How Sovereign Is Hobbes' Sovereign?

Abstract

THESIS: The injunction by Hobbes to found a Leviathan is thoroughly consistent with the end of life specified by Hobbes, namely, the avoid ance of death. It is equally inconsistent with a theory of sovereignty, i.e., with a theory which makes the state the source of obligation. Hobbes believed, however, that it would be dangerous to the security of lif e — that is, to the maintenance of the powerful state which was the great protector of life — if this position were stated openly. There fore he employed a private and a public language in the Leviathan. He shifted the definitions of his crucial concepts, though informing the careful reader he was doing so, in order to create the benign myth of legal sovereignty. From this, it also follows that man is not by nature asocial according to the theory of Hobbes and that consent does not provide a source of obligation.