Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'

Unlike many major figures in Western intellectual history, Hobbes has refused to become dated and quietly take his appointed place in the museum of historical scholarship. Whether by way of adoption or reaction, his ideas have remained vibrant forces in mankind's attempts to understand the problems and dilemmas of living peaceably with one another. As Richard Ashcraft said a few years ago: One of the standards by which the greatness of political theorists is measured, is their ability to evoke in us new insights into 'the human condition'. Only a few political writers have risen Dionysus-like from the titanic assaults of their critics to become even more formidable forces in the shaping of our destiny. One of these giants is surely the irascible l and irrepressible Thomas Hobbes . Given the power of Hobbes's thought, it is not then perhaps surprising to find that his writings have generated seemingly endless scholarly controversy and an astonishing range of imcompatible interpretations. Among other things, he has been interpreted as a theist and an atheist, as a utilitarian and a deontologist, a humanist and a scientist, as a traditional natural law theorist and a legal positivist, a contractualist and an absolutist - indeed, as Professor Morris notes in his contribution to the present volume, 'as almost any kind of philosophical 'ist except Platonist or Aristotelist'.

Editor's Introduction.- I. Task of the 'Science of Natural Justice'.- 1. The Philosophical Implications of Hobbes's State of Nature.- 2. Hobbes's Theory of Natural and Social Sciences.- 3. Obligations: Science and Philosophy in the Political Writings of Hobbes.- II. Logic and Language of this Science.- 4. Hobbes on the Natural and the Artificial.- 5. Hobbes's Entanglement with the Excluded Middle in his Theory of Man and Politics.- 6. Hobbes: Language and the Is-Ought.- 7. 'Insinuations to the Will': Hobbes's Style and Intention in Leviathan Compared to his Earlier Political Works.- III. Natural Right and the State of Nature.- 8. Hobbes's Conatus and the Roots of Character.- 9. Hobbes and the Wolf-man.- 10. Metamorphosis of the Idea of Right in Thomas Hobbes's Philosophy.- 11. The Peculiarity of Hobbes's Concept of Natural Right.- 12. Thomas Hobbes: The Mediation of Right.- IV. Generating the Commonwealth.- 13. Hobbes, Revolution and the Philosophy of History.- 14. Thomas Hobbes from Behemoth to Leviathan.- 15. Covenant: Hobbes's Philosophy of Religion and his Political System 'More Geometrico'.- V. Justice and Equity in the Commonwealth.- 16. Hobbes on Equity and Justice.- 17. Commentary on Professor May's 'Hobbes on Equity and Justice'.- 18. Justice and Equity: an Inquiry into the Meaning and Role of Equity in the Hobbesian Account of Justice and Politics.- VI. Hobbes Today.- 19. The Leviathan, Old and New.- 20. Hobbes and Macroethics: the Theory of Peace and Natural Justice.