| Thomas Hobbes has been heavily criticized as a result of the infamous fool passage in his Leviathan. In this passage it appears that Hobbes is foolishly claiming that keeping one's covenants, or justice, is always in one's self-interest. Hobbes' seeming unwillingness to concede to the obvious divergence between justice and self-interest has sparked much of this controversy. The fool who is also an atheist poses a special challenge to the effective sovereign and thus, for Hobbes, to the sanctity of civil society. How to appeal to the fool to gain civil obedience is of great significance to Hobbes. The identification of who exactly the fool is in civil society and how to deal with such fools is explored through three varying accounts, namely, those of Kinch Hoekstra, Gregory Kavka and S. A. Lloyd. |
