The Ideology of Order

The history of politics can be represented as a series of demands for change followed in each case by a call for order and vice versa. There is a school of thought, traceable to and most clearly expressed in the political writings of Bodin and Hobbes, which believes that order is the cardinal principle and that it thus takes precedence over justice. The heart of Prestion King's book is a philosophical discussion of absolutism and pluralism in relation to the concept of order with a historical introduction that sets the context for the rigorous analysis of the works of Bodin and Hobbes. He offers not only the first elaborate survey and critical assessment of Bodin's political philosophy in the English language, but also the first extended comparative analysis of Bodin and Hobbes. He deals in particular with those aspects of Hobbes which have been relatively neglected by other scholars; and offers an entirely new analysis of Hobbes's command structures. This is followed by a simple but fundamentalreassessment of the value/fact question in Hobbes together with a direct attack upon Hobbes's concept of the character of collective control.

Preston King is professor of political philosophy at Lancaster University.