Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T23:14:40.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

To Infinity and No Further: A Rejoinder to Alexander Coram

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Gabriella Slomp  and
Manfredi M. A. La Manna
Gabriella Slomp
Affiliation:
University of Strathclyde
Manfredi M. A. La Manna
Affiliation:
University of St. Andrews
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Comment/Commentaire
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 1997 , pp. 561 - 563
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Coram, Alexander, “To Infinity and Beyond: Hobbes and Harsanyi Still Nowhere Near the Abyss,” this Journal 30 (1997), 555–59.Google Scholar

2 Slomp, Gabriella and Manna, Manfredi M. A. La, “Hobbes, Harsanyi and the Edge of the Abyss,” this Journal 29 (1996), 47–70.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., 60–61.

4 Coram, “To Infinity and Beyond,” 558.

5 For a comprehensive analysis of glory and related concepts in Hobbes's political theory, see Gabriella Slomp, “From genus to species: The Unravelling of Hobbesian Glory,” History of Political Thought (forthcoming).

6 Slomp and La Manna, “Hobbes, Harsanyi and the Edge of the Abyss,” 59.

7 Coram, “To Infinity and Beyond,” n. 9.

8 Leviathan, in William Molesworth, ed., The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (London: J. Bohn), Vol. 3, chap. 11, part I. 11, 87.

9 Slomp and La Manna, “Hobbes, Harsanyi and the Edge of the Abyss,” 54–55.

10 Ibid., 60.

11 Ibid., 61, n. 39.

12 Consider a simple example, the choice facing an individual wishing to allocate her time endowment (say, 24 hours) between two competing time-consuming activities, L and W. The shadow price of the ensuing constraint (L + W ≤ 24) is in fact infinitely high: no matter how much you are willing to pay for time, you cannot “buy” more than 24 hours a day.

13 Self-preservation, of course, is to be understood as preservation of one's physical integrity from attacks by others; immortality is not in the gift of the Leviathan.

14 We have explored further this point in Manna, Manfredi La and Slomp, Gabriella, “Leviathan: Revenue-Maximizer or Glory-Seeker?” Constitutional Political Economy 5 (1994), 159–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 In our own defence, we had considered deploying a more rigorous notation, but rejected the idea so as not to put off non-mathematically inclined readers.