MODERN POLITICAL THEORIES ADG2016

MODULE 6: THOMAS HOBBES

CRITICISMS
(1) If the government is to be absolutely sovereign, how can individuals be
assured of their preservation, if the means to peaceful preservation of
property is not secure?

Returning to Hobbesian first principles: All men in the state of nature

had a right to all things that could secure their preservation, and
consequently, no man’s property was secure. Indeed, the right to all
things meant that all men were in a state of war, and private property
could not exist. Because man renounced the right to the means to
everything by forming the covenant, Hobbes would argue that the right
to determine the kinds of property rights individuals can possess and
how things are to be exchanged resides with the absolute sovereign.
Only under these condition would property be secure from the
transgression of others because the absolute sovereign would not be
limited by claims to property rights.

While the sovereign may have a comprehensive power to regulate

commerce and property, it may not be conducive to peace if he is too
heavy- handed in his regulation. In other words, property rights would
be secure under Hobbes’ absolute sovereign because the peace of the
commonwealth demands it, but property rights cannot be considered
absolute because this would limit and undermine the sovereign’s
authority.

(2) Can there be any liberty under an absolute government?

Hobbes understands liberty as the absence of external impediments of

motion, which can be applied to both rational and irrational creatures
and inanimate objects. Liberty can be applied only to bodies because
what is not subject to motion is not subject to impediment. So a man is
said to be free if he finds nothing to stop him from doing what he has a

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 MODERN POLITICAL THEORIES ADG2016

will, desire, or inclination to do. Hobbes also argues that liberty and
fear are consistent. For example, if a man obeys the laws out of fear, he
is still free because he has the liberty to disobey the law.

Civil laws can thus be viewed as artificial chains that by their nature
are weak and hold only while men fear breaking them. The other
source of liberty then depends on the silence of the laws. What the law
does not forbid, individuals are permitted to pursue. Because the laws
cannot cover every human endeavor, individuals are left free to buy and
sell those things that can be lawfully bought and sold; contract with
others; choose where they live, their own diet, and their own trade; and
bring up their children as they see fit.

Within the confines of the commonwealth, the individual is largely left

free to do as he please. But he is not free to disturb and disrupt the
concord of society.

(3) Do subjects retain any right under Hobbes’ absolute sovereign? Does the
subject have inalienable rights- rights that cannot be transferred by the
covenant?

The covenant was established to secure individual’s natural right to

self- preservation; so the covenant cannot be incompatible with this
natural right. The right to self- preservation is inalienable, although
the means to securing it are limited by the confines established by the
government.

Hobbes recognizes in addition that the individual is bound to defend his

own life, and that he is not bound to kill himself at the demand of the
sovereign, or incriminate himself. Consistently, the individual is not
bound to die for his country and may in fact flee the battlefield. While
this is cowardly, Hobbes admits, it is not unjust. But he suggests that
the way to secure obedience on the battlefield is to ensure that the fear
of disobeying the sovereign exceeds the fear of the battlefield.

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