Bellum omnium contra omnes

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Excerpt from the Præfatio (preface) of Hobbes' De Cive (revised edition, Amsterdam 1647)

With the Latin expression bellum omnium contra omnes - "war of all against all" or "struggle of all against all" - the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in his work De Cive (1642) described the natural state of humanity he assumed . In his state-theoretical work Leviathan (1651) in English he elaborated this idea further.

Use of language by Hobbes

De Cive

In his Latin writing De Cive ("About the Citizen") from 1642 Hobbes speaks for the first time of the bellum omnium contra omnes , literally in the Praefatio (preface), section 14:

Ostendo primo conditionem hominum extra societatem civilem (quam conditionem appellare liceat statum naturae) aliam non esse quam bellum omnium contra omnes; atque in eo bello jus esse omnibus in omnia.
First I show that the condition of people without civil society (which condition may be called the natural condition ) is none other than a war of all against all; and that in this war everyone has the right to everything.

This was the state before the emergence of human societies. In Chapter 1, Section 12, the term appears slightly modified, as bellum omnium in omnes:

Status hominum naturalis antequam in societatem coiretur Bellum fuerit; neque hoc simpliciter, sed bellum omnium in omnes.
The natural state of human beings before they were united in society was war; and this not in the usual way, but as a war of all against all.

Leviathan

Hobbes' Leviathan appeared in English in 1651. In the first part Hobbes uses the formulations warre of every one against every one (Chapter 14) and a warre [...] of every man against every man (Chapters 13 and 14) as well as a perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbor (Chapter 24). The central passage in Chapter 13 reads:

“Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that Condition which is called Warre; and such war, as is of every man, against every man. [...] In such a condition there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no Society, and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of Man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short. "

“It shows at this point that as long as people live without a common power that holds them all under their spell, they are in what is called war; and this is a war of all people against all people. [...] In such a state there is no place for human industry; for the fruits that he might reap are uncertain: and consequently there is no agriculture, no seafaring, no use of luxury items that have to be imported from overseas; no comfortable buildings; no machines with which larger loads can be moved; no knowledge of the shape of the earth; no historiography; no human inventions; no sciences; no society, and worst of all, constant fear and the risk of violent death; and human life is lonely, poor, miserable, no better than that of an animal and short. "

Explanation

With the theory of the “war of all against all” Hobbes postulated that man in a natural state would not live peacefully with his fellow man. According to the previous considerations in Leviathan , everyone must ultimately determine their own life absolutely - if he loses it, he loses everything he has. As a result, no one can put up with a curtailment of his rights and a demotion, with which he might ultimately be sacrificed more than another for the good of the community. In the state before coexistence, everyone has only the option of refusing this coexistence for their own protection and of waging a fight against others who can only offer them a reduced position in a community that relativizes their value.

From the fact that we can only survive in groups, however, another thing follows at this point with regard to the structure of these groups: Human coexistence can only flourish peacefully if an absolute power is established, a power that is open to all curtails the struggle for existence and in an emergency can deprive the individual, such as a criminal, of all of his or her rights. Here Hobbes started the further considerations that of all forms of absolute exercise of power, monarchy , the exercise of power by an individual, is the safest: the regent, like every individual, is concerned with his personal security and defends with his person the absolute exercise of power that has been granted to him using what is most precious to him personally: his life. Seen in this way, the rule of a single ruler takes place with a determination and unity that no body made up of several individuals can muster.

All further power in the community - this includes the power of religions - must be committed to strengthening the absolute power of the regent to protect all from one another.

Historical background

In January 1649, Charles I of England was beheaded in the English Civil War . As a supporter of the crown, Thomas Hobbes perceived the events of his French exile. His Leviathan appeared on the English market launched from abroad and as an affront to all parties involved: Hobbes demanded a return to the monarchy, and to a much more absolute one than it was before. Without a strong king what happened naturally in England, according to his explanation: the civil war, the war of all against all, broke out, which Hobbes could only solve by the return of the exiled heir to the throne and a completely sovereign secular one Power will be established - in England through strict subordination of religion in all questions of bourgeois coexistence to the reason of state, which has to prevent the war of all against all.

The Leviathan provoked representatives of the religion - because they shared the image of man with Hobbes, if they believed that man had an evil nature that could only be tamed by force. For Hobbes, however, the consequence was the disempowerment of the church and religious “dissent” in all questions of secular government. Hobbes played the affront openly when he insisted that the war of all against all should not even have to do with the Fall, but result solely from the natural defense of life, which begins with the awareness of one's own existence. A world thought of solely as an accumulation of matter is sufficient to explain the present state of affairs - but should religion in the human image also agree with him, it would only underline his theses.

effect

The theorem of the “war of all against all” became influential in the debate on constitutional law, as it offered a legitimation for conceiving secular power independently of religious foundations and for subordinating the role of religion in the state. Compromise formulas were sought with the constitutional visions of Pufendorf and the less prominent philosophers who reacted to Hobbes, the philosopher suspected of atheism .

Hobbes' postulate was shaken by the Glorious Revolution in 1688 , in which another English king was deposed, as the events did not lead to another civil war. Instead, a control of secular power proved to be organized. John Locke responded to these developments with the theory of the state model, which he in the "Two Treatises of Government" ( Two Treatises of Government published) 1689th In the new model, it was conceivable that people in their natural state would negotiate a far more complex social contract than the one outlined by Hobbes and come together for the greatest possible common prosperity.

The more critical debate on the image of man, which Hobbes had postulated with the “war of all against all”, began with Shaftesbury in the 1690s, who constructed man in the natural state as an altruistic living being ready for self-sacrifice for his fellow men and who postulated the present Egoism to be observed is primarily the result of a form of government and religious ideas that appealed to this egoism for so long and with such an array of rewards and punishments until it developed into an individual basic attitude.

literature

  • Thomas Hobbes , Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth […]. By Thomas Hobbes (London: A. Crooke, 1651), part. 1, chapter XIII, "Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning Their Felicity and Misery." Internet edition Bartelby.com

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