Politics Personal · 16 November 2008 ·
Hobbes...
A short rant about Hobbes
As I am currently writing an essay on Hobbes’ commonwealth I vividly remember the first lecture on him. Our lecturer started by explaining Hobbes’ state of nature, a condition in which people will fight each other, because they cannot trust each other. In order to overcome this condition, people must unite and form a common wealth. So far I find his ideas quite sensible. But then it gets weird: On top of this state, there should be a sovereign with absolute power. Right… He goes over to explain that this sovereign is supposed to carry out the will of all members of the commonwealth. However, my objection is that this very sovereign is just as egoistic as anyone else, thus why should he be bothered about what the remaining people think? Hobbes argues that because if he doesn’t they will revolt, but in the same breath also notes that even if he is an incredibly bad ruler they should not revolt because warre is what they should avoid by all cost.
That’s the short and admittedly incomplete version. I know I am ignoring a large part of his argument, but this is not my contribution to the debate, this will be expressed in my essay much nicer.
But in the end, my course mate Linnea seems to have the better interpretation after all.
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Linnea wrote on 16 November 2008, 22:27
But the thing is though that you can’t revolt because once the sovereign is in power, he’s there to stay unless he makes the covenant unvoid or whatever and because it’s not a contract it’s hard to breach.