Tom Sorell

Tom Sorell modifies an interpretation he presented in his book, Hobbes (1986) . He continues to maintain that Hobbesian natural philosophy and Hobbesian civil philosophy are methodologically quite distinct, as well as distinct in subject-matter. But it is misleading to put this by saying that civil philosophy is normative and natural philosophy is explanatory, as if civil philosophy itself weren’t supposed to be explanatory. Civil philosophy can be explanatory in the sense of specifying normative precepts for achieving a certain goal precepts that correspondingly explain the achievement of that goal. Explanatory civil science is still quite distinct from explanatory natural science, however, contrary to what is claimed by Sorell’s critics

The freedom of A Hobbesian sovereign is limited by the freedom of other sovereigns but is otherwise extremely extensive. The other side of the coin of this wide latitude, however, are the huge responsibilities and practical challenges of seeing to the good of the people. This involves both the compulsion of obedience and the permission of enterprise on the part of the many. It also calls for equity in the application of law. Overall, the burdensomeness of sovereignty probably vastly outweighs the attractions of being above the law.

In England and Wales, Section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act criminalizes the act of meeting a child—someone under 16—after grooming. The question to be pursued in this paper is whether grooming—I confine myself to online grooming—is justly criminalized. I shall argue that it is. One line of thought will be indirect. I shall first try to rebut a general argument against the criminalization of acts that are preparatory to the commission of serious offences. Grooming is one such act, but there are others, sometimes associated with terrorism. According to me, the general argument misapplies certain considerations about autonomy that are alleged to be in force in other areas of criminal law. Contrary to that general argument, criminalization of preparatory acts does not, in general, bypass the agency of citizens. Moreover, the criminalization of preparatory acts can disrupt activity that would have led to very serious crime, and with relatively low costs to the perpetrators, costs that reflect the non-occurrence of the more serious crime. There is evidence that grooming is harmful in itself, and so another point against the general argument is its assumption that preparatory offences are often harmless or at least victimless. There are objections to some of the undercover policing techniques that lead to a Section 15 prosecution, but these objections are not all weighty.

What view of the person must prevail in a society that claims to be just? There is supposed to be a Kantian answer to this question, according to which people must regard themselves and their fellows as free, equal and capable to acting rationally. In A Theory of Justice Rawls tries to give content to the idea of free, equal and rational persons, but in such a way, according to certain critics, that social relations between these figures appear impoverished. Sandel, for example, has described a tension between Rawls’s idea of a well-ordered society and the idea of a fully-fledged community. And Rawls’s theory is one of those Bernard Williams has in mind when he complains that in Kantian accounts persons are conceived so abstractly that they are drained of character, and therefore of any basis for personal relations. The objection that community and friendship are either treated by Kantian theories with a sort of righteous absurdity or else left out of account altogether; the complaint that these deficiencies are inevitable in a theory that neglects individuality and feeling in persons; these misrepresent at least one Kantian theory, namely Kant's own.

This paper offers an ethical framework for the development of robots as home companions that are intended to address the isolation and reduced physical functioning of frail older people with capacity, especially those living alone in a noninstitutional setting. Our ethical framework gives autonomy priority in a list of purposes served by assistive technology in general, and carebots in particular. It first introduces the notion of “presence” and draws a distinction between humanoid multi-function robots and non-humanoid robots to suggest that the former provide a more sophisticated presence than the latter. It then looks at the difference between lower-tech assistive technological support for older people and its benefits, and contrasts these with what robots can offer. This provides some context for the ethical assessment of robotic assistive technology. We then consider what might need to be added to presence to produce care from a companion robot that deals with older people’s reduced functioning and isolation. Finally, we outline and explain our ethical framework. We discuss how it combines sometimes conflicting values that the design of a carebot might incorporate, if informed by an analysis of the different roles that can be served by a companion robot.

It was as a political thinker that Thomas Hobbes first came to prominence, and it is as a political theorist that he is most studied today. Yet the range of his writings extends well beyond morals and politics. Hobbes had distinctive views in metaphysics and epistemology, and wrote about such subjects as history, law, and religion. He also produced full-scale treatises in physics, optics, and geometry. All of these areas are covered in this Companion, most in considerable detail. The volume also reflects the multidisciplinary nature of current Hobbes scholarship by drawing together perspectives that are now being developed in parallel by philosophers, historians of science and mathematics, intellectual historians, political scientists, and literary theorists.

Unlike the managerially oriented reforms that have brought auditing and accounting into such prominence in the UK National Health Service (NHS), and which seem alien to the culture of the caring professions, consumerist reforms may seem to complement moves towards the acceptance of wide definitions of health, and towards increasing patient autonomy. The empowerment favoured by those who support patient autonomy sounds like the sort of empowerment that is sometimes associated with the patient's charter. For this reason moral criticism of recent NHS reforms may stop short of calling consumerism into question. This, however, would be a mistake: consumerism can be objectionable both within and beyond the health care market

`Modern' philosophy in the West is said to have begun with Bacon and Descartes. Their methodological and metaphysical writings, in conjunction with the discoveries that marked the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, are supposed to have interred both Aristotelian and scholastic science and the philosophy that supported it. But did the new or `modern' philosophy effect a complete break with what preceded it? Were Bacon and Descartes untainted by scholastic influences? The theme of this book is that the new and traditional philosophies have more in common than the orthodox account suggests. In two survey articles and thirteen essays on individual philosophers, the contributors show that the rise of modern philosophy was much more complicated and much more interesting than is usually thought. They consider not only metaphysics and the sciences but also claims of Machievelli, Hobbes and Spinoza to have invented `modern' ethics and politics. These two aspects of `modernity' in philosophy are connected for the first time. The book offers a broad view of the early modern philosophers, covering not only the much-studied major figures but also relatively neglected writers: Mersenne, Gassendi, White, and Sergeant.

Agents sometimes feel free to resort to underhand or brutal measures in coping with an emergency. Because emergencies seem to relax moral inhibitions as well as carrying the risk of great loss of life or injury, it may seem morally urgent to prevent them or curtail them as far as possible. I discuss some cases of private emergency that go against this suggestion. Prevention seems morally urgent primarily in the case of public emergencies. But these are the responsibility of defensibly partisan agents, and call for the exercise of powers that are legitimately hard to control. Philosophical standards for dealing with public emergency often ignore these facts, and are unduly moralistic as a result.

Equity is clearly central to Hobbes’s theory of the laws of nature, and it has an important place in his doctrine of the duties and exercise of sovereignty. It is also prominent in his general theory of law, especially as it is articulated in the late Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England. Still, it is not more central to Hobbes’s ethics, politics and legal philosophy than his concept of justice, or even as central. On the contrary, his theory of justice is presupposed by his views about equity – in the sense that fidelity to a social contract is a condition of adjudication and definitive interpretation of law. Nor does equity contribute to a genuinely anti-authoritarian strand in Hobbes’s political philosophy. It is not as if, between the lines of that philosophy, Hobbes is a liberal. He does not think that the sovereign should exercise self-restraint because liberty and autonomy are good and sovereign self-restraint creates a space for both. Rather, he thinks that heavy-handed rule saps initiative, wealth and other resources from the people, making them less able to participate in or finance military action or internal state security. In other words, heavy-handed rule can make it harder for the sovereign to discharge the principal duty of sovereignty – ensuring public safety

Les usages que fait Hobbes de l’état de nature sont souvent mal compris par les philosophes anglo-américains contemporains, y compris par des commentateurs distingués comme Gauthier et Hampton. À la différence de Gauthier, je soutiens que Hobbes ne se soucie nullement de naturaliser le fondement de la motivation morale, et je conteste l’interprétation de Hampton qui considère que le contractualisme hobbesien a plus de pertinence pour nous aujourd’hui que le contractualisme kantien. Il existe certes des liens entre une juste interprétation de Hobbes et la philosophie politique du XXe siècle, mais je suggère que ces derniers résident dans un usage déflationniste de la redescription. C’est dans cette perspective que je m’efforce de montrer qu’il existe une comparaison valide entre Hobbes et le philosophe britannique John Gray.Hobbes’s uses of the state of nature are often misunderstood by Anglo-American philosophers, even distinguished Hobbes commentators like Gauthier and Hampton. Contrary to Gauthier, I argue that Hobbes is not notably interested in naturalising the basis of moral motivation, and I dispute Hampton’s interpretation of the lasting value of Hobbesian as opposed to Kantian contractualism. There are connections between Hobbes as he ought to be understood and twentieth century political philosophy, but I suggest these lie in a certain use of deflationary redescription. In this respect Hobbes and John Gray are comparable, as I try to show.