Moral System
Section 2 - IV.
The principles of fear and force
154. `We must admit that laws were established for fear of what is unjust. (100) According to Hobbes this ancient statement affirms that human beings associated in order to find protection against mutual harm. This is true to a certain extent, but it does not explain the origin of duties and rights. How could mutual agreement be valid if the law of justice did not previously exist? Utility alone, and in particular the fear of evil, does not impart force to an agreement. This kind of restriction is insufficient for the powerful who have nothing to fear from the weak.
Hobbes system, as generally understood, is one of the many forms of the utilitarianism I have already refuted. It is also vitiated by the error claiming that, before the formation of society, a natural, absolute human right to everything existed for all. This error is compounded in turn by the claim that it is deduced from the equally erroneous principle that duty, moral law and valid possession did not exist before the formation of society!
155. In antiquity people like Platos Trasimachus placed every right in force. Hobbes allied himself with them. Force can constitute a fact but never a right. If violated right is what forms fault, and if force can be overcome only by a greater force, right (force) in this case would be violated by a greater right (by a greater force); no right would ever be violated.
Force simply indicates necessity. Right and duty include in their notion free will, which can execute right and duty or not.
Finally Hobbes is led by his absurd principles to justify tyranny as that which alone can prevent universal violence. In his view human beings will always be mutually violent unless someone exists who can accomplish all things.
Notes
(100) Horat., bk. 1, Sat. 3.