To What Extent Does Thomas Hobbes Justify All Power To A Sovereignty
Thomas Hobbes:
Why Does Hobbes Justify All Power to a Sovereignty? Sixteenth century English philosopher, Tomas Hobbes believed that humankind originated in a time he called The State of Nature, which he argued “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbes reasoned that once individuals escaped this state of nature, humans assembled to form civilizations and governments to protect themselves from outside threats. Hobbes coined this idea as the Social Contract theory, or an invisible document that civilized people are born into by forfeiting rights in return for safety. This lead Hobbes to argue that absolute sovereignty was the ideal form of government, where the sovereign being one individual or an elite group possessed complete control over all subjects in the …show more content…
This ensured that people were safe within the jurisdiction; however, the cost of protection came with having limited freedom. The sovereign often portrayed themselves as a monarch by divine-right, and proclaimed that it was God’s will to instate them to rule the region. Hobbes argued that a divine-right monarchy was the strongest and most consistent form of government and that democracy often fell due to corruption and inconsistences between ideas. In Hobbes’ book The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, he states, “there is nothing to be said in a democracy, because the sovereign dieth not, as long as there be subjects alive; nor in an aristocracy, because it cannot easily fall out, that the optimates should every one fail at once; and if it should so fall out, there is no question, but the commonwealth is thereby dissolved” (Chapter 23, Paragraph 11). Hobbes discusses that democracy fails and is evident with fall of the Athenian government in Greece during 322BC. Hobbes also discusses that an aristocracy is another form of government that rarely fails because of self-interest, but if the aristocracy does
Why Does Hobbes Justify All Power to a Sovereignty? Sixteenth century English philosopher, Tomas Hobbes believed that humankind originated in a time he called The State of Nature, which he argued “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbes reasoned that once individuals escaped this state of nature, humans assembled to form civilizations and governments to protect themselves from outside threats. Hobbes coined this idea as the Social Contract theory, or an invisible document that civilized people are born into by forfeiting rights in return for safety. This lead Hobbes to argue that absolute sovereignty was the ideal form of government, where the sovereign being one individual or an elite group possessed complete control over all subjects in the …show more content…
This ensured that people were safe within the jurisdiction; however, the cost of protection came with having limited freedom. The sovereign often portrayed themselves as a monarch by divine-right, and proclaimed that it was God’s will to instate them to rule the region. Hobbes argued that a divine-right monarchy was the strongest and most consistent form of government and that democracy often fell due to corruption and inconsistences between ideas. In Hobbes’ book The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, he states, “there is nothing to be said in a democracy, because the sovereign dieth not, as long as there be subjects alive; nor in an aristocracy, because it cannot easily fall out, that the optimates should every one fail at once; and if it should so fall out, there is no question, but the commonwealth is thereby dissolved” (Chapter 23, Paragraph 11). Hobbes discusses that democracy fails and is evident with fall of the Athenian government in Greece during 322BC. Hobbes also discusses that an aristocracy is another form of government that rarely fails because of self-interest, but if the aristocracy does