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Hobbes believes that the morals derived from natural law, however, do not permit individuals to challenge the laws of the sovereign; law of the commonwealth supersedes natural law, and obeying the laws of nature does not make you exempt from disobeying those of the government. [1] Hobbes’s concept of moral obligation thus intertwines with the ...
The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. [7] Written during the English Civil War (1642–1651), it argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign .
The company of the exiled royalists led Hobbes to produce Leviathan, which set forth his theory of civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war. Hobbes compared the State to a monster ( leviathan ) composed of men, created under pressure of human needs and dissolved by civil strife due to human passions.
Frontispiece of "Leviathan," by Abraham Bosse, with input from Hobbes. Arguably the most influential theory of human social origins is that of Thomas Hobbes, who in his Leviathan [5] argued that without strong government, society would collapse into Bellum omnium contra omnes — "the war of all against all":
The first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed contract theory was Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). According to Hobbes, the lives of individuals in the state of nature were "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", a state in which self-interest and the absence of rights and contracts prevented the "social", or society. Life was "anarchic ...
Classical liberals agreed with Thomas Hobbes that individuals created government to protect themselves from each other and to minimize conflict between individuals that would otherwise arise in a state of nature. These beliefs were complemented by a belief that financial incentive could best motivate labourers.
The English philosopher's analysis about the state of nature resonates today, but if anything he wasn't pessimistic enough.
Thomas Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes (England, 1588–1679) theorized that government is the result of individual actions and human traits, and that it was motivated primarily by "interest", a term which would become crucial in the development of a liberal theory of government and political economy, since it is the foundation of the idea that ...