Contractarian Theory In Thomas Hobbes Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan, his most influential work, in 1651, towards the end of the English Civil War, which opposed the Monarchy and the Parliament. In it, he exposed the idea of an absolute Sovereign, as a way to prevent such events from repeating. I think that the best way to understand his contractarian theory is to discompose the question above in two different and logically related questions:

1) Why did Hobbes believe in the necessity for a Sovereign and what did he intend for such a word?

2) Why should the Sovereign be absolute and what are his prerogatives?

In order to answer these questions, it is essential to understand some basic concepts of his political theory, like the State of Nature and the Social Contract. I will try to

For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known. So the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.” (Leviathan, 1651, p. 77)

The State of Nature is not to be interpreted as a historical condition, but as a hypothetical state of affairs, which could occur if the coercive power of government extinguished. In this sense, it may be considered an argument in favour of the existence of the State (Rawls, 2008). Hobbes thinks that the State of Nature is incontrovertibly a state of war. To explain this point he argues that every man has an equal ability to obtain the resources necessary to satisfy his desires. Starting from this egalitarian assumption, he proceeds through a progressive reasoning structured as follows:

• All men are equal, at least in the capability of killing one another. In a state of nature without government, even the weakest man can kill the strongest and steal his means of living.

• The resources, necessary to satisfy any specific desire, are