Hobbes, history, and non-domination

Cromartie, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-9558-8081 (2009) Hobbes, history, and non-domination. Hobbes Studies, 22 (2). pp. 171-177. ISSN 1875-0257

Abstract/Summary

Pettit's and Skinner's stimulating books are open to historically-minded objections. Pettit's reading of Hobbes is Rousseauian, but he rejects the Hobbesian/Rousseauian belief that some modern people are driven by amour-propre/“glory”. If Hobbes is right, there is, in Pettit's sense, no “common good”. Skinner's treatment of the neo-Roman “theorists” over-estimates their self-consciousness and their consistency. Leviathan chapter 21 is not a response to neo-Romanism; it treats civil liberty as non-obligation, not as non-interference.