Hobbes: The Contract Into Absolute Sovereignty

The laws of nature are, for Hobbes, precepts found out by reason, and they are not commands of a superior but theorems about what conduces to preservation. The first is to seek peace where it can be had and to defend oneself where it cannot. The second is that a man be willing, when others are too, to lay down his right to all things and be contented with so much liberty against others as he would allow others against himself.

The laws of nature bind in conscience always but in action only when there is security that others will observe them too. Without a common power they are empty words. That is the argument for the sovereign in a single sentence.

The covenant

The contract has a shape a student must be able to state precisely, because everything that offends people about Hobbes follows from it.

Each with each, not with the ruler. Every man covenants with every other man to give up his right of governing himself to one man or assembly, on condition that all do the same.

The sovereign is not a party. The sovereign is the beneficiary of the covenant, not a party to it. This is the hinge of the entire theory, and every consequence below comes out of it.

What is created. By this act the multitude becomes one person, and Hobbes's description is worth having exactly: by art is created "that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE", an artificial man of greater stature and strength than the natural, made for whose protection and defence it was intended. He calls the result, more reverently, that "Mortall God", to which we owe under the immortal God our peace and defence.

The consequences, and why they are inescapable

Each of these follows from "the sovereign is not a party".

The sovereign cannot breach the covenant, because a person who is not a party to an agreement cannot break it.

Therefore no subject can be released on the ground of breach.

Sovereignty is absolute. The sovereign decides law, judges disputes, makes war and peace, appoints ministers, and determines what doctrines may be taught, because leaving any of those outside would recreate a division that leads back to war.

Sovereignty is indivisible. A divided sovereignty is two sovereigns, which is civil war deferred. Hobbes wrote during the English civil war and this proposition is the lesson he drew from it.

Resistance is unlawful, because the subject is the author of the sovereign's acts. To resist the sovereign is to resist oneself.

But there is a limit, and it is the one place the system has an opening. The covenant was made for the preservation of life, and a man cannot transfer the right to defend his own life, because no benefit could be had from such a transfer. So a man condemned to death may lawfully resist those who come to kill him, and a man may refuse to incriminate himself or to kill himself. It is a right of self preservation, not a right of rebellion, and it does not entitle anybody else to join him.

And obedience lasts only as long as protection. Hobbes says plainly that the obligation of subjects to the sovereign lasts as long, and no longer, than the power by which the sovereign is able to protect them. A sovereign who cannot protect has no claim, which is the most practical sentence in the book.

A worked example

A city is under a curfew during a communal riot. The order forbids anybody to leave their home between six in the evening and six in the morning.

On Hobbes's account the order binds absolutely. The subject authorised the sovereign to judge what is necessary for peace, so the question whether the curfew is a good idea is not the subject's to ask. Even a subject who is sure the curfew will make things worse is bound, because the whole point of the covenant was to substitute one judgment for many.

The limit appears in a specific case. A man's house is set on fire and the mob is at the door. He may leave, and no covenant obliges him to burn. He is not resisting the sovereign; he is exercising the one right he could never have transferred, because the transfer would have defeated the purpose of transferring.

And the practical test appears if the state fails. If the police have withdrawn and the sovereign cannot protect that street at all, Hobbes's own rule applies: obedience lasts as long as the protection, and no longer. On his theory the residents are back in the state of nature on that street, which is exactly what a breakdown of order looks like from inside.

The criticisms

The premise is too dark. Human beings are not only competitive and fearful; they cooperate, and anthropology finds stateless societies with elaborate order rather than universal war.

Absolute sovereignty is a cure worse than the disease. As Locke put the point, it is as if men, to avoid the harm of polecats and foxes, thought it safety to be devoured by lions. Hobbes has protected the subject against everybody except the one person with the most power to harm them.

A right to life cannot survive alone. If the covenant is for preservation, why should the sovereign be entitled to take everything short of life? The logic that saves self defence should save more.

The sovereign is outside the covenant by stipulation, and the stipulation does the work. Change it and absolutism disappears, which is exactly what Locke does.

It cannot explain political obligation for those who did not covenant. Hobbes's answer, that people covenant tacitly by living under the protection, runs into every objection made to tacit consent.

Its account of law is thin. If whatever the sovereign commands is just because the sovereign commands it, then unjust law becomes a contradiction, which the whole of topic 2.3 denies.

Distinctions that carry marks

What Hobbes is NOT

He is not a defender of monarchy as such. The sovereign may be one man or an assembly. What he insists on is that it be undivided.

He is not saying people are wicked. He is saying they are rational and insecure, and that insecurity alone produces war.

He is not a divine right theorist. His sovereign is created by human agreement, which is why divine right theorists disliked him as much as republicans did.

"Solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short" is not a description of savages. It is a description of what any of us would face without a common power, and Hobbes evidences it from the conduct of people who do live under one.

Quick revision

1. Three causes of quarrel: competition, diffidence, glory. War is not fighting only but the known disposition to it.
2. The passage: no industry, no navigation, no building, no arts, no letters, no society, continual fear, and life "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."
3. Right of nature is the liberty to preserve oneself; in that condition every man has a right to everything, which is why it is worthless.
4. Laws of nature bind in conscience always and in action only when others can be relied on, so a common power is needed.
5. The covenant is each with each; the sovereign is NOT a party. Everything else follows: no breach, no release, absolute and indivisible power, no right of resistance.
6. The exception: the right of self preservation cannot be transferred, so a condemned man may resist those who come to kill him. It is not a right of rebellion.
7. Obedience lasts as long as protection, and no longer.
8. Locke's answer: to avoid polecats and foxes, men do not think it safety to be devoured by lions.

Test yourself

1. Describe Hobbes's state of nature and say whether it is a historical claim. Men being roughly equal in body and mind, equality of hope produces competition, and the three causes of quarrel, competition, diffidence and glory, produce a war of every man against every man in which there is no industry, navigation, building, arts, letters or society, but continual fear, and life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. It is not offered as history. Hobbes evidences it from present conduct, asking the doubter what opinion he has of his fellow subjects when he arms himself for a journey and locks his doors at night.

2. Set out Hobbes's covenant and explain why the sovereign is absolute. Every man covenants with every other man to lay down his right of governing himself and confer it on one man or assembly, on condition that all do likewise. The sovereign is the beneficiary of that covenant and not a party to it. Since a person who is not a party cannot break an agreement, the sovereign can commit no breach, no subject can claim release, and the power conferred is absolute, indivisible and irrevocable. Every objectionable feature of the theory follows from that single stipulation.

3. What limit does Hobbes admit, and how far does it go? The covenant was made for the preservation of life, and a man cannot transfer the right to defend his own life, since no benefit could be had from such a transfer. So a man condemned to death may lawfully resist those who come to kill him, and may refuse to incriminate himself. It is a right of self preservation only: it does not entitle him to rebel, does not entitle others to assist him, and does not make the sovereign's sentence unlawful.

4. Explain Hobbes's rule that obedience lasts as long as protection. He states plainly that the obligation of subjects to the sovereign lasts as long, and no longer, than the power by which the sovereign is able to protect them, because protection is the whole end for which the covenant was made. A sovereign who cannot protect a place or a person has no claim to obedience there, which means that on his own theory a breakdown of order returns those affected to the state of nature, and that a conqueror who provides protection acquires a title to obedience.

5. Give three criticisms of Hobbes. That his premise is too dark, since human beings cooperate as well as compete and stateless societies show elaborate order rather than universal war. That the remedy is worse than the disease, as Locke put it, since men who fear polecats and foxes do not think it safety to be devoured by lions: the subject is protected against everybody except the one person best able to harm them. And that his account makes unjust law a contradiction, since whatever the sovereign commands is just by definition, which the whole problem of obedience to unjust laws denies.