A Just Sovereign
Hobbes – The Leviathan – Reflective Post
Once the foundations for the social contract are laid down, and man transfers his liberty to the sovereign who bares our person civil laws are created. Justice is following these laws and keeping to the contract. “Breaking the covenant is unjust, everything else is just” (79) and hence no law can be unjust (176). This is such a fundamental principle that Hobbes observes it to be the third law of nature, once you have made the contract, you must keep it and keeping the contract is justice (79). From this sense of justice and keeping the stability and the peace of the commonwealth, one may ponder why Hobbes never proposed that a sovereign should govern in a just way? As I have already mentioned, justice is not a matter of morality, but a matter of obedience of the laws that are protecting the commonwealth and all of the privileges such as industry that have flourished under it. On page 164 Hobbes addresses the opinion of subjecting the Sovereign power to civil laws:
To those Lawes which the Soveraign himselfe, that is, which the Common-wealth maketh, he is not subject. For to be subject to Lawes, is to be subject to the Common-wealth, that is to the Soveraign Representative, that is to himselfe; which is not subjection, but freedome from the Lawes. Which errour, because it setteth the Lawes above the Soveraign, setteth also a Judge above him, and a Power to punish him; which is to make a new Soveraign; and again for the same reason a third, to punish the second; and so continually without end, to the Confusion, and Dissolution of the Commonwealth (164).
Thus to speak of such things as a Just Sovereign are absurd and restrictive to your own protection, since restricting the sovereign is restricting the Commonwealth. It also goes much further, as mentioned in the quote from page 164, to the dissolution or transfer of the Commonwealth to subjection under another Sovereign who then cannot be just unless they are following the laws of another Sovereign, etc.
Hobbes does do a good job with explaining his rational but perhaps his definition of justice just doesn’t hold any weight. Doesn’t justice imply a moral undertone? Laws alone cannot account for a code of morality.
Once the foundations for the social contract are laid down, and man transfers his liberty to the sovereign who bares our person civil laws are created. Justice is following these laws and keeping to the contract. “Breaking the covenant is unjust, everything else is just” (79) and hence no law can be unjust (176). This is such a fundamental principle that Hobbes observes it to be the third law of nature, once you have made the contract, you must keep it and keeping the contract is justice (79). From this sense of justice and keeping the stability and the peace of the commonwealth, one may ponder why Hobbes never proposed that a sovereign should govern in a just way? As I have already mentioned, justice is not a matter of morality, but a matter of obedience of the laws that are protecting the commonwealth and all of the privileges such as industry that have flourished under it. On page 164 Hobbes addresses the opinion of subjecting the Sovereign power to civil laws:
To those Lawes which the Soveraign himselfe, that is, which the Common-wealth maketh, he is not subject. For to be subject to Lawes, is to be subject to the Common-wealth, that is to the Soveraign Representative, that is to himselfe; which is not subjection, but freedome from the Lawes. Which errour, because it setteth the Lawes above the Soveraign, setteth also a Judge above him, and a Power to punish him; which is to make a new Soveraign; and again for the same reason a third, to punish the second; and so continually without end, to the Confusion, and Dissolution of the Commonwealth (164).
Thus to speak of such things as a Just Sovereign are absurd and restrictive to your own protection, since restricting the sovereign is restricting the Commonwealth. It also goes much further, as mentioned in the quote from page 164, to the dissolution or transfer of the Commonwealth to subjection under another Sovereign who then cannot be just unless they are following the laws of another Sovereign, etc.
Hobbes does do a good job with explaining his rational but perhaps his definition of justice just doesn’t hold any weight. Doesn’t justice imply a moral undertone? Laws alone cannot account for a code of morality.
posted by Holly at 11:40 PM
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