The And Of A Commonwealth Essay

The most highly organized social network is called a commonwealth, a web of contracts between members of a community, which according to Hobbes is synonymous to the formation of an entirely new person of which each individual is but a working part (Leviathan 2, 17). Hence the title of Hobbes’ most famous work, Leviathan, which is a sea monster that lives off of the “sea of individuals.” And who is to rule this commonwealth?

English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes’, leviathan consists of three parts. The second part, titled “Of Commonwealth”, describes a government Hobbes refers to as the “leviathan”; which is simply defined as “something that is very large and powerful”. Biblically, “leviathan” is defined negatively, as a devilish sea monster. On the contrary, Hobbes uses the term to portray his version of the ideal government.

Because of this sake, Hobbes emphasises how it is therefore necessary to the preservation of individuals that there be some one assembly or one man who has the right to arm, muster and unite on each occasion of danger’(Hobbes and Warrender, 1983). Hobbes propose any form of government or social structure needs to be govern by a formation of a commonwealth. The commonwealth as a whole is suppose to embodies a network of associated contracts and provides for the highest form of social organization. On Hobbes’s view, the formation of the commonwealth creates a new, artificial person to whom all responsibility for social order and public welfare is entrusted. This idea of the commonwealth, is someone who will be the final sovereign and is also

Thomas Hobbes published his most famous work, Leviathan, during the height of the English Civil War. This was possibly the most violent and chaotic time in all of British history, and is certainly reflected in Hobbes’ writing. He introduces his view on the state of nature, that is, society without government, as a state of war, in which the lives of men are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Hobbes 89) From this state of nature he describes natural laws, which help to form the purpose of government in his eyes. The first, and “Fundamental Law of Nature” is that men “seek peace, and follow it” (92) This fundamental law is also what he believes a sovereign is meant to uphold. He argues that the Sovereign must do everything in their power to preserve the commonwealth. Hobbes strongly advocates for an authoritarian form of government.

Without a strong sovereign power, people would resort back to what he refers to as the “state of nature.” This state puts everyone against each other and is fueled by the unlimited desires of a human among scarcity. Another condition in the state of nature is that everyone is equal, allowing even the weakest person to kill the strongest. There is also a disagreement on good and evil among the people, however everyone searches for a way to protect oneself, which leads to the establishment of a social contract backed up by a great power. The self-serving and dangerous conditions of life in the state of nature now shift to the right of nature, which is self-preservation. This right comes with three laws, consisting of seeking peace when others do, creating a contract for peace, and obeying the contract. Hobbes defines a contract as a mutual transfer of right and should lead to peace, security, and stability as long as each party obeys. Once again, the sovereign is not a party to the contract, and is only there to make sure citizens keep the peace or else face the risk of being back in the state of

Thomas Hobbes claims that in a state of nature, people are constantly fighting against each other, and the only way to overcome this is to form a commonwealth. He does this by going over the conditions that describe a state of nature, certain rights that all people have in nature, and the method for transferring these rights, by way of a pledge to a sovereign, whether it to the one person, or a group of people in order to achieve a state of peace. While Hobbes makes a very clear argument, it does contain some faults when examined. Hobbes addresses these issues and tries to convince the reader that a commonwealth is the only way a society will experience lasting peace.

“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.”1 Here Thomas Hobbes portrays the state of nature; in which life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.2 He then proposes a social contract where people of the state enter into a commonwealth governed by an absolute power. Through this social contract, the people give up their right to “everything” to the sovereign in exchange for security, thereby, giving the sovereign absolute authority over the entire commonwealth. However, Hobbes’s theory presents an exception to this “unlimited power.” He states that Leviathan, the sovereign, does no wrong unless he violates a subject’s right to self-preservation.3 In other words, a subject of the sovereign is not obligated to obey that sovereign if that sovereign threatens the life or person of the subject. But isn’t this retained right of self-defense incompatible with the absolute sovereignty that Hobbes claims for the commonwealth? Susanne Sreedhar argues that with the help of varying interpretations of Hobbes’s theory, in addition to the Razian model, she can find a solution to this puzzle. By treating the sovereign’s commands as “exclusionary reasons,”4 Sreedhar maintains that instances of disobedience can be justified in cases where subjects have nonexcludable first-order reasons for an action.5 However, her Razian model is in some measure too

The modern image of the New England Puritans, as one perceives, is a dark one: the Puritans, religious dissenters who valued propriety and order, are seen as a witch-hunters, suspicious tribe, and their very name carries connotations of grimness and primness. Where as the book “A Little Commonwealth” reflects the scenario in which the Puritans lived.

The commonwealth needs to be under a form of permanent government. In essays written by Cicero, he explains, “There is not one of these three form of government, which has not a precipitous and slippery passage down to some proximate abuse” (Cicero, Commonwealth). Three forms of government, being aristocracy, monarchy, and

2) I’m not so sure that Hobbes’ idea of a sovereign would have been possible in this case, although I think the UN was/is probably the closest thing to it. You can’t really pick one person to have lawful control over the entire world. “You put that down!”

In the Leviathan, Hobbes’s ideal common wealth is ruled by a sovereign power that is granted absolute authority in order to ensure their responsibility of protecting the common wealth. In his books, Thomas Hobbes portrays the common wealth as a gigantic human, whose form is built out of the bodies of citizens. The sovereign power is considered the head because it is what controls the citizens. Hobbes calls this figure the “Leviathan”, named after a monstrous sea creature that appears in the Bible. His piece

I believe Hobbes understands the state of nature as something that needs to be avoided at all cost. I have interpreted Hobbes’ as trying to understand the problem of human obligation, whether or not there are moral reasons for each of us to obey the laws of our country. Moral reasons, for Hobbes, are laws that are imperative for us to all obey. Failure to cohere to these laws would result in serious consequences for greater mankind. So, Hobbes indicates that human obligation is just political obligation and offers a rational justification for an absolute sovereign - his solution. In this essay, I discuss the position advocated by Hobbes on the problem of human obligation and then his solution to it. In my opinion, although there are very strong criticisms of his solution to the problem, his argument still holds great hopes to solving the problem.

Hobbes's first argument in favour of the doctrine of absolute sovereignty is essentially the argument against right reason described as the vision and the heart of Hobbes's moral and political philosophy [9]. His doctrine of absolute sovereignty is derived primarily from the negation of this doctrine, and almost everything that we can discover in his notion of sovereignty can be found in his negation of this argument. An argument that leads to his conclusion that it is essential for the sovereign to be absolute, and to possess effective enforcement or coercive powers.

Thomas Hobbes primarily expresses the idea of liberty using sovereignty as a model. According to him, sovereignty was established by agreement initially, but he goes on to say that sovereignty established by force incorporates the same rights and requirements of the social contract. The difference lies in the way the sovereign is retained, installed and thought of. A sovereign coming into power by universal consent is supported by the masses, as people fear each other. In contrast to this, a sovereign that comes into power by force gains support as the people fear the sovereign himself. Both of these sovereigns are mutually consented to by social contract, which is driven by fear in either case. In the state of nature, liberty was non-existent as actions were influenced by fear of death and fear of the power held by others. While fear and power are present in The Leviathan, the person has acquired absolute liberty as he handed over fear and power to the sovereign to use as tools consentingly making him responsible for his own fate should the sovereign

However, Harrington (2005) argues that the whole of Hobbes’s “political philosophy, his concept of a Commonwealth