Abstract
I sketch a reception of Russell Hardin’s critique, appropriation, and creative redeployment of Hobbesian insights. I highlight the central tenets of his rereading of Hobbes as he reconstructs the structure of his arguments to determine their epistemological status within a broader lineage of social-scientific thinking on political order. The result, I suggest, is a critique of Hobbes, that is, an examination of the possibilities and limits of the conceptual framework that grounds his theory of government. In Hardin’s interpretation, Hobbes is characterized as articulating a “holistic normative principle” that justifies mutually advantageous institutions. He is said to subscribe to a welfarist vision of order derived uniquely from self-interest with no prior normative commitment. Finally, his contractarian justification of institutions is rejected as a “lousy theory” that mischaracterizes the structure of the problem of maintaining orderly government.
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Ngomo, PA. (2018). Russell Hardin’s Hobbes. In: Christiano, T., Creppell, I., Knight, J. (eds) Morality, Governance, and Social Institutions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61070-2_5
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