The Lawes of Nature are Immutable and Eternall; For Injustice, Ingratitude, Arrogance, Pride, Iniquity, Acception of persons, and the rest, can never be made lawfull. For it can never be that Warre shall preserve life, and Peace destroy it.
The sames [sic] Lawes, because they oblige onely to a desire, and endeavour, I mean an unfeigned and constant endeavour, are easie to be observed. For in that they require nothing but endeavour; he that endeavoureth their performance, fulfilleth them; and he that fulfilleth the Law, is Just.
And the Science of them, is the true and onely Moral Philosophy. For Morall Philosophy is nothing else but the Science of what is Good, and Evill, in the conversation, and Society of man-kind. Good, and Evill, are names that signifie our Appetites, and Aversions; which in different tempers, customes, and doctrines of men, are different: And divers men, differ not onely in their Judgement, on the senses of what is pleasant, and unpleasant to the tast, smell, hearing, touch, and sight; but also of what is conformable, or disagreeable to Reason, in the actions of common life. Nay, the same man, in divers times, differs from himselfe; and one time praiseth, that is, calleth Good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth Evil: From whence arise Disputes, Controversies, and at last War. And therefore so long a [sic] man is in the condition of meer Nature, (which is a condition of War,) as private Appetite is the measure of Good, and Evill: And consequently all men agree on this, that Peace is Good, and therefore also the way, or means of Peace, which (as I have shewed before) are Justice, Gratitude, Modesty, Equity, Mercy, & the rest of the Laws of Nature, are good; that is to say, Morall Vertues; and their contrarie Vices, Evill. Now the science of Vertue and Vice, is Morall Philosophie; and therefore the true Doctrine of the Lawes of Nature, is the true Morall Philosophie. But the Writers of Morall Philosophie, though they acknowledge the same Vertues and Vices; Yet not seeing wherein consisted their Goodnesse; nor that they come to be praised, as the meanes of peaceable, sociable, and comfortable living; place them in a mediocrity of passions: as if not the Cause, but the Degree of daring, made Fortitude; or not the Cause, but the Quantity of a gift, made Liberality.
These dictates of Reason, men use to call by the name of Lawes, but improperly: for they are but Conclusions, or Theoremes concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves; whereas Law, properly is the word of him, that by right hath command over others. But yet if we consider the same Theoremes, as delivered in the word of God, that by right commandeth all things; then are they properly called Lawes.
(Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, rev. student ed., ed. Richard Tuck, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. Raymond Geuss and Quentin Skinner [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], chap. 15, pp. 110-1 [italics in original] [first published in 1651])
Note from KBJ: This is the chapter in which Hobbes deduces 18 laws of nature from the first and fundamental law of nature, which is to "seek Peace, and follow it." Hobbes is well aware that ordinary people do not have the time or the ability to deduce, or even to comprehend, the 19 laws of nature, so he comes up with an "easie sum, intelligible, even to the meanest capacity; and that is, Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thy selfe." You will recognize this as the Golden Rule, or at least the negative version of the Golden Rule. The final paragraph of today's quotation is interesting, for it claims that the basis of the laws of nature is self-interest. It is in each person's long-term rational self-interest, Hobbes says, to abide by the laws of nature. Gregory Kavka calls this rule-egoism. It is the parallel of rule-utilitarianism. Note that Hobbes is defending, rather than criticizing, common-sense or traditional morality, which makes him a moral conservative. Some utilitarians do the same thing. Hobbes thinks the rules of common-sense morality have an egoistic basis; conservative utilitarians such as Henry Sidgwick think the rules of common-sense morality have a utilitarian basis. (It's possible, even if improbable, that common-sense morality has both bases. In other words, it's possible that the rules of common-sense morality maximize both individual utility and overall utility.) Kavka points out that most philosophers try to deduce startling conclusions from bland (i.e., widely accepted) premises. Hobbes deduces a bland conclusion (common-sense morality) from a startling premise (psychological, or at least predominant, egoism). Those who wish to revise or replace common-sense morality are moral progressives. So there are four categories: egoistic moral progressivism (e.g., Ayn Rand?); egoistic moral conservatism (e.g., Hobbes); utilitarian moral progressivism (e.g., Bentham); and utilitarian moral conservatism (e.g., Sidgwick).
