Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T23:48:43.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hobbes, Savagery, and International Anarchy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2011

PAT MOLONEY*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
*
Pat Moloney is Senior Lecturer, Political Science and International Relations Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington 6015, New Zealand ([email protected]).

Abstract

This article argues that Hobbes constructed the sovereignty acknowledged among European states on the supposition of the absence of sovereignty in the New World. The notion of international anarchy found in Hobbes before the twentieth century was not the anarchy of interstate relations later posited by realism, but the anarchy of prepolitical societies outside the ordered system of European states. The modern geography of sovereignty that Hobbes established is demonstrated with reference to the cartographic traditions that informed his representation of the state of nature and the civil state, and to the historical context of the law of nations as it was understood to manage colonial rivalry in the seventeenth century. By constructing savages as absolutely free individuals in the state of nature, he precluded their recognition as free sovereign states. He thus contributed a set of premises to natural jurisprudence that denied indigenous societies statehood and excluded them from the family nations. A sketch of the Hobbesian legacy among theorists of the law of nations and international law is made, showing how his motif of savage anarchy remained central to our conceptualization of the sovereign state within the international realm into the twentieth century.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexandrowicz, C.H. 1967. An Introduction to the History of the Law of Nations in the East Indies. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Andrews, Kenneth R. 1984. Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480–1630. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Anghie, Antony. 2004. Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Aravamudan, Srinivas. 2009. “Hobbes and America.” In The Postcolonial Enlightenment: Eighteenth-century Colonialism and Postcolonial Theory, eds. Carey, David and Festa, Lynn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3770.Google Scholar
Armitage, David. 2006. “Hobbes and the Foundations of Modern International Thought.” In Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, eds. Brett, Annabel and Tully, James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 219–35.Google Scholar
Arneil, Barbara. 1996. John Locke and America: The Defence of English Colonialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ashcraft, Richard. 1972. “Leviathan Triumphant: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Wild Men.” In The Wild Man Within: An Image in Western Thought from the Renaissance to Romanticism, eds. Dudley, Edward and Novak, Maximillian E.. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 141–81.Google Scholar
Aubrey, John. 1999. Aubrey's Brief Lives. Ed. Dick, Oliver Lawson. Boston: David Godine.Google Scholar
Austin, John. [1832] 1968. The Province of Jurisprudence Determined. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Banner, Stuart. 2005. How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.Google Scholar
Beaulac, Stéphane. 2003. “Emer de Vattel and the Externalization of Sovereignty.” Journal of the History of International Law 5: 237–92.Google Scholar
Boucher, David. 1998. Political Theories of International Relations: From Thucydides to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boucher, David. 2009. The Limits of Ethics in International Relations: Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Human Rights in Transition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Chris. 2007. “‘The Twilight of International Morality’? Hans J. Morgenthau and Carl Schmitt on the end of the Jus Publicum Europaeum.” In Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans Morgenthau in International Relations, ed. Williams, Michael C.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4261.Google Scholar
Buckle, Stephen. 2001. “Tully, Locke and America.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 9 (2): 245–81.Google Scholar
Bull, Hedley. 1981. “Hobbes and the International Anarchy.” Social Research 47 (4): 717–38.Google Scholar
Burke, Peter. 1995. “America and the Rewriting of World History.” In America in European Consciousness 1492–1750, ed. Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 3351.Google Scholar
Canny, Nicholas. 1973. “The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America.” The William and Mary Quarterly 30 (4): 575698.Google Scholar
Corbett, Margery, and Lightbown, R.W.. 1979. The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title-Page in England 1550–1660. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
de Vattel, Emer. [1797] 2008. The Law of Nations, or, Principles of the Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns. Eds. Kapossy, Béla and Whatmore, Richard, Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Farr, James. 2008. “Locke, Natural Law, and New World Slavery.” Political Theory 36 (4): 495522.Google Scholar
Fenwick, Charles G. 1913/1914. “The Authority of Vattel.” American Political Science Review 7/8: 375–92, 395410.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Arthur B. 1979. Clio Unbound: Perception of the Social and Cultural Past in Renaissance England. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Flanagan, Thomas. 1989. “The Agricultural Argument and Original Appropriation: Indian Lands and Political Philosophy.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 22 (3): 589602.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, Maurice. 1981. “Picturing Hobbes's Politics? The Illustrations to Philosophical Rudiments.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 44: 232–37.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, Maurice. 1990. “Hobbes's Ambiguous Politics.” History of Political Thought 11: 637–73.Google Scholar
Gould Eliga, H. 2003. “Zones of Law, Zones of Violence: The Legal Geography of the British Atlantic, circa 1772.” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series 60 (3): 471510.Google Scholar
Grotius, Hugo. [1625] 2005. The Rights of War and Peace. Ed. Tuck, Richard. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund Press.Google Scholar
Grotius, Hugo. [1868] 2006. Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty. Ed. van Ittersum, Martine Julia. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Barbara. 2005. “Race in Hobbes.” In Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, ed. Valls, Andrew. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 4356.Google Scholar
Heller, Mark A. 1980. “The Use and Abuse of Hobbes: The State of Nature in International Relations.” Polity 13 (1): 2132.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. 1840. “The Answer of Mr. Hobbes to Sir William Davenant's Preface before Gondibert.” In The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. vol. 4, ed. Molesworth, William. London: John Bohn, 443–58.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. 1841. “The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance. . ..” In The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. vol. 5, ed. Molesworth, William. London: John Bohn, 1445.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1642] 1983a. De Cive: The English Version. Ed. Warrender, Howard. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1642] 1983b. De Cive: The Latin Version. Ed. Warrender, Howard. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1650] 1969. Elements of Law Natural and Politic. Ed. Goldsmith, Maurice. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1651] 1996. Leviathan. Ed. Tuck, Richard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1656] 1839. “Elements of Philosophy. The First Section, Concerning the Body . . . (De Corpore)”. In The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. vol. 1, ed. Molesworth, William. London: John Bohn, 1532.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1681] 1971. A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England. Ed. Cropsey, Joseph. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1688] 1841. “Leviathan” [Latin edition]. In Opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia. . .. vol. 3, ed. Molesworth, William. London: John Bohn, 1569.Google Scholar
Hochstrasser, T.J. 2000. Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoeskstra, Kinch. 2007. “Hobbes on the Natural Condition of Mankind.” In The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan, ed. Springborg, Patricia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 109–27.Google Scholar
Hogden Margaret, T. 1964. Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Honour, Hugh. 1975. The New Golden Land: European Images of America from the Discoveries to the Present Time. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Hulme, Peter. 1990. “The Spontaneous hand of nature: savagery, colonialism and the Enlightenment.” In The Enlightenment and Its Shadows, eds. Hulme, Peter and Jordanova, Ludmilla. London: Routledge, 1634.Google Scholar
Hurrell, Andrew. 1996. “Vattel: Pluralism and Its Limits.” In Classical Theories of International Relations, eds. Clark, Ian and Neumann, Iver. New York: St. Martin's Press, 233–55.Google Scholar
Ittersum, Martine Julia van. 2006. Profit and Principle: Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies 1595–1615. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill.Google Scholar
Jahn, Beate. 1999. “IR and the State of Nature: The Cultural Origins of a Ruling Ideology.” Review of International Studies 25: 411–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keal, Paul. 2003. European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Moral Backwardness of International Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keene, Edward. 2002. Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kendrick, T.D. 1950. British Antiquity. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Kent, James. 1826. Commentaries on American Law. vol. 1. New York: O. Halsted.Google Scholar
Kent, James. 1828. Commentaries on American Law. vol. 3. New York: O. Halsted.Google Scholar
Keuning, J. 1954. “Nicolaas Geelkerken.” Imago Mundi 11: 174–77.Google Scholar
Kooijmans, P.H. 1964. The Doctrine of the Legal Equality of States: An Inquiry into the Foundations of International Law. Leyden, the Netherlands: A.W. Sythoff.Google Scholar
Kraynak, Robert P. 2003. “The Fragility of Civilization in Hobbes's Historical Writings.” Filozofski Vestnik 24: 3758.Google Scholar
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. 2000. Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhlemann, Ute. 2007. “Between Reproduction, Invention and Propaganda: Theodor de Bry's Engravings after John White's Watercolours.” In A New World: England's First View of America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 7992.Google Scholar
Le Corbeiller, Clare. 1960. “Miss America and Her Sisters: Personifications of the Four Parts of the World.” The Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 19/20: 209–23.Google Scholar
Leblanc, C. 1856. Manuel de l'amateur des estampes. vol. 2. Paris.Google Scholar
Lippmann, Walter. [1915] 2008. The Stakes of Diplomacy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Lott, Tommy L. 2002. “Patriarchy and Slavery in Hobbes's Political Philosophy.” In Philosophers on Race: Critical Essays, eds. Ward, Julie and Lott, Tommy. Oxford: Blackwell, 6380.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Noel. 2002. Aspects of Hobbes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Mancke, Elizabeth. 2002. “Empire and State.” In The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800, eds. Armitage, David and Braddick, Michael J.. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 175–95.Google Scholar
Mattingly, Garrett. 1963. “No Peace beyond What Line?Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series 13: 145–62.Google Scholar
Mehta, Uday Singh. 1999. Liberalism and Empire: India in British Liberal Thought. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moffitt, John F., and Sebastián, Santiago. 1996. O Brave New People: The European Invention of the American Indian. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Navari, Cornelia. 1996. “Hobbes, the State of Nature and the Laws of Nature.” In Classical Theories of International Relations, eds. Clark, Ian and Neumann, Iver. New York: St Martin's, 2041.Google Scholar
Nichols, Robert Lee. 2005. “Realizing the Social Contract: The Case of Colonialism and Indigenous Peoples.” Contemporary Political Theory 4: 4262.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Arthur. 1954. A Concise History of the Law of Nations. New York: Macmillan.Pateman, Carole. 2007. “The Settler Contract.” In Contract & Domination, eds. Pateman, Carole and Mills, Charles. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 35–78.Google Scholar
Pearce, Roy Harvey. 1965. The Savages of America: A Study of the Indian and the Idea of Civilization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Phillimore, Robert. 1854. Commentaries on International Law. vol. 1. Philadelphia: T and J.W. Johnson.Google Scholar
Piggott, Stuart. 1989. Ancient Britons and the Antiquarian Imagination: Ideas from the Renaissance to the Regency. New York: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Ruddy, Francis Stephen. 1975. International Law in the Enlightenment: The Background of Emmerich de Vattel's Le Droit de Gens. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana.Google Scholar
Savelle, Max. 1967. The Origins of American Diplomacy: The International History of Angloamerica, 1492–1763. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Schlatter, Richard. 1975. “Introduction.” Hobbes's Thucydides. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Brian C. 1998. The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International Relations. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. [1950] 2003. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Euopeaum. New York: Telos.Google Scholar
Shirley, Rodney. 1998. “The Title Pages to the Theatrum and Parergon.” In Abraham Ortelius and the First Atlas, eds. van den Broecke, Marcel, van der Krogt, Peter, and Meurer, Peter. Tuurdijk, the Netherlands: Hess, 161–69.Google Scholar
Shuger, Debora. 1997. “Irishmen, Aristocrats and Other White Barbarians.”Renaissance Quarterly 50: 494525.Google Scholar
Skinner, Quentin. 2008. Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Skinner, Quentin. 2009. “The Material Presentation of Thomas Hobbes's Theory of the Commonwealth.” In The Materiality of Res Publica: How to Do Things with Publics, eds. Colas, Dominique and Kharkhordin, Oleg. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 115–58.Google Scholar
Steele, Ian Kenneth. 1986. The English Atlantic 1675–1740: An Exploration of Communication and Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Suganami, Hidemi. 2002. “Grotius and International Equality.” In Hugo Grotius and International Relations, eds. Bull, Hedley, Kingsbury, Benedict, and Roberts, Adam. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 221–40.Google Scholar
Taylor, Gary. 2005. Buying Whiteness: Race, Culture, and Identity from Columbus to Hip-hop. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tuck, Richard. 1998. “Introduction.” In Hobbes: On the Citizen, eds. Tuck, Richard and Silverthorne, Michael. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, viiixxxiii.Google Scholar
Tuck, Richard. 1999. The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tully, James. 1993a. An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tully, James. 1993b. “Placing the Two Treatises.” In Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain, eds. Phillipson, Nicholas and Skinner, Quentin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 253–82.Google Scholar
Tully, James. 1994. “Aboriginal Property and Western Theory: Recovering a Middle Ground.” In Property Rights, eds. Paul, Ellen Frankel, Miller, Fred D., and Paul, Jeffrey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 153–80.Google Scholar
Uzgalis, William. 2002. “‘An Inconsistency Not To Be Excused’: On Locke and Racism.” In Philosophers on Race: Critical Essays, eds. Ward, Julie and Lott, Tommy. Oxford: Blackwell, 81100.Google Scholar
Ward, Robert. 1795. An Enquiry into the Foundations and History of the Law of Nations in Europe, from the Time of the Greeks and Romans, to the Age of Grotius. Dublin: P. Wogan, P. Byrne, W. Jones and J. Rice.Google Scholar
Warren Christopher, N. 2009. “Hobbes's Thucydides and the Colonial Law of Nations.” The Seventeenth Century 24 (2): 260–86.Google Scholar
Waterschoot, Werner. 1979. “The Title-page of Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.” Quaerendo 9 (1): 4368.Google Scholar
Watson, Adam. 1992. The Evolution of International Society. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wheaton, Henry. 1866. Elements of International Law. 8th ed. Ed. Dana, Richard Henry. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Whelan, Frederick G. 1988. “Vattel's Doctrine of the State.” History of Political Thought 9 (1): 5990.Google Scholar
Williams, Michael C. 2006. “The Hobbesian Theory of International Relations: Three Traditions.” In Classical Theory in International Relations, ed. Jahn, Beate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 253–76.Google Scholar
Woolsey, Theodore Dwight. 1860. Introduction to the Study of International Law. Boston: James Munroe.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.