Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

Posted: Wed, Feb 4, 2026

Today

(1) Society and government are human creations.

(2) (Hu?)men are born free and equal.

We can imagine a state of the world without human society/government—a natural state/state of nature.
We are free and equal in the state of nature = we are by nature free and equal.
Submission to political authority must be chosen—we must agree to be governed.
Submission to political authority must be chosen—reason compels us to so agree because such submission is in fact liberatory.
The divine right of kings is a nonstarter.
So is the philosopher-king. [Oliver, Sophia]

(3) Politics can be made to stand on a modern scientific basis.

The justification and limits of government can be derived not only a priori but axiomatically on the model of geometry from facts about human nature.
Hobbes is also a mechanist: Mechanical principles (motions/interactions of small material parts) replaces Platonic forms.

The social contract theory offers us in one package:

Egoism: “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceases only in death . . . because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he has present, without the acquisition of more” (11.2). [Sameer]
Natural equality: Roughly equal strength of the body/ability to kill (13.1); even more equal strength of the mind/we are all not that naturally smart (13.2).

Natural liberty: “absence of external impediments” (14.2).
Competition over resources ⇒ conflict (I want what you have) ⇒ attack (13.3).
“Diffidence” or distrust (wait a minute, you also want I have!) ⇒ attack first (13.4).
Our “glory” or pride ⇒ mutual contempt (you don’t value me as much as I value myself, and vice versa) ⇒ we fight (13.5).
The state of nature is a state of “war . . . of every man against every man” (13.8).
Life in the state of nature: “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (13.9).
Right of nature: “the liberty each man has to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life” (14.1), which in a state of war of every man against every man must extend to “a right to every thing, even to one another’s body” (14.4).

Collective action problem: Even if I desire peace, I’m powerless to secure it on my own.
Interesting interpretation offered by the anthology’s editors: This is a problem so long as there are “enough people [who] are fundamentally selfish”; however, even granting “the [moral] skeptic’s own assumptions,” we can and will agree to establish political authority (p. 76).

Laws of rationality in the interest of our self-preservation:

“that every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war” (14.4, emphasis omitted).
“that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself” (14.5).
“that men perform their covenants made; without which, covenants are in vain and but empty words; and the right of all men to all things remaining, we are still in the condition of war” (15.1, emphasis omitted).
“when a covenant is made, then to break it is unjust and the definition of Injustice is no other than the not performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust is just” (15.2, emphasis omitted).

Neither justice nor injustice exists in the state of nature.

“Justice therefore, that is to say, keeping of covenant, is a rule of reason by which we are forbidden to do anything destructive to our life, and consequently a law of nature” (15.7).
The moral skeptic (“the fool,” 15.4) is wrong by reason of even his own self-interest.

A strong enough common political power is necessary to keep the covenants we make “constant and lasting” (17.12).
The only way to do this—the Leviathan (17.13, 18.1).
No backsies (18.3).
The sovereign himself/themselves is not party to the contract and so cannot breach it (18.4, 18.6).
Dissolution? “For though the right of a sovereign monarch cannot be extinguished by the act of another; yet the obligation of the members may” (29.23).