This chapter suggests that the state of nature is a continuum notion that lies in a segment along a larger continuum of the scope of private judgment, as does the continuum notion of civil authority. Jean Hampton saw Thomas Hobbes's state of nature as a “presocietal” condition of “isolated asocial individuals,” “stripped of their social connections.” There is plentiful evidence against Hampton's interpretation of the state of nature as an “asocial” condition in Hobbes's insistence (...) across all his political writings that men care deeply about their relative social standing and reputations, and that this is a major source of conflict in a state of nature. A potentially more promising way of understanding the state of nature is as a lawless condition. Societies exhibiting a high degree of consensus among private judgments may be able to tolerate incomplete removal from the mere state of nature, without threat to their stability. (shrink)

Abstract: The State of Nature, Prehistory, and Mythmaking Karl Widerquist This chapter provide an overview of two books, in which Grant S. McCall and I name, define, and debunk the following false claims that still play important roles in contemporary political theories although they are not always defined and defended explicitly: 1. The Hobbesian hypothesis: sovereign states and/or the liberal private property rights system benefits everyone (or at least harms no one) relative to how well they could reasonably (...) expect to live in the state of nature—i.e. a society lacking one or both of these institutions. 2. The appropriation hypothesis: private property in the form of liberal ownership rights develops naturally while collective, communal, common, or government-held property rights systems do not. 3. The natural inequality hypothesis: inequality is natural and inevitable, i.e. economic, social, and/or political equality cannot exist and/or cannot be created without a significant loss in negative freedom. 4. The market-freedom hypothesis: a market economy (and/or capitalism) is more consistent with negative freedom than any other economic system. The third and fourth of these claims are not obviously claims about prehistoric or small-scale societies, but they are universal claims about all societies and so they include claims about even the most remote and distant societies from contemporary thinking. (shrink)

State of nature or Eden? -- Hobbes' state of nature as an account of the fall? -- Hobbes' own belief or unbelief -- The contemporary reaction to Leviathan -- Hobbes and commentaries on Genesis -- A note on method and chapter order -- Good and evil -- Hobbes on good and evil -- The 'seditious doctrines' of the schoolmen -- The contemporary reaction -- The scriptural account -- The state of nature as an account (...) of the fall? -- Equality and unsociability -- Hobbes and natural equality -- The contemporary reaction -- The scriptural account -- Hobbes on natural unsociability -- The contemporary reaction -- The scriptural account -- State of nature as Eden? -- The war of all against all -- Hobbes' war of all against all -- The contemporary reaction -- The scriptural account -- State of nature as fallen condition? -- The right and law of nature -- Hobbes and natural right -- The contemporary reaction -- Hobbes and natural law -- The contemporary reaction -- The scriptural account -- Hobbes as reformed theologian? -- The creation of society -- Hobbes on the escape from the state of nature -- The contemporary reaction : Hobbes versus divine right -- The scriptural account of Cain building a city -- Hobbes on the creation of the commonwealth -- The contemporary reaction : Hobbes versus the patriarchalists -- The scriptural account of the relationship between Adam and Eve -- State of nature as Eden, the process of the fall, and the fallen condition? -- Reading Hobbes' state of nature -- Anti-aristotelianism -- Hobbes' Protestantism. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that if one closely follows Hobbes' line of reasoning in Leviathan, in particular his distinction between the second and the third law of nature, and the logic of his contractarian theory, then Hobbes' state of nature is best translated into the language of game theory by an assurance game, and not by a one-shot or iterated prisoner's dilemma game, nor by an assurance dilemma game. Further, I support Hobbes' conclusion that the sovereign (...) must always punish the Foole, and even exclude her from the cooperative framework or take her life, if she defects once society is established, which is best expressed in the language of game theory by a grim strategy. That is, compared to existing game-theoretic interpretations of Hobbes, I argue that the sovereign plays a grim strategy with the citizens once society is established, and not the individuals with one another in the state of nature. (shrink)

At the same time as the modern idea of the state was taking shape, Hugo Grotius , Thomas Hobbes and Samuel Pufendorf formulated three distinctive foundational approaches to international order and law beyond the state. They differed in their views of obligation in the state of nature , in the extent to which they regarded these sovereign states as analogous to individuals in the state of nature, and in the effects they attributed to commerce (...) as a driver of sociability and of norm-structured interactions not dependent on an overarching state. Each built on shared Roman and sixteenth-century foundations . Section II argues: 1) that Grotius's natural law was not simply an anti-skeptical construction based on self-preservation , but continued a Roman legal tradition; 2) that Hobbes's account of natural law beyond the state was essentially prudential, not moral ; and 3) that commerce as a driver of social and moral order had a substantial and under-appreciated impact on international legal order. Each contributed to the thought of later writers such as Emer de Vattel , David Hume , and Adam Smith , and eventually to the empirical legal methodologies of Jeremy Bentham and Georg Friedrich von Martens. (shrink)

This book examines the most significant metaphors of modern political philosophy: the state of nature and the social contract. Each of the main chapters is dedicated to the political theory of the different social contract thinkers and the ways they articulated the uniquely liberal view of equality and freedom. The last chapter, unique to most books that explore the social contract, highlights the recent challenges to these views. It is this balance between accepted contractarian ideas and their critiques (...) that makes it a unique contribution to the field of political philosophy. (shrink)

The State of Nature in Comparative Political Thought addresses non-Western conceptions of the "state of nature", revealing how basic questions related to political thought are reflected in Chinese, Islamic, Indic, and other cultural contexts. It contributes to the burgeoning field of comparative political theory, and should be of interest to political theorists, regional specialists, students of globalization, as well as anyone interested in non-Western approaches to basic political questions.

The comparison between the concept state of nature, as it appears in the contractualist theories of XVII and XVIII centuries, and the original position of the the- ory of justice by John Rawls, reveals the assumptions, difficulties and limitations of the latter. In spite of its claims, the original position does not justify the search and existence of a well ordered society, and it is far away from reach the brightness and coherence with which their predecessors argued on (...) behalf of societies where safety, freedom or equality ruled. Besides, Rawls, on amounting justice to a material welfare which must arrive, does not know the important role that the historical memory plays when claiming the resolution of the injustices from the pastLa comparación entre el concepto de estado de naturaleza, tal y como aparece en las teorías contractualistas de los siglos XVII y XVIII, y la posición original de la teoría de la justicia de John Rawls, sirve para poner de manifiesto los supuestos, dificultades y limitaciones de esta última. A pesar de sus pretensiones, la posición original no justifica la búsqueda y existencia de una sociedad bien ordenada, y está lejos de alcanzar la brillantez y coherencia con la que sus antecesores argumentaron a favor de sociedades donde reinara la seguridad, la libertad o la igualdad. Además, Rawls, al reducir la justicia a un bienestar material que ha de llegar, desconoce el importante papel que la memoria histórica desempeña a la hora de reclamar la resolución de las injusticias del pasado. (shrink)

: In his work Truth and Truthfulness, Bernard Williams offers a very different interpretation of philosophical genealogy than that expounded in the secondary literature. The “Received View” of genealogy holds that it is “documentary grey”: it attempts to provide historically well-supported, coherent, but defeasible explanations for the actual transformation of practices, values, and emotions in history. However, paradoxically, the standard interpretation also holds another principle. Genealogies are nevertheless polemical because they admit that any evidence that would serve to justify a (...) genealogical account is indexical to a perspective. In short, genealogies are not true per se. This view of genealogy leaves it vulnerable to three criticisms. I call these three: (1) the reflexive, (2) the substantive, and (3) the semantic. In contrast, Williams argues that all genealogies provide a functional account for the manifestation of something and further, that a State of Nature story subtends these accounts. The upshot of Williams’ approach is that it makes for strange philosophical bedfellows. For example, Nietzsche’s account for the rise of Christian morality shares methodological features with Hobbes’ functional explanation for the emergence of civilization and yet Nietzsche seems to take issue with genealogists who are hypothesis mongers gazing haphazardly into the blue. In the following article, I flesh out, more fully, how to make sense of Williams’ novel reclassification of genealogy. I show that Nietzsche’s genealogies are State of Nature stories and, just like Hobbes’ State of Nature story in chapter thirteen of Leviathan, are subtended by our collective corporeality. I then demonstrate how Nietzsche’s three stories in the Genealogy, when brought together, serve to undermine what Williams refers to as “ . . . a new system (of reasons)—which very powerfully resists being understood in such terms . . . ” Finally, I explain how my reconstruction of Williams’ interpretation of the genealogy immunizes it against the three criticisms noted above. (shrink)

Whatever else might be said about the Lockean and Hobbesian states of nature, it is widely believe that they are mutually incompatible. One or the other (or neither) is a correct way of thinking about the state of nature, but not both. This paper argues that this intuitively plausible claim is incorrect - if not as a matter of textual interpretation, then as a matter of analysis of the concepts that we have inherited from those texts. Not (...) only does it make sense to talk about a Hobbesian and Lockean state of nature existing simultaneously, but doing so allows us to draw important and novel insights about important contemporary questions in political philosophy. (shrink)

This essay offers a new way to conceptualize the “police violence against Blacks” phenomenon. I argue that we should see the situation as an instance of what Thomas Hobbes called the state of nature, that is, a state without effective law. This understanding of the phenomenon stands in sharp contrast to that offered by Professor Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow. Alexander sees the phenomenon as a continuation of centuries-old patterns of state-backed anti-Black (...) racism. My account is that police are not under control of the state in their interactions with Blacks. (shrink)

This article delves into the philosophical theses on law and ethics as presented by Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant, with a focus on the notion of resistance in a legal context. It contrasts Hobbes’ advocacy for nearly unrestricted state authority and a morality closely tied to the state, against Kant’s emphasis on moral law and natural rights as the underpinnings of legality. A pivotal discussion point is Kant’s perceived contradiction in supporting a fundamental right to freedom while limiting (...) the right to resist laws that infringe upon this freedom. By comparing these philosophical authors, the article posits that Kant’s theory of resistance requires integration with his broader ethical views, suggesting that human rights should constrain positive law. (shrink)

Frank Palmeri sees the conjectural histories of Rousseau, Hume, Herder, and other Enlightenment philosophers as a template for the development of the social sciences in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Without documents or memorials, these thinkers, he argues, employed conjecture to formulate a naturalistic account of society's commercial and secular progression. This approach can be traced in the work of political economists, anthropologists, sociologists, and sociologists of religion, and its speculative framework creates a surprising ambivalence toward modernity in these (...) disciplines. In addition, Palmeri shows that conjectural histories by Darwin and Nietzsche opened the way to new disciplines in the late twentieth century. (shrink)

The article argues that environmental planetary discourses have coalesced into the Anthropocene crisis narrative and reformulated the state of nature apparatus of Western political theory. The Anthropocene, as an ecological state of nature of late capitalism, casts light on the logics of geopower, which assembles species thinking, a fascination with nonlife and sovereignty, and the imaginary of extinction and mutation. Geopower shifts governmental technologies from human populations and their ‘milieu’ to nonhuman species, energy flows and ecosystems, (...) from political economy and biopower to Earth science and systems ecology. This configuration of power suggests a shift in the neoliberal agenda and imposes the Earth as a political personage, generating threatening political myths and figures of chaos and sovereignty, such as Gaia, Chthulu and Climate Leviathans. (shrink)

In Zoopolis, Donaldson and Kymlicka argue that intervention in nature to aid animals is sometimes permissible, and in some cases obligatory, to save them from the harms they commonly face. But they claim these interventions must have some limits, since they could otherwise disrupt the structure of the communities wild animals form, which should be respected as sovereign ones. These claims are based on the widespread assumption that ecosystemic processes ensure that animals have good lives in nature. However, (...) this assumption is, unfortunately, totally unrealistic. Most animals are r-strategists who die in pain shortly after coming into existence, and those who make it to maturity commonly suffer terrible harms too. In addition, most animals do not form the political communities Zoopolis describes. The situation of animals in the wild can therefore be considered analogous to one of humanitarian catastrophe, or to that of irretrievably failed states. It matches closely what a Hobbesian state of nature would be like. This means that intervention in nature to aid nonhuman animals should not be limited as Donaldson and Kymlicka argue. (shrink)

Canonical economic agents act so as to maximize a single, representative, utility function. However, there is accumulating evidence that heterogeneity in thought processes may be an important determinant of individual behavior. This paper investigates the implications of a vector-valued generalization of the Expected Utility paradigm, which permits agents either to deliberate as per Homo economics, or to act impulsively. This generalized decision theory is applied to explain the crowding-out effect, irrational educational investment decisions, persistent social inequalities, the pervasive influence of (...) non-cognitive ability on socio-economic outcomes, and the dynamic relationships between non-cognitive ability, cognitive ability, and behavioral biases. These results suggest that the generalized decision theory warrants further investigation. (shrink)

The paper asks what is living in political state-of-nature approaches, and answers by way of considering recent epistemic uses of state-of-nature arguments. Using Edward Craig's idea that a concept of knowledge can be explicated from the need for good informants, I argue that a concept of authority can be explicated from a parallel need for good practical informants. But this need not justify rule of a Platonic elite. Practically relevant epistemic advantages are more likely to be (...) secured by the political creation of institutions. In conclusion it is suggested that this approach can explain a problem of justification which arises for Joseph Raz's account of authority. (shrink)

Hobbes’s state of nature is often analyzed in two-person two-action non-cooperative games. By definition, this literature only focuses on duels. Yet, if we consider general games, i.e., with more than two agents, analyzing Hobbes’s state of nature in terms of duel is not completely satisfactory, since it is a very specific interpretation of the war of all against all. Therefore, we propose a definition of the state of nature for games with an arbitrary number (...) of players. We show that this definition coincides with the strategy profile considered as the state of nature in two-person games. Furthermore, we study what we call rational states of nature. We show that in rational states of nature, the utility level of any agent is equal to his maximin payoff. We also show that rational states of nature always exist in inessential games. Finally, we prove the existence of states of nature in a class of symmetric games. (shrink)

Locke, Eden and Two States of Nature: The Fortunate Fall Revisited PHILIP VOGT TWO STATES OF NATURE, not one, figure in the political writings of John Locke. The more frequently discussed of the two, the "State of Nature" proper, is defined in the second of the Two Treatises of Government as the condition of perfect freedom abandoned by mankind upon the advent of political society.' Whether Locke viewed this "state" as a purely theoretical construct or (...) as an actual moment in human history is open to debate. 2 There is no basis, however, for doubting his belief in the literal reality of that other state of nature, the Garden of Eden. In Eden, mankind in the person of Adam-turned-rebel ob- tained its perfect, prepolitical freedom in exchange for the bliss of perfect obedience to a divinely ordained "Law of Nature." Without reference to man's tenancy of nature in both its prepolitical and prelapsarian states, Locke's discus- sion of the equilibrium struck in political society between obedience and free- dom is incomprehensible. Likewise, reference to both states is required for Valuable comments on the preliminary drafts of this article were given by Nancy Struever, Peter Vinten-Johansen, J. G. A. Pocock, Kirstie McClure, John Marshall, Carol Pech, Edward Schneider and two anonymous referees for the Journal of the History of Philosophy. 'John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett , II/ii/4. 9 While Locke.. (shrink)

Foucault's notion of biopower and his reflections on barbarism and savagery in ‘Society Must Be Defended’ are part of Western philosophy's theorization of the state of nature. In order to show the implications of this epistemic constellation, the article concentrates on the semantic history of primitivism, providing an alternative genealogy for the biopolitical paradigm and ‘Italian Theory's’ engagement with life and nature. From this perspective, Leopardi stands out as a precursor to contemporary ‘Italian Theory’. Leopardi's fascination with (...) Rousseau's ethnographic exoticism and his meditations on the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality can be seen as a critique of the colonial foundations of European modern philosophy and an attempt to envision another state of nature, beyond the tenets of the social contract tradition. (shrink)

The ' state of nature ' could be understood in two senses; both in terms of its nature 's current condition and of that unmediated and pre-contractual relation between humanity and the environment posited by political philosophers like Locke and Rousseau and now championed by anarcho- primitivism. Primitivism is easily dismissed as an extreme, naïve and impractical form of radical environmentalism but its emergence signifies contemporary disaffection with the ideology of 'progress' so central to modernity and capitalism. (...) This paper offers an ethico-political interpretation of primitivism 's critical relation to modernity in terms of the dialectic between amorality and immorality within what is characterised as modernity's ' culture of contamination '. (shrink)

Since at least the second half of the 19th century, the U.S. federal government has enjoyed “plenary power” over its immigration policy. Plenary power allows the federal government to regulate immigration free of judicial review and thereby, with regard to immigration cases, minimize the Constitutional protections afforded to non-citizens. The justification for granting the U.S federal government such broad powers comes from a certain understanding of sovereignty; one where limiting sovereign authority in cases like immigration could potentially undermine its legitimacy (...) and thereby lead to something like a Hobbesian “state of nature.” One of the potential downsides of allowing the federal government to have such broad powers, however, is the potential to place non-citizens in a situation analogous to what Giorgio Agamben has called the “state of exception.” This situation appears to leave us with the following dichotomy: without something like the plenary power doctrine a political community will end up with a state of nature, but with something like the plenary power doctrine they end up with a state of exception. This essay offers a two-part response to this dilemma. First, it argues that the plenary power doctrine goes against the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Fourteenth Amendment. Non-citizens, even undocumented immigrants, are entitled to more Constitutional protections than they currently enjoy. Second, since extending these protections is more consistent with the spirit of the Constitution, I argue that curtailing the federal government’s power over matters of immigration does not undermine its sovereignty, but promotes it. In short, with regard to immigration, it is a false but seductive dichotomy that constitutional democracies must choose between a state of nature and a state of exception. (shrink)

Those who comment on modern scientific institutions are often quick to praise institutional structures that leave scientists to their own devices. These comments reveal an underlying presumption that scientists do best when left alone—when they operate in what we call the ‘scientific state of nature’. Through computer simulation, we challenge this presumption by illustrating an inefficiency that arises in the scientific state of nature. This inefficiency suggests that one cannot simply presume that science is most efficient (...) when institutional control is absent. In some situations, actively encouraging unpopular, risky science would improve scientific outcomes. 1 Introduction2 Scientists and Bandits3 Choosing an ϵ4 Structure of Communication5 Discussion. (shrink)

Hobbes believed that the state of nature would be a war of all against all. Locke denied this, but acknowledged that in the absence of government, peace is insecure. In this paper, I analyse both accounts of the state of nature through the lens of classical and experimental game theory, drawing especially on evidence concerning the effects of punishment in public goods games. My analysis suggests that we need government not to keep wicked or relentlessly self-interested (...) individuals in line, but rather to maintain peace among those who disagree about morality. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel egalitarian answer to the question: what initial distribution of the world’s resources could possibly count as just? Like many writers in the natural rights tradition, I take for granted that distributive justice consists in conformity to pre-political principles that apply to property regimes. Against the background of that assumption, the paper distinguishes between broadly Lockean and broadly Grotian conceptions of distributive justice in the state of nature. After an extended critique of various versions (...) of the Lockean approach, it argues for a particular, egalitarian version of the Grotian view. My position is based on what I call the common ownership formula, which says: each human being, as an equal co-owner of the world’s resources, may use those resources provided that the terms of their use are in conformity with principles that no co-owner could reasonably reject as the basis of an informed, unforced general agreement between all of the world’s co-owners who sought to find equitable principles of resource division. Using this principle, I suggest how an unequivocally egalitarian view of pre-political entitlement can be justified without recourse to any alleged duty to ameliorate the effects of brute bad luck on people’s lives. (shrink)

Locke rejected anarchism. Locke defended the universal necessity of political governments on the grounds that the state of nature will occasionally generate the inconveniences of war. The standard interpretation of Locke identifies three main causes of war in the state of nature: the lack of a common judge, moral disagreement over the law of nature, and self-love. In this paper, I argue that the combination of these three factors does not guarantee that war will occur (...) in every plausible scenarios of Locke’s state of nature. Instead, in order for war to occur at least sometimes in every plausible scenario of Locke’s state of nature, there has to be some sort of epistemic deficit. In this paper, I show via the tools of modern game theory, how Locke’s state of nature may occasionally generate war by two kinds of epistemic problems implied by Locke’s own epistemology: disagreements in subjective probabilities, and uncertainty in other people’s moral motivation to use force to enforce the law of nature. The fact that war occurs primarily because of such epistemic problems suggests a role for a very limited form of government; namely, the ultra-ultra-minimal state, whose role is confined to solving such epistemic problems. (shrink)

One common interpretation of the Hobbesian state of nature views itas a social dilemma, a natural extension of the well-knownprisoner''s dilemma to a group context. Kavka (1986)challenges this interpretation, suggesting that the appropriate wayto view the state of nature is as a quasi social dilemma. Iargue that Hobbes''s remarks on the rationality of keeping covenantsin the state of nature indicate that the quasi social dilemma doesnot accurately represent the state of nature. One (...) possiblesolution, I suggest, views the state of nature as a social dilemmabetween groups rather than individuals. Although thiscleanly represents the strategic problem faced in the state ofnature, it also means we should take intergroup dynamics intoaccount when putting forth a solution. I argue that Hobbes''ssolution of commonwealth by institution – the favored solution forHobbesian social contract theories – will not work in the state ofnature viewed this way. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have drawn on tools from game theory to explore behavior in Hobbes’ state of nature. I take a similar approach and argue the Lockean state of nature is best conceived of as a conflictual coordination game. I also discuss Nozick’s famous claim regarding the emergence of the state and argue the path to the minimal state is blocked by a hitherto unnoticed free-rider problem. Finally, I argue that on my representation of the (...) Lockean state of nature both widespread conflict and lasting peace are possible. This, I contend, is in line with one popular interpretation of Locke. (shrink)

Game theory has proven useful in clarifying Hobbes’s argument that the state of nature will inevitably devolve into a state of war. Mathematically-leaning philosophers, however, have paid little attention to Rousseau’s depiction of the state of nature as a peaceful, asocial state of solitary wanderers. This paper articulates Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes in formal terms, which pinpoints two crucial issues in Hobbes’s account: the lack of an exit option and an unrealistic depiction of human (...) nature. Building upon recent game-theoretic treatments of Hobbes, we first construct a model that incorporates Rousseau’s criticisms by permitting an exit option and endogenizing human preferences and capacities. Second, we draw out the implications of Rousseau’s analysis for the question of political authority, which cannot be answered, as Hobbes believed, by invoking a hypothetical state of nature. (shrink)

I attempt to vindicate our authority to create new practical reasons for others by making choices of own own. In The Doctrine of Right Kant argues that we have an obligation to leave the Juridical State of Nature and found the state. In a less familiar passage in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason he argues for an obligation to leave what he calls the Ethical State of Nature and join together in the Moral (...) Community. I read both texts as addressing and trying to resolve a tension between our individual freedom and our authority to make claims on one another. I explicate the political argument, and then develop the view that Kant sketches in the Religion, arguing that regarding others as capable of making choices that give you reasons to act is a condition of the full exercise of your autonomy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the notions of ‘ruins’, ‘savage knowledge’, and ‘American race’ in the works of the German naturalist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868). A somewhat neglected figure in the history of anthropology and of natural history, Martius was regarded by scholars from Europe and the Americas as a leading figure in botany and ethnology in the nineteenth century. In this article, I discuss how Martius articulated: (1) the notion of American race, that is, a broad characterization (...) of the native peoples of the Americas rooted in a complex natural history which brought together seemingly disparate fields of knowledge, such as medicine, botany, theology, philology, and mythology; (2) having ruins as a guiding concept, which helped him to make sense of American natives; and (3) savage knowledge – a concept semantically aligned to that of ruins, and among whose principal modes of expression was shamanic practice. (shrink)

The phrase, "state of nature", has been used over centuries to describe the uncultivated state of lands and animals, nudity, innocence, heaven and hell, interstate relations, and the locus of pre- and supra-political rights, such as the right to resistance, to property, to create and leave polities, and the freedom of religion, speech, and opinion, which may be reactivated or reprioritised when the polity and its laws fail. Combining intellectual history with current concerns, this volume brings together (...) fourteen essays on the past, present and possible future applications of the legal fiction known as the state of nature. Contributors are: Daniel S. Allemann, Pamela Edwards, Ioannis D. Evrigenis, Mary C. Fuller, David Singh Grewal, Francesca Iurlaro, Edward J. Kolla, László Kontler, Grant S. McCall, Tom Sparks, Benjamin Straumann, Karl Widerquist, Sarah Winter, and Simone Zurbuchen. (shrink)

(Early) Modern social contract theories reject the idea that legal and political institutions are grounded in an alleged natural ordering or hierarchy of human beings, and instead argue that only government by a public (and not private) authority can fulfil the idea of justice as freedom and equality for all. To be authoritative and not just powerful, governing institutions must be shared as ours in this irreducible sense. I first outline how Kant’s ideal account of rightful freedom brilliantly transforms this (...) tradition as found in the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, before proposing a way to see Kant’s two-layered non-ideal theory—his accounts of human nature (“moral anthropology”) and historical societies (“the principle of politics”)—as complementing his ideal theory of rightful freedom. This enables us to envision a conception not only of rightful external freedom but of rightful human freedom in particular societies—with their histories—on planet Earth. With these arguments at hand, we can also better appreciate the importance of realizing that the four possible political conditions for Kant—anarchy, barbarism, despotism, and republic—are ideas of reason, which means that they are never perfectly realized. Hence, historical societies we are not either in the state of nature or in civil society. In addition, in historical societies founded on principles of freedom, there are pockets of injustice or pockets that are devoid of justice that can only be captured by means of one of the three political ideas that are not constitutive of the republican legal-political framework. Kant’s four ideas therefore give us more tools with which to capture the nature of different political forces and challenges facing us in our historical societies. (shrink)

State of nature theories have a long history and play a lively role in contemporary work. Theories of this kind share certain nontrivial commitments. Among these are commitments to inclusion of a Lockean proviso among the principles of justice and to an assumption of invariance of political principles across changes of circumstances. In this article I want to look at those two commitments and bring to light what I believe are some important difficulties they engender. For nonpattern (...) class='Hi'>state of nature theories, the justness of a society is marked by the conformance of the society to procedural principles. Distributions of resources and the like have no particular import for questions of justice. Whatever may later result, so long as it came about in accordance with the rules determined by the principles of justice, is itself just. The Lockean proviso is one of the principles of justice governing property and other rights of nonpattern theories of justice. The proviso hangs as a "shadow" over the results of the operation of the other (usual) principles of justice. It is intended to remedy a complaint which arises when the positions of those no longer at liberty to use some resource are worsened (1) by no longer being able to use freely what they previously were free to use and (2) in such a way that they fall below a "baseline." Following Locke, a traditional formulation of the proviso is to allow acquisition just so long as there is "enough and as good" left over for others. Section I concerns the relation of the Lockean proviso to pattern and nonpattern principles of justice, demonstrating that a Lockean proviso turns a nonpattern into a pattern theory of justice. Section II is about the relation of the Lockean proviso to the ideas revealed by an examination of a state of nature, suggesting reasons to reject ideal theories of justice. (shrink)