Hobbes

I am reading Lloyd's new book on Hobbes (it is over there on the reading list).  I am not a big Hobbes fan; when I read his work the long ago days of academic life, the prevailing interpretations made Hobbes seem rather in the hopeless category.  The psychological egoism coupled with a political theory that seemed aimed at showing that it was always in one's interest to obey the sovereign.  Even the remarkable efforts of Kavka could not keep that sort of approach from being obviously on the wrong track.  The assumptions just are too far from any human society.  But Lloyd has been revising that whole approach to Hobbes.  (And she writes very well, so her books are fun to read.)  I can't really speak to whether her account of Hobbes is the best or a good account of Hobbes.  I am not willing to test it on that score.  More interesting for me is whether the account she advances offers food for an approach to political theory that might enlighten us.  So the next week or two will be devoted to comments on Lloyd's account of Hobbes.