The Ethics of Memory in Thomas Hobbes’
Leviathan
Benjamin Tucker
Many commentators on Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan
have
sought to explain Hobbes’ ethical theory and the implications that his
ethical
theory has on the whole of Leviathan. Much of this
commentary places
fear and absolute submission to the sovereign at the center of Hobbes’
ethical
theory. The rationale for such a sovereign-centric reading of Leviathan
is not altogether inaccurate, but based on my reading, none of these
accounts
adequately explain why Hobbes believed that a sovereign-centric ethic
was the
only way to peace. It is my view that memory, a key concept in Hobbes’
philosophy that could add a great deal to the current scholarly
discussion, has
been unjustly left out of a majority, if not all, of the commentaries
on
Hobbes’ ethical theory. In response to what I see as scholarly neglect
of a key
concept in Hobbes‘ philosophy, I intend to produce a memory-centric
reading of
the ethical theory that Hobbes develops in Leviathan.
I want to suggest that viewing
memory, a concept that
Hobbesian scholarship has pushed into the margins of Leviathan, as a
foundational concept of Leviathan can produce new, exciting, and
important
interpretations of Hobbes’ theories of sovereignty, ethics,
epistemology, the
state of nature, the state of war, the social contract, nominalism, and
psychological egoism. The primary focus of this paper and my guiding
question
will be: Is there an ethics and/or morality of memory in Leviathan and,
if so,
how substantial of role does Hobbes’ ethics and/or morality of memory
occupy in
regards to the main claims Leviathan?
The first concept that Hobbes
creates and explains in Leviathan
is imagination. The second concept that Hobbes creates is memory.
Hobbes was a
stout logician and, I will argue that as most logicians do, Hobbes
begins his
work by creating and explaining the most basic, foundational concepts
of his
complex argument. If this claim is true, the failure of Hobbesian
scholars to
consider memory and imagination as central concepts of Hobbes’ ethical
theory
is quite a serious error.
Imagination and Memory
A question may arise, if Hobbes’
creates imagination before
memory, then why am I writing on Hobbes‘ ethic of memory, rather than
his ethic
of imagination? The short answer is that Hobbes makes a very small
distinction
between the two concepts. Hobbes says, “…imagination and memory are but
one
thing, which for divers considerations hath divers names.” Hobbes
was a materialist and believed that both imagination and memory were
products
of past experience. The difference between imagination and memory is
that
imagination is “…but a fiction of the mind.” (L, 24) Hobbes believed
that
imagination was the combination of various possible experiences into
the
recollection or imagination of one impossible experience. To illustrate
this
point, Hobbes gives the example of a man who, through his senses,
experienced
at different times, a horse and a man. The observer then ‘compounded’
these two
experiences into one creating the imagined experience of a centaur.
Hobbes says
that the testimony of such an experience is fictional, because the
sensual
experience of a centaur is an empirical impossibility.
Hobbes contrast imagination to
memory, not by saying the
memory is nonfictional testimony, but by saying that memory is
testimony of an
empirically possible experience. Hobbes says, “When we make a general
assertion, unless it be a true one, the possibility of it is
inconceivable.”
(L, 43) For Hobbes, then, true assertions are those that are
conceivable, but
he does not oppose true assertions to false assertions. Rather, Hobbes
opposes
true assertions to absurd assertions. Hobbes says that when people talk
to him
about an impossible event that is inconceivable, “I should not say he
were in
an error, but that his words were without meaning, that is to say,
absurd.” (L,
43) The individual’s words are absurd, because they do not refer to a
possible
occurrence within the empirical world. Hobbes was an empiricist and
considered
a statement absurd if it referred to anything sensually inconceivable
or
metaphysical, whether it be centaurs; or, ‘a round quadrangle; or,
accidents of
bread and cheese; or, immaterial substances….’ etc. (L, 43)
The most important point to keep
in mind is that Hobbes
draws no distinction between imagination and memory other than the
possibility
of the occurrence of the event testified about. What’s interesting
about this
account is that for a memory to be considered true, it does not
necessarily
have to testify to the actual occurrence of an event. A true memory
only has to
testify about an empirically possible event. This is primarily because
Hobbes
distinguishes between two types of truth; knowledge of fact, which he
attributes to memory, and knowledge of consequences, which he
attributes to
science. For Hobbes, the content of memory is derived from sense
experience and
representative perception. From this perspective, memories amount to
opinions
and beliefs about the physical world. Hobbes contrasts this to science,
which
he believes uses the method of ratiocination in order to obtain truth
as
knowledge or an understanding of the causes and effects of the physical
world.
(L, 45) From this perspective, the defining difference between memory
and
imagination is that imagination is an absurd belief in the occurrence
of an
event that is impossible, whereas memory is a belief in the past
occurrence of
an event that is possible. Hobbes’ ideas about the truth of memories
actually
coincide with contemporary theories of memory developed in both
psychology and
cognitive science. Daniel Schacter, a psychologist at Harvard and one
of the world’s
foremost experts on memory, says,
As I showed earlier in my book, Searching
for Memory, we
tend to think of memories as snapshots from family albums that, if
stored
properly, could be retrieved in precisely the same condition in which
they were
put away. But we now know that we do not record our experiences the way
a
camera records them. Our memories work differently. We extract key
elements
from our experiences and store them. We then recreate or reconstruct
our
experiences rather than retrieve copies of them. Sometimes, in the
process of
reconstructing we add on feelings, beliefs, or even knowledge we
obtained after
the experience. In other words, we bias our memories of the past by
attributing
to them emotions or knowledge we acquired after the event.
Schacter’s scientific observations
show that memories are
not ‘retrieved,’ but ‘reconstructed.‘ The theory of reconstruction
exposes the
idea that memory is the recollection of one’s past perception of an
event is a
utopian impossibility. Schacter’s insight means that our memories, as
Hobbes
has argued, amount to beliefs or opinions that we currently hold about
past
events. On Hobbes’ account, if I tell you, “I went to the beach
yesterday,”
what I am really telling you is, “I believe I went to the beach
yesterday.” To
discover the truth of this statement, the first step involves a careful
consideration of whether I could have possibly went to the beach
yesterday (Was
I in town? Was it raining all day? Do I have transportation to the
beach? Etc).
The second step, according to Hobbes, involves assessing my reputation.
(L, 58)
This is a complicated step and to explain what Hobbes means by this we
will
have to take a minor detour through Hobbes’ radical theory of
nominalism.
Nominalism
For Hobbes, an individual‘s name is
the signifier of her/his
reputation. A reputation is a general understanding of someone’s
character that
is developed over time. The temporal element of a person’s reputation
is an
accumulation of individual or communal memories that others have about
a
diverse number of the given person’s behaviors and actions. A person’s
reputation always involves what we remember about someone, and not,
necessarily, what the person is currently doing in the present
(although the
present will soon become the past, and, as such, part of her/his
reputation).
According to Hobbes, the aspect of the individual that is used to refer
to
her/his character and reputation is the individual’s name. For Hobbes,
the name
is the essence of all things that are named. In fact, Hobbes goes as
far as to
say, “that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our
affirmations,
a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name
he uses
stands for, and to place it accordingly, or else he will find himself
entangled
in his words, as a bird in lime twigs, the more he struggles the more
belimed.”
(L, 36) If truth consists in the ‘right ordering of names,’ this must
be the
truth of science, because it is not about belief, but proceeds from the
definitions of names to their consequences (I.e. My friend Jim has the
reputation of being a thief, as a consequence of the
definition/reputation of
his name, when someone says that Jim is coming over I lock my jewelry
cabinet).
Hobbes makes his nominalism more
complex though, he says,
“From whence we may infer, that when we believe anything whatsoever it
be, to
be true, from arguments taken, not from the thing itself, or from the
principles of natural reason but from authority, and good opinion we
have of
him that hath said it; then is the speaker, or person we believe in, or
trust
in, and whose word we take, the object of our faith, and the honour
done in
believing is done to him only.“ (L, 58) So, what happens when
we accept
someone’s testimony is that we go from assessing an assertion about
belief, to
a science of the person’s reputation, back to a present belief in the
person
that causes us to believe her/his testimony. Avishai Margalit, the only
philosopher who has written on ethics and memory, makes a similar
assertion
when he says, “My attitude towards a potential witness often is prior
to my
attitude towards her testimony. My belief in (her) is prior to my
belief that
(what she says is true) and cannot be reduced to the latter. I may in
due
course change my attitude to my witness, add some, and drop others. But
this is
a slow and painful process that has as much to do with loyalties as
epistemology.” Maraglit
often chooses to believe or reject the testimony of a witness, because
of the
reputation of the witness giving the testimony. The less often times
that
Margalit rejects a testimony on some basis other than the witness‘
reputation,
he probably does so because the event testified about could not have
possibly
occurred. So, to asses my statement, “I went to the beach yesterday.”
One must
first ask a question about belief, “Is it possible that Ben believes
that he
went to the beach yesterday?” Secondly, one must ask a scientific
question
about my reputation that allows you to make a judgment about where I am
a
believable person or not. Third, one must have coherence between their
belief
or disbelief in me and their acceptance or rejection of my testimony.
The final
two steps can be consolidated into a single compound question, “Given
Ben’s
reputation, should I believe Ben’s testimony that he went to the beach
yesterday?”
This is the first aspect of
Hobbes’ philosophy in which
we can say there is a moral obligation to remember. Within the
interpersonal
world, we are morally obligated to remember the names of people and the
reputation signified by their name. To clarify my use of the term
morality and
my argument, I would like to draw a distinction between morality and
ethics. My
use of morality signifies individual obligations that one ought to
follow in
their personal life when dealing with interpersonal relations in order
to
maintain both healthy interpersonal relationships, and a healthy
psychological
disposition. In the context of remembering proper names, this
actually fits
quite well with Hobbes’ psychological egoism. From a psychological
egoist
standpoint, the reason why one ought to remember proper names is that
remembering people’s proper names and consequently their reputation is
conducive to healthy relationships and minimizes pain. This moral
obligation is
not an obligation in the sense of a categorical imperative. The
obligation to
remember proper names amounts to something more like a hypothetical
imperative
(I.e. If you don’t want to be hurt, then remember that Mike has a
reputation of
not fulfilling his commitments or If you want to show Alex that you
care about
her/him, then remember that Alex loves chocolate covered cherries).
Margalit actually
describes this obligation to remember in a similar manner, comparing
the
‘ethical ought’ to medical advice (I.e. If you want to be healthy, then
you
ought to stop smoking). (EM, 105) But, I think Hobbes’ would say that
the
fulfillment of this hypothetical obligation to remember is what
separates the
normal, psychologically healthy individuals from the psychologically
ill.
The Ethics of Care
A recent, popular movement in ethical
theory has been dubbed
the ethics of care. Theorists
working within the ethics of care distinguish between thick and thin
relationships. Thick relationships refer to people that we have had
long,
personal relationships with (our friends, lovers, mothers, fathers,
etc.). Thin
relationships refer to people that we have impersonal, universal
relationships
with (humanity in general, Americans, etc.). Ethical care theorists
argue that
we have stronger moral obligations to those who we have thick
relationships
with and have weaker ethical obligations to those who we have thin
relationships
with (moral and ethical are used here based on the distinction I made
between
morality and ethics above).
A common example that ethics of
care theorists use to
prove their point is known as the drowning example. In the drowning
example,
you are faced with a choice to save only one of two people from
drowning. One
of the victims is your mother and the other is a complete stranger.
Ethics of
care theorists argue that you would save you mother, and that it would
be the
morally right thing to do. This moral obligation that we have to care
more
about those whom we have thick relationships with is the foundation of
almost
all ethics of care.
Caring and Remembering
To apply the ethics of care to
Hobbes’ morality of memory,
one is morally obligated to remember the proper names of those that one
has
thick relationships with. This is of course still a hypothetical
imperative and
still, in my view, in alignment with psychological egoism and Hobbes‘
nominalism. In Hobbesian theory, remembering the proper name (which
signifies
both the person’s reputation, as well as your mutual history) of
someone that
you have a thick relation with is caring about them, as well as
yourself.
Remembering a person’s proper name is a sign that you care about them.
Would
anyone, especially a nominalist, be convinced that you care about
someone if
you cannot remember their name? Margalit goes as far as to suggest that
forgetting someone’s name amounts to killing them. Margalit says, “The
idea
that the essence of a person is referred to and expressed by a personal
name
gives the name a particular role in memory. And I believe that the
quasi-magical thought of the survival of the name, as the survival of
the
essence, is what lies behind the doctrine of the double killing:
killing the
body and killing the name.“ (EM, 23) Margalit is not even a nominalist,
yet he
suggests that forgetting a persons name makes their very essence dead
to you.
From a nominalist’s standpoint, the situation is even more drastic. It
is not
clear that a nominalist would even believe in the possibility of a
double kill.
A nominalist may hold that killing a person’s proper name amounts to
killing
the person completely or at the very least destroying the thick
relation
between you two. For a nominalist, a person is nothing, but their name
and the
reputation tied to it. If no one remembers your name, you have no
essence or
reputation and you are as good as dead. And according to Hobbes, all
bodies
have one aversion in common, the aversion to death. But, remembering
someone’s
name is also a sign that you care about yourself, because remembering a
person’s proper name and therefore the history between the two of you
provides
insights concerning how to behave in order to maintain the friendship
or
relationship. Hobbes says, “…to have friends is power: for they are
strengths
united.“ (L, 72) Power, for Hobbes, is what all people strive for, as
well as
the value or worth of a person. (L, 73) If the above conception of
Hobbes’
morality of memory is correct, then we can see that Hobbes’ morality of
memory,
like his scientific knowledge, is not objective, but conditional. We
have a
moral obligation to remember proper names, on the condition that we
have a
thick relationship with the individual in question. The reputation that
one
establishes through remembering her/his friend’s proper names and
therefore
caring about/maintaining the relationship is how one accumulates more
power.
Maintaining our powerful reputation is completely dependent on others.
Hobbes
says, “[power] is not absolute; but a thing dependant on the need and
judgment
of others.” (L, 73) Those who are most qualified to judge us and most
often
need us are people who we have thick relationships with. Thus, we can
see that,
for Hobbes, in all interpersonal relationships, as well as in the
psychological
egoist’s desire for the accumulation of power, there is a morality of
memory
that manifests itself as a hypothetical moral imperative to remember
the proper
names of those with whom we have thick relationships.
An Ethics of Memory
It seems clear to me that there is a
morality of memory in Leviathan,
but what about an ethics of memory? I believe we
can begin to answer
this question by closely investigating an interesting observation made
earlier
when dealing with the morality of memory. Hobbes has shown that with
his method
for judging the validity of interpersonal testimony, we can discover
knowledge
about the past that is not merely reducible opinion or belief. It is
the
middle, scientific step of Hobbes’ method, in which we pay attention to
the
consequences of the witness’ proper name and examine her/his reputation
that
can give us a clue as to whether or not there is an ethics of memory in
Leviathan.
But, to deal with the question of an ethics of memory in Leviathan,
I
think, it would be most productive to first discuss communal memory or
history.
Doing Good History
What happens when we testify about
events in the extremely
distant past that we never actually experienced? This kind of testimony
is what
is commonly referred to as history. Hobbes says, “In a good history,
the
judgment must be eminent; because the goodness consisteth, in the
method, in
the truth, and in the choice of the actions that are most profitable to
be
known.” (L, 60) It is not insignificant that Hobbes says ’In a good
history,’
rather than ’In an accurate history.’ According to Hobbes, a good
history is
not necessarily accurate. A good history is one that has the most
profitable
effects on the contemporary social world. Hobbes’ conception of history
falls
right in line with his theory of truth, which seems to be quite
utilitarian in
nature. Since we do not, often, have the reputation of the historian to
aide us
in judging her/his historical testimony, we have to rely on a hybrid of
the first
and second steps of judging interpersonal testimony as our
methodological tool
for the evaluation of the truth of a historical testimony. This hybrid
amounts
to judging whether the event could
have
possibly occurred by reference to the consequences of universal rather
than
particular names.
The State of Nature
I would like to explain this hybrid
method by examining
Hobbes’ own historical testimony regarding the state of nature. Hobbes
obviously did not live during the state of nature, yet he testifies
that his
conception of the state of nature is ‘good history.’ To judge Hobbes’
account
of the state of nature, we must examine the consequences of universal
names.
The universal name that Hobbes employs in his state of nature is the
name
‘human.’ Hobbes says,
Of names, some are proper, and singular
to one only thing, as Peter,
John, this man, this
tree; and some are common to
many things man, horse, tree;
every of which, though but
one name, is nevertheless the name of divers particular things; in
respect of
all which together, it is called an universal;
there being nothing in
the world universal but names; for the things name are every one of
them
individual and singular. One universal name is imposed on many things,
for
their similitude in some quality, or other accident; and whereas a
proper name
bringeth to mind one thing only, universals recall any of those many.
(L, 35)
Given the definition that universal
things have a similitude
in some quality, the method we must use to evaluate Hobbes’ state of
nature is
a version of his own reductive compositive method. To understand the
universal
name ‘human,’ we have to break down particular humans to expose their
universal
commonalities. Luckily, Hobbes, the good scientist that he is, has
already done
this for us. Hobbes says that the reductive compositive method shows
that all
humans are naturally driven by an ultimate desire of power and life,
have an
aversion to death, are psychological egoists, and are naturally equal.
Given
this definition of the human, if you place a bunch of particular humans
that
share these universal qualities into a shared territory without a
government,
with a scarcity of resources, everyone has the right to everything and
most
particular humans will live ‘brutish and short’ lives. Based on the
consequences of names, if Hobbes’ reductive compositive breakdown of
the human
is correct, then Hobbes’ account of the state of nature seems to be
highly
plausible. Hobbes idea that the intense fear of death will eventually
lead to
the creation of the social contract seems like it has a high
possibility of
occurring as well, given the consequences of the universal name human.
But, as
noted above, Hobbes is interested in creating a ‘good history,’ not an
accurate
history. So to decide whether this is a good history, we must examine
the
consequences of a belief in this history.
For Hobbes, good history is
utilitarian. The consequence
of good utilitarian history will promote the liberation of life and
minimize
the fear of death. According to this standard of truth, Hobbes’ history
is an
almost unquestionably good history. If we believe that the state of
nature has
occurred in the past, then we are more likely to live commodiously
under the
sovereign’s rule out of fear of returning to the state of nature in the
present. This fear, created by a belief in Hobbes’ history, is what is
necessary to ensure that we obey the sovereign and live commodiously.
Hobbes
drives this point home when he says, “For the laws of nature, as
justice,
equity, modesty, mercy, and, in sum, doing to others, as we would be
done to,
of themselves, without the terror of some power, to cause them to be
observed,
are contrary to our natural passions, that use to partiality, pride,
revenge,
and the like. And covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of
no
strength to secure men at all.” (L, 129) So the fear of returning to
the state
of nature (the sword), instituted by our acceptance of Hobbes’ history,
is what
makes us give the sovereign our power (the words), which, in turn,
creates the
security of wo/men and ensures the sustainability of commodious
living.
The Social Contract
In the above quotation, Hobbes
suggests that“…in sum, doing
to others, as we would be done to…” is the hallmark of a peaceful life.
Hobbes’
assertion is ethical and sounds suspiciously like the categorical
imperative or
the golden rule. What this Hobbesian categorical imperative amounts to
is one
half of Hobbes’ ethical obligation. However, this imperative cannot be
referenced to the universal name (or category) human. As noted above,
Hobbes
breaks down the universal name human to show that all particular humans
left
alone will cause a state of war. So, what category does Hobbes use to
structure
this imperative? The category could not possibly have existed before
the social
contract, otherwise the social contract would not be necessary. It is
my
contention that the universal name that Hobbes grounds his categorical
imperative on is actually created through the social contract. This
universal name
created through the social contract is called ‘subject,’ although
depending on
the location of the people it is often referred to as nationality, such
as,
European, etc. I wish to argue that remembering the universal name of
the
people within the commonwealth is the first aspect of Hobbes’ ethical
obligation to remember. This obligation is ethical because the creation
of the
universal name ‘subject’ actually creates a thin relationship of care
between
all subjects. Unlike, the moral obligation to remember particular
names, this
obligation is unconditional and objective. You are ethically
responsible to
remember that everyone who is part of your commonwealth shares the
universal
name ‘subject. And based on this shared universal name, you are
ethically responsible
to care about all the people in the common wealth as you would care
about
anyone that you have a thin relationship with. And as both Hobbes and
Kant
similarly argue, the ethical responsibility we have to people that we
are in
thin relationships with is that we do unto others as we would have them
do unto
us. This is the Hobbesian creation and defense of human rights, or
perhaps more
appropriately subject rights and it relies heavily on an ethical
obligation to
remember.
The Ethics of Honor
There is, of course, one other name
created through the
social contract, the sovereign, and that name, I will argue, is tied to
the
second half of Hobbes’ ethical obligation to remember. The sovereign,
by
definition wields the power of all of the subjects and, as a
consequence, has
absolute authority. Hobbes says, “For by this authority, given [to the
sovereign] by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use
of so
much power and strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is
enabled
to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against
their
enemies abroad.” (L, 132) The sovereign’s mighty power is the second
source of
the fear that is necessary to ensure a commodious, peaceful life for
the
subjects and adherence to the Hobbesian categorical imperative. The
relationship between the subject and the sovereign is neither a thick
nor thin
relationship. Hobbes modeled the commonwealth after the family and the
sovereign assumes the rightful place of the father in the commonwealth.
The
immense debt that is owed to the sovereign for sustaining a state of
peace
creates a very deep, meaningful relationship, but the sovereign and the
subject
do not have a long, personal relationship together. The consequence of
this
unique relationship is that the subject is not expected to care about
the
sovereign, but to honor him. Hobbes creates a long, extensive list
about how
one can honor the sovereign. The list includes, prayer, obedience,
gifts, to
show love or fear, to praise, to believe, to agree with in opinion,
etc. (L,
73-75) But Hobbes does not limit the methods of honor, he says, “…in a
commonwealth, where he, or they that have the supreme authority, can
make
whatsoever they please, to stand for signs of honour…” (L, 75) In this
relationship, there are several ethical obligations of memory. The
subject must
remember and respect the laws of the sovereign, remember what the
sovereign
deems signs of honor and honor her/him, and lastly, in order to carry
out the
aforementioned ethical obligations, the subject must remember the
consequence
of the artificial name ’sovereign.’ The subject must also remember
Hobbes’
‘good history’ of the state of nature and the process that led to the
creation
of the sovereign.
In summary, it seems to me that
there are three distinct
ethical / moral obligations to remember in Leviathan.
First, there is
the moral hypothetical imperative to care about those whom you have a
thick
relationship with by remembering their proper names. Second, there is
the
ethical categorical imperative to remember that everyone within the
commonwealth shares the universal name of ‘subject,’ and, as a
consequence of
the thin relationship established by the distribution of this universal
name,
you should do unto other subjects as you would have them do unto you.
Lastly,
there is the ethical obligation to remember the artificial name of the
sovereign and by necessary extension the ‘good history’ of Hobbes’
state of
nature, and, as a consequence of her/his name, the subject has an
ethical obligation
to honor the sovereign. It seems to me that a reading of Leviathan
through the central concept of memory greatly explicates and provides
an
interesting new understanding of almost all of the central concepts of Leviathan.
Name Games
If, as I have argued above, Hobbes’
philosophy is founded on
a science of names and various ethical and/or moral obligations to
remember
names and ‘good history,’ then it seems to me that the Hobbesian social
world
amounts to a sort of Wittgensteinian language game. Jean-Francois
Lyotard quite
eloquently summarizes Wittgenstein’s language games when he says, “What
[Wittgenstein] means by this term is that each of the various
categories of
utterance can be defined in terms of rules specifying their properties
and the
uses to which they can be put - in exactly the same was as the game of
chess is
defined by a set of rules determining the properties of each of the
pieces, in
other words, the proper way to move them.” For
Hobbes, language
games are less about utterances and more about names, but this
description of
language games seems to apply quite well to Hobbes’ radical nominalism.
Each
name refers to a different set of rules that govern how the name‘s
referent
(the individual) is capable of moving (it is important to remember that
Hobbes‘
defines freedom as movement). It seems that Hobbes, through the social
contract, creates a massive language game of names. Lyotard actually
backs up
my suspicions when he says, “[language games’] rules do not carry
within
themselves their own legitimation, but are the object of a contract,
explicit
or not, between players…” (PC, 10) To piece together Lyotard’s
observation with
my suspicion that Hobbes is perhaps one of the greatest inventors and
players
of language games, it would seem that, through the social contract, the
rules
of the commonwealth game are created. Through the social contract, the
universal name subject and the artificial name sovereign are given
their
respective meaning, which includes the rules of their movement.
The next question one must ask is:
“Why did Hobbes feel
the need to create such a massive language game?” Lyotard refers to
these
massive language games as ‘metanarratives.’ Metanarratives are language
games
that have as their primary rule the intolerance of any other language
game that
cannot be subsumed under the metanarrative. Metanarratives are the
giant
stories we tell ourselves to explain the world and to justify action.
Lyotard
also talks about a second type of smaller narrative that he calls a
petit
narrative. Petit narratives do not attempt to subsume other petit
narratives.
Many of the players of these petit language games ignore other petit
narratives
until there is an issue of conflict, in which case there is a
confrontation
between players until one language game completely beats out the other.
Now,
keep in mind that Hobbes modeled the commonwealth after the family,
which is a
petit language game. In the state of nature, the existence of so many
petit
narratives within one geographical location caused conflict. Families
could not
negotiate or talk with each other, because they were all playing by
different
rules. As an analogy, think of a basketball player trying to play a
game with a
soccer player. Now, imagine that neither player knows the rules of the
other’s
game. In such a situation, conflict out of frustration would certainly
ensue
between the basketball player and the soccer player. They cannot play a
game
together because both players play with a different set of rules. I
hope that
this simple analogy can help to show why there would be conflict
between
various individuals and families within the state of nature. This
conflict,
brought about by an inability of various people located within the same
geographic area to understand and play the same game during encounters
most
often involves resource disputes and is why Hobbes needed to construct
a
metanarrative that would subsume all the petit narratives of the
individuals’
families and, as a result, eliminate conflict. It is important to note
that the
metanarrative does not eliminate other petit narratives but it subsumes
them.
It makes the rules of the petit narratives fall into alignment with the
rules
of the metanarrative. By virtue of the metanarratives encompassing
behavior, families
often remain stable, unique games by retaining some of their own rules,
but
none of the rules of these petit language games will be allowed to
conflict
with the rules of the metanarrative. It is important to note that even
in this
Hobbesian metanarrative, families, often, retain or create their own
family-specific rules, because the uniqueness of a family’s game is
part of
what allows for the continued existence of thick relationships. It is
not only
the common experiences that individuals within a family have that makes
their
relationship thick, but also the common history they share, by which I
mean,
the shared historical tradition of their own unique language game.
The new game of the commonwealth
that Hobbes constructed
uses both fear and psychological egoism to ensure that players play
according
to the rules. In these respects, Hobbes’ language game of the
commonwealth is
not much different from contemporary sports. For example, the game of
basketball uses the fear of fouls, ejection, fine, and suspension to
ensure
that the players play according to the rules. But, basketball players
also
follow the rules of the game based on their egoistic psychology. A
basketball
player plays by the rules, because that is what is required to be
honored,
rewarded, and ultimately, to win the game. In a very similar way,
commonwealth
players are motivated to follow the rules of the game by fear of a
return to
the state of nature and the sovereign’s mighty power, and by their own
desire
for honor, peace, rewards, and a good reputation.
But how does Hobbes’
language game of names relate to
the ethics of memory? Not only does one have an ethical or moral
obligation to
remember the universal names of those one has a thin relationship with,
the
particular names of those one has a thick relationship with, and the
artificial
name of the sovereign, but one is also required to remember the consequences
of these names. The consequences of these names are the rules
of movement
that the name applies to the player. We are not just required to
remember that
‘person x’ is a subject. We are required to remember and respect the
rights of
movement that ‘person x’ has, by virtue of her/his being a subject. In
short,
we are required to remember because we care about
ourselves, because we
want others to remember our rights of movement. Because we want to
escape the
state of nature and to live in peace, we have both an ethical and a
moral
obligation to remember.
Florida
Atlantic University
Boca
Raton, Florida
About the Author