Leviathan · Chapter
XXI: Of the Liberty of Subjects explained
Hobbes defines liberty as the absence of external impediments to motion, distinguishing it from power.
What happens
Hobbes defines liberty as the absence of external impediments to motion, distinguishing it from power. He argues that in a commonwealth, subjects retain liberty only in matters the sovereign has not regulated by law. He emphasizes that the sovereign's actions cannot be unjust to subjects because subjects are authors of all sovereign acts. Hobbes discusses specific liberties, such as the right to defend one's own life, the right to refuse self-incrimination, and the right to disobey commands that undermine the purpose of sovereignty (peace and defense). He also reconciles liberty with necessity, asserting that all voluntary actions proceed from a chain of causes ultimately dependent on God's will.
Themes in this chapter
Liberty and Obligation
Hobbes defines the liberty of subjects as the freedom to act in matters the sovereign has not regulated, while obligation arises from the covenant of submission. He argues that liberty and obligation are consistent, as subjects retain the right to disobey commands that threaten their self-preservation.
Sovereignty and Absolute Power
Hobbes asserts that the sovereign's power over life and death is absolute and cannot be limited by the subject's liberty. The sovereign's actions are authorized by every subject, so they cannot be considered unjust to the subject, only possibly to God.
Human Nature and Passions
Hobbes discusses natural timorousness and fear as consistent with liberty, using examples of soldiers fleeing battle or paying debts out of fear. He also links human will and desire to a chain of causes ultimately dependent on God, reconciling liberty with necessity.
Characters to notice
- Jephtha
Cited as an example of a sovereign who caused his daughter to be sacrificed, illustrating that a subject may be put to death by sovereign command without injustice to the subject.
- David
Mentioned for killing Uriah; Hobbes argues this was an injury to God, not to Uriah, because David was God's subject and violated the law of Nature.
- Uriah
Referenced as the innocent subject killed by David, used to illustrate the distinction between injury to a subject and sin against God.
- Aristides
Mentioned as an example of an Athenian banished by ostracism for his reputation of justice, showing the sovereign people's right to banish without accusing a crime.
Key passages
“The liberty of a subject lieth therefore only in those things which in regulating their actions, the sovereign hath pretermitted: such as is the liberty to buy and sell, and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves think fit; and the like.”
A subject's freedom is limited to areas the sovereign has not regulated, such as economic transactions, choice of residence, diet, occupation, and child-rearing.
Hobbes defines the scope of individual liberty within the commonwealth.
“For it has been already shown, that nothing the sovereign representative can do to a subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be called injustice or injury; because every subject is author of every act the sovereign doth; so that he never wanteth right to anything, otherwise than as he himself is the subject of God, and bound thereby to observe the laws of Nature.”
The sovereign cannot commit injustice against a subject because each subject has authorized all sovereign actions; the sovereign's only limitation is divine law.
Hobbes argues that sovereign power is absolute and cannot be unjust to subjects.
“If the sovereign command a man, though justly condemned, to kill, wound, or maim himself; or not to resist those that assault him; or to abstain from the use of food, air, medicine, or any other thing, without which he cannot live; yet hath that man the liberty to disobey.”
A subject may disobey a sovereign command to harm himself or to refrain from necessities of life, because the right to self-preservation cannot be transferred by covenant.
Hobbes identifies a key limit on sovereign authority based on the natural right to life.
“Liberty and necessity are consistent, as in the water that hath not only liberty, but a necessity of descending by the channel; so likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do: which, because they proceed from their will, proceed from liberty; and yet, because every act of man's will, and every desire and inclination proceedeth from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain, whose first link is in the hand of God the first of all causes, proceed from necessity.”
Human voluntary actions are both free (proceeding from will) and necessary (caused by a chain of causes originating from God), just as water freely flows downhill by necessity.
Hobbes reconciles free will with divine determinism.
