UC Berkeley

This dissertation examines war and peace in the political thought of Francis Bacon, moving from internal warfare (civil war) outward via wars of expansion, attrition, and empire to Bacon’s conception of peace. The first chapter considers Bacon’s views of the causes of civil war and strife within the body politic in relation to the contemporary and near-contemporary views held by Machiavelli, Montaigne, Bodin, and Edward Forset, concluding that for Bacon civil wars are caused by poverty and discontentment, both of which are themselves caused by excess population. Excess population may, in Bacon’s assessment, best be reduced by being spread outward in wars for colonies, expansion, and empire and by wars of attrition in which a state engages in wars of aggression for the purposes of killing its own population. The second chapter of the dissertation examines Bacon’s views of empire based upon the title of conquest and Bacon’s preference for the government of colonies under martial law. Wars for colonies, expansion, and empire, do not, in Bacon’s assessment, justify themselves, but had to be legitimized in terms of the justifications of war that then predominated. Chapters three and four of the dissertation thus examine Bacon’s deployments of and innovations within the just war tradition and within the tradition of justifying war on religious grounds. Here, Bacon’s views are contrasted with those of his contemporaries Justus Lipsius and Alberico Gentili. The final chapter of the dissertation examines Bacon’s views of peace and his understanding of true peace as the incapacity of rival states and opponents to do harm. The chapter argues that this view of peace is in concord with Bacon’s views of empire and amounts to an understanding of peace as hegemony. The final chapter further examines Bacon’s distaste for the 1604 Treaty of London and offers a reading of Bacon’s classic fable, The New Atlantis, in light of Bacon’s views on peace. The dissertation concludes with a summation of its findings alongside a consideration of avenues for future research.