What was Hobbes main theory?
Hobbes is famous for his early and elaborate development of what has come to be known as “social contract theory”, the method of justifying political principles or arrangements by appeal to the agreement that would be made among suitably situated rational, free, and equal persons.
According to Hobbes, the only way to escape civil war and to maintain a state of peace in a commonwealth is to institute an impartial and absolute sovereign power that is the final authority on all political issues. Hobbes believes his own political philosophy scientifically proves such a conclusion.
Hobbes argued that the fundamental principles of morality, or laws of nature, require us to try to establish peace: he says this can only be established through the institution of an absolute sovereign. He contended that the sovereign alone is empowered to make laws regulating our actions.
Thomas Hobbes believed in the need for an absolute monarchy. This is because he thought that there needed to be a strong ruler to keep citizens under control. Because of his strong views on human nature, Hobbes wanted a government in which the leader could impose order and demand obedience.
Thomas Hobbes believes that humans have no moral compass unless there are predetermined rules to say what actions are good or bad. There is no morality in the state of nature. There is no contract without an absolute power to enforce it. Therefore, justice only comes into existence when the sovereign is established.
Despite advocating the idea of absolutism of the sovereign, Hobbes developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the ...
Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. In addition to political philosophy, Hobbes contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, theology, and ethics, as well as philosophy in general.
The first law of nature tells us to seek peace. The second law of nature tells us to lay down our rights in order to seek peace, provided that this can be done safely. The third law of nature tells us to keep our covenants, where covenants are the most important vehicle through which rights are laid down.
For Hobbes, the solution is a social contract in which society comes to a collective understanding — a social contract — that it is in everyone's interest to enforce rules that ensure safety and security for everyone, even the weakest.
For Hobbes, the necessity of an absolute authority, in the form of a Sovereign, followed from the utter brutality of the State of Nature. The State of Nature was completely intolerable, and so rational men would be willing to submit themselves even to absolute authority in order to escape it.
What is Hobbes theory of political obligation?
Hobbes accepted the idea of political obligation, stating that government and laws were needed to thrive as a society. Hobbes and Locke agreed on the idea of individual freedom. They both saw that this freedom was limited and accompanied by an obligation to obey the law.
Hobbes believed in absolute monarchy as an ideal political system. According to this concept, the monarch should hold complete and total power. Citizens had no authority either to invest the monarch with his power or to take it away. Rather, their duty was to comply with the monarch's edicts.
Thomas Hobbes believed that a government who had a power of a leviathan (sea monster) and a absolute monarchy, which could impose order and demand obedience. He believed in this type of government because the ruler needed total power to keep citizens under control.
Hobbes believed that in man's natural state, moral ideas do not exist. Thus, in speaking of human nature, he defines good simply as that which people desire and evil as that which they avoid, at least in the state of nature. Hobbes uses these definitions as bases for explaining a variety of emotions and behaviors.
Hobbes tried to envision what society would be like in a "state of nature" -- before any civil state or rule of law. His conclusion was despiriting: life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", a "war of every man against every man".
Hobbes believed that people needed to a "social contract, an agreement by which they gave up the state of nature for an organized society" (145). It was Hobbes belief that "only a powerful government could ensure an orderly society" (145).
His political philosophy is chiefly concerned with the way in which government must be organized in order to avoid civil war. It therefore encompasses a view of the typical causes of civil war, all of which are represented in Behemoth; or, The Long Parliament (1679), his history of the English Civil Wars.