Security can swallow liberty
If protection justifies very extensive sovereign power, subjects may have too little defence against repression by the authority itself.
Early modern philosophy · 1588–1679
Hobbes
Hobbes grounds political authority in the need to escape insecurity, asking what power must exist before promises and cooperation can reliably hold.
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher who wrote during civil war and intense conflict over sovereignty. His work joined a materialist account of human beings to a systematic theory of political obligation, law and the authority needed to secure peace.
JusticeAgencyMind
The question he enters
The question Hobbes enters
What could make a promise secure when no common authority exists to enforce it?
The central move
Build authority from the problem of insecurity
Hobbes imagines people without a common power able to enforce rules. Even agents who want peace face mistrust, competition and the danger of pre-emption. Rational individuals therefore author a sovereign with enough power to keep covenants and provide the conditions of social life.
Key ideas
Terms that carry the argument.
- State of nature
- A condition without a common political authority, used to expose the insecurity produced by roughly equal vulnerability.
- Right of nature
- Each person's liberty to use their power for self-preservation when no binding civil law exists.
- Laws of nature
- Rational precepts favouring peace, including seeking agreement and keeping covenants when others will do so.
- Sovereignty
- The undivided public power authorised to make and enforce laws so that cooperation is stable.
Where the view strains
Objections and limits.
The starting psychology is contested
Hobbes's model may understate trust, solidarity and forms of cooperation that do not depend on coercive enforcement.
Sources and routes
Read the work. Follow the argument.
Primary texts
Where to meet the position.
- Project GutenbergLeviathanWebA systematic account of human motivation, covenant, sovereignty, law and religion.Original English text in the Project Gutenberg catalogue edition. · Readable online with downloadable ebook formats from the catalogue page. Checked Aug 2026.
- Cambridge AspireDe CiveWebAn earlier presentation of political obligation, civil power and the conditions of peace.Published as Hobbes: On the Citizen, edited by Richard Tuck and translated by Michael Silverthorne, Cambridge University Press, 1998; DOI 10.1017/CBO9780511808173. · Official publisher record for the complete modern English edition with institutional access and purchase routes. Checked Aug 2026.
- RoutledgeThe Elements of LawWebEarly arguments about human nature, bodies politic and sovereign authority.The Elements of Law Natural and Politic, edited by Ferdinand Tönnies; Routledge edition based on the 1889 critical edition, 272 pages, ISBN 9780367142148. · Official publisher edition record with description, contents and purchase or ebook access routes. Checked Aug 2026.
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