes and Econ 50

On the basic economic model reason is a tool for maximizing the satisfaction of an agent’s preferences, and the agent’s preferences primarily concern her own welfare.  How much does this differ from Hobbes’ own account?

3)Hobbes, Locke, Econ 50, and the toxin puzzle (Greg Kavka)

There is an experimenter; he has the ability at any point in time to know what my intentions are.

He promises me a million dollars, which I will get on Monday, if I genuinely intend on Monday to drink a toxin on Wednesday that will make me pretty damn sick for a day or two, but have no lasting consequences.

I know, and he knows I know, that on Wednesday there will be absolutely no reason for doing this, and considerable reason not to.

I only intend to do something if I believe that I will do it.

Can a Hobbesian in the state of nature get the money?

Can a Hobbesian in the Commonwealth get the money?

Can an economically rational agent get the money?

Can a Lockean get the money?

4)Locke and the Constitution

How much does Locke's account of Reason and self-evident natural rights/laws differ from that presupposed in the Constitution?

 

 

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