Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679)

Thomas Hobbes was born in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, and died in Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, England. He wrote on physics, optics, and mathematics, but scholars today best know his political writings. His Leviathan (1651) and other political works provided a forceful defense for an absolutist state and more generally influenced the development of social contract theory, liberalism, and utilitarianism.

Hobbes was born into a family of modest means. His father, a poor clergyman, abandoned his family when Hobbes was young, and a wealthy uncle provided for Hobbes's education. At age 15 years, Hobbes enrolled in Magdalen Hall in Oxford, and after graduating in 1608, he took a job as secretary and tutor in the household of William Cavendish, the future Earl of Devonshire. Cavendish's family and friends supported Hobbes for the remainder of his life. Hobbes moved to Paris in 1640 to escape the turmoil of civil wars, and served as tutor to the exiled future King Charles II from 1646 to 1648. After returning to England in 1651, he was involved in numerous disputes over his political and philosophical works, and this situation continued until his death.

Hobbes's three most important political works are the Elements of Law, which was privately circulated in 1640 and later published in two separate parts under the titles Human Nature (1649) and De Corpore Politico(1650); De Cive (1642); and Leviathan (1651; revised Latin edition 1668). De Cive (The Citizen) was the third section of an ambitious three-part work, Elementa Philosophiae (The Elements of Philosophy), the first two parts of which,De Corpore (Matter) and De Homine (Man), were published in 1655 and 1658, respectively.

Hobbes's argument was essentially the same throughout his major political works; it rested on a materialistic and egoistic psychological theory. He argued that the desire for survival and contentment drove humans to engage in a variety of unruly behaviors, including the pursuit of power, wealth, and glory. In a state of nature, where there was no government to regulate these behaviors, human beings naturally fell into a war of all against all, and human life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Hobbes suggested that the only certain remedy to natural strife was an all-powerful sovereign who could regulate human affairs. Human beings must enter into a social contract with one another, agreeing to give up their rights to everything and to obey a sovereign ruler who had absolute lawmaking, executive, and judicial authority, in order to enjoy a lasting peace.

While Hobbes's arguments are substantively the same throughout his political works,Leviathan contains one important innovation. In this work, Hobbes vastly expanded his discussion of religion to demonstrate that sovereign rulers should rightfully possess supreme authority over all religious matters within their jurisdictions, including scriptural interpretation.

Despite the authoritarian tendencies of his thinking, Hobbes identifies some legitimate limits on sovereign authority. Sovereign authority extends only to those matters necessary to ensure peace, and subjects are under no obligation to obey sovereign commands to harm themselves, or bear witness against themselves, [Page 705]or execute any dangerous or dishonorable office not necessary for peace. Although Hobbes's defense of sovereignty thus supported an absolutist government, his social contract theory and account of the liberty of subjects beckoned toward later liberal theories of government.

...