The Politics of Self-Preservation: Toleration and Identity in Pufendorf and Locke
Shortly after Locke’s return to England in 1689, his support for William’s cause was recognized by the offer of an ambassadorship to Brandenburg.2 It was an important post, not only because Frederick III had assisted William’s invasion, but also because he remained a crucial Continental ally in the ongoing struggle against France. Locke declined the offer, however, no doubt because his exile had been long enough already. Without his circle of expatriates in the Netherlands, most of whom had by now returned to England, as well as his other, Dutch friends, Berlin must have seemed a lonely place indeed, even if Locke’s earlier (1665–66) experience in Cleve, one of Brandenburg’s western territories, would have predisposed him to consider it a favorable context in at least some respects.3
The Desire for Esteem
This chapter explores Pufendorf’s treatment of the desire for esteem, its role in social interaction, and its function as a source of motivation for the promotion of sociability. By the desire for esteem I mean a basic emotional need to maintain one’s esteem as well as to be positively recognized by others. It is crucial to note that the desire for esteem cannot be straightforwardly identified with a desire for self-preservation. It is also the resentment and shame prompted by insults as well as the joy at other people’s appreciation as such, inbuilt into our emotional nature. The role of the desire for esteem in Pufendorf’s moral psychology has received very little attention in the existing scholarship. In what follows, I claim that there is no indispensable conflict between the desire for esteem and the duties of sociability. Indeed, I argue, Pufendorf regards the desire for esteem as a central constituent of social experience, conceiving it to be a motor for the development of sociability.
Science and Moral Skepticism in Hobbes
Here lyes that mighty Man of Sense Who, full of years, departed hence, To teach the other world Intelligence, This was the prodigious Man, who vanquish’ d Pope and Puritan, By the Magic of Leviathan. Had he not Controversy wanted, His deeper Thoughts had not been scanted; Therefore good Spirits him transplant: Wise as he was, he could not tell Whether he went to Heaven or Hell. Beyond the Tenth Sphere, if there be a wide place, He'll prove by his Art there's no infinite space: And all good Angels may thank him, for that He has prov’ d they are something, tho men know not what. Hobbes's Epitaph (Anon 1680)