Lloyd’s new version of Hobbes is a defense of the view that the fundamental principle of Hobbes’ moral and political theory is a “reciprocity theorem.” That is, ‘do not do to others what you would have them not do to you.’ (I wonder if that is the same as ‘do not do to others what you don’t want done to you’? Looks like it to me.) That is different from ‘do to others what you would have them do to you’ – which is too strong a principle. It is also one that generates some odd outcomes if one is not careful about the level of description – sexual objectification would quickly get out of hand, for example. The reciprocity principle Lloyd suggests for Hobbes (‘do not do…’) also needs the right level of description for the doing one is not to do. Description levels are always tricky – is it religious proselytizing, teaching the true religion, educating about the true nature of the world, etc.? No criticism intended; I don’t know quite how one argues for the correct description, but I do think that the level of abstraction in description is crucial for a reasonable understanding of things, or I should say actions.
The reciprocity theorem is not what I would have expected to be extracted from Hobbes’ work. I learned it in the old tradition, and that theorem is a ways from the nasty, brutish and short people (okay, lives – no reason to think state of nature makes people shorter than otherwise) of the purely self-interested agent acting to his or her own advantage. How will she get to it? Assuming Lloyd does, it is a very interesting turn for Hobbesianism. And it might fight with the notion of public reason, which has fallen off the radar a bit in recent years. It is leads to an important problem on what sorts of reasons should could for political action, or legislation, in a liberal democratic state. Is it acceptable to argue for enactments because God would like it? I don’t think so, but then one has to explain why that sort of reason is not a good reason for politics but perfectly fine for ordering one’s moral life. (I don’t believe the latter either, but I think it is required for a liberal political state. And what sort of non-democratic states are also liberal?)
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