Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Leviathan
• English philosopher
• one of the founders of modern political
philosophy
• Social contract theory
Life
• Born prematurely when his mother heard of
the invasion of the Spanish Armada.
• Hobbes: "my mother gave birth to twins:
myself and fear.“
• Very little is known about his childhood
• Completed his B.A. in 1608
• And “arrived” to philosophy only at the end of
the 1620s
• In the 1630s spent a lot of time in Paris. He
came back to England in 1637, but left again in
1640, when Long Parliament succeeded the
short.
• Friendship with Descartes.
• He was also in Paris during the years of the
composition of Leviathan.
• After the publication of the Leviathan and
from the time of the Restoration, Hobbes
acquired a new prominence
• "Hobbism" became a common and
respectable expression.
• In this period, the king Charles II, Hobbes's
former pupil, called him to the court and grant
him a pension of £100.
• 1666: the king was also important in
protecting him when, the House of Commons
wanted to accuse him of atheism and
profaneness.
• The only consequence: he could never
thereafter publish anything on human
conduct
Main Works
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1640. The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic
1650. Treatise on Human Nature
1642. De Cive (Latin) [Engl. Trans. 1651]
1651. Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power
of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil
• 1655. De Corpore (Latin) [1656 English
translation]
• 1675. English translation of Homer's Iliad and
Odyssey
Political Thought
• Natural Law: universal system determined by
nature
• In this condition there was Bellum omnium
contra omnes: "the war of all against all“
• Homo homini lupus est: "man is a wolf to [his
fellow] man."
• To ensure protection and peace, men
abandoned the “natural” condition and
created an “artificial man”, the Leviathan.
• Leviathan is a product of the “calculation” of
men. Very different from Aristotle: zoon
politikon in human nature and the realization
of men is in the polis
• “Natural” man arrives to political society
because he is pushed by the need.
• “Natural” men self-impose the necessary
restrictions to preserve their lives and avoid
war
sword and a crosier
• Sword: because a coercive power is absolutely
necessary
• Crosier: because Hobbes wanted to avoid a
competion/opposition of powers (temporal
power and spiritual power).
• Men would have two masters, in that case…
• Therefore, Leviathan is, at the same time, the
head of the state and the head of the church
(even though he had personal hostility toward
religion)
Form of government
• Personal preference for monarchy
• And against the “mixed form” (he is completely
different from the corporative form ideated by
Althusius)
• Rights (and duties) of the Leviathan are always
the same, whatever is the form of the
government
• He was also against another “mistake”:
considering the law more important than the
sovereign
Natural Law Theory
• At the middle of the XVII century there was a
radical change in terms of how to think about
society
• Natural law theory was the new approach,
which lasted until French Revolution
• Individualism is a key element of this
revolution
• The will of single individuals is essential for
the constitution of the body politic
Social contract
• The social contract is most important moment,
the agreement to avoid the conflict
• This kind of social contract is radically new
compared to previous contracts: before it was
expression of ‘associations’ who persisted after
its stipulation. Now there is not a transfer of an
existing power, but the creation of a civic power.
• No longer many ‘powers’ into a hierarchical
system, but a summa potestas
• This “new” power is based on the rights of
individuals. Aristotle’s idea that someone rules
over other men is no longer accepted
• The political power which is constituted after
the contract does not coincide with the
government of a single man, but is the power
of all body politic
• Individuals disappear, after the stipulation of
this power
Leviathan (1651)
Chapter 10. Power, worth, dignity,
honour, and worthiness
• The greatest of human powers is that
possessed by one natural or civil person (that
is, one human person or one person-like
political entity) to whom most men have
agreed to hand over their individual powers.
13. The natural condition of mankind…
• as long as men live without a common power
to keep them all in awe, they are in the
condition known as ‘war’; and it is a war of
every man against every man.
(War)
• whatever results from a time of war, when
every man is enemy to every man, also results
from a time when men live with no other
security but what their own strength and
ingenuity provides them with. (…) worst of
all—continual fear and danger of violent
death.
(War)
• In this war of every man against every man
nothing can be unjust. The notions of right
and wrong, justice and injustice have no place
there. (…) where there is no law, there is no
injustice. In war the two chief virtues are force
and fraud.
Chapter 14. The first and second
natural laws, and contracts
• The RIGHT OF NATURE , which writers commonly
call jus naturale, is the liberty that each man has
to make his own decisions about how to use his
own power for the preservation of his own
nature—i.e. his own life—and consequently the
liberty of doing anything that he thinks is the
aptest means to that end.
• [The Latin phrase jus naturale standardly meant
‘natural law’; but jus could mean ‘right’, and
Hobbes is clearly taking the phrase to mean
‘natural right’].
• A LAW OF NATURE (lex naturalis) is a
command or general rule, discovered by
reason, which forbids a man to do anything
that is destructive of his life or takes away his
means for preserving his life, and forbids him
to omit anything by which he thinks his life
can best be preserved.
• As long as every man continues to have this
natural right to everything—no man, however
strong or clever he may be, can be sure of
living out the time that nature ordinarily
allows men to live. And consequently it is a
command or general rule of reason that every
man ought to seek peace, as far as he has any
hope of obtaining it; and that when he can’t
obtain it he may seek and use all helps and
advantages of war.
First law of nature
• Seek peace and follow it.
Second law of nature
• When a man thinks that peace and selfdefence require it, he should be willing (when
others are too) to lay down his right to
everything.
[Contract]
• The mutual transferring of a right is what men
call a CONTRACT
• It is impossible to make a covenant with God
except through mediators to whom God
speaks (either by super-natural revelation or
by his lieutenants who govern under him and
in his name).
Chapter 15: Other laws of nature
• Third law of nature: Men should perform the
covenants (pacts) they make
• Fourth law of nature (GRATITUDE): A man who
receives benefit from another out of mere
grace should try to bring it about that the
giver of the benefit doesn’t come to have
reasonable cause to regret his good will.
• Fifth law of nature [COMPLAISANCE]: Every
man should strive to accommodate himself to
the rest
• Sixth law of nature (PARDON): A man ought to
pardon the past offences of those who repent
of their offences, want to be pardoned, and
provide guarantees of good behaviour in the
future.
• Follow many more laws for a total of 19.
• The laws of nature are immutable and eternal.
Chapter 17. The causes, creation, and
definition of a commonwealth
• the final cause or end (men) have in mind when
they introduce the restraint upon themselves
under which we see them live in commonwealths
(…) is the prospect of their own preservation and,
through that, of a more contented life; i.e. of
getting themselves out of the miserable condition
of war which necessarily flows from the natural
passions of men when there is no visible power
to keep them in awe and tie them by fear of
punishment to keep their covenants and to obey
the laws of nature
• For the laws of nature—enjoining justice,
fairness, modesty, mercy, and (in short)
treating others as we want them to treat us—
are in themselves contrary to our natural
passions.
• And covenants without the sword are merely
words, with no strength to secure a man at all.
(Great Number)
• However great the number, if their actions are
directed according to their individual wants and
beliefs, they can’t expect their actions to defend
or protect them against a common enemy or
against injuries from one another.
• (…) When that happens they are easily subdued
by a very few men who agree together; and when
there’s no common enemy they make war on
each other for their particular interests.
(Limited time)
• For the security that men desire to last
throughout their lifetimes, it’s not enough that
they be governed and directed by one judgment
for a limited time (…) difference of their interests
makes it certain that they will fall apart and once
more come to be at war amongst themselves
• (a man’s biggest pleasure in his own goods comes
from their being greater than those of others!)
• The agreement of these creatures (bees and
ants) is natural, whereas men’s agreement is
by covenant only, which is artificial; so it’s no
wonder if something besides the covenant is
needed to make their agreement constant and
lasting, namely a common power to keep
them in awe and direct their actions to the
common benefit.
• The only way to establish a common power
that can defend them from the invasion of
foreigners and the injuries of one another (…)
is to confer all their power and strength on
one man, or one assembly of men, so as to
turn all their wills by a majority vote into a
single will.
• This is more than mere agreement or harmony; it is a
real unity of them all. They are unified in that they
constitute one single person, created through a
covenant of every man with every other man, as
though each man were to say to each of the others: I
authorize and give up my right of governing myself to
this man, or to this assembly of men, on condition that
you surrender to him your right of governing yourself,
and authorize all his actions in the same way.
• When this is done, the multitude so united in one
person is called a COMMONWEALTH, in Latin CIVITAS.
• This is the method of creation of that great
LEVIATHAN , or rathe of that mortal god to which
we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and
defence. For by this authority that has been given
to ‘this man’ by every individual man in the
commonwealth, he has conferred on him the use
of so much power and strength that people’s fear
of it enables him to harmonize and control the
wills of them all, to the end of peace at home and
mutual aid against their enemies abroad.
• A commonwealth is one person of whose acts a
great multitude of people have made themselves
the authors (each of them an author), doing this
by mutual covenants with one another, so that
the commonwealth may use the strength and
means of them all, as he shall think appropriate,
for their peace and common defence.
• He who carries this person is called SOVEREIGN,
and said to have ‘sovereign power’, and all the
others are his SUBJECTS
Chapter 18. The rights of sovereigns by
institution
• A commonwealth is said to be ‘instituted’ when a multitude
of men agree and covenant—each one with each other—
that: When some man or assembly of men is chosen by
majority vote to present the person of them all (i.e. to be
their representative), each of them will authorize all the
actions and judgments of that man or assembly of men as
though they were his own, doing this for the purpose of
living peacefully among themselves and being protected
against other men. This binds those who did not vote for
this representative, as well as those who did. For unless the
votes are all understood to be included in the majority of
votes, they have come together in vain, and contrary to the
end that each proposed for himself, namely the peace and
protection of them all.
• From the form of the institution are derived all
the power and all the rights of the one having
supreme power, as well as the duties of all the
citizens
1. Subjects cannot cahnge the form of
government
• Sovereigns (…) cannot lawfully get together to
make a new covenant to be obedient to
someone else.
• They are bound, each of them to each of the
others, to own and be the proclaimed author
of everything that their existing sovereign
does and judges fit to be done;
• Some men have claimed to base their
disobedience to their sovereign on a new
covenant that they have made not with men
but with God; and this also is unjust, for
there’s no covenant with God except through
the mediation of somebody who represents
God’s person
2. Sovereign’s power cannot be taken
• a covenant (pact) that they make with one
another, and not a covenant between him and
any of them; there can’t be a breach of
covenant on his part; and consequently none
of his subjects can be freed from subjection by
a claim that the sovereign has forfeited his
right to govern by breaking his covenant with
his subject(s). It is obvious that the sovereign
makes no covenant with his subjects
(Against Althusius)
• The opinion that any monarch receives his
power by covenant—i.e. on some condition—
comes from a failure to grasp this easy truth:
Because covenants are merely words and
breath, they have no force to oblige, contain,
constrain, or protect any man, except
whatever force comes from the public sword
3. Noboby can protest
• must submit to the majority’s decrees
4. Sovereign’s actions cannot be object
of accusation
• because every subject is by this institution of
the commonwealth the author of all the
actions and judgments of the sovereign, it
follows that nothing the sovereign does can
wrong any of his subjects, nor ought any of
them to accuse him of injustice.
• Someone who complains of being wronged by
his sovereign complains about something of
which he himself is an author
5. Sovereign cannot be punished by
subjects (whatever he does)
• no man who has sovereign power can justly
be put to death or punished in any other way
by his subjects.
6. The sovereign is the judge…
• It is for the sovereignty [‘the man or assembly
of men to whom the sovereignty has been
given’] to be the judge of what opinions and
doctrines are threats to peace and what ones
tend to support it; and consequently of which
men are to be trusted to speak to multitudes
of people, on what occasions, and how far
they should be allowed to go; and of who shall
examine the doctrines of all books before they
are published
7-12.
• Follow 6 other minor rights/powers/duties
• These are the rights that make the essence of
sovereignty, and are the marks by which one
can tell what man or assembly of men has the
sovereign power. For these rights and powers
can’t be shared and can’t be separated from
one another.
• And because these rights are essential and
inseparable, it necessarily follows that in
whatever words any of them seem to be
granted to someone other than the sovereign,
the grant is void unless the sovereign power
itself is explicitly renounced
Objections
• But someone may object here that subjects
are in a miserable situation because they are
at the mercy of the lusts and other irregular
passions of him who has (or of them who
have) such unlimited power.
• These complainers don’t bear in mind that the
human condition can never be without some
inconvenience or other, or that the greatest
trouble that can possibly come to the
populace (…) is almost nothing when
compared with the miseries and horrible
calamities that accompany a civil war.
Chapter 21. The liberty of subjects
• men have pursued peace and their own survival by making
an artificial man, which we call a commonwealth, so also
they have made artificial chains, called civil laws, which
they have by mutual covenants fastened
• The liberty of a subject lies only in the things that the
sovereign passes over in regulating their conduct: such as
the liberty to buy and sell and otherwise contract with one
another, to choose their own home and diet and trade, to
educate their children as they think fit, and the like.
• he who has the supreme power, i.e. the commonwealth,
can’t wrong his citizens, even though he can by his
wickedness do wrong to God
• The liberty that is so frequently mentioned
and honoured in the histories and philosophy
of the ancient Greeks and Romans (…) is the
liberty not of particular men but of the
commonwealth.
• Among masterless men there is perpetual war
of every man against his neighbour
“true liberties”
• We come now to details concerning the true
liberty of a subject, i.e. what the things are that a
subject may without injustice refuse to do when
commanded to do them by the sovereign. To
grasp the answer to this, we must consider what
rights we relinquish when we make a
commonwealth, or (the same thing) what liberty
we deny ourselves by owning all the actions—all
without exception—of the man or assembly we
make our sovereign. For our obligation to obey
and our liberty
• 1. covenants not to defend one’s own body
are void.
• Therefore, If the sovereign commands a man
to kill, wound, or maim himself, that man has
the liberty to disobey
• 2. All other liberties depend on the silence of
the law. A subject is at liberty to do A or not
do A, as he pleases, if the sovereign hasn’t
prescribed any rule regarding actions of that
kind.
• 3. The obligation of subjects to the sovereign
is understood to last as long as he has the
power to protect them, and no longer. For the
right that men have by nature to protect
themselves when no-one else can protect
them can’t be relinquished by any covenant.
• The purpose of obedience is protection
• In the intention of those who make it, sovereignty
is immortal; but … (4 cases)
• A. capture during a war
• B. If a monarch relinquishes the sovereignty, both
for himself and for his heirs, his subjects return to
the unconditional liberty of nature.
• C. A subject who is banished by the sovereign is
not a subject during the banishment.
• D. If a monarch who is subdued by war makes
himself subject to the victor
Reactions
• The Leviathan generated a negative reactions
among the ruling classes, even though it was a
defense of absolute monarchy
• Ruling classes based their theory on the
“divine right of kings”, while Hobbes exposed
a rigorously rational and utilitaristic
explanation of the need of the State
(Commonwealth).
• Hobbes abandoned the “divine right of kings”
• And made a tabula rasa (blank slate) of the
political and moral construction builded in the
Middle Ages
• In Hobbes’ theory there is no place for family,
association or other intermediary corps