POLITICAL TEACHING

OF T. HOBBES
DONE BY: ZHARDEMOVA ALBINA
TASTAY MARGULAN
• Thomas Hobbes ( April 5, 1588 - December 4,
1679) - English materialist philosopher, one of
the founders of political philosophy, the theory
of social contract and the theory of state
sovereignty. Known for ideas spreading in
disciplines such as ethics, theology, physics,
geometry and history.
 BIOGRAPHY
• Born in Westport, now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, on April 5, 1588. He lived in the family of a
short-tempered parish priest who was not well-educated, who lost his job due to a quarrel with a neighboring
vicar at the door of the church. Thomas Hobbes was born prematurely due to the fact that his mother, whose
name is unknown, learned of the impending invasion of the Spanish Armada. Hobbes later reported that "my
mother gave birth to twins: me and fear." Almost nothing is known about his childhood.
• He was brought up by a wealthy uncle who knew ancient literature and classical languages ​well. In 1603 he
entered Oxford University (Magdalen Hall), graduating in 1608. There he was taught scholastic logic and
physics.
• In 1640, a revolution actually began in England, and Hobbes, along with many royalists, emigrated to Paris,
where he stayed until 1651. It was in Paris that the plan of his philosophical system finally matured. When the
revolution in England came to the dictatorship of Cromwell, Thomas broke up with the royalist party and
returned to London. Already in London in 1651, he published in English his most voluminous work, Leviathan,
or Matter, the Form and Power of the Church and Civil State.
For Hobbes, the English Civil War significantly shaped his
worldview. In response, he developed a political philosophy
that emphasized three key concepts:
• The natural state of mankind (the “state of nature”) is a
state of war of one man against another, as man is selfish
and brutish.
• The way out of the “state of nature” is a “social
contract,” to be agreed upon by the people to be
governed and the government.
• The ideal form that government should take is an
absolute monarchy that has maximum authority,
subverting mankind’s natural state and creating societal
order in the process.
• Hobbes is one of the founders of the "contractual" theory of the origin of the state. Like most
political thinkers after Boden, Hobbes identifies only three forms of state: democracy, aristocracy
and monarchy.

• The state is a mechanical connection of different people who represent a huge force together. The state is not an
eternal category, its predecessor is the natural state of people whose life is subject to natural laws that follow
from the nature of the people themselves. The first foundation of natural law that is consistent with common
sense is the need to preserve life for as long as possible. According to the natural laws of nature, man provides
for the need to seek peace in the struggle for his self-preservation, and in order to preserve peace, he is forced
to face the need to limit his claims. Safeguarding the world, Hobbes deduces his system of moral and legal laws
on the basis of a social contract. In order for laws to gain force in society, a government must initially be
established, which will establish order and restrain the unbridled passions of individual people who are trying
to encroach on public safety and peace. The state arises as a result of a social contract. As Hobbes defined, "the
state is a single person whose will, as a result of the agreement of many people, is the will of all and can use the
strengths and abilities of everyone for common peace and protection." This person is the supreme power, and
the rest are subjects.
• Meanwhile, despite the fact that Hobbes stood for the monarchy, he at the same time did not
deny the legitimacy of democracy, believing that popular rule is the least capable of achieving
the true goal - the preservation of tranquility in the state. Hobbes saw the following
weaknesses in the democratic form of government:- it has as many rulers as idle talkers who
seek to achieve wealth and power;- the imperious majority has little knowledge of affairs, and
for the most part makes the wrong decisions;- the conduct of secret state affairs is excluded;
the source of confusion will be the endless struggle of parties (Hobbes proposed to dissolve
the parties);- "Laws move from one side to another, as if floating on the waves"
• The philosopher preached state absolutism and the absolutism of supreme power, opposing clericalism.
Hobbes understood that the cause of civil wars was the struggle between secular and spiritual power.
The way out of this state, he considered the need for spiritual authority to submit to the authority of
the secular. This thesis was beneficial to O. Cromwell, who used it, demanding the unconditional
domination of secular power. During the Stuart Restoration (1660-1685), Hobbes experienced difficult
times. He was accused of spreading heresy, and he was forced to defend himself in small special works.
10 years after his death, in 1688, Oxford University included the works of Hobbes "Leviathan" and "On
the Citizen" in the list of malicious writings that were aimed against the sacred persons of monarchs,
their governments and states and undermined the foundations of every human society. " Together with
other seditious writings, these two works were burned.
THE NATURAL CONDITION OF MANKIND
• The state of nature is “natural” in one specific sense only. For Hobbes political authority is artificial: in the
“natural” condition human beings lack government, which is an authority created by men. What is
Hobbes’s reasoning here? He claims that the only authority that naturally exists among human beings is
that of a mother over her child, because the child is so very much weaker than the mother (and indebted
to her for its survival). Among adult human beings this is invariably not the case. Hobbes concedes an
obvious objection, admitting that some of us are much stronger than others. And although he is very
sarcastic about the idea that some are wiser than others, he does not have much difficulty with the idea
that some are fools and others are dangerously cunning. Nonetheless, it is almost invariably true that
every human being is capable of killing any other. “Even the strongest must sleep; even the weakest
might persuade others to help him kill another”. Because adults are equal in this capacity to threaten one
another’s lives, Hobbes claims there is no natural source of authority to order their lives together. (He is
strongly opposing arguments that established monarchs have a natural or God-given right to rule over
us.)
• Thus, as long as human beings have not successfully arranged some form of government, they live in
Hobbes’s state of nature. Such a condition might occur at the “beginning of time” (see Hobbes’s
comments on Cain and Abel, Leviathan, xiii.11, Latin version only), or in “primitive” societies (Hobbes
thought the American Indians lived in such a condition). But the real point for Hobbes is that a state of
nature could just as well occur in seventeenth century England, should the King’s authority be
successfully undermined. It could occur tomorrow in every modern society, for example, if the police
and army suddenly refused to do their jobs on behalf of government. Unless some effective authority
stepped into the King’s place (or the place of army and police and government), Hobbes argues the
result is doomed to be deeply awful, nothing less than a state of war.
• Thus, as long as human beings have not successfully arranged some form of government, they live in
Hobbes’s state of nature. Such a condition might occur at the “beginning of time” (see Hobbes’s
comments on Cain and Abel, Leviathan, xiii.11, Latin version only), or in “primitive” societies (Hobbes
thought the American Indians lived in such a condition). But the real point for Hobbes is that a state of
nature could just as well occur in seventeenth century England, should the King’s authority be
successfully undermined. It could occur tomorrow in every modern society, for example, if the police
and army suddenly refused to do their jobs on behalf of government. Unless some effective authority
stepped into the King’s place (or the place of army and police and government), Hobbes argues the
result is doomed to be deeply awful, nothing less than a state of war.
• In the end, though, whatever account of the state of nature and its (a) morality we attribute to Hobbes,
we must remember that it is meant to function as a powerful and decisive threat: if we do not heed
Hobbes’s teachings and fail to respect existing political authority, then the natural condition and its
horrors of war await us.
 CONCLUSION

• What happens, then, if we do not follow Hobbes in his arguments that judgment must, by necessity or
by social contract or both, be the sole province of the sovereign? If we are optimists about the power of
human judgment, and about the extent of moral consensus among human beings, we have a
straightforward route to the concerns of modern liberalism. Our attention will not be on the question of
social and political order, rather on how to maximize liberty, how to define social justice, how to draw
the limits of government power, and how to realize democratic ideals. We will probably interpret
Hobbes as a psychological egoist, and think that the problems of political order that obsessed him were
the product of an unrealistic view of human nature, or unfortunate historical circumstances, or both. In
this case, I suggest, we might as well not have read Hobbes at all.
• If we are less optimistic about human judgment in morals and politics, however, we should not doubt
that Hobbes’s problems remain our problems. But hindsight shows grave limitations to his solutions.
Theoretically, Hobbes fails to prove that we have an almost unlimited obligation to obey the sovereign.
His arguments that sovereignty—the power to judge moral and political matters, and enforce those
judgments—cannot be divided are not only weak; they are simply refuted by the (relatively) successful
distribution of powers in modern liberal societies. Not least, the horrific crimes of twentieth century
dictatorships show beyond doubt that judgment about right and wrong cannot be a question only for
our political leaders.
If Hobbes’s problems are real and his solutions only partly convincing, where will we go? It might reasonably
be thought that this is the central question of modern political thought. We will have no doubt that peaceful
coexistence is one of the greatest goods of human life, something worth many inconveniences, sacrifices
and compromises. We will see that there is moral force behind the laws and requirements of the state,
simply because human beings do indeed need authority and systems of enforcement if they are to
cooperate peacefully. But we can hardly accept that, because human judgment is weak and faulty, that there
can be only one judge of these matters—precisely because that judge might turn out to be very faulty
indeed. Our concern will be how we can effectively divide power between government and people, while
still ensuring that important questions of moral and political judgment are peacefully adjudicated. We will be
concerned with the standards and institutions that provide for compromise between many different and
conflicting judgments. And all the time, we will remember Hobbes’s reminder that human life is never
without inconvenience and troubles, that we must live with a certain amount of bad, to prevent the worst:
fear of violence, and violent death.
THANK FOR ATTENTION!