Hobbes on reason

Most commentators view Hobbes's account of reason as purely formal, that is , as having no necessary content either an instrumental account of reason, that whether particular ends of people are rational or irrational depends e ntirely on their compatibility with their other ends, or that reason is not hing but reckoning of the consequences of general names. I argue instead th at, for Hobbes, natural reason, according to which a rational person seeks to avoid death, pain, and disability, is the basic sense of reason. The law s of nature are the dictates of natural reason, supplemented by instrumenta l reason and reason as reckoning.