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Contract, Gender, and the Emergence of the Civil-Military Distinction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2020

Graham Parsons
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Abstract

This paper examines the social contract theories of Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Locke, highlighting the failure of their contractarian defenses of the military and military service. In order to ground the duties of military service, each theorist presumes a chivalric gender order wherein men as men are expected to be willing to sacrifice themselves as violent instruments for the sake of their families and communities. While Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf use the contract method to defend absolute, or near absolute, political authority wherein subject's primary political obligation is to serve the sovereign in war upon command, Locke uses the contract method to create a liberal political order that preserves the natural rights of subjects. Nevertheless, Locke maintains the commitment to self-sacrificial military service. In Locke, then, the military is peeled away from liberal civil society and we see the first statement of the civil-military distinction that persists today.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 82 , Issue 3 , Summer 2020 , pp. 416 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of University of Notre Dame

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References

1 While Hobbes's social contract theory is not based on the natural rights of the participants but on their natural, overriding interest in self-preservation, it nevertheless faces an analogous limitation on political authority. This will be elaborated in the discussion of Hobbes below.

2 There is a substantial body of literature in gender and masculinities studies that finds a profound connection between masculinity and self-sacrificial service in war. For some exemplary statements of this view see Digby, Tom, Love and War: How Militarism Shapes Sexuality and Romance (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014)Google Scholar; Braudy, Leo, From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity (New York: Vintage, 2005)Google Scholar; Goldstein, Joshua, War and Gender (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; and Elshtain, Jean Bethke, Women and War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

3 In re Grimley, 137 U.S. 147 (1890).

4 Id. at 152.

5 Id. at 153.

6 Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U.S. 83, 94 (1953).

7 Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733 (1974).

8 Uniform Code of Military Justice, 64 Stat. 109, 10 U.S.C. Chapter 47.

9 Parker v. Levy, 751.

10 Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11, 17 (1955).

11 See Parker v. Levy, 759.

12 Burns v. Wilson, 346 U.S. 137, 140 (1953).

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14 See Vitoria, Francisco, On Civil Power (1528), in Political Writings, ed. Pagden, Anthony and Lawrance, Jeremy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 1.4.2, 11Google Scholar. For a defense of this reading of the tradition, see Parsons, Graham, “What Is the Classical Theory of Just Cause? A Response to Gregory Reichberg,” Journal of Military Ethics 12 (Dec. 2013): 357–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Parsons, Graham, “The Dualism of Modern Just War Theory,” Philosophia 45 (June 2017): 751–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Grotius, Hugo, The Rights of War and Peace, ed. Tuck, Richard (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2005 [1625]), I.1.14, 162Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., I.2.1.3, 184; see also I.4.7, 358.

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21 Though they refer to virtues pertaining to social roles, this should not be thought of as a return to Aristotelianism. Among these theorists, there is not an unambiguous commitment to the social holism that is a trademark of Artistotelianism. For this reason, it is best thought of as an ad hoc appeal to virtues rather than an appeal to an Aristotelian system.

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23 Grotius, Rights of War and Peace, I.2.1.3, 184–85; II.17.2, 884–85.

24 Ibid., II.11.5.1, 709; see also Kinsella, Helen, “Gendering Grotius: Sex and Sex Difference in the Laws of War,” Political Theory 34 (April 2006): 161–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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26 Ibid., I.3.6, 257–59.

27 Ibid., I.3.7, 259–60.

28 Ibid., I.5.4, 386.

29 Ibid., I.5.3, 386; II.5.23, 552; II.26.1, 1167.

30 Ibid., II.26.3–4, 1167–80. Hobbes and Pufendorf reject his position.

31 Ibid., I.4.7, 357.

32 Ibid., II.25.7, 1158.

33 Ibid., I.4.1, 338.

34 Ibid., I.4.7, 356.

35 Ibid., I.4.7, 358.

36 Ibid., II.25.3.3, 1153. See also II.1.9.3, 405.

37 Ibid., II.25.3.4, 1154–55.

38 Grotius, Hugo, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty, ed. van Ittersum, Martine Julia (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2006 [1868]), 440Google Scholar.

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41 Hobbes, Thomas, On the Citizen, ed. Tuck, Richard (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998 [1642]), IX.6, 109Google Scholar.

42 Leviathan, XX.4, 129. For discussion of Hobbes's views on women and marriage see Brennan, Teresa and Pateman, Carole, “‘Mere Auxiliaries to the Commonwealth’: Women and the Origins of Liberalism,” in Feminist Interpretations of John Locke, ed. Hirschmann, Nancy and McClure, Kirstie (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), 51–73Google Scholar; and Schochet, Gordon, “Thomas Hobbes on the Family and the State of Nature,” in Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes, ed. Hirschmann, Nancy and Wright, Joanne (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 105–24Google Scholar.

43 Leviathan, XVII.13, 109.

44 Ibid., XVIII.8, 113.

45 See Goldie, Mark, “The Reception of Hobbes,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought: 1450–1700, ed. Burns, J. H. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 589–615CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a contemporary version of this critique, see Hampton, Jean, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

46 Baumgold, Deborah, “Subjects and Soldiers: Hobbes on Military Service,” History of Political Thought 4, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 43–44Google Scholar.

47 Leviathan, XXI.11, 141. This is an interesting reversal for him. Hobbes asserts the alienability of the right of self-defense in his earlier Elements of Law. See the discussion of the evolution of Hobbes's views on natural rights and the social contract in Baumgold,“Subjects and Soldiers.”

48 Leviathan, XXI.15, 142.

49 Ibid., XXI.16, 142.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid., 143.

53 Sreedhar, Susanne, “In Harm's Way: Hobbes on the Duty to Fight for One's Country,” in Hobbes Today: Insights for the 21st Century, ed. Lloyd, S. A. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 209–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Baumgold, “Subjects and Soldiers,” 60–61.

55 Sreedhar, “In Harm's Way,” 227.

56 Leviathan, XIX.22, 126.

57 On the Citizen, IX.16, 113.

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59 Pufendorf, Samuel, The Law of Nature and Nations, trans. Kennett, Basil (Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange, 2005 [1672]), VI.1.9, 567Google Scholar.

60 There is little sustained commentary on Pufendorf's view of the role of women in political society. Though their discussions are focused mainly on matters pertaining to gender, marriage, and equality, this reading of Pufendorf on the gender of the parties to the social contract is affirmed by Sreedhar, Susanne, “Pufendorf on Patriarchy,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 31, no. 3 (July 2014): 209–27Google Scholar; Drakopoulou, Maria, “Samuel Pufendorf, Feminism, and the Question of ‘Women and Law,’” in Feminist Encounters with Legal Philosophy, ed. Drakopoulou, Maria (New York: Routledge, 2015), 66–91Google Scholar; and Pateman, Carole, The Sexual Contract (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 50–51Google Scholar.

61 Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, II.6.9, 137.

62 Pufendorf, The Law of Nature and Nations, VIII.2.1, 757.

63 Ibid., VIII.2.3, 758.

64 Ibid., VIII.2.4, 759.

65 Ibid., VIII.2.3, 758.

66 Ibid, VIII.2.4, 759.

67 See Mary Lyndon Shanley, “Marriage Contract and Social Contract in Seventeenth-Century English Political Thought,” in Hirschmann and McClure, Feminist Interpretations of John Locke, 17–50; and Melissa Butler, “Early Liberal Roots of Feminism: John Locke's Attack on Patriarchy,” in ibid., 91–130.

68 Locke, Second Treatise, §56, 31–32.

69 Ibid., §81, 44.

70 Ibid., §83, 45.

71 Ibid., §82, 44; see also the First Treatise, §47, in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, Peter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988)Google Scholar. For discussion of Locke's views on women and marriage, see Butler, “Early Liberal Roots of Feminism,” and Jeremy Waldron, “Locke, Adam, and Eve,” in Hirschmann and McClure, Feminist Interpretations of John Locke, 241–68.

72 Second Treatise, §88, 47. Hobbes, unlike the others, holds that the purpose of the contract is simply to better secure the participant's lives.

73 Ibid., §§135–38, 73–74.

74 Ibid., §139, 74.

75 This problem for Locke cannot be avoided by construing the meaning of “property” in the above passage in the sense that Locke often uses it so as to include one's life and body. In the above passage Locke can only be understood as referring to “property” in the narrower sense to exclude one's life. Hence, in the above passage one can be bound to give one's life in war but not one's “goods.”

76 Carver, Terrell, Men in Political Theory (New York: Manchester University Press, 2004), 156Google Scholar.

77 Second Treatise, §88, 47.

78 See, for instance, Mazur, Diane, A More Perfect Military: How the Constitution Can Make Our Military Stronger (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.