Hobbes' Leviathan No Advantage for Hobbes & Darwin Team

One of the weak points in the argument of the Hobbes & Darwin team in the Philosophy "case" of Hobbes & Darwin et al. Vs. Kant & St. Paul et al., is the perception of the thinkers on that team that the concept of the "Leviathan" as developed by Hobbes gives them advantage or is somehow exclusive to their argument. This is blatantly false.

The combination of "Law" and "grace" in St. Paul, and it's secular exposition in Kant, both presuppose the necessity of prohibition on unlimited behavior of the individual and therefore deny unlimited rights to the individual in law. This formulation is nothing less than a system-wide recognition- the mutual and thus "social" recognition- of the reality and priority of "suffering"(thus the senses) as commonly constitutive of all humans. The necessity of law and law enforcement for social order and freedom recognized by this group of thinkers therefore clearly recognizes the priority of "pathological affectation", or what Ricoeur would call "pathological affective fragility", to the individual and collective human condition.

The necessity of law and it's basis in human suffering is recognized in Kant in the derivation of the basis of respect in the 'Critique of Judgment' as discussed earlier on this blog, and is also recognized in 'Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone', in a footnote that gives an example of the effects of excess of "self-interest", the basis of Kant's conceptual construction of "radical evil".

For Kant the excess of individual "self-interest" is at the basis of radical evil. Slavoj Zizek in 'Tarrying With the Negative' reads this to mean that "the negative" is primary in human experience, because self-interest of the individual "naturally" encroaches upon the other. The prohibition of law for Zizek is then a "denial" of what is the "natural" inclination of man. This reading is incorrect.

What makes evil "radical" for Kant is centered in the derivation of respect- in the recognition of the commonness of suffering as constitutive of the human condition, and therefore also the corresponding recognition that man is "mutually-interdependent". It is because we know our sense to be "common" with others, because we know the suffering of the other to be "the same",(as discussed in the piece on Natural Law on this blog) that the violation of inflicting suffering through the action of "self-interest", constitutes "wrong"- is "evil".

In other words, we all know that the "physical moment says that suffering ought not to be", and also that this is true for all people. So it is then with clear knowledge of the wrong of violence that an individual disregards this knowledge and proceeds with the excessively "self-interested", criminal act. This is why "evil" is "radical" for Kant, why it is contrary to the social nature of man, and why it "earns/deserves" punishment.

The extent of the tendency of man toward criminal acts is not subject to argument, but is established in the facts of crime statistics and rates. From the book 'America in the Twentieth Century' (in front of me as we speak) the combined murder/rape rate per 100,000 in 1980 was 46.6, which is .0466 of a murder/rape per 100. It is the demonstrated relative scarcity of crime throughout history that led to the formation and the continued application of legal systems as retributive: through written decree enforced through post-event reporting and punishment.

For the Kant & St. Paul group, the necessity of law is present, and provides the mechanism that "elevates" our condition by providing the peace of order. This social nature of man has been present as long as there has been prohibitive strictures/law. The Hobbes & Darwin team argue as if Hobbes concept of Leviathan was the very first discovery of the need for law.

If according to the Hobbes & Darwin group, "B. U. Dead" is "wiser"- "budweiser", then ANY argument for the Leviathan of law, from either side in the debate, renders that phrase subordinate in strength to "be noone killed is wisest".It is the logic of living together- living with each other- over a lifetime.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsPh_8Dxl3E