Leviathan | Thomas Hobbes, Summary, Social Contract, Sovereign Authority, & Facts

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G.A.J. Rogers and Karl Schuhmann</a></li> <li><a class="external" href="https://www.academia.edu/4882487/Hobbess_Leviathan_New_Science_of_Man" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">Academia - Hobbes's Leviathan: New Science of Man</a></li> <li><a class="external" href="https://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/simpsonl/hist162/hobbes.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">California State University, Sacramento - Leviathan</a></li> <li><a class="external" href="https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/leviathan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">Toronto Metropolitan University Pressbooks - Leviathan</a></li> <li><a class="external" href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.32247/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">Internet Archive - "Leviathan"</a></li> <li><a class="external" href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/publications/reading-room/2023-10-31-temnick-thomas-hobbes-leviathan" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">Online Library of Liberty - Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="toc-header-marker"></div> <button class="ai-ask-button btn border-2 js-header-ai-ask-button d-none btn-sm btn-outline-red-400 border-red-400 mr-0 mr-lg-10 ml-5 ml-sm-10 ml-lg-0 p-10"> Ask the Chatbot a Question </button> <div class="caption alternate-titles">Also known as: “Leviathan; or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil”</div> <div class="md-byline module-spacing "> <div class="font-serif font-12"> <span class="written-by text-gray-700"> Written by </span> <div class="editor-popover popover p-0"> <a class="d-block p-20 gtm-byline font-12 byline-contributor" href="/contributor/Tom-Sorell/6148" > <div class="editor-title font-16 font-weight-bold">Tom Sorell</div> <div class="editor-description font-12 font-serif mt-5 clamp-description text-black">Professor of Politics and Philosophy, University of Warwick. Author of <em>Hobbes</em> and others; editor of the <em>Cambridge Companion to Hobbes</em> and others.</div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link gtm-byline font-12 byline-contributor text-decoration-underline"> Tom Sorell</span></div> <div class="font-serif font-12 text-gray-700"> <span class="qa-fact-checked-by">Fact-checked by</span> <div class="editor-popover popover p-0"> <a class="d-block p-20 font-12" href="/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419" > <div class="editor-title font-16 font-weight-bold">The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</div> <div class="editor-description font-12 font-serif mt-5 text-black">Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.</div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link font-12 "> The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</span></div> <div class="last-updated font-12 font-serif"> <span class="text-gray-700"> Last Updated: <time datetime="2024-10-19T00:00:00CDT" >Oct 19, 2024</time> •</span> <a class="byline-edit-history" href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Leviathan-by-Hobbes/additional-info#history" rel="nofollow">Article History</a> </div></div> </div> <button class="d-flex d-lg-none btn btn-outline-blue border rounded-sm shadow-sm mobile-toc-button gtm-mobile-toc-inline-button d-none d-sm-block js-sections-inline-button module-spacing btn d-lg-none"> <em class="material-icons mr-5 ml-n10 my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="toc"></em> Table of Contents </button> <div class="d-flex d-sm-none flex-row"> <button class="d-flex d-lg-none btn btn-outline-blue border rounded-sm shadow-sm mobile-toc-button gtm-mobile-toc-inline-button js-sections-inline-button module-spacing"> <em class="material-icons mr-5 ml-n10 my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="toc"></em> Table of Contents </button> <button class="ai-ask-button btn border-2 ai-ask-button btn border-2 module-spacing btn-sm js-inline-ai-ask-button btn-outline-red-400 border-red-400 p-10 ml-5"> Ask the Chatbot a Question </button> </div> <span class="marker before-article"></span><section data-level="1" id="ref1"><span class="marker PREMOD1 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph"><strong><span id="ref1310709"></span>Leviathan</strong>, magnum opus of the early-modern English political philosopher, ethicist, metaphysician, and scientist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hobbes" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Thomas Hobbes</a> (1588–1679). First published in 1651, <em>Leviathan; or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil</em> develops a theory of politics presented in Hobbes’s earlier work (composed in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Latin-language" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Latin</a>), <em>De Cive</em> (1642; “Concerning the Citizen”), <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="articulating" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/articulating" data-type="MW">articulating</a> a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/political-philosophy" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">political philosophy</a> that views  government primarily as a device for ensuring <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/collective-security" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">collective security</a>. According to Hobbes, political authority is justified by a hypothetical <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-contract" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">social contract</a> among the many that vests in a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sovereignty" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">sovereign</a> (a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/monarchy" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">monarch</a>, a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/legislature" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">legislature</a>, or almost any other form of political authority) the responsibility for the safety and well-being of all. Hobbes’s <em>Leviathan</em> influenced not only his famous successors who adopted the social-contract framework—including <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Locke" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">John Locke</a> (1632–1704), <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Jacques-Rousseau" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Jean-Jacques Rousseau</a> (1712–78), and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Immanuel-Kant" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Immanuel Kant</a> (1724–1804)—but also less directly those theorists who connected <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="moral" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moral" data-type="MW">moral</a> and political <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/decision-making" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">decision making</a> in rational human beings to considerations of self-interest broadly understood.</p><span class="marker MOD1 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD2 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">In <em>De Cive</em> and <em>Leviathan</em>, Hobbes rejects one of the most famous theses of the politics of the ancient Greek philosopher <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Aristotle</a> (384–322 <span class="text-smallcaps">bce</span>), namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/polis" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">polis</a> (city-state) and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen. Hobbes turns Aristotle’s claim on its head: human beings, he insists, are by nature unsuited to political life. They naturally <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="denigrate" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/denigrate" data-type="MW">denigrate</a> and compete with each other, are very easily swayed by the <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="rhetoric" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rhetoric" data-type="MW">rhetoric</a> of ambitious persons, and think much more highly of themselves than of other people. In short, their passions magnify the value they place on their own interests, especially their near-term interests. At the same time, most people, in pursuing their own interests, do not have the ability to prevail over competitors. Nor can they appeal to some natural common standard of behaviour that everyone will feel obliged to <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="abide" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abide" data-type="MW">abide</a> by. There is no natural self-restraint, even when human beings are moderate in their appetites, for a ruthless and bloodthirsty few can make even the moderate feel forced to take violent preemptive action in order to avoid losing everything. The self-restraint even of the moderate, then, easily turns into aggression. In other words, no <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-being" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">human being</a> is above aggression and the <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="anarchy" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchy" data-type="MW">anarchy</a> (chaos) that goes with it.</p><span class="marker MOD2 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD3 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph"><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/war" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">War</a> comes more naturally to human beings than political order, according to Hobbes. Indeed, political order is possible only when human beings abandon their natural condition of judging and pursuing what seems best to each and delegate this judgment to someone else. This delegation is effected when the many contract together to submit to a <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="sovereign" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereign" data-type="MW">sovereign</a> in return for physical safety and a <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="modicum" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/modicum" data-type="MW">modicum</a> of well-being. Each of the many in effect says to the other: “I transfer my right of governing myself to X (the sovereign) if you do too.” And the transfer is collectively entered into only on the understanding that it makes one less of a target of attack or dispossession than one would be in one’s natural state. Although Hobbes did not assume that there was ever a real historical event in which a mutual promise was made to delegate self-government to a sovereign, he claimed that the best way to understand the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-sovereign-political-entity" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">state</a> was to <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="conceive" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/conceive" data-type="EB">conceive</a> of it as having resulted from such an agreement.</p><div class="module-spacing"> </div><span class="marker MOD3 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD4 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">In Hobbes’s social contract, the many trade <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberty-human-rights" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">liberty</a> for safety. Liberty, with its standing invitation to local conflict and finally all-out war—a “war of every man against every man”—is overvalued in traditional political philosophy and popular opinion, according to Hobbes; it is better for people to transfer the right of governing themselves to the sovereign. Once transferred, however, this right of government is absolute, unless the many feel that their lives are threatened by submission. The sovereign determines who owns what, who will hold which public offices, how the economy will be regulated, what acts will be <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/crime-law" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">crimes</a>, and what <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/punishment" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">punishments</a> criminals should receive. The <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="sovereign" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/sovereign" data-type="EB">sovereign</a> is the supreme commander of the army, supreme interpreter of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/law" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">law</a>, and supreme interpreter of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/scripture" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">scripture</a>, with authority over any national church. It is unjust—a case of <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="reneging" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reneging" data-type="MW">reneging</a> on what one has agreed—for any subject to take issue with these arrangements, for, in the act of creating the state or by receiving its protection, one agrees to leave judgments about the means of <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="collective" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collective" data-type="MW">collective</a> well-being and security to the sovereign. The sovereign’s laws and decrees and appointments to public office may be unpopular; they may even be wrong. But, unless the sovereign fails so utterly that subjects feel that their condition would be no worse in the free-for-all outside the state, it is better for the subjects to endure the sovereign’s rule.</p><span class="marker MOD4 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD5 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">It is better both prudentially and morally. Because no one can prudently welcome a greater risk of death, no one can prudently prefer total liberty to submission. Total liberty invites war, and submission is the best insurance against war. <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="Morality" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Morality" data-type="MW">Morality</a> too supports this conclusion, for, according to Hobbes, all the moral precepts enjoining virtuous behaviour can be understood as derivable from the fundamental moral precept that one should seek peace—that is to say, freedom from war—if it is safe to do so. Without peace, he observed, humans live in “continual fear, and danger of violent death,” and what life they have is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (<em>Leviathan</em>, Chapter XIII). What Hobbes calls the “laws of nature,” the system of moral rules by which everyone is bound, cannot be safely complied with outside the state, for the total liberty that people have outside the state includes the liberty to <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="flout" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/flout" data-type="EB">flout</a> the moral requirements if one’s survival seems to depend on it.</p><span class="marker MOD5 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD6 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">The sovereign is not a party to the social contract but receives the obedience of the many as a free gift in their hope that their safety will be ensured. The sovereign makes no promises to the many in order to win their submission. Indeed, because no right of self-government is transferred to anyone, the sovereign retains the total liberty that the subjects trade for safety. The sovereign is not bound by law, including the sovereign’s own laws. Nor does the sovereign do anything unjustly by making decisions about the subjects’ safety and well-being that they do not like.</p><span class="marker MOD6 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD7 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Although occupying a position to judge the means of survival and <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="well-being" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/well-being" data-type="EB">well-being</a> for the many more dispassionately than they are able to do themselves, the sovereign is not immune to self-interested passions. Hobbes realizes that the sovereign may behave iniquitously. He insists that it is very imprudent for a sovereign to act iniquitously to such an extent that subjects are made to feel insecure. Subjects who are in fear of their lives lose their obligations to obey and, with that, deprive the sovereign of power. Reduced to the status of one among many by the defection of subjects, the unseated sovereign is likely to feel the wrath of those who submitted themselves in vain.</p><div class="module-spacing"> <DIV class="marketing-INLINE_SUBSCRIPTION marketing-content" data-marketing-id="INLINE_SUBSCRIPTION"><style> .student-promo-banner-wrapper { container-type: inline-size; margin-bottom: 15px; } @container (min-width: 475px) { .student-promo-banner { flex-direction: row; } .student-promo-banner-img-wrapper { margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 10px; justify-content: flex-start; } .student-promo-banner-text-wrapper { text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; } .student-promo-banner-button-wrapper { margin-right: 0; } }</style> <div class="student-promo-banner-wrapper"> <div class="student-promo-banner d-flex flex-column align-items-center bg-blue rounded p-20"> <div class="student-promo-banner-img-wrapper mb-20 mr-0 d-flex justify-content-center"> <img class="rounded" style="max-width: 100px; min-width: 80px" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/marketing/BlueThistle.webp" /> </div> <div class="student-promo-banner-text-wrapper ml-0 mb-10 text-center text-white"> <div class="h2 mb-10">Get Unlimited Access</div> <div class="h4 font-weight-semi-bold">Try Britannica Premium for free and discover more.</div> </div> <div class="student-promo-banner-button-wrapper d-flex justify-content-center align-items-center ml-auto mr-auto"> <a class="btn btn-m btn-orange" href="https://premium.britannica.com/premium-membership/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=inline-cta&utm_campaign=black-friday-2024">Subscribe</a> </div> </div> </div> </DIV></div><div class="one-good-fact-module"> </div><span class="marker MOD7 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD8 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Hobbes’s <em>Leviathan</em> devotes more attention than does <em>De Cive</em> to the civil <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="obligations" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/obligations" data-type="EB">obligations</a> of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Christian</a> believers and the proper and improper roles of a church within a state (<em>see</em> <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/church-and-state" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">church and state</a>). Hobbes argues in <em>Leviathan</em> that believers do not endanger their prospects of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/salvation-religion" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">salvation</a> by obeying a sovereign’s decrees to the letter, and he maintains that churches do not have any authority that is not granted by the civil sovereign.</p><span class="marker MOD8 mod-inline"></span></section> <span class="md-signature"><a href="/contributor/Tom-Sorell/6148">Tom Sorell</a></span> <span class="md-signature"><a href="/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419">The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</a></span> <span class="marker end-of-content"></span><span class="marker after-article"></span></div> <div id="chatbot-root"></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="ai-dialog-placeholder"></div> </div> </div> <aside class="col-md-da-320"></aside> </div> </div> </div> </div> </article></div> </div></div> </div> </main> <div id="md-footer"></div> <noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-5W6NC8" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript> <script type="text/javascript" id="_informizely_script_tag"> var IzWidget = IzWidget || {}; (function (d) { var scriptElement = d.createElement('script'); scriptElement.type = 'text/javascript'; scriptElement.async = true; scriptElement.src = "https://insitez.blob.core.windows.net/site/f780f33e-a610-4ac2-af81-3eb184037547.js"; var node = d.getElementById('_informizely_script_tag'); node.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, node); } )(document); </script>  <script> window.ap3c = window.ap3c || {}; var ap3c = window.ap3c; ap3c.cmd = ap3c.cmd || []; ap3c.cmd.push(function() { ap3c.init('ZO4siT4cLwnykPnzZWJtd3Byb2Q', 'https://engage.email.britannica.com/'); ap3c.track({v: 0}); }); ap3c.activity = function(act) { ap3c.act = (ap3c.act || []); ap3c.act.push(act); }; var s, t; s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = "https://engage.email.britannica.com/app.js"; t = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; t.parentNode.insertBefore(s, t); </script> <script class="marketing-page-info" type="application/json"> {"pageType":"Topic","templateName":"DESKTOP","pageNumber":1,"pagesTotal":1,"pageId":337942,"pageLength":1217,"initialLoad":true,"lastPageOfScroll":false} </script> <script class="marketing-content-info" type="application/json"> [] </script> <script src="https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-130/js/libs/jquery-3.5.0.min.js?v=3.130.14"></script> <script type="text/javascript" data-type="Init Mendel Code Splitting"> (function() { $.ajax({ dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: 'https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-130/dist/topic-page.js?v=3.130.14' }); })(); </script> <script class="analytics-metadata" type="application/json"> {"leg":"C","adLeg":"C","userType":"ANONYMOUS","pageType":"Topic","pageSubtype":null,"articleTemplateType":"LARGE","gisted":false,"pageNumber":1,"hasSummarizeButton":false,"hasAskButton":false} </script> <script type="text/javascript"> EBStat={accountId:-1,hostnameOverride:'webstats.eb.com',domain:'www.britannica.com', json:''}; </script> <script type="text/javascript"> ( function() { $.ajax( { dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: '//www.britannica.com/webstats/mendelstats.js?v=1' } ) .done( function() { try {writeStat(null,EBStat);} catch(err){} } ); })(); </script> <div id="bc-fixed-dialogue"></div> </body> </html>

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Leviathan | Thomas Hobbes, Summary, Social Contract, Sovereign Authority, & Facts | Britannica