B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
-
Upload
gillodeluzo -
Category
Documents
-
view
259 -
download
3
Transcript of B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
-
8/10/2019 B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
1/8
-
8/10/2019 B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
2/8
27
second. Gauthier argues that what Hobbes says about suicide is an implausi-
ble attempt to salvage an obviously defective psychology, encapsulated by
Gauthier in the assertion "that men are necessarily self-maintaining engines,
that self-preservation is a necessary and basic motive of human action. "2Gauthier believes that there are flaws in Hobbes's premises, and furthermore
that there are genuinely inconsistent doctrines to be found in Hobbes. This is
no doubt true, but I shall argue that it is not true with respect to what Hobbes
says about self-preservation and suicide. On these matters what he says is at
least highly plausible, and certainly not contradictory. If anything is suspect
it is Gauthier's reading of Hobbes's psychology.
The Dialogue Treatment of Felo de se
In his A Dialogue of the Common Laws of England (written between 1662
and 1675 but not published until 1681) Hobbes devotes part of his section on
Crimes Capital to the consideration of felonies, one of which is voluntary
self-killing, suicide. What he has to say is brief enough to quote in full:
Lawyer. He is a Felon also that killeth himself voluntarily, and is called, not
only by Common Lawyers, but also in divers Statute-Laws, Felo de se.
Philosopher. And 'tis well so: for names imposed by Statutes are equivalent
to Definitions; but I conceive not how any Man can bear Animum felleum, or
so much Malice towards himself, as to hurt himself voluntarily, much less to
kill himself; for naturally, and necessarily the Intention of every Man aimeth-
at somewhat, which is good to himself, and tendeth to his preservation: and
therefore, methinks, if he kill himself, it is to be presumed that he is not
compos mentis, but by some inward Torment or Apprehension of somewhatworse than Death, Distracted.
Lawyer. Nay, unless he be compos mentis he is not Felo de se ... and there-
fore he cannot be Judged a Felo de se, unless it be first proved he was
compos mentis.
I Warrender, H., The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957,
pp. 217-218; Gauthier, D., The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral and Political Theory ofThomasHobbes, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969, pp. 22-24.2 Gauthier, D., op. cit., p. 23.
-
8/10/2019 B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
3/8
28
Philosopher. How can that be proved of a Man dead; especially if it cannot
be proved by any Witnesses, that a little before his death he spake as other
men used to do. This is a hard place; and before you take it for Common-Law
it had need to be clear'd.
Lawyer. I'le think on't. (D., 116-117)
It is always the central comments of the Philosopher that are quoted as
Hobbes's position on suicide, and what he says there is taken to fit in neatly
with what he says elsewhere about the self-preservatory mechanism in
human beings. Suicide is a rational impossibility for a Hobbesian man and
could only occur in a delusional state. That the passage so construed does fitwith much that Hobbes says elsewhere is easily shown.
Self-Preservation and Natural Necessity
There is ample evidence in Hobbes's texts to demonstrate that the avoidance
of death is a very powerful motive force in human beings; none better than
the following statement from De Cive:
For every man is desirous of what is good for him, and shuns what is evil, but chieflythe chiefest of natural evils, which is death; and this he doth by a certain impulsion of
nature, no less than that whereby a stone moves downward. (EW., II, 8)
Avoidance of death in human beings appears to have the same ontological
status as gravity. Our fear of death, "the terrible enemy of nature", (EL., 71)
is in part a fear of "the greatest of bodily pains in the losing"(ibid) of our
lives. That fear is natural enough, but Hobbes never suggests that it is always
justified. Indeed Hobbes's admission to his French physician Guy Patin, that
he would sooner die than experience the pains of passing kidney stones
again, tends to argue that some deaths need not be accompanied by excruci-
ating suffering whereas some bouts of illness followed by recovery are.3
Were one to put the above quote from De Cive in tandem with another from
the same work: "of two evils it is impossible not to choose the least", (EW.,
II, 26) then it would be safe to conclude that death would always be the least
choiceworthy of evils in a choice of evils situation that included death as an
option. Hence I take these two passages to constitute a logical core for theview that Hobbesian men are so constructed that they will always - when in
good operational order - shun death and seek preservation.
3 D'Israeli, I., Literary Miscellanies, London, 1840, p. 304.
-
8/10/2019 B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
4/8
29
Further support for this position is not hard to find either. Hobbes says that
"every man by natural necessity endeavours to defend his body, and the
things which hejudges necessary towards the protection of his body", (ibid.,
17) and he continually reminds his readers that the voluntary actions of menare guided by their conception of what is good. (EW., III, 120) Presumably
then, if natural necessity dictates that bodily protection is never neglected by
sane individuals, and the will is framed by conceptions of what is seen as
good, then only someone who was cognitively disordered could see their
bodily destruction or injury as good. There is an obvious connection be--
tween the way that the will is framed in this account - "we intend always our
own safety and preservation" as Hobbes puts it (EL., 74) - and the way
Hobbes describes the right of nature, and those residual elements of the rightwhich cannot be alienated.
For Gauthier, who takes Hobbes's materialism very seriously, the fact that
Hobbesian men are "necessarily self-maintaining engines"4 is a consequenceof the way Hobbes sets up his theory of the basic appetite/aversion mecha-
nism in sentients. As a result, Gauthier sees any departures from this central
materialist/egoist doctrine as indications that Hobbes's psychology is defec-
tive. In particular, he points to examples in Hobbes where it is clear that
people are said to choose death rather than live dishonoured, suffer slander,
or survive by less than honest means. (EW., II, 38 and 83) These are caseswhere sane people demonstrate that death is not always the greatest evil. If
these cases fall outside Hobbes's account of basic motivations, then his
account of basic motivations is too narrow and distortions of other cases are
likely as Hobbes tries to fit them within the procrustean bed of his psychol-
ogy. Gauthier argues that Hobbes's theory of suicide distorts the facts for
precisely this reason, resulting in an "empirically untenable position".55
Perhaps, but there are still greater problems for Hobbes that arise once we put
theDialogue passage alongside
some of the central tenets in hispsychology.
When Death is Numbered among the Goods
In his De Homine (1658) - a work that I am not alone in believing to be
Hobbes's definitive account of his psychology - it is stated quite unequivo-
cally that while preservation is the greatest of goods and death the greatest of
all evils, circumstances will sometimes dictate that death be counted among
the goods:
4 Gauthier, D., op. cit.5 ibid.
-
8/10/2019 B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
5/8
30
[T]he greatest of goods for each is his own preservation. For nature is so arranged that
all desire good for themselves. Insofar as it is within their capacities, it is necessary to
desire life, health, and further, insofar as it can be done, security of future time. On the
other hand,though
death is thegreatest
of all evils(especially
whenaccompanied
with
torture), the pains of life can be so great that, unless their end is foreseen, they maylead men to number death among the goods. (DeH., 48-49)
There is nothing implausible about this position, but it is clearly incompat-
ible with the core doctrine described above. Once death is accepted as the
least worst of two evil outcomes, and indeed once different possible deaths
are arrayed together, it is obvious that men who are solicitous about their
wellbeing will sometimes make rational choices for suicide. So, irrespectiveof the fact that death remains the "greatest of all evils", Hobbes does not
treat this assertion as incompatible with some deaths being conceived of as
good in light of the circumstances. And of course Hobbes's work is replete
with examples of where it is prudent to choose death rather than risk
damnation, or to die rather than bend the knee to an incoming conqueror.
(EW., IV, 264) In fact the conflict between church and state is characterized
by Hobbes as one between the dual threats of "pain of death" on the one hand
and "pain of damnation" on the other. (EL., 159) Unless both threats are
melded into one threat then sovereign power will be incomplete.
Are we left with a blank contradiction? I think not, because I believe thatthe Dialogue passage has been misread: in part because it is considered in
isolation from the Dialogue treatment of felonies (its natural home), and in
part because only one passage in the remarks on suicide is consulted.
Felonious Intent
Hobbes's treatment of felonies in theDialogue
isshaped by
anassumptionand a question. The assumption is that the law is reasonable and that nothing
repugnant to reason should appear in it. The question is whether a felony "is
in its own Nature a Crime, or that only which is made a Crime by some
Statute?" (D., 110)
In addressing his question Hobbes begins by citing Sir Edward Coke's
derivation of the word "felony", "from the Latin word Fel, the Gall of a
living Creature, and accordingly [Coke] defines Felony to be an act done
Animo Felleo; that is to say, a Bitter [or] Cruel Act." (ibid) Hobbes rejects
both Coke's etymology and his proposed definition. In their place Hobbes
proposes another etymology which derives from the French Filou, which
"signifieth not the Man that hath committed such an Act, as they call Felony;but the Man that maketh it his Trade to maintain himself by the breaking and
-
8/10/2019 B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
6/8
-
8/10/2019 B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
7/8
32
and before you take it for Common-Law it had need to be cleared" and the
Lawyer responding with, "I'le think it on't".
Conclusion
There is then no contradiction between what Hobbes says in the Dialogue
passage on suicide, and what he writes about death as a good in the earlier
De Homine. What the latter asserts is that even what is usually the greatest of
evils will sometimes be sought as a good, or at least as something less evil
than the alternatives. Self-preservation is almost always a dominant motive,
but action is guided by our opinion of what is good and nothing is eithergood in itself or bad in itself. However, the Hobbesian motivational mecha-
nism rests on a basis of appetite and aversion which governs the behaviour of
all sentients and, malfunction to one side, is only geared to direct action to
what is conceived of as good under some description or other. If we conflate
this basic mechanism of sentience with the motivational role of opinions
about what is desirable we end up with Gathier's position on Hobbesian
psychology. If we keep them apart then a lot of what Hobbes says about
honour, damnation and suicide does not seem in any way aberrant at all.
But once Hobbes is freed from this conflation, what is he able to tell us
about suicide? Firstly, and taken from the Dialogue, one can assume that
self-hatred or self-directed viciousness are possible reasons for a suicide,
although reasons that argue a delusional state. Within the terms of Hobbes's
account of madness they are likely to arise through "great dejection of mind"
(EW., III, 62) or some "causeless fear". (ibid.) It is instructive that when
Hobbes is describing a fit of madness which took hold of the young women
in a Greek city - resulting in them hanging themselves - he refers to their
condition as "contempt of life". (ibid., 65) So Hobbes has a theory which cango somewhat deeper than mere rejection of the possibility that someone
might embrace the bad. And let me add that in invoking melancholy or great
dejection (sometimes vain dejection as in EL) as the precondition for suicide
Hobbes is no worse off than the bulk of modern psychiatrists who see a
depressive illness as the precondition. Secondly, Hobbes's construction of
the passage in the Dialogue is clearly intended to demonstrate that suicide
should not be classed as a felony: for both conceptual and pragmatic reasons.
Thus Hobbessupports
the decriminalization of suicide andattempted
suicide
by insinuating the presumption of insanity.
Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, 5042, South-Australia
-
8/10/2019 B. Stoffel - Hobbes on Self-preservation and Suicide
8/8
33
Works by Hobbes cited
The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, edited by Sir William
Molesworth, London, 1839-45. References to these volumes are as follows:
(EW).
The Elements of Law, edited by Ferdinand Tonnies, second edition, London,
1969. Referred to as (EL).
A Dialogue Between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of
England, edited by Joseph Cropsey, Chicago 1971. Referred to as (D).
De Homine, from Thomas Hobbes: Man and Citizen, edited with an intro-
duction by Bernard Gert, New York 1972. Referred to as (DeH).