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abandoned. The Hobbesian notion, that human beings are by instinct
inclined toward self-preservation, takes the laws of motion into the realm
of psychology and ultimately social philosophy. This is the application of
classical materialistic (meta)physics to poli tics: human beings in a state of
nature, outside of civil society, are taken to be clusters of complex, intelli–
gent matter, keeping in motion, attempting to survive. But since there are
too many of them, they collide and repeated conflicts ensue. Once this
happens, their higher form of material intelligence-something like a
complex computer (one prominent model of the mind)-prompts them
to make rules that will establish peace.
In other words, we are normally inclined, like billiard balls, to go on
moving, living, but when we start colliding and our feedback system tells
us, "Now, sit down and make some rules," we respond with the solution
of the social contract. Once the rules are established, just as with traffic
laws, they govern our continued movement or pur ui t of self-preservation.
So, essentially, the grandfather of much of liberal political-economy,
Thomas Hobbes-and I say grandfather only because he was not quite lib–
eral, laid the philosophical foundations of a certain version of
liberalism-was a thoroughgoing (i.e., reductive) materialist who wanted
to apply the principles of the physical sciences to everything. In our time
this line of thinking is perhaps most forcefully and influentially advanced
by Richard Dawkins.
In this scientistic perspective, the moral or ethical ideals we ought to
promote--the language of blaming people for violating our rights for
example, for holding them responsible for rape or assault or kidnapping or
all the less serious crimes-are meaningless. No personal, moral responsi–
bility could be involved in how things turn out (as so many claim today,
from academic psychologists to guests on television talk shows).
Adam Smith, when he wrote
The Wealth ojNations,
essentially took the
Hobbesian idea a step further. He held that not only are we all embarking
on promoting our self-interest, but the less government there is, the better
this system is going to work for our prosperity. This is so because govern–
ment intervention and regulation amount to the introduction of friction
into social life, unless all government does is keep the peace.
Accordingly, the whole notion of the free market system owes a great
deal to this tradition of scientism, of lifting the principles of the physical
sciences and applying them to human behavior. Subjectivism in ethics–
the idea that all judgments of right and wrong are expressions of private
feelings, preferences or desires-really is driven by this scientistic outlook.
Scientism doesn't allow for objective moral values because the notion of
right and wrong conduct doesn't make sense if no options exist and all we
can do is what we have to. Even plain value judgments-as to whether
