Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is regarded by many as the greatest English political philosopher due to his highly influential work Leviathan (1651). He was born in Wiltshire and studied logic, physics and mathematics at Oxford University before forming a lifelong association with the noble Cavendish family (Hobbes initially worked as a tutor to William Cavendish who later became the 2nd Earl of Devonshire) which provided him with the time, connections and resources to think and write. His political arguments were shaped by his interest in deductive scientific methods, the ideas of philosophers such as Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and the disruptive impact of the English Civil War (1642-51). Hobbes’s major political preoccupations, as revealed by his writings, were the need for governments to exercise absolute political authority, social contract theory as the fundamental basis for order and the legitimacy to govern, and the relationship between political obedience and peace. His intellectual interests were wide-ranging and also included optics, geometry, the classics, law and religious issues. Hobbes’s other important published works were History of the Peloponnesian War (1628), De Cive (1642), The Elements of Law (1650), Behemoth (1679) and A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England (1681).

Hobbes’s key ideas

Hobbes’s key ideas focused on (1) order: an ordered society (based on the laws of nature and the power of the sovereign) should balance the human need for a free life and the right of self-protection (2) human nature: humans are needy, vulnerable and easily led astray in attempts to understand the world around them.

1. Order: an ordered society should balance the human need to lead a free life

Hobbes maintained that an ordered society should balance the human need to lead a free life because if people are able to act with complete autonomy, then the consequences would be catastrophic. To illustrate his argument, Hobbes created a hypothetical scenario which he described as the ‘state of nature’ where humans existed as free and equal individuals and were not held accountable by any type of higher authority. In such an unconstrained situation, he asserted, human life and relations would disintegrate into divisive struggle and chaos as people would be driven by a ‘restless desire’ for power, competition for resources, the need for security and religious and moral differences. Furthermore, he contended, under such circumstances, where people are not subjected to ‘laws and a coercive power to tie their hands from rapine and revenge’ and ‘private appetite is the measure of good and evil’, then the state of nature would effectively become ‘a war of every man against every man.’ As a result, life in this state of war would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.’ For Hobbes, a state of nature then existed (1) in the relations between ruling sovereigns (2) among the ‘savage people’ in parts of America, and (3) in states experiencing civil war.

Nevertheless, Hobbes maintained that humans, as rational beings who crave safety and security, can escape the divisions and conflict of the state of nature. By recognizing that ‘peace is good and therefore also the way or means of peace are good’, people can follow what Hobbes terms the ‘laws of nature’ to restore order and stability. These laws, he argued, are ‘eternal and immutable’, require people to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated and prohibit vices such as injustice, vindictiveness and ingratitude. For Hobbes, these laws of nature direct humans to seek security and protection from the state of nature by submitting to an overarching political or state authority (referred to as ‘Leviathan’). Peace can be achieved only if people lay aside their ‘right to all things’ in favour of a mutually agreed social contract or covenant to submit to the authority of a sovereign. Hobbes argued that this arrangement rested on a general consensus and not the concept of the divine right of kings. In essence, humans can collectively consent to authorize and obey a sovereign power in return for protection from other people and invaders. Under such an agreement, the sovereign dictates what is right and wrong and acts as the sole judge but political legitimacy hinges on the ability of the sovereign to provide protection, order and stability because if these cannot be delivered, then those who have consented to obey are released from their political obligation to the executive power. Although Hobbes appeared to prefer monarchy as the sovereign power, he was pragmatic, accepting Oliver Cromwell as a legitimate sovereign ruler after the removal of Charles I. He also considered parliamentary sovereignty as an acceptable form of government as long as the assembly had an uneven number of representatives to avoid political stalemate. His chief concern was that the government had (and was seen to have) absolute unfettered authority or the ‘essential rights of sovereignty’ to prevent factional disagreements, government paralysis and civil war. Within this political framework of absolute authority and strong centralized state rule, however, Hobbes insisted that the sovereign power’s subjects have the right to disobey or resist commands if their lives are in danger – in other words, they retain the right of self-protection.

2. Human nature: humans are needy, vulnerable and easily led astray in attempts to understand the world around them

Hobbe’s depiction of the state of nature and his arguments endorsing a social contract to establish a ‘common power to keep them [people] all in awe’ were evidently influenced by two fundamental observations he made about human nature. First, in his view, humans are needy and vulnerable because each individual ‘insists upon his own private use of common property’ and ‘strives to avoid violent death’. As a result, left to their own devices, humans will compete violently to obtain the essentials for life and other material resources, confront others because they fear their personal security is under threat and seek status for its own sake and to discourage those who might challenge them. Second, Hobbes maintained that people have limited powers of judgement and reasoning because both are distorted by a variety of factors, including self-interest, vanity, the concerns of the moment, stubbornly-held beliefs and the persuasive rhetoric or ‘coloured speech’ of others. He contended that a greater reliance on science or the ‘knowledge of consequences’ would provide a better guide to the future and help overcome the limitations of human reasoning but his arguments on this subject were not properly developed. Given these frailties in human judgement and reasoning, people struggle to interpret the world they live in. Having said this, Hobbes’s view of human nature is more nuanced than many political commentators suppose because (1) he did not suppose that all people would consistently act in needy, vulnerable or irrational ways, nor did he think that humans were always selfish and rational (2) he also accepted that people could behave in altruistic ways (against their self-interest) based on considerations such as pity, courage and a sense of honour. Nevertheless, Hobbes’s central conclusion about human nature was that people could coexist peacefully only under a strong sovereign power which could ensure security and order, otherwise people would revert to the ‘natural condition of mankind’ with its conflicts, uncertainty and dangers.

Impact of Hobbes’s ideas

Hobbes’s arguments have provoked considerable debate among political thinkers. Many of the latter have questioned the assumptions underpinning his version of the social contract. John Locke, for example, famously asked why Hobbes would believe that ‘Men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done to them by polecats and foxes, but are content, nay think it safety, to be devoured by lions.’ In Locke’s view, authoritarian or absolutist rule was as big a threat as civil unrest. However, more recently, scholars have employed the Hobbesian concept of the state of nature to argue for a better social system. John Rawls drew on Hobbes’s arguments for a stable society in A Theory of Justice (1971) to inform his discussion of what sort of social and economic arrangements rational people would choose behind a ‘veil of ignorance’. Furthermore, the realist school’s interpretation of international relations, with its emphasis on nation states’ constant pursuit of power and self-interest, is clearly influenced by Hobbes’s vision of the state of nature.