Thomas Hobbes

Overview

Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan during the English Civil War, and the book is best read as an answer to it. He begins from individuals as he takes them to be - roughly equal in strength and cunning, driven by desire and above all by the fear of violent death - and argues that without a common power to keep them in awe they fall into a war of every man against every man, in which industry, agriculture, arts and society itself become impossible. His remedy is a covenant by which people transfer their right of self-government to a sovereign, whether an individual or an assembly, whose authority must be undivided if it is to do its work; divided sovereignty, in his view, is civil war postponed. Critics from Locke onward object that the cure grants far more than the disease requires. Parts I and II of Leviathan carry the argument; the later parts on religion are less read but explain why he thought no church could be a rival authority.

Where to start reading

• Leviathan 1651

  His full system: human nature, the state of nature, the covenant that creates a sovereign, and the case for undivided authority.

  Read it in the library

• De Cive 1642

  An earlier and shorter statement of the same political argument, written in Latin before the English Civil War reached its height.

Part of

• Liberalism

Sources

1. Hobbes's Moral and Political Philosophy Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
2. Hobbes, Thomas: Moral and Political Philosophy Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy