Thomas Hobbes on the rights and duties of the sovereign

MPSE-003: WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT (From Plato to Marx)

Course Code: MPSE-003

Assignment Code: ASST/MPSE-003//2016-17

Total Marks: 100

Q. 6. (a) Thomas Hobbes on the rights and duties of the sovereign.

Ans. Rights and Duties of the Sovereign: Hobbes has definite ideas about the proper nature, scope and exercise of sovereignty. Much that he says is cogent, and much of it can reduce the worries we might have about living under this drastically authoritarian sounding regime. Many commentators have stressed, for example, the importance Hobbes places upon the rule of law. His claim that much of our freedom, in civil society, “depends on the silence of the laws” is often quoted (Leviathan, xxi.18). In addition, Hobbes makes many points that are obviously aimed at contemporary debates about the rights of King and Parliament–especially about the sovereign’s rights as regards taxation and the seizure of property, and about the proper relation between religion and politics. Some of these points continue to be relevant, others are obviously anachronistic: evidently Hobbes could not have imagined the modern state, with its vast bureaucracies, massive welfare provision and complicated interfaces with society. Nor could he have foreseen how incredibly powerful the state might become, meaning that “sovereigns” such as Hitler or Stalin might starve, brutalize and kill their subjects, to such an extent that the state of nature looks clearly preferable.

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