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Single Idea 2382
[filed under theme 23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 8. Contract Strategies
]
Full Idea
He that should be modest and tractable, and perform all the promises, in such time and place where no man else should do so, should but make himself a prey to others.
Gist of Idea
Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others
Source
Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15)
Book Ref
Hobbes,Thomas: 'Leviathan', ed/tr. Macpherson,C.B. [Penguin 1981], p.215
The
101 ideas
from Thomas Hobbes
23609
|
I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice
[Hobbes]
|
17233
|
Particulars contain universal things
[Hobbes]
|
17234
|
Motion is losing one place and acquiring another
[Hobbes]
|
17235
|
A cause is the complete sum of the features which necessitate the effect
[Hobbes]
|
17236
|
Words are not for communication, but as marks for remembering what we have learned
[Hobbes]
|
17238
|
Science aims to show causes and generation of things
[Hobbes]
|
17237
|
Definitions of things that are caused must express their manner of generation
[Hobbes]
|
17239
|
Definition is resolution of names into successive genera, and finally the difference
[Hobbes]
|
17240
|
Definitions are the first step in philosophy
[Hobbes]
|
17241
|
A defined name should not appear in the definition
[Hobbes]
|
17242
|
'Petitio principii' is reusing the idea to be defined, in disguised words
[Hobbes]
|
17243
|
Past times can't exist anywhere, apart from in our memories
[Hobbes]
|
17244
|
To make a whole, parts needn't be put together, but can be united in the mind
[Hobbes]
|
17245
|
A part of a part is a part of a whole
[Hobbes]
|
14960
|
Bodies are independent of thought, and coincide with part of space
[Hobbes]
|
16670
|
Accidents are just modes of thinking about bodies
[Hobbes]
|
16621
|
Accidents are not parts of bodies (like blood in a cloth); they have accidents as things have a size
[Hobbes]
|
17246
|
Some accidental features are permanent, unless the object perishes
[Hobbes]
|
17248
|
If a whole body is moved, its parts must move with it
[Hobbes]
|
17247
|
The only generalities or universals are names or signs
[Hobbes]
|
17250
|
If you separate the two places of one thing, you will also separate the thing
[Hobbes]
|
17249
|
If you separated two things in the same place, you would also separate the places
[Hobbes]
|
16582
|
We can imagine a point swelling and contracting - but not how this could be done
[Hobbes]
|
17251
|
The feature which picks out or names a thing is usually called its 'essence'
[Hobbes]
|
16600
|
Prime matter is body considered with mere size and extension, and potential
[Hobbes]
|
17252
|
Acting on a body is either creating or destroying a property in it
[Hobbes]
|
17253
|
Change is nothing but movement
[Hobbes]
|
16734
|
The complete power of an event is just the aggregate of the qualities that produced it
[Hobbes]
|
17254
|
An effect needs a sufficient and necessary cause
[Hobbes]
|
17255
|
Two bodies differ when (at some time) you can say something of one you can't say of the other
[Hobbes]
|
16790
|
A body is always the same, whether the parts are together or dispersed
[Hobbes]
|
17257
|
It is the same river if it has the same source, no matter what flows in it
[Hobbes]
|
12853
|
Some individuate the ship by unity of matter, and others by unity of form
[Hobbes]
|
17256
|
If a new ship were made of the discarded planks, would two ships be numerically the same?
[Hobbes]
|
16794
|
As an infant, Socrates was not the same body, but he was the same human being
[Hobbes]
|
17258
|
If we just say one, one, one, one, we don't know where we have got to
[Hobbes]
|
2948
|
Sensation is merely internal motion of the sentient being
[Hobbes]
|
17259
|
'Force' is the quantity of movement imposed on something
[Hobbes]
|
17260
|
Imagination is just weakened sensation
[Hobbes]
|
17261
|
Apart from pleasure and pain, the only emotions are appetite and aversion
[Hobbes]
|
19373
|
A 'conatus' is an initial motion, experienced by us as desire or aversion
[Hobbes, by Arthur,R]
|
16789
|
Only supernatural means could annihilate anything once it had being
[Hobbes]
|
7396
|
Hobbes created English-language philosophy
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
7410
|
Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
7409
|
Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights'
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
7408
|
It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
7411
|
The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature
[Hobbes]
|
16688
|
Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses
[Hobbes]
|
16638
|
The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them
[Hobbes]
|
7405
|
Experience can't prove universal truths
[Hobbes]
|
7407
|
Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them
[Hobbes]
|
6212
|
Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others
[Hobbes]
|
6211
|
Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly
[Hobbes]
|
6208
|
Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head
[Hobbes]
|
6209
|
There is no absolute good, for even the goodness of God is goodness to us
[Hobbes]
|
6210
|
Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end
[Hobbes]
|
6213
|
A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd
[Hobbes]
|
8014
|
Resolve a complex into simple elements, then reconstruct the complex by using them
[Hobbes, by MacIntyre]
|
5337
|
For Hobbes the Golden Rule concerns not doing things, whereas Jesus encourages active love
[Hobbes, by Flanagan]
|
20484
|
We should obey the laws of nature, provided other people are also obeying them
[Hobbes, by Wolff,J]
|
7573
|
The legal positivism of Hobbes said law is just formal or procedural
[Hobbes, by Jolley]
|
19764
|
Hobbes attributed to savages the passions which arise in a law-bound society
[Hobbes, by Rousseau]
|
20566
|
Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler
[Hobbes, by Oksala]
|
20485
|
Hobbes says people are roughly equal; Locke says there is no right to impose inequality
[Hobbes, by Wolff,J]
|
2356
|
Appearance and reality can be separated by mirrors and echoes
[Hobbes]
|
2357
|
Dreams must be false because they seem absurd, but dreams don't see waking as absurd
[Hobbes]
|
2358
|
Freedom is absence of opposition to action; the idea of 'free will' is absurd
[Hobbes]
|
2363
|
Reason is usually general, but deliberation is of particulars
[Hobbes]
|
2360
|
'Good' is just what we desire, and 'Evil' what we hate
[Hobbes]
|
2362
|
The will is just the last appetite before action
[Hobbes]
|
2361
|
If fear of unknown powers is legal it is religion, if it is illegal it is superstition
[Hobbes]
|
2359
|
Desire and love are the same, but in the desire the object is absent, and in love it is present
[Hobbes]
|
2364
|
Causation is only observation of similar events following each other, with nothing visible in between
[Hobbes]
|
2365
|
Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening
[Hobbes]
|
2367
|
In time of war the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short
[Hobbes]
|
2366
|
There is not enough difference between people for one to claim more benefit than another
[Hobbes]
|
2368
|
Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so
[Hobbes]
|
2374
|
In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract
[Hobbes]
|
2371
|
A contract is a mutual transfer of rights
[Hobbes]
|
2372
|
The person who performs first in a contract is said to 'merit' the return, and is owed it
[Hobbes]
|
2375
|
Suspicion will not destroy a contract, if there is a common power to enforce it
[Hobbes]
|
2369
|
If we seek peace and defend ourselves, we must compromise on our rights
[Hobbes]
|
2370
|
All voluntary acts aim at some good for the doer
[Hobbes]
|
2373
|
The first performer in a contract is handing himself over to an enemy
[Hobbes]
|
2383
|
Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living
[Hobbes]
|
2376
|
Injustice is the failure to keep a contract, and justice is the constant will to give what is owed
[Hobbes]
|
2378
|
Belief in an afterlife is based on poorly founded gossip
[Hobbes]
|
2380
|
Punishment should only be for reform or deterrence
[Hobbes]
|
2377
|
No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen
[Hobbes]
|
2382
|
Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others
[Hobbes]
|
2379
|
If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it
[Hobbes]
|
23987
|
The 'simple passions' are appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief
[Hobbes, by Goldie]
|
6214
|
Liberty and necessity are consistent, as when water freely flows, by necessity
[Hobbes]
|
7559
|
Every part of the universe is body, and non-body is not part of it
[Hobbes]
|
8015
|
Hobbes wants a contract to found morality, but shared values are needed to make a contract
[MacIntyre on Hobbes]
|
8016
|
Fear of sanctions is the only motive for acceptance of authority that Hobbes can think of
[MacIntyre on Hobbes]
|
6215
|
'Contingent' means that the cause is unperceived, not that there is no cause
[Hobbes]
|
16620
|
A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form
[Hobbes]
|
16622
|
Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances
[Hobbes]
|
2385
|
If a man suddenly develops an intention of doing something, the cause is out of his control, not in his will
[Hobbes]
|
2384
|
Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary
[Hobbes]
|