Abstract

I sketch a reception of Russell Hardin’s critique, appropriation, and creative redeployment of Hobbesian insights. I highlight the central tenets of his rereading of Hobbes as he reconstructs the structure of his arguments to determine their epistemological status within a broader lineage of social-scientific thinking on political order. The result, I suggest, is a critique of Hobbes, that is, an examination of the possibilities and limits of the conceptual framework that grounds his theory of government. In Hardin’s interpretation, Hobbes is characterized as articulating a “holistic normative principle” that justifies mutually advantageous institutions. He is said to subscribe to a welfarist vision of order derived uniquely from self-interest with no prior normative commitment. Finally, his contractarian justification of institutions is rejected as a “lousy theory” that mischaracterizes the structure of the problem of maintaining orderly government.