In chapter XVIII of Leviathan Hobbes claims the following about the sovereign: “Whatsoever he doth, it can be no injury to any of his Subjects; nor ought he to be by any of them accused of Injustice” (Leviathan, 144). Explain what Hobbes means by a sovereign and a subject. (Restrict your discussion to the case of a commonwealth that has been generated by institution.) Why is it impossible for the sovereign to do injury or injustice to a subject? (What does Hobbes mean by injury and by injustice?) Why is it impossible for a civil law to be unjust? (What is a civil law? How does a civil law differ from a natural law?) Can human beings in the natural condition do injury or injustice to each other? (If so, why? If not, why not?)
According to Hobbes, there is liberty in the commonwealth. What is the liberty of the sovereign in the commonwealth? What is the liberty of the subjects in the commonwealth? (Why is obeying civil law freedom?) Would Hobbes agree with Thomas Jefferson about human rights? (Does Hobbes accept that men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and that it is the function of government or the commonwealth to protect these rights?)
5 pages, double-spaced.
Begin with the beginning and avoid irrelevant introductions (“Since the dawn of philosophy the questions about human nature, equality, and liberty have preoccupied the most profound thinkers and philosophers etc., etc.”). Use quotation sparingly. (A sequence of quoted passages does not make a paper.) For references follow this example: “The Interpretation of the Lawes of Nature, in a Commonwealth, dependeth not on the books of Morall Philosophy” (Leviathan, 226).