Thomas Hobbes

• Was an English philosopher born on April 5, 1588 – December 4, 1679 in Malmesbury,

United Kingdom
• Educated in the classics, he learned Greek and Latin. Besides excelling in mathematics
and the sciences, he also turned out to be a great writer, a profound thinker in philosophy
and political science.
• Indulged himself in discourses with notable philosophers such as Rene Descartes, which
of whom he respected.
• Is best known for his work The Leviathan which was written during the turbulent times
plaguing England, when Catholics <3 fought against the Anglicans, following King
Henry VIII’s separation from Rome.
• His father was a quick-tempered vicar of a small Wiltshire parish church who abandoned
his three young children when he was disgraced after engaging in a brawl just in front of
his own church hahaha

Man’s Corrupt and Belligerent Nature

• Based his political theory on his concept of the nature of man, whom he depicts as a
corrupt and an untrustworthy being by natural constitution.

• Rejected the insights of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas that man by his nature is a
social animal who forms society by the demands and impulses of his rational nature
working through free will.
• man has the perfect right to take whatever he pleases, from whomever he pleases. Which
prevails in the jungle, namely the law of tooth and claw; whoever possesses power also
possesses the right to acquire whatever he can take since ‘might makes right’.

• Man, a corrupt and belligerent creature by nature, is entitled to the same laws enjoyed by
brute animals. The most important law is to keep from being destroyed, and the second, is
to keep alive by using whatever means necessary.
Man’s Natural State

• Man’s natural state is WAR; it may be overt or covert

“Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to
keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a
war as is of every man against every man.”

• constant and violent condition of competition in which each individual has a

natural right to everything, regardless of the interests of others.

“For war consists not in battle only, or in the act of fighting; but in…the will to
contend by battle… For as nature of foul weather, lies not in a shower or two of
rain; but in an inclination thereto of many days together; so the nature of war
consists not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the
time there is no assurance of the contrary. All the other time is peace.”

THREE CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN WHICH ACCOUNTS FOR HIS BELLIGERENT TENDENCIES:

1.) Competition
2.) Diffidence
3.) Glory

“The first use violence to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives,
children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a
smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue either direct in their
persons, or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession,
or their name.”

• As long as man makes no agreements with this fellow men, he is not any moral
obligation whatever – he cannot sin.

“Desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more are the
actions, that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them:
which till laws are made they cannot know: nor can any law be made, till they
have agreed upon the person that shall make it”.

• In man’s natural state, nothing can be said to be unjust; furthermore, force and
fraud are the reigning virtues.

“To this war of every man against man, this is also a consequent; that nothing can
be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no
place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, no injustice.
Natural Rights of Man

• “jus naturale” is the liberty each man has, to use his power as he will himself for
the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life.
• This also includes doing anything which in his own reason and judgement he
deems appropriate.

Man has all these rights because he

is in an inherent state of war

“and because the condition of man is a condition of war of every one against
every one: in which case every one is governed by his own reason and there is nothing he can
make use of, that may not be a help to him in preserving his life against his enemies.”

Natural Law
REASON
• The Law of self-preservation
- Man is forbidden to do anything destructive to his life since there is nothing in this
world for which it is worth risking one’s life. It is imperative that a man preserve’s
his life at all costs.
“a precept, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is
destructive of his life or take away the means of preserving the same; to omit that by
which he thinks it may be best preserved.”
- The law of self-preservation leads to the ‘rule of reason’
❖ “that every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of
attaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all the
helps and advantages of war”
War Peace
- Man would not be civilized and peaceful if it were not for his dread of death, for the
passions that incline men to peace are fear of death.

“The indivisible, compelling notions of self-preservation and the defense of

ourselves; as pillars of the sums of the right of nature, serve as significant
prerequisites for men to engage in a social contract with one another.”

-MJ
The Social Contract

“Nature has made men so equal, in the faculties of body and mind; as that though there
be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another; yet
when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man is not so considerable…for
as to the strength of the body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest either by
machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself. “
Scenario:
The strong fought with brute strength, forcing their weaker enemies to devise weapons such as
clubs.
Should the strong acquire clubs to gain advantage over the weak,
The weak then, using intelligence, make knives.
When the strong later equip themselves with knives, the weak then equip themselves with
swords.
When the strong later equip themselves with swords, the weak then equip themselves
with guns.

-The evolution of warfare then makes war obsolete, thus would compel men to seek peace, for it
is the only alternative of destruction and death.
-The significant principle that forces man to enter into a social contract is in the law of
preservation.
“That a man be willing when others are so too, as far as for peace and defense of himself,
shall think it necessary to lay down this right to all things: and be content with so much liberty
against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.”
-When a man engages in a social contract, he is deprived of his liberty. When a man grants away
his right, he is obliged not to exercise his natural right (might makes right) unto his fellow man.
-Until a social contract is entered into, morality does not exist, since morality, is only existent in
civil law formed by men who participate to live in a peaceful, common community.
-People living in any given societal setting, are essentially exchanging rights with one another.

The Leviathan

• figuratively depicted the sovereign, the head of State, a monarch who oversees its
subjects of the social compact to live up to the contract entered.
• The Leviathan is a mortal god who is above the law and its subjects. A man whom which
all citizens are subject and to whom their right of nature and right of self-government is
surrendered.
• Since the Leviathan makes men guarantee that they will fulfill their end of the contract,
the monarch must, accordingly, be sufficient in power to force his subjects to fulfill their
promise made in respect to the compact or undergo suitable punishment if they refuse or
fail.
 “The only way to erect such a common power as may be able to defend them from
…injuries of one another… is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or
upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their will by plurality of voices to one will
which is as much as to say, to appoint one man, or assembly of men to bear their person;
and every one to own, and acknowledge himself to be author of whatever he that so bears
their person shall act in things that concern the common peace.

• This submitting of will is more than just consent, for it is the unity of them all, in one and
the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man. – commonwealth
• The mortal god, the Leviathan, has the authority, given by every man in the
commonwealth. He possesses the power and strength to form the will of them all.
• The Leviathan is the essence of the commonwealth