Leviathan (Hobbes book): Difference between revisions

'''''Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil''''', commonly referred to as '''''Leviathan''''', is a book written by [[Thomas Hobbes]] (1588–1679) and published in 1651 (revised [[Latin]] edition 1668).<ref name="Newey"/><ref>Hilary Brown, [https://books.google.com/books?id=aVAMccAgim8C&dq= ''Luise Gottsched the Translator''], Camden House, 2012, p. 54.</ref><ref>It's in this edition that Hobbes coined the expression {{lang|la|auctoritas non veritas facit legem}}, which means "authority, not truth, makes law": book 2, chapter 26, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=IY8o8On4gJ4C&pg=RA1-PA133&dq=%22Authoritas+non+Veritas+facit+Le+m%22 133].</ref> Its name derives from the biblical [[Leviathan]]. The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of [[Social contract|social contract theory]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Hobbes's Moral and Political Philosophy |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/ |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |year=2018 |access-date=11 March 2009 |archive-date=29 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200329213632/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/ |url-status=live }} (Retrieved 11 March 2009)</ref> Written during the [[English Civil War]] (1642–1651), it argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute [[Sovereignty|sovereign]]. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a [[state of nature]] ("[[bellum omnium contra omnes|the war of all against all]]") could be avoided only by a strong, undivided government.

The title of Hobbes's treatise alludes to the [[Leviathan]] mentioned in the [[Book of Job]]. In contrast to the simply informative titles usually given to works of [[early modern]] [[political philosophy]], such as [[John Locke]]'s ''[[Two Treatises of Government]]'' or Hobbes's own earlier work, ''The Elements of Law'', Hobbes selected a poetic name for this more provocative treatise. [[lexicography|Lexicographers]] in the early modern period supposed that the term "[[leviathan]]" was associated with the [[Hebrew]] words {{transl|he|lavah}}, meaning "to couple, connect, or join", and {{transl|he|thannin}}, believed to mean "a serpent or dragon".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mintz|first=Samuel|date=1989|title=Leviathan as Metaphor|journal=Hobbes Studies|volume=2|issue=1 |pages=3–9|doi=10.1163/187502589X00023}}</ref> In the [[Westminster Assembly]]'s annotations on the Bible, the interpreters thought that the creature was named using these root words "because by his bignesse he seemes not one single creature, but a coupling of divers together; or because his scales are closed, or straitly compacted together."<ref>{{cite book |last=Downame |first=John |date=1645 |title=Annotations upon all the books of the Old and New Testament wherein the text is explained, doubts resolved, Scriptures parallelled and various readings observed |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A36467.0001.001 |location=London |publisher=John Legatt and John Raworth |page=sig. a3r |author-link=John Downame |access-date=20 February 2019 |archive-date=24 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224152253/https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A36467.0001.001 |url-status=live }}</ref> Samuel Mintz suggests that these connotations lend themselves to Hobbes's understanding of political force since both "Leviathan and Hobbes's sovereign are unities compacted out of separate individuals; they are omnipotent; they cannot be destroyed or divided; they inspire fear in men; they do not make pacts with men; theirs is the dominion of power" on pain of death.<ref>Mintz, p. 5</ref>

Hobbes also touched upon the sovereign's ability to tax in ''Leviathan'', although he is not as widely cited for his economic theories as he is for his political theories.<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Aaron Levy |date=October 1954 |title=Economic Views of Thomas Hobbes |journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]] |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=589–595 |doi=10.2307/2707677 |jstor=2707677 }}</ref> Hobbes believed that equal justice includes the equal imposition of taxes. The equality of taxes doesn't depend on equality of wealth, but on the equality of the debt that every man owes to the commonwealth for his defence and the maintenance of the [[rule of law]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/hobbes2.pdf |title=Leviathan: Part II. Commonwealth; Chapters 17–31 |publisher=Early Modern Texts |access-date=13 January 2008 |archive-date=11 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200711054219/http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/hobbes2.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Hobbes also championed public support for those unable to maintain themselves by labour, which would presumably be funded by taxation. He advocated public encouragement of works of Navigation etc. to usefully employ the poor who could work.