Leviathan

From Hobbes’s two chief precepts—that humankind’s state of nature is barbarism and that the covenant between subject and sovereign is virtually inviolable—he draws a number of conclusions about the rule of law in a sovereign state. While many of these conclusions may beguile or offend modern sensibilities, most of them follow logically from those two original precepts.

For example, Hobbes concludes that as long as a sovereign holds up their end of the covenant in terms of offering a measure of protection from foreign invaders, there is virtually nothing this ruler can do that is unjust by civil law. This is based on Hobbes’s theory of authorship, which dictates that subjects, having consented to the sovereign’s rule, are the authors of all the sovereign’s actions and are therefore responsible for them. To illustrate the extent to which a sovereign is permitted to commit acts that, taken in a vacuum, are plainly unjust, Hobbes cites the example of King David and Uriah from the Old Testament. Covetous of Uriah’s wife Bathsheba, David sends Uriah to the frontlines of a battlefield and orders his comrades to abandon him, effectively murdering an innocent man.

By God’s commandments, this is clearly a sin of both covetousness and murder. The prophet Nathan castigates David, and David’s child with Bathsheba dies within seven days as punishment from God. Yet Hobbes points out that neither David nor any other sovereign who murders an innocent subject can be said to have committed an injustice. He writes:

And the same holdeth also in a sovereign prince that putteth to death an innocent subject. For though the action be against the law of nature, as being contrary to equity (as was the killing of Uriah by David); yet it was not an injury to Uriah, but to God (139).

By this logic, Uriah is the author of his own death for consenting to David’s rule.

Again, the logic by which a sovereign cannot be punished for breaking a civil law is sound, even if the results are often uncomfortable. After all, Hobbes contends that to put any earthly judge above the sovereign is to dilute and divide sovereignty and, by extension, violate the covenant. Yet this is complicated by Hobbes’s rather conflicted attitude toward the relationship between God and civil sovereignty. On one hand, Hobbes rejects the doctrine of the divine right of kings, stating that sovereignty is granted through a covenant with subjects rather than God. At the same time, he repeatedly leans on scripture to justify the obedience subjects should pay toward their monarch. Hobbes’s use of scriptural exegesis to support his arguments is much more extensive in the following section, yet even here he constructs an elaborate allegory that uses the Ten Commandments as a roadmap for practicing obedience toward one’s sovereign.

For example, he writes that subjects must be aware that absolute power is held by the sovereign and no other, which mirrors the first commandment that followers worship no other gods. Nor should subjects idolize their fellow citizens in a way that detracts from the glory of the sovereign, a rule mirroring the second commandment that followers not produce graven images or idols. Following from the third commandment against speaking the lord’s name in vain, subjects should never speak ill of the sovereign. As the fourth commandment instructs followers to keep the Sabbath holy, so too should subjects periodically read and meditate on the civil laws so that they might better obey them. Pertaining to the fifth commandment of honoring one’s mother and father, subjects should practice similar obedience toward their sovereign. Subjects should also be aware that they have no permanent right to anything the sovereign grants them, collectively or individually, including property, spouses, and the very lives of their neighbors. As such, this teaching corresponds with the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth commandments, which prohibit murder, adultery, theft, and bearing false witness. Finally, the 10th commandment, which prohibits the coveting of a neighbor’s possessions, is viewed by Hobbes as a general entreaty toward the charity and comity that is necessary for a commonwealth’s survival.

Depending on the reader, this may be a clever and even convincing extended metaphor proving that to be a good and obedient Christian is to be a good and obedient subject. Yet if Hobbes puts so much stock into the Ten Commandments, why does he find it just—under any law, civil or otherwise—for God-fearing subjects to tolerate a sovereign like David who so brazenly disobeys God’s commands? True, Hobbes grants that interpreting God’s command is a challenge for even the most learned subjects, a consequence he largely attributes to the doctrines of the Catholic Church—the flaws of which he will better detail in the following section. Yet there is little ambiguity in the Ten Commandments, at least compared to much of what’s found in scripture. Moreover, he cites among some of the most pernicious and dangerous doctrines of sedition the notion that humankind and not God is the judge of good and evil. But is not the sovereign human? Technically yes, but as shown through Hobbes’s leviathan analogy, he considers the office of the sovereign, if not the flesh-and-blood individual who holds it, to possess an inhuman amount of power.

If a reader finds fault or inconsistency in Hobbes’s scriptural justifications for absolute sovereign power, it may be useful to consider the social context of 17th-century England. For one, the average English citizen at this time was extraordinarily religious, and so while Hobbes stops short of endorsing the divine right of kings, it makes sense that he would aim to support his arguments using scripture. Moreover, despite only a handful of explicit references to the specific unrest of the 1640s, Hobbes has a clear political aim in writing Leviathan: to discourage the kind of rebellion against the sovereign monarchy that resulted in so much violence in his homeland. For that reason, the book may be viewed through at least two lenses: first as a work of philosophy and a contribution to academic thought, and second as a political pamphlet designed to change the hearts and minds of Hobbes’s fellow citizens.