The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1992) Vol. X X X , No.

SHOULD HOBBES’S STATE OF NATURE BE

REPRESENTED AS A PRISONERS DILEMMA?
Andrew Alexandra
The University of Melbourne

Introduction
In his 1962 book The Logic of Leviathan’ David Gauthier
drew on the resources of games theory as an aid to the pre-
sentation of his interpretation of Hobbes’s political philos-
ophy.2 Since that book, at least, a number of other commen-
tators have done likewise.3 That games theory has been
found to be a n attractive and useful tool for this purpose is
not surprising, for Hobbes’s individualist and instrumental-
ist account of rational deliberation and action is strikingly
similar to that found in games theory.*
In this paper I wish to consider the appropriate game-
theoretic representation of Hobbes’s famous device, the State
of Nature, and to show that substantive questions of inter-
pretation are involved in that representation. Amongst those
commentators who have applied games theory to Hobbes’s
political philosophy there appears to be virtually unanimous
agreement that the State of Nature should be represented as
a Prisoner’s Dilemma. John Rawls goes so far as to claim
that ‘Hobbes’s state of nature is . . . the classical example
of the prisoner’s dilemma’.5 Others to endorse the claim that
the State of Nature can be represented as a Prisoner’s
Dilemma include Brian Barry, as well as Edna Ullmann-
Margalit, Greg Kavka and Jean Hampton.6 In this paper I
argue against this claim. In the first part of the paper I brief-
ly sketch Hobbes’s description of the State of Nature, and
argue that only two kinds of games, known as the Prisoner’s
Dilemma and the Assurance Game, can plausibly be taken
as representations of the State of Nature. In the second part
of the paper I examine relevant features of these games,
drawing on this examination in the third part to argue that,

Andrew Alexandra is Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at the

University of Melbourne. His main research interests are the political
philosophy of Hobbes and contemporary issues in Political Philosophy. He
has published in the History of Philosophy Quarterly.

1
contrary to the received view, the Assurance Game should
be taken as the preferred representation.

I
The State of Nature as a Condition of War
Hobbes uses his description of what he calls ‘the natural
condition of mankind’7 (better known as the State of Nature)
as a way of illuminating the need for, and the nature of,
political authority. The State of Nature is the condition of
people who ‘lack a common power to keep them all in awe’.8
Hobbes argues that the State of Nature is a condition of war.
According to Hobbes, people are equal in certain respects,
which means that each potentially fears the other, and in
turn is feared by the other. As he succinctly put it in De Ciue,
‘they are equals who can do equal things, but they who can
do the greatest thing, namely kill, can do equal things.’g
There are certain ‘causes of quarrel”0 to be found in hu-
man nature-the unlimited exercise of the passions of ‘glory’,
‘competition’ and ‘diffidence’-and without the restraint im-
posed by political authority these will render each person’s
potential threat to the other actual. This is the condition of
war, where each person is a threat to every other person,
though physical conflict may or may not occur. This don-
dition is graphically, and famously, described by Hobbes in
Chapter 13of Leviathan.
In such a condition there is no place for Industry . . . and consequently no
culture of the earth, no navigation, no commodious buildings . . . no
knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no a h ,no letters,
no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent
death-and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.11
Hobbes ascribes to each person a ‘Right of Nature’, which
he describes as ‘the liberty each man has, to use his own
power as he will himself, for the preservation of his own
nature, that is to say, of his own life, and, consequently, of
doing anything which in his own judgement and reason, he
shall conceive to be the aptest means thereto.’l2 In the con-
dition of war a consequence of the Right of Nature is that
‘every man has a right to everything’.I3
Certain passions, namely the overwhelming fear of death,
and the desire for commodious living, lead people to wish to
escape from or avoid the State of Nature. Reason dictates
Laws of Nature, general rules ‘by which a man is forbidden
to do that which is destructive of his life, or takes away the
means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which

2
he thinks it may best be preserved’.*4 In Leviathan Hobbes
lists nineteen Laws of Nature, enjoining equity, gratitude,
the keeping of covenants and so on.
To escape from the State of Nature it is necessary for the
Laws of Nature to be generally accepted as public standards
of behaviour, and according to Hobbes this can only be done
when all people agree to limit their right to act purely on
their own judgement and to act according to the judgment
of a sovereign authority.15 The sovereign authority is not
itself party to this Social Contract and there is, theoretically
at least, no limit to the exercise of its powers.
Game-TheoreticRepresentations of the State of Nature
Hobbes’s State of Nature would seem to lend itself to
representation in game-theoretic terms. Games theory
purports to model situations of interdependent choice, where
what happens to each person is determined partly by
themselves-specifically, by their choice of a strategy for
action-and partly by others. The State of Nature, ‘a war,
as if of every man against every man’, is obviously such a
situation of interdependent choice, and since the choices
available to people in the State of Nature are few in number
and simple in nature they can be represented in game-
theoretic terms without undue idealisation.
Those commentators who have depicted people in the State
of Nature as ‘players’ in a ‘game’ have characterised the
strategies for action available to such players in a variety
of ways. Jean Hampton, for instance, dubs the available
strategies ‘Invade’ and ‘Not Invade’;16 Edna Ullmann-
Margalit speaks of ‘Keeping Covenants’ and ‘Breaking Cove-
nants’;17 and so on. My own opinion is that the strategies
are more accurately described as ‘retaining the right to judge
for oneself which actions are most to one’s advantage’ on the
one hand, and ‘not retaining that right’ on the other. Such
apparently conflicting descriptions of the available strate-
gies are compatible, however: they can be redescribed in
broad terms as ‘acting in the way that leads to the condition
of war’ on the one hand, and ‘acting in the way that leads
to peace’ on the other.
In any case, if it is allowed that the State of Nature can
be represented as a two-person game between ‘me’ and ‘you’
(where ‘you’ denotes all, or some sufficiently large number
of others, and ‘me’ denotes the individual facing a choice of
strategies)18, and that each of the players in this game has
two overall strategies available, then there are four possible
outcomes (the results of the choice of strategy of ‘me’ and

3
‘you’). Thus there will be, it would seem, twenty-four possible
rankings of preferences for outcomes. Games are generally
individuated by such rankings, so it seems that there are
twenty-four game types which could possibly represent the
State of Nature.
I n fact Hobbes’s description of the S t a t e of Nature
considerably restricts the number of game types which could
represent the State of Nature. According to Hobbesian
principles it will always be the case that any outcome which
lands players in the State of Nature will be less preferred
t h a n a n y outcome which does not. There are two such State
of Nature outcomes. The first of these is the result of ‘me’
and ‘you’ both choosing the ‘bad’ strategy, the one that leads
to war-following convention this strategy will be called
‘defection’. Undesirable as the outcome of mutual defection
is, it is preferable to the situation where a lone person
chooses the ‘good’ strategy, the one which leads to peace-
conventionally designated as ‘cooperation’-and conforms
his actions to the Laws of Nature, while others do not.
Hobbes writes:
For he that should be modest, and tractable, and perform all he promises,
in such time and place, where no man should do so, should but make himself
a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruin.Ig
So while in the general State of Nature everyone is in a
state of ‘continual fear, a n d danger of violent death’ (my em-
phasis), the lone cooperator faces certain destruction. The
preference rankings for the State of Nature outcomes can,
then, be represented as follows:
Me You
D D
C D

where D denotes ‘defection’, C ‘cooperation’, and where the

higher outcome is more preferred.
There are also two possible non-State of Nature outcomes.
These could be called ‘Commonwealth’ outcomes-they are
general conformity (CC) or lone non-conformity (DC). Since
both these outcomes will always be preferred to State of
Nature outcomes there are i n fact only two possible overall
preference rankings for possible outcomes, distinguished
according to the ranking given to the two Commonwealth
outcomes. These are:

4
 Prisoner’s Dilemma Assurance Game
Me You Me You
1. D C C C
2. c C D C
3. D D D D
4. c D C D
The first of these preference rankings, where lone defection
in the face of cooperation by others is preferred to general de-
fection, is that found in the Prisoner’s Dilemma game (hence-
forth generally abbreviated to P.D.), while the second, where
general cooperation is preferred to lone defection, is that found
in the Assurance Game (henceforth A.G.).
Should the P.D. or the A.G. be taken as more accurately rep-
resenting the State of Nature? To help answer this question
I now turn to a more detailed examination of the two kinds
of games.
I1
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ has come to denote a kind of game
which is, more or less, formally analogous to a famous sce-
nario, described here by Luce and Raiffa.
Two suspects are taken into custody, and separated. The district attorney
is certain that they are guilty of a specific crime, but he does not have
adequate evidence to convict them at a trial. He points out to each prisoner
that each has two alternatives: to confess to the crime the police are sure
that they have done, or not to confess. If they both do not confess, then
the district attorney states that he will book them on some very minor
trumped-up charge . . . ; and they will both receive minor punishment; if
they both confess they will be prosecuted, but he will recommend less than
the most severe sentence; but if one confesses but the other does not, then
the confessor will receive lenient treatment for turning State’s evidence
whereas the latter will get ‘the book’ slapped at him.2o

I will now attempt to isolate what I consider to be the for-

mally relevant features of this scenario, which can be taken
as assumptions generating the P.D.
A) Rationality. (This is implicitly assumed by Luce and
Raiffa, as shown in their discussion of the scenario.) “he
players are rational in the game-theoretic sense, where ‘of
alternatives which give rise to outcomes, a player will choose
the one which yields the more preferred outcome, or, more
precisely in terms of utility functions, he will attempt to
maximize expected utility’.2l

5
 €3) P.D. Preference Rankings. A player (‘me’) has the fol-
lowing preference rankings for outcomes (expressed as or-
dered pairs of strategies chosen by two players, ‘me’ and
‘you’):
Me You
1. D C
2. c C
3. D D
4. c D

C) Independence. Neither player knows what the other

intends to do (though it may be possible for them to work
it out), nor can either force or cause the other to adopt one
strategy or the other.
There are two distinguishable parts of this condition:
i) Reciprocal Powerlessness to influence each other’s
choice of strategy.
ii) Mutual Ignorance of each other’s choice of strategy.
This assumption-the assumption of Mutual Ignorance-
can in turn be broken into two sub-parts:
iia) Isolation-neither player can communicate with the
other.
iib) Lack of Assurance-even if the players can communi-
cate with each other, neither can have assurance that the
other’s choice of strategy will in any way be affected by
the content of that communication. (So, for example, a
promise to choose one strategy rather than another will
not, qua promise, have any force.)
D) Symmetry. The players are identical in all respects
relevant to their choice of strategy. That is, ‘you’ can be rep-
resented as ‘me’ when trying to work out what his choice of
strategy will be.22
E) Common Knowledge. Each player knows, or can work
out, that features A)-D) hold for each player, and knows that
each player knows this, and knows that each player knows
this and so on.
Given these assumptions each player will choose his
defecting strategy. As can clearly be seen from the columnar
lay-out of the preference rankings, this strategy dominates
the cooperating strategy-it leads to the more preferred of
the two available outcomes if the other player chooses to
defect, and likewise if he chooses to cooperate. So each player
will take the defecting strategy, and their deliberations will
come to rest at outcome 3), which is the only ‘equilibrium

6
point’, where ‘each agent has done as well as he can given
the actions of the other agents’.23
Although assumption E), Common Knowledge, reflects the
contents of the original scenario, it is not essential to the
Prisoner’s Dilemma. Since defection is the dominant strategy
for each player, they will still each choose that strategy even
if they have no insight into the preferences and motivations
of the other.
Assumption C), Independence, is the most complex of the
P.D. asssumptions in its specification. Its articulation is
contingent upon the other P.D. assumptions, and in partic-
ular upon the actual preference rankings of the P.D. In some
games with different preference rankings-for example the
Assurance Game, discussed below-overcoming Isolation is
sufficient to overcome Independence. In such games, where
players can communicate with each other they can commit
themselves to strategies which it is clearly in their interests
actually to play. Lack of Assurance is not a problem-the
second player can see that the first has good reason to take
the strategy which he has said that he will. The second
player is thereby constrained, for better or worse, in his
choice of strategy. Overcoming Isolation destroys both Lack
of Assurance and Powerlessness-in such cases, knowledge
really is power.
Where P.D. assumptions hold, however, even if Isolation
can be overcome, Lack of Assurance, and hence Ignorance,
will obtain. Given the assumptions of Rationality and P.D.
Preference Rankings each player can see that both are better
off if both choose to cooperate rather than to defect. If
Isolation is overcome each will be able to communicate his
acknowledgement of this fact, and to express his intention
to cooperate, conditional on the other doing likewise.
Nevertheless, such communication will be insufficient to
actually move either player, given their P.D. Preference
Rankings defection remains their dominant strategy, so
again mutual defection will be the outcome.
***
As I have represented it ‘the Prisoner’s Dilemma’ is mis-
named. For where is the dilemma? According to the O.E.D.
the popular meaning of ‘dilemma’ is a ‘choice between two
alternatives which are equally unfavourable’. Players in
games such as the P.D. choose between strategies, and in a
sense there is no such thing as an unfavourable outcome,
there are simply more or less preferred ones. In some games
a player is faced with a choice between equally preferred

7
strategies, but that is not the case with the P.D. Since there
is no need to choose between equally preferred strategies
there is, a fortiori, no need to choose between equally un-
favourable ones. There can be no doubt or perplexity about
what to do-each will choose the defecting strategy.
The P.D. has generated much interest as a model for real-
life situations, where it does appear more dilemmatic, with
the pursuit of individual self-interest leading to an outcome
that is preferred less by each than some other possible out-
come-where, in effect, people arrive at the outcome of mu-
tual defection rather than the more preferred one of mutual
cooperation. Let us call the problem of achieving mutual
cooperation rather than mutual defection ‘the practical prob-
lem’. Given the P.D. assumptions outlined above, the prac-
tical problem is intractable.24 However many real-life situa-
tions which have been seen as prima facie Prisoner’s Dilem-
mas possess features which allow the practical problem to
be solved. This is particularly the case where two, or some
other small number of people, are involved.25
When two people find themselves in a situation where their
preferences towards the possible outcomes of their actions
are as for the P.D. they can often communicate with each
other, to discover that they both express an intention to
choose the cooperative strategy conditional on the other do-
ing likewise. In such cases Isolation is not a problem. The
communication of this intention generally justifies each in
actually choosing the cooperative strategy-each regards the
other’s say-so as good evidence of their intention, and given
that he believes that the other will choose the cooperative
strategy feels bound to do likewise.
That is, the general presumption of trust between people
is typically sufficient to solve the practical problem in real-
life two-person cases where Isolation is overcome. There are
two broad ways of explicating how trust affects the practical
reasoning of those in the sort of situation under considera-
tion. According to the first, which could be called a deonto-
logical account, the effect of the speech-act of promising, for
example, is to restrict the class of reasons which are relevant
to an agent’s decision: only those consistent with the promise
are to be taken under consideration.26
While the deontological account claims that trust acts to
narrow the focus of considerations relevant to decision, the
second account, consequentialist in nature, explains the
workings of trust in terms of a widening of this focus. On
this account Luce and Raiffa’s scenario ignores the fact that
we live in a social world, where our actions may be observed,

8
and these observations taken into account by others when
they contemplate future dealings with us. The possibility of
gaining a reputation as untrustworthy, unreliable and so on
may be very much against our long-term interests. Conse-
quentialist considerations may lead to an agent preferring,
all things considered, to cooperate rather than defect.
Whether they do, of course, depends on contingent factors
such as how much the agent values present gains as against
future losses, and how likely he considers it that breaking
trust will be detected; in short, on the expected utility of the
available adions.27
The difference between the two accounts of the workings
of trust can be expressed in terms of the P.D. assumptions
outlined above. Both agree that the assumption of Indepen-
dence is overcome by communication. The effects of this com-
munication are, however, differently described. The deonto-
logical account denies the applicability of the assumption of
Rationality-to understand people’s reasoning in such cases
it is not sufficient to see them always as acting to maximise
expected utility. The consequentialist approach on the other
hand denies the assumption of P.D. Preference Rankings. In
the context of the broad choice situation the available
strategies should be described not simply as ‘cooperate’ or
‘defect’, but as, say, ‘cooperate after having promised to do
so’. Strategies under these descriptions will differ from P.D.
Preference Rankings.
***
The practical problem is familiar enough to us. We
encounter it at times of power restrictions, water shortages
and so on, where the desire by each to continue to enjoy
unrestricted use of a limited good may lead to a curtailment,
or total loss, of that good for all.
The conditions which make the solution of the practical
problem possible in small groups are often lacking in large
groups. The problems of Isolation and Lack of Assurance are,
typically, more difficult to overcome in large groups.
Obviously Isolation is a greater problem in large groups. Even
where Isolation may be overcome, Lack of Assurance will
remain a problem in many large groups whenever con-
sequentialist considerations are relevant. Such considerations
affect preference rankings only when sanctions or rewards
can be both effectively and appropriately assigned. Such
assignation depends on the possibility of accurately iden-
tifying the agent and his action; and on the possibility of
actually imposing sanctions or rewards. Neither possibility

9
will be fulfilled in many of the interdependent choice
situations typical of modem societies, involving large groups
of anonymous agents-as in power-restriction type cases.
Even where an individual’s action ,can be accurately identi-
fied by some members of a large group, unless it is possible
to make this information generally known-and in such
groups that often will not be possible-it may have no
effective impact on that individual.
A ‘third party’ may be required to solve the practical prob-
lem for a group which is unable to do so itself. Such a third
party will be able to seek out information and impose sanc-
tions to guarantee general conformity: I take it that the State,
for example, plays this role in power-restriction type cases.
The Assurance Game
I will now consider the Assurance Game and its relation to
the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The assumptions of Rationality and
Symmetry, as outlined in the discussion of the P.D., can be
taken as given. There is a difference between the preference
rankings for outcomes in the two games:
B1) Assurance Game Preference Rankings
Me You
1. c C
2. D C
3. D D
4. c D
This differs from the P.D. rankings only in the ordering of
the first two outcomes. This difference, however, profoundly
influences the nature of the game. Unlike the P.D., there are
two equilibrium points (CC and DD) and no dominant
strategy. As argued above, in the P.D., since defection is the
dominant strategy, mutual defection will be the outcome,
whether or not the assumption of Common Knowledge holds.
In the Assurance Game, on the other hand, the players’
choice of strategy is contingent on what they know about
each other. If the assumption of Common Knowledge holds,
then each can choose the cooperative strategy in the con-
fident expectation that the other will do the same, since
neither has anything to gain from doing otherwise. Thus
each will gain his most preferred outcome. In terms of the
assumptions outlined above, given Rationality, Symmetry
and A.G. Preference Rankings, then Common Knowledge
leads to the overcoming of Independence.

10
 Where Common Knowledge does not apply the players
may not choose to cooperate. The principles of strategy
choice they use depends on the attitudes they take to the
possible outcomes in themselves, not simply in terms of their
standing in the preference rankings. Where one outcome is
perceived as highly undesirable the principle of ‘maximin’
may be chosen. This recommends choosing the ‘best worst’
outcome: in this case choosing defection, for fear that other-
wise one will be a lone cooperator. Maximin is a controver-
sial principle, since it seems to rule out such apparently Tea-
sonable actions as gambling on a favourable outcome when
the rewards of such an outcome are immense and the draw-
backs of the least favoured outcome negligible. However,
when the possible outcomes produced by the other player’s
choice of the strategy which the first would least have pre-
ferred him to have chosen can reasonably be seen as ex-
tremely undesirable, maximin gains more plausibility. (It is
reasonable, for example, to think that a person in a Hobbes-
ian State of Nature deliberating about his choice of strategy
should allow himself to be guided by maximin to choose
defection-Hobbes emphasises the dire consequences of
conforming to the various Laws of Nature in such a situation
where others do not.)
So in A.G. type situations where Common Knowledge does
not apply but where maximin considerations do, each will
choose to defect. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma the choice of the
defecting strategy is determined by two considerations: the
fear of the results of lone cooperation, and the desire for the
benefits of lone defection-the desire to be a ‘free rider’. Both
of these considerations may be live for each player in an
Assurance Game as w e b again they may fear the results of
lone cooperation, and though not attracted to free riding
themselves, where they cannot be sure that others won’t free
ride-where they lack Common Knowledge-the fear of lone
cooperation will drive them to defection. So the mere
availability of lone defection in Assurance Games where
players lack Common Knowledge will lead to the practical
problem-where mutual defection is the outcome, even
though each would prefer mutual cooperation.
The practical problem as it arises in the A.G. can be solved
by the intervention of a third party, as in the P.D. The task
of the third party here, however, is not to affect preference
rankings, as in the P.D., but simply to make the information
available to the interested parties which will enable them to
achieve mutual cooperation.
11
 I11
The P.D. Reading: Attractions and Problems
The weight of critical opinion holds that Hobbes’s State
of Nature should be represented as a Prisoner’s Dilemma.
What are the attractions of this claim? They are, I think,
twofold. Firstly, it fits with a popular interpretation of
Hobbes which sees him as holding that people are by nature
selfish and anti-social. Secondly this view appears to be con-
sistent with, and to make sense of, Hobbes’s views on the
nature and role of the sovereign. Everyone knows that
Hobbes’s sovereign is absolute-now it seems that we can see
why this is, and at the same time why it is rational for people
to accept such an unlimited ruler. Because people are by
nature aggressors the sovereign will have to be harsh and
authoritarian, to guarantee t he cooperative behaviour
necessary to keep people out of the State of Nature-he will
have to show that the benefits of selfish behaviour are
outweighed by the penalties which he will impose for such
behaviour.
This might be called the vulgar view of Hobbes-it is the
one that seems to have passed into general currency. It has
its sophisticated exponents, however (and not only among
those who subscribe to the view that the State of Nature can
be seen as a P.D.). So, for example, this view is neatly
expressed by David Gauthier when he writes:
Hobbes takes seriously the view, implicit in many bourgeois thinkers, that
all men are mutually selfish. The resultant harmony of interests is imposed,
not by an invisible hand, but by the very visible hand of the absolute
sovereign.2s
Ullmann-Margalit explains the sovereign’s role in the lan-
guage of games theory:
owing to the sovereign’s unlimited right of sanction, the pay-off structure
of the situation changes in such a way that once the transition into the
State of Peace takes place, the situation is no longer P.D. structured. The
belligerent policy no longer dominates the peaceful one-the State of Peace
is rendered ~table.~9
The view of human nature which such writers attribute to
Hobbes is, to say the least, controversial. And in so far as
it is an essentialist view (people are by nature selfish, ag-
gressive and so on) it implicates Hobbes in blatant self-con-
tradiction-since officially Hobbes’s position is relativistic.
Hobbes claims, ‘of the voluntary acts of every man the
object is some good to himself‘.30 Hobbes is, theoretically at

12
least, a complete relativist and subjectivist about the objects
which people may take as goods. To say that the objects of
voluntary acts are goods to the agent is a purely formal
claim; it does not rule out any particular object being taken
as a good, so it does not rule out, for example, people acting
for altruistic or friendly motives.
Hobbes is a subjectivist, holding that the ascription of
value is dependent on the interests of the valuer:
But whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite; that is in which he for
his part calleth good . . . these words good, evil and contemptible are ever
used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply
and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from
the nature of the objects themselves.31
Hobbes holds not just that valuation is relative to the valuer,
but that it is relative to the valuer’s particular situation:
Good and evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions; which
in different tempers, customs and doctrines of men are different . . . Nay,
the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself; and one time praises,
that is, calls good, what another time he dispraises, and calls evil. 32
The A.G. Reading: Textual Support
If the State of Nature is represented as a many-person
Assurance Game played without Common Knowledge then
it is possible to read Leviathan in a way which is both more
in sympathy with Hobbes’s professed intentions and more
inherently plausible than the reading suggested by those
who represent the State of Nature as a Prisoner’s Dilemma.
On the suggested reading it is not necessary to see Hobbes
as having an essentialist view of human nature, and it is
possible to make sense of the role of the sovereign without
supposing that he exists simply to deter people from in-
dulging their naturally selfish impulses.
To make this reading of Hobbes convincing it is necessary
firstly to show that people in the State of Nature lack Com-
mon Knowledge; then to explicate the function of the sov-
ereign, consistent with Hobbes’s statements on the subject.
The State of Nature is simply the Commonwealth with the
‘common power’ removed. Hobbes writes that ‘It may be per-
ceived what manner of life there would be, where there were
no common power to fear, by the manner of life which men
that have formerly lived under a peaceful government, use
to degenerate into, in a civil war’.33
The State of Nature can be seen as inherent in the
Commonwealth, whether or not it ever becomes actual. The
Commonwealth is of its essence a large organisation-it

13
must be if it is to deter invasion by outside forces.34Problems
of isolation, the inability to know those who may affect us,
or to have insight into their motives, are inherent in such
groupings. As F. S. McNeilly has put it:
Hobbes is not an observer predicting on the basis of the known, but an
analyst of the deliberation of a participant faced with the unknown. All that
is postulated is a reasoning being having a number of objectives and in
contact with similar beings.35
It is the function of the Laws of Nature to regulate the
relationships between people in large groups. ‘These are the
laws of Nature, dictating peace, for a means of the conser-
vation of men in multitudes, and which only concern the
doctrine of civil ~ociety’~6
(my emphasis).
The fundamental role of the sovereign, on the A.G. read-
ing, will be that of a coordinator. Chapter 30 of Leviathan,
entitled ‘Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative’, is
probably Hobbes’s most coherent statement on the role of the
sovereign, and it does appear to support the claim that
Hobbes sees people as capable of uncoerced cooperation. He
asserts that the sovereign was trusted with power for ‘the
procuration of the safety of the people. . . . But by safety here
is meant not a bare preservation, but also all other content-
ments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without
danger or hurt to the Commonwealth, shall acquire to
himself’.37 The sovereign procures such safety ‘not by care
applied to individuals further than their protection from
injuries, when they shall ~omplain’~8 but rather by public
instruction and the making of good laws. Hobbes’s views on
both these sovereign functions, law-making and instruction,
indicate that he thought that people at least had the poten-
tial to run their own affairs with the minimum of govern-
mental interference. In his discussion of the need for public
instruction Hobbes praises the capacities of the common
people, claiming that he should be ‘glad that the rich and
potent subjects of a kingdom, or those who were accounted
the most learned, were no less incapable than they’.39 So
certainly such people will, if properly instructed, understand
the need for following the Laws of Nature (acting coopera-
tively). Similarly in his discussion of good laws Hobbes in-
sists that in matters which do not impinge on external af-
fairs ‘the best counsel . . . is to be taken from the general
information, and complaints of the people of each province,
who are best acquainted with their own wants’, and he in-
sists that ‘the use of laws . . . is not to bind the people from
all voluntary actions, but to direct and keep them in such

14
a motion as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous
desires, rashness or indiscretion, as hedges are set, not to
stop travellers, but to keep them in the way’.40

NOTES
1 David Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, Oxford, OUP, 1962.
2 In this paper I consider only the statement of that philosophy found
in Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. McPherson, London, Penguin, 1980.
Originally published 1651.For convenience I have not always followed the
original typography or s.pelling
3 Those I focus on m this paper are: Edna Ullmann-Margalit, The
Emergence of Norms, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1977; Greg Kavka,
Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, Princeton, Princeton University
Press, 1986; Jean Hampton, Hobbea a d the Social Contract Tradition,
Cambridge, CUP, 1986.
4 The seminal work in games theory is J. Von Neumann and 0.
Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1953. More accessible works, from which the
simple gametheoretic concepts in this paper have mainly been drawn, are
R. D. Luce and H. M a , Games and Decisions, New York, John Wiley and
Sons, 1957; D. Lewis, Convention, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University
Press, 1969;M. Bacharach, Economics and the Theory of Games, London,
Macmillan, 1976. For Hobbes’s account of reasoning and action see Chs.
5-8 of Leviathan, op. cit., especially Ch. 6, p. 127, Ch. 8, p. 139, and Ch.
14,p. 197.
6 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Oxford,OUP, 1976,p. 269.
6 Brian Barry, Political Argument, London, RKP, 1965,pp.
253-254, Edna Ullmann-Margalit, .The Emergence of Norms, op. cit., pp.
62-73;Greg Kavka, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, op. cit., p. 109;
Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, op. cit., pp. 80-
81. On the other hand, David Gauthier in The Logic of Leviathan, op. cit.,
pp. 76-88,denies that people in a State of Nature are actually in a P.D. type
situation, though they may believe, and act as if, they are. Rather (though
Gauthier does not use this terminology) their situation ia better represented
as an Assurance Game (see the matrix on p. 85). So Gauthier’s response
to the issue at hand and the one given in this paper are broadly in
agreement, though there are considerable differences in detail and
emphasis.
7 T. Hobbee, Leviathan, Ch. 13,p. 183.
8 Ibid., p. 184.
B Ibid., p. 185.
10 T. Hobbee, De Cive, Ch. 1.3 in Man and Citizen, ed. B. Gert, Brighton,
Sussex, Harvester Press, 1972,p. 114.
11 Ibid., Ch. 13,p. 168.
12 Ibid, Ch. 14, p. 189. For a more detailed discussion of the Right of
Nature, see D. J. C. Carmichael, T h e Right of Nature in Leviathan’ in The
Canadian Journal of Phibsophy (18)June 1988,pp- 257-270.
18 Leviathan. op. cit., p. 190.
14 Ibid., p. 188.
15 Here I follow Carmichael in ‘The Right of Nature in Leviathan’, op. cit.
16 J. Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, op. cit., p. 61.
11 E. Ullmann-Margalit, The Emergence of Norms, op. cit., pp. 62-73.
18 The validity of representing some many-person games in a two-person
format is further discueeed below.

15
 l9 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, op. cit., Ch. 15, p. 215.
2o R. D. Luce and H. Raiffa, Games and Decisions, op. cit., p. 95.
21 Ibid., p. 50.
22 It is worth noting that this feature of the P.D. means that the two-
person representation of P.D. preference rankings given above is also
suitable for representing the preference rankings of participants in many-
person P.D.s, with ‘me’ denoting each of a group in turn, and ‘you’ the rest.
D. Lewis, Convention, op. cit., p. 8.
24 I agree in this with L. Sowden, ‘That There is a Dilemma in the
Prisoner’s Dilemma’, Synthese 55 (1983) 347-352, contra L. Davis, ‘Prisoner’s
Paradox and Rationality’, American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1977) 319-
327. Cf. the discussions by Hillel Steiner, ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma as an
Insoluble Problem’, Mind XLI (1982) 285-286; David Gordon, ‘Is the
Prisoner’s Dilemma an Insoluble Problem’, and J. P. Porter, ‘Relevant
Interest and the prisoner’s Dilemma’, both in Mind XCII (1984) 98-100.
25 For convenience I will discuss only two-person cases: the way in which
the discussion can be generalised in games between small numbers will be
obvious.
26 On the nature of such ‘exclusionary reasons’ and their role in practical
reasoning see Joseph Raz, ‘Reasons for Actions, Decisions and Norms’ in
J. Raz (ed.), Practical Reasoning, Oxford, OUP, 1978, pp. 128-143.
27 Two-person P.D., where the agents are known to each other and where
the choice situation will be reiterated an indefinite or infinite number of
times, provides a clear case where, if agents are guided by consequentialist
considerations, then the cooperative strategy is most advantageous for each.
Each can affect the other’s choice of strategy, punishing the other by
defecting if he has defected at the previous stage, and rewarding him by
cooperating if he has done likewise at the previous stage. For the long-term
effectiveness of this tit-for-tat strategy see R. Axelrod, The Evolution of
Cooperation, New York, Academic Press, 1984, esp. 192-215. As I in effect
argue below, this argument may not be generalised for all many-person
reiterated P.D.5.
28 D. Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, op. cit., p. 90.
E. Ullmann-Margalit, The Emergence of Norms, op. cit., p. 67; simi-
larly, Hampton writes: ‘even shortsighted people unable to appreciate the
long-term benefits of cooperation can a t least appreciate the short-term
consequences of the sovereign’s sanctions against reneging and will
therefore find it in their best interests in the short run and the long run
to keep their parts of the bargain. . . . the sovereign’s sanctions mean that
keeping a contractual promise is no longer a prisoner’s dilemma’. Jean
Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, op. cit., pp. 132-133.
30 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, op. cit., p. 192.
31 Ibid., Ch. 6, p. 120.
32 Ibid., Ch. 15, p. 261.
33 Ibid., Ch. 13, p. 187.
34 Ibid., Ch. 17, p. 234.
35 F. S. McNeillv.- . The Anatomy . Leviathan, New York, McMillan, 1968,
. of
p. 165.
36 T. Hobbes, Leviathan, op. cit., Ch. 15, p. 214.
37 Ibid.. Ch. 30._D.- 376.
38 Ibid.’
39 Ibid., Ch. 30, p. 379.
40 Ibid.

16