On benevolence and love of others

Hobbes is famous for his insights into the impact of man’s fear, glory and greed on war and peace, not for his views on the bearing of men’s benevolence on the commonwealth. Are Hobbesian people even capable of love of others? In the literature, we find two main answers: one view is that Hobbes ruled out the possibility of disinterested benevolence among men; the other is that Hobbes considered actions driven by genuine benevolence possible but uncommon. After reviewing in broad outlines the two above positions, this chapter seeks to demonstrate the claim that Hobbes did not consider relevant to establish if men are capable of genuine benevolence or not, because he maintained that benevolent men can be as inept as egoists in differentiating apparent and real good for themselves and their loved ones and the effect of misguided altruism on the commonwealth is as damaging as the effect of ill-advised egoism.Postprin

Robert Parsons, S. J. : de la reconquête à la recréation du royaume d'Angleterre

Robert Parsons has long enjoyed a bad reputation, mostly due to his Spanish sympathies and his defence of equivocation. As a resuit, his political treatises are little read if at all. Yet, they were quite well known in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to the extent that they were literally plundered at the time of the two revolutions by parliamentarian, republican and whig writers. This article is an attempt to interpret Parsons's ideas and to put them into historical perspective. It focuses on two major works, A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England (1594) and The Jesuit's Memorial (published posthumously in 1690). The former is an articulate defence of mixed monarchy and the right of popular resistance, while the latter outlines the best policy (including by means of the Inquisition) for effecting a complete reconversion of England to catholicism. A forerunner of liberal theories (although a marked adversary of the coramon law, which would place him on the absolutist side of politics), Parsons also appears as a champion of intolerance. It is suggested here that what makes these two aspects of his doctrine paradoxically compatible is a constant (and quite traditional) attachment to the supremacy of the spiritual power over the secular

Sur le traité des passions de Hobbes : commentaire du chapitre VI du Léviathan

Hobbes did not devote any systematic writing to passions, which is all the more surprising as passions play a crucial role in his philosophy. This paper is a commentary on Leviathan’s chapter VI, which comes closest to a complete and articulate exposition of the topic. Starting by an examination of the text’s structure and basic vocabulary (English and Latin), it moves on to an assessment of the foundational value of Hobbes’s theory of passions in his ethics and politics (religion included). It then analyzes the chapter’s innovative implications, given Hobbes’s previous statements on the subject (mental representations, which shape our passions, are no longer modelled on the external world and form a separate and autonomous realm, while moral values are now entirely derived from desire). After investigating its literary singularity (the text being part character-writing, part anatomy), it finally argues that traditional interpretations of the image of the self deducible from Hobbes’s theory of passions tend to overplay its moral pessimism and to neglect the positive expectations that move men to form political associations

Avant-propos

Le mot “Renaissance” est une source intarissable de malentendus. Il suggère, tout à la fois, une ère nouvelle et le rétablissement d'une situation antérieure ; l'accession à une personnalité neuve et le recouvrement d'une identité perdue ; la métamorphose et le retour du même. De là découlent des ambiguïtés que rien ne souligne mieux que les multiples façons dont l'époque qui a reçu ce nom réagit à l'idée même de la nouveauté. On serait tenté de croire qu'elle lui fit bon accueil, que ceux, a..

Locke critique de Filmer : métamorphose du concept politique de nature

D'une certaine manière, Sir Robert Filmer appartient à la catégorie noble, asurément, mais secondaire, des grands vaincus de l'histoire - histoire des idées, histoire politique, histoire tout court -, quand Locke se situe à l'évidence dans le camp des triomphateurs. Le nom du premier est associé au régime qui s'effondre lors de la Glorieuse Révolution de 1668, le nom du second à cet événement même et à ses suites victorieuses. Si, comme l'a écrit Gordon Schochet dans son étude sur le patriarc..