As a follow up to today’s discussion, there is a quotation which goes against my interpretations. I do believe, given Hobbes’ explicit materialism that he must, in the final analysis, be not just a compatibilist but a determinist: “that which is not subject to motion is not subject to impediment.” However…
At the beginning of ch. 21 when Hobbes is describing the liberty of subjects (and here he means those subject to the power of a sovereign but there are echoes of the subject as an individual), he uses a variety of metaphors and cases to describe this liberty. Here are the first few paragraphs from that chapter:
LIBERTY, or freedom, signifieth properly the absence of opposition (by opposition, I mean external impediments of motion); and may be applied no less to irrational and inanimate creatures than to rational. For whatsoever is so tied, or environed, as it cannot move but within a certain space, which space is determined by the opposition of some external body, we say it hath not liberty to go further. And so of all living creatures, whilst they are imprisoned, or restrained with walls or chains; and of the water whilst it is kept in by banks or vessels that otherwise would spread itself into a larger space; we use to say they are not at liberty to move in such manner as without those external impediments they would. But when the impediment of motion is in the constitution of the thing itself, we use not to say it wants the liberty, but the power, to move; as when a stone lieth still, or a man is fastened to his bed by sickness.
And according to this proper and generally received meaning of the word, a freeman is he that, in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to. But when the words free and liberty are applied to anything but bodies, they are abused; for that which is not subject to motion is not to subject to impediment: and therefore, when it is said, for example, the way is free, no liberty of the way is signified, but of those that walk in it without stop. And when we say a gift is free, there is not meant any liberty of the gift, but of the giver, that was not bound by any law or covenant to give it. So when we speak freely, it is not the liberty of voice, or pronunciation, but of the man, whom no law hath obliged to speak otherwise than he did. Lastly, from the use of the words free will, no liberty can be inferred of the will, desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do.
Fear and liberty are consistent: as when a man throweth his goods into the sea for fear the ship should sink, he doth it nevertheless very willingly, and may refuse to do it if he will; it is therefore the action of one that was free: so a man sometimes pays his debt, only for fear of imprisonment, which, because no body hindered him from detaining, was the action of a man at liberty. And generally all actions which men do in Commonwealths, for fear of the law, are actions which the doers had liberty to omit.
Liberty and necessity are consistent: as in the water that hath not only liberty, but a necessity of descending by the channel; so, likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do, which, because they proceed their will, proceed from liberty, and yet because every act of man’s will and every desire and inclination proceedeth from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain (whose first link is in the hand of God, the first of all causes), proceed from necessity. So that to him that could see the connexion of those causes, the necessity of all men’s voluntary actions would appear manifest. And therefore God, that seeth and disposeth all things, seeth also that the liberty of man in doing what he will is accompanied with the necessity of doing that which God will and no more, nor less. For though men may do many things which God does not command, nor is therefore author of them; yet they can have no passion, nor appetite to anything, of which appetite God’s will is not the cause. And did not His will assure the necessity of man’s will, and consequently of all that on man’s will dependeth, the liberty of men would be a contradiction and impediment to the omnipotence and liberty of God. And this shall suffice, as to the matter in hand, of that natural liberty, which only is properly called liberty.
Bear this in mind when we begin discussing rational egoism and Hobbes’ endeavours as motivations at greater depth as part of the rational egoism and moral science topic. Liberty as the freedom to act on desire is always a possibility and a subject may have desires that are in contradiction of law or apparent self-preservation. But Hobbes, I believe, would say that such desires are uncommon and in error.
Think about this till then.
Immediately we can see the connotations to Locke’s ‘locked room analogy’, Hobbes suggests that there is a ‘certain space’ in which things can move within. As a determinist you would assume that he would allow no room for movement in this ‘space’. HIs most clear example of which is fear, in which a man throws his belongings into the ocean for fear of the ship sinking. He is free not to do so but makes the autonomous decision to do so.
He goes on to discuss the difference between being bound by intrinsic properties, such as illness preventing movement, and external attributes of the world doing so. For example he seems to claim that water is not at liberty to spread as it would without banks to hold it in, as there is nothing to be done about the external force. There is no other option to consider. But in the case of motion being stopped due to intrinsic properties, such as a stationary rock or an ill man, it is not the free-will which is non-existent but the power to act upon it. The very mention of free will existing seems unusual in a work which clearly states in the second chapter that ‘nothing can change it selfe’. However as we discussed in class, power is a human desire which is logical according to Hobbes, so the mention of free will does seem a little irrelevant here.
This excerpt finishes with Hobbes reiterating his determinist theory of a chain of events starting with God and that human liberty can have no form beyond what God caused. So Hobbes has shown that fear and liberty are consistent, but God and mans liberty are not so has cancelled his own theory essentially.
What Hobbes is good at is redefining terms and dismissing what he sees as “metaphysical errors”, where language (words such as “free will”) have metaphorical and traditional connotations which are brought into consideration when we argue. However, you are right to question his consistency and that is how we interrogate a work in the history of thought.