Between Leviathan and Behemoth:

sovereignty, authority and the problem of absolute power.

Edgar Straehle

edgarstraehle@gmail.com

In this paper, I will tackle the thinking of Hobbes and show how his reflections
on sovereignty served to reinterpret, displace (and eventually make forget) the ancient
role played by authority. This text intends to explain how his philosophy contributed to
the current confusion between power and authority and led to the modern identification
between sovereignty and absolute power.

Before Hobbes, power could not be based solely on itself. Without the
endorsement of authority – which was more fragile and reposed on factors such as
recognition, prestige and consent of the subjects -, power in itself was incomplete,
limited and not absolute. Power necessitated an external support in order to be
legitimated, acknowledged or authorized (and “authorization” is etymologically linked
with authority). Ideally speaking, both power and authority had to cooperate and work
together. Actually, their relationship was more complicated and has been full of tensions
and conflicts, because authority could serve to legitimate power, but to challenge and
de-authorize the government, too. Therefore, many revolts claimed that the government
in power lacked authority and had to be revoked or deposed. This was one of the main
sources of the so-called ius resistentiae.

The philosophy of Hobbes is placed in opposition with the thinking of some

contemporary authors (such as Mariana, Bellarmine, Suárez or Althusius), who
articulated positions based on the incompleteness of power. As known, Hobbes was
worried about the phantom of civil war (the Behemoth) and considered that the worst
flaw of a government was its weakness and insecurity. To overcome this problem, he
claimed that power had to be a summa potestas, completely independent from a superior
power, and it could leave no room for the unforeseeable auctoritas. He attempted to
empty authority of its original meaning and to integrate it in that of the power (even in
the context of religion). Otherwise, power would be condemned to be precarious and
fragile.

The decisive moment of his argumentation is to be found in Leviathan, where he

renamed his social contract. In De Cive he defined it as a pactum subiectionis: a pact of
relinquishment of rights in exchange for self-preservation. In Leviathan Hobbes
preferred to speak about a “pact of authorisation”. Under this interpretation, the contract
turned into an absolute, definitive, unlimited and (in principle) irrevocable transfer not
only of power but also of authority to the sovereign. Then, the state was at the same
time the genuine siege of power and authority and there was no authority outside the
state. Rephrasing the famous sentence of Max Weber, in Hobbes the state also
vindicates the monopoly of legitimate authority. Every kind of power, just because it is
in power, has to be acknowledged as an authority and, conversely, the sole authority is
the sovereign power. Thus, rebellions are only justifiable when authority or power, here
both words share the same meaning, are not undivided or absolute and do not provide
security; that is, when power is not truly sovereign and can turn into a state of anarchy.