Thomas Hobbes

Background

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury was an English philosopher who is

considered one of the founders of modern political philosophy.
Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, which
established the social contract theory that has served as the
foundation for most later Western political philosophy. In addition
to political philosophy, Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array
of other fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, the
physics of gases, theology, ethics, and general philosophy.
Hobbes's first area of study was an interest in the physical
doctrine of motion and physical momentum. Despite his interest in
this phenomenon, he disdained experimental work as in physics.
Lex Naturalis

Natural law (Latin: lex naturalis) is a philosophy asserting that

certain rights are inherent by virtue of human nature, endowed by
nature - traditionally by God or a transcendent source - and that
these can be understood universally through human reason. As
determined by nature, the law of nature is implied to be
universal, existing independently of the positive law of a given
state, political order, legislature or society at large.
Lex Naturalis

Hobbes believed that self-preservation was everyone's fundamental

natural instinct. He believed it was essential to ground political
philosophy on this basic principle.
Hobbes distinguished the law of nature (the rules that tell us how to
preserve ourselves) from the right of nature - our freedom to do
anything (including killing and eating others) that seems necessary to
this end.
Hobbes' definition of the law of nature was very different from that used
by traditional natural law theorists. They saw natural law as the basic
moral precepts that every civilized nation acknowledged. Many equated
Natural Law with the Ten Commandments.
Lex Naturalis

Natural law commanded people to seek peace as the readiest way

to personal security. However, until civil society was created the
state of nature was a state of war:

" 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". Thomas Hobbes
Social Contract Theory

The concept of social contract theory is that in the beginning man

lived in the state of nature. They had no government and there
was no law to regulate them. There were hardships and oppression
on the sections of the society. To overcome from these hardships
they entered into two agreements which are:
1. Pactum Unionis (which forms the body politic)
2. Pactum Subjectionis (the pact of subjection wherein a people
voluntarily alienated their right of self-government to some ruler
or sovereign)
Social Contract Theory

Thomas Hobbes theory of Social Contract appeared for the first

time in Leviathan published in the year 1651 during the Civil War
in Britain.
According to him, prior to Social Contract, man lived in the State
of Nature.
Mans life in the State of NATURE was one of fear and selfishness.
Man lived in chaotic condition of constant fear.
Life in the State of Nature was solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short.
Social Contract Theory

Man has a natural desire for security and order. In order to secure
self-protection and self-preservation, and to avoid misery and
pain, man entered into a contract.
This idea of self-preservation and self-protection are inherent in
mans nature and in order to achieve this, they voluntarily
surrendered all their rights and freedoms to some authority by this
contract who must command obedience.
Leviathan

Leviathan rigorously argues that civil peace and social unity are
best achieved by the establishment of a commonwealth through
social contract.
Hobbes's ideal commonwealth is ruled by a sovereign power
responsible for protecting the security of the commonwealth and
granted absolute authority to ensure the common defense.
Hobbes describes this commonwealth as an "artificial person" and
as a body politic that mimics the human body.
Leviathan

The frontispiece to the first edition of Leviathan, which Hobbes

helped design, portrays the commonwealth as a gigantic human
form built out of the bodies of its citizens, the sovereign as its
head.
Hobbes calls this figure the "Leviathan," a word derived from the
Hebrew for "sea monster" and the name of a monstrous sea
creature appearing in the Bible;
The image constitutes the definitive metaphor for Hobbes's
perfect government. His text attempts to prove the necessity of
the Leviathan for preserving peace and preventing civil war.