TRADITIONAL HOBBES
The divergence between the expected utility maximizing view of game theory and the traditional reading of Hobbes makes explicit the extent to which the logic of game theory provides a rationale for government that is at odds with classic liberalism.
Hobbes, we recall, is the first great liberal author who emphasizes that the achievement of personal security is more important than which particular form of government is established.[377] Hobbes observes that in the state of nature - an intense security impasse in which all individuals fend for themselves - every individual has the right to all things, including one another’s bodies.[378] The reason for leaving the state of nature and entering into a civil society is thus to achieve comfortable living. Where there is no assurance that others seek peace, no individual has the guarantee of security. It is the guarantee of security that makes possible civilized life. The state of perpetual war is to be avoided at all costs less than the toll of living in this unenviable state:In such a condition [state of nature], there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.[379]
Hobbes is clear that the benefits from living together in a civil society are far greater than any hoped-for gains in a state of nature. To use the lexicon of game theory, this puzzle of achieving a commonwealth is that of a Stag Hunt, and not a Prisoner’s Dilemma game.
Hobbes thus urges us to take a long-term perspective to gain an accurate sense of the conditions that lead to peace. Knowledge of arts and sciences grows over decades and centuries. It can be lost quickly in war.Hobbes is adamant that even under the best of circumstances, the human mind is prone to errors in logic and judgments of cause and effect.[380] Individuals have their own opinions, and moreover typically consider themselves the most clever. Obviously then in a state of nature, with everyone at war with everyone, unpredictability is preeminent. With respect to actors’ attempts at achieving collaboration, each will have his or her own opinion about which way is best, so that not only pure reason and science but also concepts of morality and the content of law will be subject to endless dispute.[381] The world of people Hobbes describes is the inverse of that studied by game theorists because Hobbes suggests that knowledge and predictability arise from life in a commonwealth, whereas game theory supposes that rational actors have good knowledge of possible outcomes and a completely consistent set of preferences over those outcomes prior to inhabiting civil society.
Hobbes identifies the sources of conflict among men as competition, diffidence, and glory, which follow from the hopes of self-gain, security, and reputation.[382] Even though Hobbes adheres to a materialist account of causation, he still holds to a subjectivist account of sensation, and hence of individuals’ propensity to judge phenomena as good or bad, and just or evil. Differences in opinion could erupt even over mathematics, and weights and measures.[383] Thus, the state of nature is a war of beliefs and opinions, a “war of minds.”[384] All people prefer to trust their own counsel and to live in accordance with their own judgment of right and wrong: “They will hardly believe that there be many so wise as themselves.”[385]
Hobbes lays out nineteen natural laws, self-evident to reason, that establish the conditions by which peace may be obtained.
The first three of these laws, identified earlier, are the most salient: to seek peace when possible, to forfeit the right to all things, and to keep covenants made.[386] Hobbes tells us that the sum of the laws of nature add up to the Christian golden rule: “Do not that to another, which thou thinkest unreasonable to be done by another to thy selfe.”[387] It is on interpreting Hobbes’s laws of nature that a debate erupts between traditional readers of Hobbes and rational choice theorists. The latter insist that Hobbes steadfastly argues that it is the power of the sword that upholds conduct in keeping with Hobbes’s laws of nature. Otherwise, if individuals were to abide voluntarily by the laws of nature, there would seem to be no need for civil government backed by coercive power. If it were rational for humankind to cooperate without the sword, then why the need for a Leviathan?When considering the means necessary to establish peaceable governance and amicable living, Hobbes differentiates between social animals such as bees and ants, which form a confederacy without the introduction of artificial organization, and humans, for whom social organization depends on the introduction of a common power.[388] We can ask whether the precise role of the sovereign is simply to introduce sanctions on defectors. Alternatively, the sovereign could provide a standard for a practice so basic as weights and measures on which allegiance may form as a joint product of individuals’ consent and the sovereign’s assurance that any predators will be dealt with.[389] Whereas game theorists stress the former possibility, a close reading of Hobbes suggests the latter.
Hobbes lists five aspects unique to humans who must resort to artificial governance in contrast to living creatures such as ants and bees that can cooperate by natural instinct. First, people compete with one another for honor and dignity or, in other words, compete for value produced through relationships.
Second, social animals naturally work for their common good, whereas people only do so under duress as they seek their personally defined good first. Third, many people have a tendency to “thinke themselves wiser, and abler to govern the Publique, than the rest... and thereby bring it to Distraction and Civill warre.”[390] These individuals, at cross-purposes with one another, create confusion over what is good and what is evil. Social animals cannot distinguish between damage and injury and hence take no offense to fellows’ actions, whereas people excel at offending and taking offense. Finally, Hobbes concludes,The agreement of these creatures is Naturall; that of men, is by Covenant only, which is Artificiall; and therefore it is no wonder if there be somwhat else required (besides Covenant) to make their Agreement constant and lasting; which is a Common Power, to keep them in awe, and to direct their actions to the Common Benefit.[391]
Here, Hobbes presents his central idea of the social contract: that agreements are the primary vehicle for people to achieve joint endeavors.
Whereas game theorists focus on the joint preference for mutual cooperation over mutual defection in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game, a traditional reading of Hobbes focuses on the role of the sovereign in establishing a common direction and common standard for action.[392] Moreover, in the social world Hobbes envisions, actors freely license their own future conduct to coordinate with others by giving their word. The game theoretic expected utility maximizer constantly calculates personal gain, and the payoff matrices presume that the basis of value exists and can be appraised prior to the establishment of social institutions.[393] However, from the perspective of the classical liberal Hobbes, it is precisely the right to select any actions based on momentary action following from their passions that agents foreswear to unite in a commonwealth.
For Hobbes, the overriding and essential goal individuals must have in pursuing self-preservation is to achieve allegiance to government. Individuals achieve this by agreeing among themselves to put peace first and self-promotion second. Recall that Hobbes’s second law of nature is to yield the right to all things. This implies both respecting others’ persons and yielding the propensity to demand that one’s opinion prevail over others’. Hence, at the point where game theorists deem that maintaining the commonwealth is an n-person Prisoner’s Dilemma because each seeks to have others bound by the law but to make a personal exemption, the classic liberal Hobbes insists that to attain peace, men yield their private authorship over their actions to the sovereign.[394] Thus, individuals consenting to governance agree to abide by the sovereign’s code of right and wrong, and not their private judgment. This choice between anarchy and civil society is not a Prisoner’s Dilemma. Living in a state of mutual cooperation is superior to living in a state of nature, and the condition for living at peace is precisely that of not making an exclusion for oneself. To seek exclusion for oneself is to perpetuate the conditions comprising a state of nature.