Procuring the Good: Hobbes and the Commendable Use of Shame

• In Event: The Politics of Truth and Persuasion

Abstract

This paper explores what Thomas Hobbes understood as the potential uses of shame in a commonwealth. Shame is little emphasized in interpretations of Hobbes, in part because it seems unlikely that a thinker so wary of the dangers of moral devotion would advocate shame be used at all. Yet Hobbes, who takes care to define shame, instructs his sovereign to use “ignominy,” and defends the importance of the pulpit and the universities, clearly was aware of the relevance and power of shame to shape the behavior of citizens. While a few scholars have explored how shame can foster humility and build a public ethos of obedience to a Hobbesian sovereign, this seems to leave half the story untold. The Hobbesian sovereign does not only need passive obedience. He also requires active devotion, a lifeblood of soldiers and tithes. For this reason, this paper returns to Leviathan and examines how shame might be used to provide this lifeblood. Adding to recent observations about the intimacy between Hobbes and Aristotle, I contend that Hobbes agrees with Book IV of Aristotle's Ethics: shame is a two-fold force, capable of both restraining arrogant men and prompting laudable action. I argue that in the cases of both war and taxes, Hobbes recommends shame be used as a catalyst to prompt necessary service to the commonwealth. This suggestion is worth investigating, not only as an interpretive matter, but as an insight that might shed light on our modern political life, one that is growing both more allergic to sanctimony and more forceful in its use.

Author

• Ivy Flessen, Duke University