The Foole and the asshole
Thomas Hobbes’s “Foole” says in his heart that there is no justice: he sees no reason to keep his coventants with others when breaking faith “conduces to his benefit.” Hobbes’s reply to the Foole is famously wanting, but he at least gives an argument: the Foole would be foolish to take his chances on risky benefits when his security and very life depends on keeping the trust of his confederates. If he stands ready to cheat in hopes of not getting caught, he’d be placing a grave and uncertain bet on his limited powers to deceive others about his lack of resolve to keep his agreements.
In reading Leviathan again this week, I was struck that the asshole (as I define him) would run afoul of several of Hobbes’s Laws of Nature. Here are the main ones:
Be accommodating (the fifth law): the asshole doesn’t “strive to accommodate himselfe to the rest.” He stands in the way of natural efforts by others, merely “for things superfluous.” Instead of being “sociable,” he’s invariably petty.
Show respect (eighth law): “no man by deed, word, countenance, or gesture [shall] declare Hatred, or Contempt of another,” given that “all signes of hatred, or contempt, provoke to fight; insomuch as most men choose rather to hazard their life, than not to be revenged.” The asshole, by contrast, is openly contemptuous and not at all worried.
Forgo pride (ninth): the asshole won’t “acknowledge [every] other for his Equal by Nature,” even though “men…think themselves equall [and] will not enter into conditions of Peace, but upon Equall terms.”
Forgo arrogance (tenth): relatedly, the asshole *does* “reserve to himself … Right, which he is not content should be reserved to every one of the rest.” He takes special privileges, or as Hobbes says the ancient Greeks would put it, he “desires more than his share.”
Now, the Foole isn’t the same character as the unaccommodating, disrespectful, prideful, or the arrogant person, and in any case he poses a challenge only to the *third* law of nature, which requires fidelity to mutual agreements; the higher laws (by number) come later. Still, the natural question is whether Hobbes’s reasons for the different laws are supposed to be addressed to the unaccommodating, disrespectful, prideful, or arrogant asshole, in terms that he could find convincing.
The answer is, “in theory, yes.” In each case there is indeed something of an argument: breaking each precept puts peace at risk, if not by way of “actuall fighting,” then in creating the “known disposition thereunto.” That violates the first, fundamental law, which is to “seek peace,” as far as one has hope of obtaining it. The asshole *can* take pause in the standing threat of destabilized relations from his own point of view. He need only fear for his safety, as assholes in principle do.
Trouble is, assholes, being assholes, aren’t afraid, and in fact have little to fear. Assholery, they’ll say, works just fine for them. That’s why they keep it up, why they’ve settled stably into the asshole’s way of being. They surely make needless trouble for themselves, but often not enough of it to undermine the considerable benefits they gain from regularly getting more than their share. So while Hobbes’s argument could in principle get the asshole to listen, it isn’t attuned enough to the reality that cooperative people are easy to take advantage of.
Why doesn’t Hobbes take this seriously? The answer goes to his general view of human nature: because people are intensely status conscious, he assumes, they just won’t stand for it. As he says,
every man looketh that his companion should value him, at the same rate he sets upon himselfe: And upon all signes of contempt, or undervaluing, naturally endeavors, as far as he dares…to extort a greater value from his contemners, by dommage; and from others, by the example.
This in turn “maketh men invade” for Glory, for the sake of their Reputation, even “for trifles, [such as] as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other signe of undervalue.” If most of us are either assholes or aggressive anti-assholes, then assholery will invariably cause all hell to break loose.
Our point is that, all too often, that doesn’t happen. We are indeed highly status conscious, and so get very frustrated with assholes for not recognizing us as the equals we are. Even so, we generally don’t go all in for retaliation. Most of us, most of the time, pretty reliably cooperate even when assholes are taking advantage of that fact. We quite sensibly say that revenge “isn’t worth it,” because “we’d become as bad as the asshole,” or because we just don’t have it in us to stage a big fight.
Hobbes’s argument against the asshole fails, in short, because he is wrong about human nature: people are deeply cooperative by nature, even if they can be pushed into violence under sufficient strain. Were we all major assholes, we’d all wisely make a truce, just as Hobbes explains. Since most of us aren’t, assholes flourish, and there is no easy way to explain to them why they should choose a different way.
