Hobbes Leviathan fourth lecture
A. Continuing on chap. XIV:
1. From last time, we have the first two laws of nature. (1) Seek peace if possible. (2) Consequently (since this is the only way peace can be achieved), agree with everyone else to renounce your unlimited right (the right of nature); each person is to agree to content herself with only as much liberty as she allows to everyone else.
2. What the second law dictates is a non-aggression treaty, i.e. a sort of contract (p. 192): specifically, a pact or covenant (p. 193), i.e. a contract where at least one of the parties has to be trusted to do what she has contracted to do. (In this case that's so with all the parties.) If we were in the state of nature, we would need to actually make this covenant with one another in order to bring about peace. Hobbes can say that as things are, our obligations are as if we had made such a covenant.
3. If the other parties to the covenant can't be trusted, there is no point in my doing my part. Everyone can see that everyone else can see that, so as soon as someone can't be trusted, we slide back into the state of nature. So it's an urgent question how it can be secured that everyone can be trusted. End of chap. XIV: "The Passion to be reckoned upon, is Fear" (p. 200).
B. Chap. XV:
1. The third law of nature: "that men perform their Covenants made" (p. 201). The second law (which requires a covenant) would be pointless if covenants were not binding. How can covenants be binding? "There must be some coercive Power, to compell men equally to the performance of their Covenants, by the terrour of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their Covenant" (p. 202). By this point Hobbes' argument is essentially complete; the sixteen further laws of nature just fill in detail.
2. The status of the laws of nature: they are theorems (p. 217) of the science of moral philosophy (pp. 215-6). Remember Hobbes' admiration for Euclidean geometry as a model for intellectual activity.
3. The "Foole" (pp. 203-5). If anyone is to stand a chance of "conservation, and contentment" (p. 203), there must be peace. But mightn't free-riding be rational? That is, reaping the benefits of peace but exploiting others if you can get away with it? Hobbes responds (pp. 204-5):
(a) It doesn't make a course of action reasonable if it turns out well by unforeseeable accident. Reason requires reliability. You may do well by free-riding, but you can't confidently expect to.
(b) Non-compliance is a declaration that you see no reason to comply. But others will not accept someone who makes such a declaration into society (except by mistake, which takes us back to the first point). So you won't get the benefits of peace.
Is the response convincing? What about keeping your non-compliance secret?