{"id":3482,"date":"2026-08-11T22:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T16:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/psir\/notes\/hobbes\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T06:03:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T00:33:55","slug":"hobbes","status":"publish","type":"psir_note","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/psir\/notes\/hobbes\/","title":{"rendered":"Hobbes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"n-wrap\">\n<div class=\"n-shell\">\n<div class=\"n-crumb\"><a href=\"\/psir\/psir-notes\/\">PSIR Notes<\/a><span class=\"sep\">\u203a<\/span><a href=\"\/psir\/psir-notes\/#i-a\">I-A Political Theory and Indian Politics<\/a><span class=\"sep\">\u203a<\/span><span>Hobbes<\/span><\/div>\n<header class=\"n-head\">\n<div class=\"n-eyebrow\">Paper I \u00b7 Political Theory and Indian Politics<\/div>\n<h1 class=\"n-title\">Hobbes<\/h1>\n<div class=\"n-syl\"><b>Syllabus \u00b7 Paper I-A \u00b7 10<\/b> \u2014 Western Political Thought : Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, <span class=\"cur\">Hobbes<\/span>, Locke, John S. Mill, Marx, Gramsci, Hannah Arendt.<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"n-grid\">\n  <main class=\"n-body\"><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"thomas-hobbes-1588-1679-the-first-modern-thinker\">Thomas Hobbes (1588\u20131679) \u2014 the first modern thinker<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"n-sch\">Thomas Hobbes<\/span> stands at the opening of modern political thought. He turns theory away from divine right and Aristotelian teleology towards <span class=\"n-em\">fear<\/span>, <span class=\"n-term\">consent<\/span>, <span class=\"n-em\">law<\/span> and <span class=\"n-term\">sovereignty<\/span>. Politics begins not with the good life but with the problem of <span class=\"n-term\">violent death<\/span>. From self-preserving individuals in insecurity he builds the state \u2014 combining radical individualism with absolute sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Life &amp; works<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Born 1588 (the year the Spanish Armada was repelled); Oxford; tutor to an aristocratic family; lived through the <span class=\"n-term\">English Civil War<\/span> and the execution of Charles I; exile in France.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"n-term\">Major works:<\/span> translation of Thucydides (used to criticise Athenian democracy); <em>The Elements of Law<\/em> (1640); <em>De Cive<\/em> (1642); <em>Leviathan<\/em> (1651) \u2014 the magnum opus on human nature, state of nature, covenant, sovereignty, law, religion and liberty.<\/li>\n<li>Backdrop: Westphalia (1648), the Reformation associated with <span class=\"n-sch\">Martin Luther<\/span>, the emerging modern state system. <span class=\"n-sch\">Karl Marx<\/span> called him \u201cthe father of all of us\u201d; widely the father of modern political science.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Placing him: against Machiavelli, against Aristotle<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"n-tw\">\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Contrast<\/th>\n<th>Machiavelli<\/th>\n<th>Hobbes<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Object<\/td>\n<td>the prince<\/td>\n<td>the sovereign<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Method<\/td>\n<td>historical experience, observation<\/td>\n<td>scientific, formal, analytical<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Instrument<\/td>\n<td>arms and cruelty<\/td>\n<td>law, order, institutional power<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>Against <span class=\"n-sch\">Aristotle<\/span>: politics is about life and death, not virtue, teleology or the good life. The state exists to escape fear, conflict and death \u2014 so Hobbes is closer to Machiavelli than to Aristotle.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">First-modern-thinker contest &amp; method<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The title is contested between Machiavelli, <span class=\"n-sch\">Jean Bodin<\/span> and Hobbes. Bodin <em>defined<\/em> sovereignty but left it under divine and natural restraints; Hobbes gives the <span class=\"n-term\">first complete theory of sovereignty<\/span> \u2014 absolute, indivisible, final, and extending over religion.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"n-term\">Resolutive-compositive method:<\/span> break the whole into parts, study each, reconstruct through causes \u2014 \u201ceverything is best understood by its constitutive causes.\u201d Deductive, mathematical in style; rests on <span class=\"n-term\">psychological egoism<\/span> and ethical relativism. Influenced by Galileo, Bacon, Harvey, Newton, Kepler. <span class=\"n-sch\">John Rawls<\/span> later reads the state of nature as a classic Prisoner\u2019s Dilemma.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cWhile Bodin was standing at the gate of modernity, it was Hobbes who jumped inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>on Hobbes\u2019s completed sovereignty<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3 id=\"human-nature-power\">Human Nature &amp; Power<\/h3>\n<p>Hobbes begins with a hard view of man: not naturally moral, social or public-spirited, but <span class=\"n-term\">matter in motion<\/span>, driven by desire, fear and the search for security.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Two motions: <span class=\"n-term\">vital<\/span> (involuntary, e.g. circulation) and <span class=\"n-term\">voluntary<\/span> \/ endeavour. Sensation yields <span class=\"n-term\">appetite<\/span> (towards what aids) and <span class=\"n-term\">aversion<\/span> (from what harms). Man is a collection of appetites and aversions \u2014 a materialist, non-teleological account.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"n-term\">Self-preservation<\/span> is the deepest impulse; fear and self-interest the two deepest motives. <span class=\"n-term\">Felicity<\/span> is not moral perfection but continual success in obtaining desire \u2014 movement, not rest; acquisition, not fulfilment. Hence no Aristotelian highest good.<\/li>\n<li>Three causes of quarrel: <span class=\"n-term\">competition<\/span> (gain), <span class=\"n-term\">diffidence<\/span> (safety), <span class=\"n-term\">glory<\/span> (reputation). Power must be continually augmented or it dissipates \u2014 so struggle is permanent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cAll mankind has a general inclination towards a perpetual and restless desire for power that ceases only in death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Thomas Hobbes<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cMan is a complex of power; desire is the desire for power, pride is an illusion about power, honour is an opinion about power, life is the unrelenting exercise of power, and death is the absolute loss of power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Michael Oakeshott<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3 id=\"state-of-nature-as-state-of-war\">State of Nature as State of War<\/h3>\n<p>The <span class=\"n-term\">state of nature<\/span> is a hypothetical pre-political, pre-social condition \u2014 no civil law, no state, no common judge, no enforceable authority. Men are naturally <span class=\"n-term\">equal in vulnerability<\/span>: even the strongest can be killed by the weakest through cunning or conspiracy (<span class=\"n-sch\">Sharon Lloyd<\/span>: equality in the ability to conquer or kill). Scarcity meets unlimited desire; <span class=\"n-sch\">Tom Sorell<\/span> notes scarcity turns equality into enmity.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">From equal vulnerability to the war of all against all.<\/span> <span class=\"n-term\">Roots<\/span> (equality of vulnerability \u00b7 scarcity \u00b7 endless desire) \u2192 <span class=\"n-term\">3 Causes<\/span> (competition \u00b7 diffidence \u00b7 glory) \u2192 <span class=\"n-term\">State of War<\/span> (\u201cwar of every man against every man\u201d) \u2192 <span class=\"n-term\">Life<\/span> (solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>War is not constant fighting but a <span class=\"n-term\">known disposition<\/span> to it: \u201cthe nature of war consists not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>No morality, justice, industry, arts, letters, commerce or society; force and fraud become the cardinal virtues. Every person has a right to everything \u2014 yet no one\u2019s rights are secure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cNo arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death: and the life of man \u2014 solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Thomas Hobbes<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"n-pyq\"><span class=\"n-pyq-chip\">UPSC 2023 \u00b7 10m<\/span><span class=\"n-pyq-q\">Comment on the State of Nature as State of War (Hobbes), in 150 words.<\/span><a class=\"n-pyq-a\" href=\"\/psir\/psir-pyq\/comment-on-the-state-of-nature-as-state-of-war-hobbes-in-150-words-upsc-psir-2023-1308\/\">Answer<\/a><\/div>\n<h3 id=\"natural-right-the-laws-of-nature\">Natural Right &amp; the Laws of Nature<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"n-term\">Right of nature:<\/span> the liberty each person has to use his own power for the preservation of his own life \u2014 in the state of nature, a right to everything, even to another\u2019s life. Right indicates <span class=\"n-term\">absence of obligation<\/span>; law indicates obligation. Rights precede law. Paradox: everyone possesses rights, yet no one enjoys secure rights.<\/li>\n<li>The <span class=\"n-term\">right to self-preservation<\/span> is basic and inalienable \u2014 it survives even after the commonwealth is formed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Laws of nature<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Rational <span class=\"n-term\">articles of peace<\/span> discovered by reason; Hobbes lists nineteen. The load-bearing ones:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"n-term\">First:<\/span> seek peace and follow it. <span class=\"n-term\">Second:<\/span> lay down natural rights if others do the same. <span class=\"n-term\">Third:<\/span> honour covenants. <span class=\"n-term\">Nineteenth:<\/span> no man should be judge in his own case.<\/li>\n<li>But reason points to peace while passion pulls back to pride, partiality and revenge \u2014 so the laws are <span class=\"n-term\">ineffective without coercion<\/span>. <span class=\"n-sch\">Philip Pettit<\/span>\u2019s logic: where promises alone cannot restrain the passions, awe must finish what reason starts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cFor the laws of nature, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Thomas Hobbes<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cIt is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Thomas Hobbes<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3 id=\"covenant-commonwealth-absolute-sovereignty\">Covenant, Commonwealth &amp; Absolute Sovereignty<\/h3>\n<p>The laws of nature show the road to peace; the <span class=\"n-term\">covenant<\/span> creates an authority that can maintain it. Hobbes distinguishes a loose <span class=\"n-term\">contract<\/span> from a <span class=\"n-term\">covenant<\/span> \u2014 a durable, perpetual pledge for future action.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">A single covenant \u2014 the sovereign is its creation, not its party.<\/span> <span class=\"n-term\">All persons<\/span> (in the state of nature) \u2192 <span class=\"n-term\">Covenant<\/span> (\u201ceach with all and all with each\u201d) \u2192 <span class=\"n-term\">Sovereign created<\/span> (product &amp; beneficiary \u2014 but outside the covenant) \u2192 <span class=\"n-term\">Leviathan<\/span> (the \u201cArtificial Person\u201d of the commonwealth).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One contract founds society and state together \u2014 no separate social and political contract. <span class=\"n-sch\">William Ebenstein<\/span>: \u201cthe sovereign is not a party to the contract, but its creation.\u201d The covenant is <span class=\"n-term\">among subjects<\/span>, not between subjects and sovereign.<\/li>\n<li>Justice arises only after covenant; injustice is \u201cnot performance of a covenant.\u201d Two routes: <span class=\"n-term\">sovereignty by institution<\/span> (mutual covenant) and <span class=\"n-term\">sovereignty by acquisition<\/span> (conquest) \u2014 fear is as valid a basis of obligation as consent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cI authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on condition that you give up your right to him and authorize all his actions in like manner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Thomas Hobbes<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cCovenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Thomas Hobbes<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Theory of sovereignty \u2014 and why it must be absolute<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Sovereignty is the highest, final and effective authority: <span class=\"n-term\">absolute, indivisible, inalienable, perpetual, legally unconstrained<\/span>. The sole limit lies on the subject\u2019s side \u2014 the inalienable right of self-preservation; obligation lasts only while protection lasts. Multiple centres of power breed civil war (<span class=\"n-sch\">Robert Caponigri<\/span>: a limited sovereign is merely one more contender). Hence the hard choice \u2014 anarchy or absolutism \u2014 and \u201cto divide the power of a commonwealth is to dissolve it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Hobbes admits no middle ground<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"n-tw\">\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>ANARCHY<\/th>\n<th>ABSOLUTISM<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>unlimited natural liberty \u2192 the war of all<\/td>\n<td>one indivisible sovereign \u2192 peace &amp; security<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span class=\"n-sch\">Bodin<\/span> leaves the sovereign under divine &amp; natural law<\/td>\n<td><span class=\"n-sch\">Hobbes<\/span> relieves sovereignty of those disabilities (Sabine) \u2014 the friend of <span class=\"n-sch\">Bentham<\/span>, <span class=\"n-sch\">Austin<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"n-sch\">Quentin Skinner<\/span>: the political covenant \u201cshows that the powers of the crown have no limits at all.\u201d Hobbes secularises sovereignty and subordinates Church to state \u2014 completing internal sovereignty.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n-pyq\"><span class=\"n-pyq-chip\">UPSC 2016 \u00b7 10m<\/span><span class=\"n-pyq-q\">\u201cHow would I and my fellow human beings behave if we were to find ourselves in a state of nature, and what does this behaviour tell us about our innate predispositions?\u201d (Hobbes)<\/span><a class=\"n-pyq-a\" href=\"\/psir\/psir-pyq\/how-would-i-and-my-fellow-human-beings-behave-if-we-were-to-find-upsc-psir-2016-1301\/\">Answer<\/a><\/div>\n<h3 id=\"law-religion-liberty-political-obligation\">Law, Religion, Liberty &amp; Political Obligation<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Law &amp; religion<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Not bare command theory: law is the sovereign\u2019s command <span class=\"n-term\">after<\/span> a normative relation already made by covenant. Private judgement is surrendered; the sovereign\u2019s reason becomes <span class=\"n-term\">public reason<\/span>. Civil law is the only functioning law; natural law binds only through sovereign adoption. Hobbes stands between natural law and legal positivism.<\/li>\n<li>Religion grows from anxiety and can breed disorder \u2014 so it needs sovereign coordination. The church is \u201cnothing more than a corporation governed by the commonwealth\u201d; no profession of faith is lawful unless sanctioned by the sovereign. Even the Church falls under the state \u2014 a strong mark of his modernity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Liberty \u2014 negative, with one exception<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Liberty is the <span class=\"n-term\">absence of external impediments<\/span>; subjects are free to do what the sovereign has not forbidden \u2014 trade, property, diet, education of children, private conscience. Liberty is distinct from ability (a man without legs is unable, not unfree, to run).<\/li>\n<li>Hobbes is among the earliest advocates of <span class=\"n-term\">negative liberty<\/span>; <span class=\"n-sch\">Isaiah Berlin<\/span> later: liberty is \u201cnot being interfered with by others\u2026 the wider the area of non-interference, the wider my freedom.\u201d The exception is self-preservation: no subject is bound to kill himself or surrender self-defence; if the sovereign cannot protect life, the subject may resist.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cLiberty is where the law is silent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Thomas Hobbes<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Political obligation<\/span><\/p>\n<p>One of the strongest theories in the canon \u2014 obligation almost unlimited, resting on fear of punishment, duty to keep the bargain, the sovereign as authorised representative, and the overlap of civil and natural law. Yet it is not blind: it lasts only while protection lasts, and the right of self-preservation is inalienable. <span class=\"n-sch\">A.E. Taylor<\/span> reads it as prudential (one never truly gains by breaking peace); <span class=\"n-sch\">Howard Warrender<\/span> grounds it in a natural law that obliges \u201cantecedently to\u2026 the commands of the civil sovereign\u201d \u2014 giving obligation a divine-command structure.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n-pyq\"><span class=\"n-pyq-chip\">UPSC 2017 \u00b7 10m<\/span><span class=\"n-pyq-q\">Comment on the Hobbesian notion of Political Obligation, in 150 words.<\/span><a class=\"n-pyq-a\" href=\"\/psir\/psir-pyq\/comment-on-the-hobbesian-notion-of-political-obligation-in-150-upsc-psir-2017-1302\/\">Answer<\/a><\/div>\n<h3 id=\"individualism-absolutism-liberalism\">Individualism, Absolutism &amp; Liberalism<\/h3>\n<p>The deepest tension in Hobbes \u2014 and the resolution. He begins from the <span class=\"n-term\">individual<\/span>, not the community: a <span class=\"n-term\">methodological individualist<\/span> (society explained through separate persons\u2019 passions) and a <span class=\"n-term\">normative individualist<\/span> (the sovereign exists to preserve life). Human beings are self-interested, utilitarian, materialistic, possessive; he removes guilt from selfishness and treats it as a fact.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"n-sch\">George H. Sabine<\/span> calls him \u201cthe greatest of all individualists\u201d; <span class=\"n-sch\">C.B. Macpherson<\/span>, with <span class=\"n-sch\">Ferdinand Tonnies<\/span> and <span class=\"n-sch\">Michael Oakeshott<\/span>, recognises the individualist core \u2014 Macpherson names Hobbes, with Locke, \u201ca father of <span class=\"n-term\">possessive individualism<\/span>\u201d and an ideologue of a nascent capitalist market.<\/li>\n<li>Yet he ends in absolutism \u2014 not a contradiction but a derivation: unregulated natural liberty destroys security, so the all-powerful state is created <span class=\"n-em\">for<\/span> the individual. The retained right of self-preservation proves the individual never disappears under Leviathan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cHobbes starts as an individualist but ends as an absolutist \u2014 an individualist in his assumptions, an absolutist in his conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>C.B. Macpherson<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Hobbes &amp; liberalism; the gender question<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>His rights are narrower than later liberalism\u2019s, but he lays liberal starting points: consent, natural rights, self-preservation, negative liberty, government as <span class=\"n-term\">protection<\/span> rather than moral tutelage. <span class=\"n-sch\">Judith Shklar<\/span>\u2019s reading sees him as a founding father of liberalism.<\/li>\n<li>On women: he accepts basic equality (a mother is also a lord; female subordination forms <em>with<\/em> civil society) yet denies women political participation and upholds paternal authority in the home \u2014 equality in language, patriarchy in structure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"n-pyq\"><span class=\"n-pyq-chip\">UPSC 2022 \u00b7 15m<\/span><span class=\"n-pyq-q\">\u201cIndividualism is inherent in Hobbes\u2019 absolutist ideology.\u201d Comment.<\/span><a class=\"n-pyq-a\" href=\"\/psir\/psir-pyq\/individualism-is-inherent-in-hobbes-absolutist-ideology-comment-upsc-psir-2022-1307\/\">Answer<\/a><\/div>\n<h3 id=\"evaluation-criticism-legacy\">Evaluation, Criticism &amp; Legacy<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Defence<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"n-sch\">William Ebenstein<\/span>: <em>Leviathan<\/em> \u201cis not an apology for the Stuart monarchy nor a grammar of despotic government but the first general theory of politics in the English language.\u201d His break with divine right and teleology earns the title \u201cFather of Revolutionary Philosophy.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"n-sch\">Kenneth Minogue<\/span>: Hobbes treats politics as \u201can aspect of a universal human dilemma involving freedom and security.\u201d And the sovereign cannot reach conscience \u2014 laws are like hedges, set \u201cnot to stop travellers, but to keep them in the right way.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"n-quote\">\n<p>\u201cThe Leviathan is the greatest, perhaps the sole, masterpiece of political philosophy in the English language.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Michael Oakeshott<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"n-lab\">Criticism<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Absolute power without legal limit invites arbitrariness. <span class=\"n-sch\">C.E. Vaughan<\/span>: \u201cLeviathan is useless as a book of history and fruitless as a book of politics\u201d \u2014 \u201cpernicious and impossible,\u201d reducing \u201cthe whole herd to slavery.\u201d The state of nature is criticised as excessively pessimistic and wrongly taken as literal history.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"n-sch\">John Locke<\/span>, <span class=\"n-sch\">Rousseau<\/span> and <span class=\"n-sch\">Immanuel Kant<\/span> are major critics; <span class=\"n-sch\">Karl Popper<\/span> counts Hobbes an enemy of the open society; he has been accused of anticipating totalitarian politics \u2014 a reading Ebenstein rejects (covenantal origin, order for well-being, equality before law, the sovereign may be an assembly, no glorification of war).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"n-term\">Legacy<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The first complete modern theory of <span class=\"n-term\">sovereignty<\/span>; legitimacy shifted from divine right to covenant; the seedbed of legal positivism (<span class=\"n-sch\">Bentham<\/span>, <span class=\"n-sch\">Austin<\/span>) and of <span class=\"n-term\">realism<\/span>. <span class=\"n-sch\">Hans Morgenthau<\/span>: \u201cInternational politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power.\u201d <span class=\"n-sch\">Max Weber<\/span>\u2019s state echoes him: \u201cthe monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.\u201d He remains live wherever <span class=\"n-term\">security and liberty<\/span> collide \u2014 emergency powers, lockdowns, concentrated authority justified as peace and order.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n-next\"><a href=\"\/psir\/notes\/machiavelli\/\"><em>Previous<\/em><b>Machiavelli<\/b><\/a><a class=\"r\" href=\"\/psir\/notes\/locke\/\"><em>Next<\/em><b>Locke<\/b><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/main><\/p>\n<aside class=\"n-rail\">\n<h4>On this page<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"#thomas-hobbes-1588-1679-the-first-modern-thinker\">Thomas Hobbes (1588\u20131679) \u2014 the first modern thinker<\/a><a href=\"#human-nature-power\">Human Nature &amp; Power<\/a><a href=\"#state-of-nature-as-state-of-war\">State of Nature as State of War<\/a><a href=\"#natural-right-the-laws-of-nature\">Natural Right &amp; the Laws of Nature<\/a><a href=\"#covenant-commonwealth-absolute-sovereignty\">Covenant, Commonwealth &amp; Absolute Sovereignty<\/a><a href=\"#law-religion-liberty-political-obligation\">Law, Religion, Liberty &amp; Political Obligation<\/a><a href=\"#individualism-absolutism-liberalism\">Individualism, Absolutism &amp; Liberalism<\/a><a href=\"#evaluation-criticism-legacy\">Evaluation, Criticism &amp; Legacy<\/a><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hobbes for the UPSC PSIR optional \u2014 PSIR Notes \u203a I-A Political Theory and Indian Politics \u203a Hobbes Paper I \u00b7 Political Theory and Indian Politics Hobbes Syllabus \u00b7 Paper I-A \u00b7 10 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"fx_note_key":"I-A.10.4","fx_note_sec":"I-A","fx_note_point":"10","fx_note_desc":"Hobbes for the UPSC PSIR optional \u2014 PSIR Notes \u203a I-A Political Theory and Indian Politics \u203a Hobbes Paper I \u00b7 Political Theory and Indian Politics Hobbes Syllabus \u00b7 Paper I-A \u00b7 10 \u2014","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3482","psir_note","type-psir_note","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/psir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/psir_note\/3482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/psir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/psir_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/psir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/psir_note"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/psir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/psir_note\/3482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5153,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/psir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/psir_note\/3482\/revisions\/5153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/psir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}