What Thomas Hobbes Actually Said About Action
All 14 Thomas Hobbes passages on action, in full — what each one claims, what holds them together, and who argues the other way.
Thomas Hobbes returns to action 14 times in thinkr's library — more often than to almost anything else. English political philosopher. Leviathan argues that a strong sovereign is the cost of escaping the war of all against all.
What follows is every one of those passages, in full, with what each is actually claiming. The language is of its period, but the question underneath is not: what is action for, and what does it ask of you?
Every Thomas Hobbes passage on action
“But Aversion wee have for things, not only which we know have hurt us; but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, or not.”
“And Beasts that have Deliberation, must necessarily also have Will.”
“The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History.”
“And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the Price.”
“As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood to ayme thereby, at any Good to himself.”
“Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow.”
“For naturall Bloud is in like manner made of the fruits of the Earth; and circulating, nourisheth by the way, every Member of the Body of Man.”
“No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.”
“So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime.”
“Fact be vertuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth;”
“As also the great number of Corporations; which are as it were many lesser Common-wealths in the bowels of a greater, like wormes in the entrayles of a natural man.”
“Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge?”
“But if it bee well considered, The praise of Ancient Authors, proceeds not from the reverence of the Dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the Living.”
“To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.”
What holds these together
Read in sequence rather than one at a time, the passages stop being separate aphorisms. Thomas Hobbes is not offering 14 opinions about action; the lines are facets of one position, and the repetition is the argument. The shortest of them — “Fact be vertuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth;” — is the version you can carry, and the longer ones are what it unpacks into.
Thomas Hobbes applied to a real decision
Quotation is the easy part. The harder test is what the position actually does when it meets a situation where every option costs something. thinkr puts two such cases to Thomas Hobbes.
You notice a loophole that benefits you and hurts no one visibly.
Argued as skeptical realism: You are suspicious of moral theater and alert to how systems really work. The risk is becoming clever at the expense of character.
Your workplace rewards a version of you that feels false.
Argued as social contract: You are acknowledging that institutions run on roles and incentives. The danger is becoming unable to find your own face afterward.
Work through these yourself
- You notice a loophole that benefits you and hurts no one visibly. — argued from skeptical realism and several competing positions
- Your workplace rewards a version of you that feels false. — argued from social contract and several competing positions
Who disagrees
Plato, Seneca, Mahatma Gandhi and Lao Tzu all address action too, and they do not converge. Reading Thomas Hobbes alone gives you a coherent position; reading Thomas Hobbes against Plato shows you what the position is actually choosing against.