霍布斯論恐懼與政治秩序   全文下載

Thomas Hobbes on Fear and Political Order

對霍布斯來說，人因暴死之恐懼而訂約誕生利維坦，此乃屬必然。這彷彿意味隨著利維坦之建立、人們將自然權利（與權力）交付予主權者之後就得以擺脫暴死威脅；然而，倘若仔細探究《論公民》與《利維坦》之文本，將可發現並非如此。本文將試圖申論在《論公民》與《利維坦》的文本中有著兩種層次的恐懼：一是人與人之間的橫向恐懼與威脅，另一種是利維坦誕生之後主權者由上而下縱向的震懾權力。在自然狀態中橫向的暴死恐懼確實是人們訂約組成利維坦之主要原因，但人們期待藉由法度明確、可確定的縱向恐懼取代隨時出現的橫向威脅之企盼乃是不符事實的。簡言之，具絕對主權的利維坦出現了，但人們所承受的卻是縱向與橫向之雙重恐懼。這似乎與利維坦被建構的原因是不一致的。本文除了詳細分析此一問題之外，亦將從「愚人」與「非同一之行動者」這兩個面向重新詮釋霍布斯此處之理路，以期解決這個理論上的困難；由此亦可理解，為何對霍布斯而言，要維持政治秩序，除了主權者所擁有的絕對權力與法律之外，尚需教育與宗教這兩項不可或缺的重要資源之原因。

Thomas Hobbes argued that fear of violent death leads inevitably to a social contract which gives birth to the Leviathan. This argument might lead one to believe that Hobbes was suggesting that transferring natural rights (and power) to an absolute sovereign, people are able to escape this fear. However, close textual analysis of De Cive and Leviathan reveals that Hobbes did not make this assumption. This paper suggests that in De Cive and Leviathan we can identify two levels of fear: a “horizontal” fear of threats among individuals and a “vertical” top-down fear of the power of the sovereign after construction of the Leviathan. In the state of nature, a “horizontal” fear of violent death is indeed the primary reason why people make the social contract which erects the Leviathan. However, people’s hope of replacing constant fear at the horizontal level with clear laws and the predictable fear of the sovereign at the vertical level doesn’t correspond with the reality. In fact, after the birth of the Leviathan, who possesses absolute sovereignty, people must endure a dual fear from both the horizontal and vertical levels. This fact appears inconsistent with the cause of construction of the Leviathan. In addition to identifying this inconsistency, this study uses the concepts of “the Foole” and of “nonidentical actor” to reinterpret Hobbes’s line of thought in order to resolve this theoretical paradox. The paper helps to explain why Hobbes believed that education and religion, in addition to the sovereign’s absolute power and law, were necessary to maintain political order.