Thomas Hobbes

What ideas do you most want to be remembered for?

I would wish readers to remember that peace is something people must establish, not something they can simply assume. Human beings are sufficiently equal in their power to threaten one another that even the strongest cannot count on safety. Yet the same people who fear death can also reason about ways to live more securely. My account joins these thoughts: desire and fear can bring conflict, while reason points toward agreement. The difficulty is explaining how agreements can endure when each person has reason to distrust the others.

Why should readers keep reading your work?

I would ask readers to continue because the questions are worth examining even where my answers trouble them. What makes a promise dependable? Why do people obey? How much of ordinary life rests upon confidence that others will not attack us? I begin with familiar things, such as desire, fear and the wish for comfortable living, and follow their consequences into public life. You need not agree with every conclusion to consider the central tension: people need one another, yet their distrust can threaten the security they all seek.

What one piece of advice would you give a reader seeking peace?

I would suggest beginning with the recognition that peace requires more than wishing others would behave well. In my account, people seek safety, but fear and distrust can lead them into conflict even when they would prefer a comfortable life. Reason helps us see the benefit of mutual agreement. The important thought is that peace must be shared: one person's willingness cannot by itself remove everyone else's fear. I would therefore direct attention to what makes cooperation dependable, rather than treating good intentions as sufficient to sustain it.

What do you see as your most important contribution to political thought?

I see my principal contribution as explaining political order through the needs and agreements of human beings. I begin not with a ruler already in place, but with people vulnerable to one another and seeking security. Their agreement establishes a common authority to make peaceful life possible. I concluded that sovereign power must be absolute and undivided; this was a view of my time. The lasting question in that argument concerns the connection between protection and obedience, and the freedom people retain where the law is silent.

Why does earning a comfortable living depend on peace?

I connect comfortable living with peace because work depends upon some confidence in what will follow. Where people continually fear attack, their attention turns toward protection rather than the fruits of their labour. The condition I describe without a common power is not uninterrupted fighting, but an enduring readiness for conflict. That uncertainty makes settled activity difficult. The wish to gain comfort through work therefore inclines people toward peace. Desire supplies a reason to seek it, while reason helps identify terms upon which people might agree.

How can justice be secure when people cannot trust one another?

I argue that agreements need more than mutual promises when people have reason to distrust one another. A common power must make their observance secure, so that keeping an agreement does not leave one person exposed to another's breach. In my own time, I supported absolute, undivided sovereign authority, including authority over outward religion. That was a view of the time. The underlying difficulty I examined is how justice can be dependable when private confidence fails: obligations require a public framework in which people can expect agreements to hold.

Why should I patiently seek agreement rather than force my own way?

I would begin with what each person stands to lose when everyone insists upon having their own way. People are sufficiently equal in their power to harm one another that force offers no lasting assurance of success. Reason therefore points toward terms of peace that people can accept together. Seeking agreement is not simply yielding to another person's desire; it is a way of escaping mutual danger. Yet I also hold that patience and promises alone cannot secure peace: an agreement needs assurance that others will keep it.

Why does living without security make people anxious?

I understand anxiety in such a condition as a response to continuing danger. Without a common power, nobody can be certain that another person will leave them unharmed or keep an agreement. Even someone weaker may become dangerous through planning or by joining with others. The trouble is not merely the fighting that happens, but the possibility of fighting that remains. I therefore describe insecurity as a condition of war even when blows are not being struck. Fear persists because there is no dependable assurance of safety.

Why does a lasting peace require more than a pause in fighting?

I distinguish peace from the mere absence of fighting at a particular moment. People may put down their weapons while still expecting an attack, distrusting promises, and preparing to defend themselves. That continuing readiness for conflict belongs to what I call a condition of war. Lasting peace requires a more dependable change: people must have reason to expect that agreements will be kept. In my account, reason discovers terms on which they can live together, but those terms need effective enforcement before mutual suspicion can give way to security.

Why can equal hopes of success make people rivals?

I argue that people are equal enough for each to hope they can obtain what they want. This does not mean that every person has precisely the same strength or understanding. It means that differences do not give anyone complete safety from others. When two people desire something they cannot both enjoy, each may believe success is within reach. Their equal hopes can then turn them into rivals. Desire supplies the object of conflict, while distrust makes each uncertain whether the other will try to prevail by force.

How can people change a condition of distrust into a peaceful society?

I begin with two things people already possess: a wish to escape violent death and the ability to reason about peace. They can agree with one another to establish a common authority that makes their agreements dependable. In Leviathan, I argued for undivided sovereign power in a ruler or assembly. That defense of absolute authority was a view of my time, shaped by civil war. The underlying problem I examined is how mutual promises can become secure enough for people to live together without continually expecting an attack.

Can fear lead people toward peace rather than violence?

I do not regard fear as something that leads in only one direction. When people distrust one another and lack protection, fear can help sustain conflict. Yet fear of death can also make them willing to seek peace. Alongside that fear stand the desire for comfortable living and the hope of obtaining it through work. Reason helps people see terms on which these wishes might be fulfilled together. Thus the same concern for survival that makes a person wary can also give them a strong reason to reach agreement.

What freedom do I keep when I live under a sovereign?

I hold that living under a sovereign does not remove every freedom. Where the law says nothing, subjects remain at liberty to act. I also maintain that people retain the right to defend their own lives; their agreement to establish authority does not erase that concern for self-preservation. My defense of absolute, undivided sovereign power was a view of my time, shaped by civil war. Within that account, I distinguish the authority needed to maintain public peace from the freedom left to subjects where no law restrains them.

Why do agreements fail when no power can enforce them?

I see the difficulty in the risk each person takes by trusting another. Someone may judge peace desirable and still fear that keeping a promise will leave them exposed if the other person breaks theirs. Reason can show why agreement benefits both, but it cannot by itself remove that danger. Without a power able to enforce the terms, suspicion remains, and each has reason to prepare for the other's failure. An agreement becomes dependable only when people have more than another person's present willingness to rely upon.

What does Leviathan mean by calling the commonwealth an artificial person?

By an artificial person, I meant a commonwealth that people make together, rather than a body supplied by nature. Many separate people covenant with one another and give authority to a ruler or assembly. Their gathered strength becomes a public power able to uphold agreements and preserve peace. The image connects my account of the human body with my account of government. It also makes an important point: social order is not simply given to us. People establish it, and it remains vulnerable to conflict.

How does Leviathan distinguish the right of nature from a law of nature?

I distinguish a right from a law rather than treating them as the same thing. In considering nature, I connect right with a person's liberty to preserve their life, while reason identifies laws directing people toward peace. The distinction matters because having freedom to act is not the same as being directed toward a course of conduct. My argument then asks how people can reach agreements that protect them. Reason can show the way toward peace, but agreements still need a common power behind them.

Why does Leviathan compare the state of war to bad weather?

I used the comparison with bad weather to explain that war does not require fighting at every moment. Bad weather is not only the instant when rain falls; likewise, a condition of war includes the continuing likelihood of violence. Where there is no common power, people cannot securely trust that others will remain peaceful. A quiet interval therefore does not settle the matter. I wanted readers to see the difference between an absence of blows and a dependable peace in which people need not continually fear attack.

What does Leviathan say about the sovereign's control of public religion?

I argued that the sovereign should settle public matters, including the outward form of religion, as part of an undivided authority. This was a view of my time, formed in the setting of the English Civil War, and should be understood as such. My argument treated disputes over king, Parliament, and church as part of the problem of a commonwealth divided against itself. Religion therefore entered my account not only as belief, but as a matter bearing upon public authority and the maintenance of peace.

Where were you living when you wrote Leviathan?

I was living in exile in France when I wrote Leviathan, which appeared in 1651. England was torn by civil war, and the struggle over the authority of king, Parliament, and church gave urgency to my inquiry. I wanted to understand what holds a society together when fear and distrust threaten to pull it apart. The book therefore begins with human beings and their passions, then asks how their agreements can establish a common power capable of maintaining peace.

What costs of political obedience does Leviathan ask readers to consider?

I ask readers to consider what people surrender when they authorize a common power, as well as the security they seek in doing so. My defence of absolute, undivided sovereignty was a view of my time, shaped by civil war. It placed the settlement of public matters in the sovereign's hands. Yet my account also preserves liberty where the law is silent and the right to defend one's life. The question running through the book is what obedience gains in protection, and what freedom it leaves.

How did your relationship with the Cavendish family shape your opportunities?

My work as tutor and secretary to members of the Cavendish family gave me opportunities beyond those of study alone. Through that connection I travelled across Europe and came into contact with scientific and philosophical discussion. My interests ranged from classical literature and history to geometry, optics, and politics, so these opportunities mattered greatly to my intellectual life. I would describe the relationship as an important opening: it joined my work in a household to a much wider world of learning and debate.

Why did geometry appeal to you as a model for political reasoning?

Geometry appealed to me because it proceeds from clear definitions toward conclusions that can be followed step by step. I wanted political reasoning to have something of that firmness. Rather than begin with the claims of kings, I began with human bodies, senses, desires, and fears, then considered how people might form a commonwealth. My aim was to make the connections plain: how insecurity arises, why peace is desirable, and why agreement alone may fail. Geometry offered a model of orderly argument for these difficult questions.

How can matter in motion explain our senses?

I begin with the human body as part of the material world, not as something outside it. When an object presses upon our eyes, ears, or skin, sense arises through motion. On this account, seeing and hearing belong to the workings of bodies, rather than requiring an entirely separate kind of explanation. I carry this approach into my account of the passions as well. Desire and aversion are movements toward or away from things, connecting what we sense with what we seek or avoid.

Why do you deny that anything is good or evil in itself?

I deny that goodness or evil belongs to a thing entirely apart from the person who desires or avoids it. What we call good is connected with our appetite for something; what we call evil is connected with our aversion. My starting point is therefore the movement of human passions, not a quality standing independently in every object. This also helps explain disagreement. People can seek different things or fear different harms, so their judgments do not automatically agree merely because they use the same words.

How can the weakest person threaten the strongest?

Bodily strength does not place anyone beyond danger. A weaker person may threaten a stronger one by secret plotting or by joining with others. When I speak of natural equality, I do not mean that every person has exactly the same strength or skill. I mean that the differences are not enough to make anyone secure against everyone else. That shared vulnerability matters greatly: where there is no common power, even the strongest has reason to fear, and fear can make people distrust one another.

Why must sovereign authority remain undivided?

I argued that sovereign authority must remain undivided because a common power must be able to settle public disputes and make agreements dependable. If competing authorities each claim the final decision, the uncertainty that government is meant to overcome can return. My defense of absolute sovereignty, including control over the outward form of religion, was a view of my time, shaped by the English Civil War. The underlying question in my argument was how people could establish a lasting peace when fear and distrust pulled them apart.

Do people make their covenant with the sovereign or with one another?

In my account, people make their covenant with one another, rather than making it with the sovereign. They agree among themselves to give authority to a ruler or an assembly. That distinction matters because the commonwealth arises from their mutual agreement about how they will be governed. The sovereign provides the common power needed to make their agreements dependable. I begin with people facing insecurity and distrust, and then ask how their agreement can establish an authority capable of maintaining peace among them.

Why can people never give up the right to defend their own lives?

The wish to preserve one's life is central to my account of why people seek peace at all. Fear of death helps lead them out of a condition of insecurity and toward a commonwealth. I therefore hold that they retain the right to defend their own lives, even under government. This is distinct from the freedom they enjoy where the law is silent. The agreement that establishes political authority does not remove that most basic concern for survival from the people who make it.