Hobbesian resistance and the law of nature
Abstract
Hobbes’s account of the individual’s right to resist sovereign authority is nuanced. His allowance for cases where a sovereign’s command falls outside the terms of the social contract, despite recent reappraisals, cannot rescue him from the accusation that his system is contradictory. It has been suggested that some Hobbesian rights can be transferred whilst others are quarantined, or that it is the institution of law, rather than the particular commands of the sovereign, which Hobbes ultimately upholds. By reconsidering Hobbes’s concept of sovereignty alongside his theory of natural law, I argue that his system remains in tension with itself. Hobbes’s prioritisation of sovereign judgement over that of the individual, when combined with the principles he retains from the natural law tradition, renders his theory of resistance irreconcilable with his position on sovereignty.
Citation
Mansell , S 2023 , ' Hobbesian resistance and the law of nature ' , Intellectual History Review , vol. Latest Articles . https://doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2023.2170685
Publication
Intellectual History Review
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1749-6977Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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