Hobbes on the Causes of War

A Disagreement Theory

Bibliographic Data

ID3587412
AuthorsArash Abizadeh (0000-0002-8271-5194, McGill University, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume105
Issue2
Pages298-315
Publication date2011-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0003055411000098
OpenAlexW2114736693
LanguageEN
Citations received27
References cited24

Hobbesian war primarily arises not because material resources are scarce; or because humans ruthlessly seek survival before all else; or because we are naturally selfish, competitive, or aggressive brutes. Rather, it arises because we are fragile, fearful, impressionable, and psychologically prickly creatures susceptible to ideological manipulation, whose anger can become irrationally inflamed by even trivial slights to our glory. The primary source of war, according to Hobbes, isdisagreement, because we read into it the most inflammatory signs of contempt. Both cause and remedy are therefore primarily ideological: The Leviathan's primary function is to settle the meaning of the most controversial words implicated in social life, minimize public disagreement, neutralize glory, magnify the fear of death, and root out subversive doctrines. Managing interstate conflict, in turn, requires not only coercive power, but also the soft power required to shape characters and defuse the effects of status competition

Anger · Contempt · Criminology · Epistemology · Glory · Ideology · Meaning (existential · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Selfishness · Sociology · Subversion · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification