Boston College Is Hobbes a Theorist of the Virtues? Robert C. Miner A RECENT WAVE of scholarship has suggested that Thomas Hobbes ought to be regarded as a theorist of the virtues despite his reputation as a philosopher who thinks of ethics and politics primarily in terms of concepts other than virtue. The version of this revisionist interpretation found in Peter Berkowitz's Virtue and the Making of Modem Liberalism (1999) is timely and provocative. Although Berkowitz does not lack predecessors-he acknowledges the work of Quentin Skinner, David Boonin-Vail, and R. E. Ewin-he formulates his interpretation in a particularly lucid and engaging manner. I We shall therefore take Berkowitz as our interlocutor in assessing the view that Hobbes is essentially a theorist of the virtues. Other scholars offer slightly different arguments that lead to the same conclusion, but these do not differ significantly from those employed by Ber- kowitz. Berkowitz uses two main strategies to argue for what he calls the "centrality of virtue" in Hobbes. The first strategy concerns individuals in the state of nature, prior to the making of the commonwealth. Berkowitz states his thesis clearly: "The logic of Hobbes's account of the natural condition of mankind indicates that no escape from the misery of their natural condition is possible for human beings unless they exercise certain demanding moral virtues."2 If this is true, it would go some way toward establishing the revisionist contention that Hobbes is a theorist of the virtues. The second strategy is to consider what is required for peace within the commonwealth once the commonwealth has been made. Moral virtue, Ber- kowitz argues, is indispensable for subjects and sovereigns alike if peace is to be preserved. The particular virtues required by subjects may differ from those needed by sovereigns, but virtue is necessary for both. Sections I-III of this paper will address Berkowitz's first strategy; section IV will examine the second. More emphasis is accorded to the first strategy because, if it succeeds, it provides ample justification for the claim that Hobbes is, in a strong sense, a theorist of the virtues. If substantive moral virtues exist prior to and independent of sovereign power, and if these virtues playa vital role in the 'See, for example, Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996), particularly pp. 316-26. David Boonin-Vail's Thomas Hobbes and the Science of Moral Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994) was published two years before Skinner's book but acknowledges an indebtedness to an earlier essay by Skinner entitled "Thomas Hobbes: Rhetoric and the Construction of Morality," Proceedings of the British Academy 76 (1991) 1-61. Berkowitz emphasizes his own debt to R. E. Ewin, Virtue and Rights: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991). 'Peter Berkowitz, Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1999) p. 50; hereafter VM. INTERNATIONAl. PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Vol. XLI, No.3 Issue No. 163 (September 2001)