On Counsel
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Text length: 1,775 words
Excerpts from Chapter 25 of Leviathan
By Thomas Hobbes
, 1651
Contributed by Holger Gottstein and Ulrich Blessing
Images used by courtesy of the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin
Advice and orders are clearly differentiated - orders are to the advantage of the one commanding, whereas advice benefits the recipient and cannot be forced upon him
A good advisor - shares the interests of the advice seeker, states advice concisely and clearly, is familiar with the advice seeker's affairs and the matter at hand
Good advice appeals to reason - passionate displays and convoluted explanations are inappropriate and suggest motives other than delivering sound, beneficial advice
Keywords:
Counsel, command, advice, advisor, governance, communication, conflict of interest, leadership, passion, reason, consulting, experience, expertise, honesty
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Passionate exhortation is corrupt counsel
Exhortation, and dehortation is counsel, accompanied with signs in him that giveth it of vehement desire to have it followed or, to say it more briefly, counsel vehemently pressed. For he that exhorteth doth not deduce the consequences of what he adviseth to be done, and tie himself therein to the rigor of true reasoning, but encourages him he counselleth to action: as he that dehorteth deterreth him from it. And therefore they have in their speeches a regard to the common passions and opinions of men, in deducing their reasons and make use of similitudes, metaphors, examples, and other tools of oratory, to persuade their hearers of the utility, honour, or justice of following their advice.
From whence may be inferred, first, that exhortation and dehortation is directed to the good of him that giveth the counsel, not of him that asketh it, which is contrary to the duty of a counsellor who, by the definition of counsel, ought to regard, not his own benefit, but his whom he adviseth. And that he directeth his counsel to his own benefit is manifest enough by the long and vehement urging, or by the artificial giving thereof which being not required of him, and consequently proceeding from his own occasions, is directed principally to his own benefit, and but accidentally to the good of him that is counselled, or not at all...
...[T]hey that exhort and dehort, where they are required to give counsel, are corrupt counsellors and, as it were, bribed by their own interest. For though the counsel they give be never so good, yet he that gives it is no more a good counsellor than he that giveth a just sentence for a reward is a just judge...
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Giving good counsel: alignment of interests
As the difference of counsel from command hath been now deduced from the nature of counsel, consisting in a deducing of the benefit or hurt that may arise to him that is to be counselled, by the necessary or probable consequences of the action he propoundeth so may also the differences between apt and inept counsellors be derived from the same...
[T]hey that give counsel to the representative person of a Commonwealth may have, and have often, their particular ends and passions that render their counsels always suspected, and many times unfaithful. And therefore we may set down for the first condition of a good counsellor: that his ends and interest be not inconsistent with the ends and interest of him he counselleth.
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Giving good counsel: concise communication
[B]ecause the office of a counsellor, when an action comes into deliberation, is to make manifest the consequences of it in such manner as he that is counselled may be truly and evidently informed, he ought to propound his advice in such form of speech as may make the truth most evidently appear that is to say, with as firm ratiocination, as significant and proper language, and as briefly, as the evidence will permit. And therefore rash and unevident inferences, such as are fetched only from examples, or authority of books, and are not arguments of what is good or evil, but witnesses of fact or of opinion obscure, confused, and ambiguous expressions also all metaphorical speeches tending to the stirring up of passion (because such reasoning and such expressions are useful only to deceive or to lead him we counsel towards other ends than his own), are repugnant to the office of a counsellor.
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Giving good counsel: the voice of experience
[B]ecause the ability of counselling proceedeth from experience and long study, and no man is presumed to have experience in all those things that to the administration of a great Commonwealth are necessary to be known, no man is presumed to be a good counsellor but in such business as he hath not only been much versed in, but hath also much meditated on and considered... And this is not attained to without much experience. Of which things, not only the whole sum, but every one of the particulars requires the age and observation of a man in years, and of more than ordinary study. The wit required for counsel, as I have said before (Chapter VIII), is judgement. And the differences of men in that point come from different education; of some, to one kind of study or business, and of others, to another. When for the doing of anything there be infallible rules (as in engines and edifices, the rules of geometry), all the experience of the world cannot equal his counsel that has learned or found out the rule. And when there is no such rule, he that hath most experience in that particular kind of business has therein the best judgement, and is the best counsellor.
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