The teachings and ideas of Thomas Hobbes. Abstract: Philosophical views of T

The teachings of Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, are presented in this article.

Thomas Hobbes main ideas

Philosophical ideas of Thomas Hobbes

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that the only subject of science and philosophy is finite and material objects, that is, bodies. God remains unknowable, so philosophy cannot judge him. Thus, the natural approach to worldview was limited to bodies only.

He reduced human thinking to logic and limited it to simple mathematical operations of distinction and comparison, subtraction and addition. Since the philosopher was a follower of empiricism, his logic operates only on data from experience. Thoughts arise during the movement of organs within a person. And ideas are processed through connections between material traces of movements. Connecting, dividing, and comparing transform simple ideas into complex ones.

Political teachings of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes's doctrine of the state is set out in the book "Leviathan". At first, he defended the rights of kings against rebellious subjects, emphasizing the unlimited power of supreme power. The thinker also believed that the basis of power is the will of the people. His book was banned in France.

In general, Hobbes's political teaching covered two sides - he contributed to a new liberation of political thought from religious tutelage, and the philosopher was also a theorist of the state principle, which only strengthened its dominance.

Hobbes is a supporter of the idea of state absolutism, but at the same time he was absolutely indifferent to the divine origin of royal power. To be more precise, his political theory expressed the idea of a secular state, which was not attractive to the theological defenders of royal power. The ideas of Thomas Hobbes were controversially accepted by society. Diplomas and scientific titles were taken away from his followers, and the author’s books themselves were considered forbidden.

Hobbes's political teaching was not without the formation of human societies. The thinker argued that man is not a sociable animal. He seeks peace only for personal self-preservation. And this is only possible in society. This means that a person enters into an agreement with a person for common protection and peace. The rights of people are the same everywhere, despite the different states in which they live. Power itself is limitless, above the laws, unpunished, irresponsible. And the king must be the embodiment of the people or the people themselves.

HOBBS, THOMAS(Hobbes, Thomas) (1588–1679), English philosopher and writer, best known for his treatise on the state - Leviathan. Born on April 5, 1588 in Malmesbury (Gloucestershire) prematurely, after his mother was frightened by the news of the approaching Spanish Armada. Despite this unfortunate set of circumstances (Hobbes later said that “fear and myself are twin brothers”), he lived an unusually long and fruitful life. Fame came to him as the author of philosophical treatises, but his inclination towards philosophy manifested itself when he was well over forty. Hobbes lived during one of the most significant periods in English history. He was at school at the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, was a graduate of the university, a tutor and scholar of ancient languages in the era of James I, studied philosophy in the reign of Charles I, was famous and under suspicion under Cromwell, and finally came into fashion as a historian. poet and almost an indispensable attribute of British life during the Restoration era.

Hobbes was raised by an uncle who had significant wealth and was eager to give his nephew a decent education. The child went to school at the age of four and studied Latin and Greek from the age of six. At the age of fourteen, having mastered languages so much that he could freely translate Euripides into Latin iambic, he was sent to Maudlin Hall, one of the colleges of Oxford University, where five years later he received a bachelor's degree. In 1608, Hobbes was lucky: he received a position as tutor in the family of William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire. Thus began his lifelong connection with the Cavendish family.

The funds he received thanks to his mentoring were enough to continue his academic studies. Hobbes also had the opportunity to meet influential people, he had a first-class library at his disposal, and among other things, accompanying the young Cavendish on his travels, he was able to visit France and Italy, which served as a strong stimulus for his mental development. In fact, Hobbes's intellectual biography, the only interesting aspect of his life, can be divided into periods corresponding to three travels in Europe.

His first trip to 1610 inspired him to study ancient authors, since in Europe Aristotelian philosophy, in the traditions of which he was raised, was considered outdated. Hobbes returned to England, determined to become more deeply acquainted with the thinkers of antiquity. Conversations with Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon “during wonderful walks in Gorhambury” confirmed him in this. These conversations apparently took place between 1621 and 1626, when Bacon had already retired and was busy writing treatises and various scientific research projects. Hobbes probably inherited not only Bacon's contempt for Aristotelianism, but also the belief that knowledge is power and that the purpose of science is to improve the human condition. In his autobiography, written in Latin in 1672, he writes about his studies in antiquity as the happiest period of his life. Its completion should be considered translation Stories Thucydides, published partly to warn his compatriots about the dangers of democracy, for at that time Hobbes, like Thucydides, was on the side of the “royal” power.

In 1628, during his second trip to Europe, Hobbes became passionately interested in geometry, the existence of which he learned by chance, having discovered Beginnings Euclid on a table in a certain gentleman's library. Hobbes biographer John Aubrey described this discovery: “My God,” he exclaimed (he sometimes swore when he was carried away by something), “this is impossible! And he reads the proof, which refers to the thesis. Reads the thesis. This refers him to the next thesis, which he also reads. Et sic deinceps(and so on), and finally he is convinced of the truth of the conclusion. And falls in love with geometry." Hobbes was now convinced that geometry provided a method by which his views on social order could be presented in the form of irrefutable evidence. The ills of a society on the brink of civil war will be cured if people delve into the rationale for a rational government, presented in the form of clear and consistent theses, like the proofs of a geometer.

Hobbes's third journey through continental Europe (1634–1636) added another ingredient to his system of natural and social philosophy. In Paris, he became a member of the Mersenne circle, which included R. Descartes, P. Gassendi and other representatives of the new science and philosophy, and in 1636 he made a pilgrimage to Italy to Galileo. By 1637 he was ready to develop his own philosophical system; there is an opinion that Galileo himself suggested that Hobbes extend the principles of the new natural philosophy to the sphere of human activity. Hobbes' grand idea was the generalization of the science of mechanics and the geometric deduction of human behavior from the abstract principles of the new science of motion. “For, observing that life is only the movement of members... what is the heart if not a spring? What are nerves if not the same threads, and joints - if not the same wheels that impart movement to the whole body the way the master wanted it?”

According to Hobbes, his original contribution to philosophy was his development of optics, as well as his theory of the state. A Brief Treatise on First Principles (A Short Tract on First Principles) Hobbes is a critique of Aristotle's theory of sensation and an outline of a new mechanics. After returning to England, Hobbes' thoughts turned again to politics - society was seething on the eve of the Civil War. In 1640, he released a treatise, just during the famous parliamentary session. The beginnings of law, natural and political (The Elements of Law, Natural and Political), in which he argued for the need for a single and indivisible sovereign power. This treatise was published later, in 1650, in two parts - Human nature (Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Politics) And About the body politic(De Corpore Politico, or the Elements of Law, Moral and Political). When Parliament demanded the resignation of the Earl of Strafford, Hobbes, fearing that his openly royalist views could become a threat to his life, fled to the Continent. It is characteristic that he later took pride in the fact that “he was the first of those who fled.” Treatise About citizenship (De live) appeared shortly after this, in 1642. A second edition appeared in 1647, and an English version in 1651 under the title Outlines of the philosophy of state and society (Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society). This book is the second most important in Hobbes's ideological heritage after the later Leviathan. In it he attempted to definitively define the proper tasks and boundaries of power, as well as the nature of the relationship between church and state.

Hobbes's originality lay not only in his ideas concerning optics and political theory. He dreamed of building a comprehensive theory that would begin with simple movements described by the postulates of geometry and end with generalizations about the movement of people in the sphere of political life, as if approaching and moving away from each other. Hobbes proposed the concept of “effort” in order to postulate infinitesimal movements of various kinds - especially those that occur in the environment between a person and external bodies, in the senses and inside the human body. The phenomena of sensation, imagination and sleep are the action of small bodies subject to the law of inertia; phenomena of motivation - reactions to external and internal stimuli (a common place in modern psychology). Hobbes's theory is known that the accumulation of small movements results at the macro level, in the body in the form of two main movements - attraction and aversion, which are approaching or moving away from other bodies.

Hobbes planned to write a philosophical trilogy that would provide an interpretation of the body, man and citizen. Work on this grandiose project was constantly interrupted by events on the political scene and in Hobbes' personal life. He began working on a treatise About the body shortly after the publication of the treatise About citizenship, however, he finished it only after his return to England. Treatise About the person (De Homine) appeared in 1658. When the young Prince Charles (the future Charles II) was forced to flee to Paris after defeat at the Battle of Naseby, Hobbes put aside his thoughts about physics and began to work on his masterpiece, the treatise Leviathan, or matter, form and power of the state, ecclesiastical and civil(Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil, 1651), in which he succinctly and sharply formulated his views on man and the state (leviathan - the sea monster described in the Book of Job, 40–41). He was invited to the prince as a mathematics teacher - a position that he had to leave due to a serious illness that almost brought him to the grave.

Hobbes's position in Paris became very dangerous after the death in 1648 of Mersenne, his friend and patron. Hobbes was suspected of atheism and anti-Catholicism. Charles I was executed in 1649, and until 1653, when Cromwell became Lord Protector, there was constant debate about the proper form of government. Leviathan appeared just in time, and the arguments presented in it and Hobbes’s reluctance to be in too close relations with Prince Charles allowed him to ask Cromwell for permission to return to his homeland. IN Leviathan it is proved, on the one hand, that sovereigns are authorized to rule on behalf of their subjects, and not by God's will - exactly the same as was said in parliament; on the other hand, Hobbes used social contract theory to argue that the logical outcome of a state based on social consent should be the absolute power of the sovereign. Therefore, his teaching could be used to justify any form of government, whichever prevailed at that time.

Leviathan usually considered an essay on political themes. However, the author’s views regarding the nature of the state are preceded by theses about man as a natural being and a “machine”, and end with lengthy polemical arguments about what the “true religion” should be. Almost half of the total volume Leviathan dedicated to discussing religious issues.

Hobbes's political analysis, his concepts of the "state of nature" and community were based on mechanistic psychology. Underneath the phenomena of social behavior, Hobbes believed, hidden are fundamental reactions of attraction and disgust, which turn into the desire for power and the fear of death. People, driven by fear, united into a community, renouncing the “right” of unlimited self-assertion in favor of the sovereign and authorizing him to act on their behalf. If people, out of concern for their safety, agreed to such a “social contract,” then the power of the sovereign must be absolute; otherwise, torn apart by conflicting claims, they will always be in danger of the anarchy inherent in a non-contractual state of nature.

In the realm of moral philosophy, Hobbes also developed a naturalistic theory as a consequence of his mechanistic concept of man. The rules of civilized behavior (called "natural law" in Hobbes's time), he believed, were derived from the rules of prudence, which should be accepted by all who have reason and strive to survive. Civilization is based on fear and calculated selfishness, and not on our natural sociality. By “good” we simply mean what we desire; By “evil” we mean what we strive to avoid. Being a fairly consistent thinker, Hobbes believed in determinism and believed that the act of will is simply “the last instinct in the process of deliberation, immediately adjacent to action or refusal to act.”

In legal theory, Hobbes is famous for his concept of law as the commandment of the sovereign, which was an important step in clarifying the difference between statutory law (then nascent) and common law. Hobbes was also well aware of the difference between the questions: “What is law?” and “Is the law fair?”, which people - both then and today - tend to confuse. In many respects, Hobbes anticipated the main provisions of John Austin's legal theory.

Hobbes viewed religion not as a system of truths, but as a system of laws; great place in Leviathan It takes us to prove that there is every reason, both from common sense and from Scripture, to believe that the sovereign is the best interpreter of the will of God. Hobbes consistently distinguished between knowledge and faith and believed that we cannot know anything about the attributes of God. The words in which we describe God are expressions of our love, not products of the mind. He was especially indignant when defending “true religion” from the double threat of Catholicism and Puritanism, which appealed to an authority other than that of the sovereign - to the authority of the pope or to the voice of conscience. Hobbes did not hesitate to take a mechanistic approach to the concepts of Scripture and believed that God must have a body, albeit rarefied enough to be said to exist as a substance.

Many modern philosophers emphasize the importance of the concept of language put forward by Hobbes, in which the mechanistic theory of the origin of speech was combined with nominalism in the interpretation of the meaning of general terms. Hobbes criticized the scholastic doctrine of essences, showing that this and other similar doctrines arise from the incorrect use of various classes of terms. Names can be names of bodies, names of properties, or names of names themselves. If we use names of one type instead of names of another type, we end up with absurd statements. For example, “universal” is a name to designate a class of names, not the entities supposedly called by those names; such names are called "universals" by virtue of their use, and not because they designate a special class of objects. Thus, Hobbes anticipated the ideas of many 20th century philosophers who preached the ideals of clarity and used the theory of language to criticize metaphysical teachings that populated the world with “unnecessary” entities. Hobbes also insisted that language is essential to reasoning, and that it is the faculty of reasoning (in the sense of making definitions and drawing conclusions in general terms) that distinguishes man from animals.

Returning to England at the end of 1651, Hobbes soon entered into a debate with Bishop Bramhall over the issue of free will. The result was his work Questions concerning freedom, necessity and chance (The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance, 1656). Then he found himself involved in the most humiliating dispute of his life, for in the twentieth chapter of the treatise About the body, the first part of an ambitious trilogy published in 1655, Hobbes proposed a method for calculating the squaring of a circle. This was noticed by John Wallis (1616–1703), professor of geometry, and Seth Ward, professor of astronomy. Both of them were Puritans and were among the founders of the Royal Society in London, which Hobbes never had the chance to join. The professors were irritated by Hobbes' criticism of the university education system and retaliated by pointing out his ignorance of mathematics. This was not difficult to do, since Hobbes began studying geometry at the age of forty, and Descartes had already pointed out the amateurish nature of his proofs. The scandal lasted about twenty years and often took the form of personal attacks on both sides. The works of Hobbes date back to this time. Six Lessons for Oxford Mathematics Professors (Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, 1656); D

Dialogues about physics, or about the nature of air (Dialogus Physicus, sive de Natura Aeris, 1661); Mr. Hobbes in terms of his loyalty, faith, reputation and behavior (Mr. Hobbes Considered in His Loyalty, Religion, Reputation and Manners, 1662) and other polemical works directed against Wallis, R. Boyle and other scientists united around the Royal Society.

However, Hobbes's energy, remarkable for a man of his age (at seventy he was still playing tennis), was not entirely spent on these hopeless disputes. In 1658 he published the second part of the trilogy - a treatise About the person. Then regrettable events occurred that stopped the flow of his publications. During the Restoration, despite the fact that Hobbes was presented to the court, and the king greatly appreciated his wit, he became a victim of the prejudices and fear that gripped society at that time. They were looking for a reason for God's displeasure, which was expressed in a terrible plague epidemic and a severe fire in London (in 1664–1665 and 1666, respectively), and a bill against atheism and blasphemy was discussed in parliament. A commission was created whose task was to study this subject. Leviathan. However, the case was soon closed, apparently after the intervention of Charles II.

Nevertheless, Hobbes was forbidden to publish essays on current topics, and he took up historical research. The work was completed in 1668 Hippopotamus, or the Long Parliament (Behemoth, or the Long Parliament) – history of the Civil War from the point of view of his philosophy of man and society; the work was published after the death of the thinker, not earlier than 1692. After reading Beginnings of common law England F. Bacon, which were sent to him by his friend John Aubrey (1626–1697), Hobbes wrote a work at the age of 76 Dialogues between a philosopher and a student of English common law (Dialogues between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England), published posthumously in 1681.

At the age of 84, the philosopher wrote an autobiography in poetic form in Latin, and two years later, unable to do better, he made translations Iliads(1675) and then Odyssey(1676) Homer. In 1675 he left London, moving to Chatsworth, and in 1679 he learned of his imminent inevitable death. It is said that, upon hearing of his incurable illness, Hobbes remarked: “At last I will find a loophole and get out of this world.” He amused himself by allowing his friends to prepare gravestone epitaphs for future use. Most of all he liked the words: “This is the true philosopher’s stone.” Hobbes died at Hardwick Hall (Derbyshire) on December 4, 1679.

An inscription was made on the tombstone that he was a just man and well known for his learning at home and abroad. This is true, and although there has been endless noisy debate about his views, no one has ever doubted that Hobbes was a complete person and possessed of outstanding intellect and remarkable wit.

Biographical information. Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) - English philosopher, one of the founders of modern materialism. After graduating from Oxford University (1608), he began working as a home teacher in an aristocratic family. Before the start of the first English revolution, he was a supporter of the monarchy and emigrated to France in 1640; in 1651, during the dictatorship of Cromwell, he returned to England, where he tried to ideologically justify this dictatorship. During the Restoration (under Charles II), he criticized the parliament, which had previously fought with Charles I.

Main works. “Elements of Laws, Natural and Political” (1640), Trilogy “Fundamentals of Philosophy”: “On the Body” (1655), “On Man” (1658), “On the Citizen” (1642). His most famous work is “Leviathan, or the matter, form and power of the state, ecclesiastical and civil” (1651).

Philosophical views. Attitude to science. Like Fr. Bacon, Hobbes believes that the task of science is primarily to increase man’s power over nature, “to increase the amount of life’s goods.” But unlike Fr. For Bacon, he sees the main task of a scientist in the knowledge not of nature, but of society - with the aim of preventing civil wars. Therefore, he pays special attention to the nature of man and the state.

Scientology. Hobbes - the creator of the first concept in the history of philosophy mechanical materialism. From his point of view, nature (matter) is a collection of extended material bodies that differ in size, shape, position and movement. Matter is neither created nor destroyed, it exists forever. Movement is inherent in matter itself (and we do not need any prime mover to explain it). He understood movement as mechanical, i.e. like moving bodies. From one body to another, movement is transmitted due to “shocks”.

The fundamental property of any body is to occupy some space and extend with it. But at the same time, extension should not be confused with an extended body; similarly, a body in motion and at rest is not motion or rest itself. Extension (space), movement and rest are accidents, i.e. “forms of our perception of the body”, and not a property of the bodies themselves.

Ethics. Hobbes believes that there is a single and universal "nature of man." The natural laws of this nature primarily explain all human actions. It is human nature to strive for self-preservation, satisfaction of needs and pleasures. Therefore, “good” for a person is an object of desire and attraction, “evil” is an object of disgust and hatred. Virtues and vices are those things that, when reasonably understood, can be assessed, respectively, as promoting or hindering the achievement of good.

Since civil peace is the greatest good, then civic virtues. Those who contribute to it correspond to the natural laws of morality. Thus, social laws are rooted in human nature, which is part of nature as a whole. Hence the basis of social laws follows from natural laws.

Social philosophy. The great geographical discoveries of the Renaissance allowed Europeans to discover that a significant part of the world's population lives outside the state system (in conditions of the primitive system0). This fact acutely posed the problem of the origin of the state to scientists. And the revolutions of modern times, and especially the first English revolution, significantly undermined belief in the divine origin of royal power.

Hobbes defined the state not as a divine institution, but as an “artificial body” created by people. In the history of mankind, he distinguished two main stages: pre-state (“natural state”) and state. In the natural state, people live in disunity and are in a state of war “each against all” (according to the principle “man is a wolf to man”). Considering the question of the origin of the state, Hobbes lays the foundations of the theory "social contract" became widespread during the Age of Enlightenment.

The state arose as a result of a voluntary agreement between people for the purpose of universal peace and security. At the same time, citizens themselves limited their freedom and gave up part of their rights to the sovereign and government agencies. The ruler (sovereign) is entrusted with the responsibility of protecting peace and general prosperity. The welfare of the people is the highest priority of the state; For this, the state must be centralized and unified. The best form of government is a monarchy.

The fate of the teaching.

Hobbes's ideas had a great influence on the philosophy of the Enlightenment: both on the development of materialism and on the formation of the doctrine of the state.

Hobbes's most famous work, Leviathan, or the Matter, Form and Power of the State, Ecclesiastical and Civil, was published in 1651 in London. The work was conceived by Hobbes as an apology for the absolute power of the state. The title of the book itself serves this purpose. The state is likened to the biblical monster, about which the book of Job says that there is nothing stronger in the world than it. Hobbes, in his own words, sought to “raise the authority of civil power,” to emphasize with renewed vigor the priority of the state over the church and the need to transform religion into the prerogative of state power.

If we try to characterize the internal logic of Hobbes's philosophical research, the result of which was the appearance of "Leviathan", then the following picture emerges. The problem of power, the problem of the genesis and essence of state coexistence was one of the central philosophical and sociological problems facing the leading thinkers of the 16th - 17th centuries in the era the creation of national states in Europe, strengthening their sovereignty and the formation of state institutions.

In England, during the revolution and civil war, this problem was especially acute. It is not surprising that the development of questions of philosophy and theory of state attracted Hobbes' attention. But he tried, like many other leading thinkers of that era, to explain the essence of the problem based on the principles of human nature, and the development of questions on the topic forced Hobbes to turn to the study of man.

Hobbes's theory of state follows logically from his theory of law and morality. The basis of the state lies in the reasonable desire of people for self-preservation and security. Reason does not always require compliance with laws. Fulfillment of these laws by some and failure by others leads the former directly to death, and not to self-preservation. From this it is clear that to observe natural laws one must have confidence in one's safety, and to achieve safety there is no other way than to unite a sufficient number of people for mutual protection. For the common good, people, according to Hobbes, must agree among themselves to renounce their rights to everything in the name of peace and the preservation of life and unite together to fulfill the agreement. Such an agreement or such a transfer of rights is the formation of a state.

In Leviathan, Hobbes gave a detailed definition of the state: “A state is a single person, for whose actions a great multitude of people have made themselves responsible by mutual agreement among themselves, so that that person may use the strength and means of all of them for peace and the common defense.” . From this definition follow the basic principles of the contractual theory of the state:

1. The state is a single entity. “He who bears this person is called a sovereign, and he is said to have the supreme power, and everyone else is his subject.” But this does not mean that the head of the state must necessarily be one person. Sovereign power can also belong to an “assembly of people.” But in both cases, the power of the state is single and indivisible; it brings the will of all citizens “into a single will.”

2. People who created the state through a mutual agreement not only sanction all its actions, but also recognize themselves as responsible for these actions.

3. The supreme power may use the forces and means of its subjects as it deems necessary for their peace and protection. At the same time, the supreme power does not bear any responsibility for its actions to its subjects and is not obliged to account for these actions to them.

The state has the highest possible power and it “can do whatever it pleases with impunity.” The state, according to Hobbes, is a great and powerful force, a kind of “mortal god” that reigns supreme over people and rises above them. By endowing the state with unlimited, absolute power, Hobbes significantly limited the rights of his subjects. And although people created this force to protect their lives and ensure safety, i.e. in her own interests, she acts as she sees fit and, in no way dependent on her subjects, demands from them unquestioning submission and complete obedience. At the same time, the author of “Leviathan” believes that if a large mass of people showed “wrong resistance to the supreme power,” for which each of them faces the death penalty, then they have the right to unite “for mutual assistance and protection.” Here Hobbes starts from his understanding of natural law, which allows every person to “defend himself by all possible means.”

But, likening the state to Leviathan, “who is only an artificial man, although stronger than the natural man for whose protection and protection he was created,” Hobbes emphasizes that any state organism can exist only in conditions of civil peace. Troubles are the disease of the state, and civil war is its death.

The state, identified by Hobbes with society and the people, is considered by him as a conglomerate of people with common interests and goals. He considers the unity of interests of all citizens to be an absolute, constant factor that cements the state structure and holds its organization together. At the same time, Hobbes completely ignored the class and social contradictions that manifested themselves so violently during the era of the English bourgeois revolution. The supreme power, which, in his opinion, expresses the common interests of its subjects, is portrayed as a supra-class force. Behind it, he sees neither the economic nor the political interests of any social groups.

Hobbes is an opponent of the separation of the executive from the legislative. This separation of powers is for him the only reason for the civil war that was then raging in England. State power, according to Hobbes, in order to fulfill its main purpose - ensuring peace and security for citizens - must be indivisible and sovereign. She should stand above everyone else and should not be subject to anyone's judgment or control. She must be above all laws, for all laws are established by her and only from her receive their force. Whatever its form, it is essentially limitless. In a republic, the popular assembly has the same power over its subjects as the king in a monarchical government, for otherwise anarchy will continue. The denial of absolute power comes, according to Hobbes, from ignorance of human nature and natural laws. It follows from the nature of supreme power that it cannot be destroyed by the will of the citizens. For, although it comes from their free agreement, the contracting parties have bound their will not only in relation to each other, but also in relation to the supreme power itself, therefore, without the consent of the supreme power itself, they cannot renounce their obligation.

Hobbes distinguishes three types of state: monarchy, democracy and aristocracy. The first type includes states in which supreme power belongs to one person. The second includes states in which the supreme power belongs to the assembly, where any of the citizens has the right to vote. Hobbes calls this type of state democracy. The third type includes states in which the supreme power belongs to the assembly, where not all citizens, but only a certain part of them, have the right to vote. As for other traditional forms of government (tyranny and oligarchy), Hobbes does not consider them independent types of state. Tyranny is the same as a monarchy, and an oligarchy is no different from an aristocracy.

The best form from the point of view of achieving those means for the sake of which state power exists is, according to the philosopher, monarchy. In his opinion, it is most suitable for achieving the main goal of the state - ensuring the peace and security of the people. After all, people who exercise power are also selfish, and the selfishness of one is easier to satisfy than the selfishness of many.

Although Hobbes prefers monarchy to other forms of government, all his abstract arguments are equally applicable to all other forms of government in which there is one supreme power, not limited by the legal rights of other authorities. He can only reconcile himself with parliament, but not with a system in which government power is divided between the king and parliament. Hobbes says that the English Civil War occurred because power was divided between the King, the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

The supreme authority, whether a person or an assembly of persons, is called the sovereign. The power of the sovereign in Hobbes's system is unlimited. He has the right of censorship over all expression of public opinion.

It is believed that the chief interest of the sovereign is to preserve internal peace, and that he therefore does not use the power of censorship to suppress the truth, since a doctrine contrary to peace cannot be the truth. The laws of property must be entirely subordinate to the sovereign, since in the state of nature there is no property and therefore property is created by the government, which can control its creation as it pleases.

It is conceivable that a sovereign may be despotic, but even the worst despotism is better than anarchy. Moreover, the interests of the sovereign coincide in many respects with the interests of his subjects. He is richer if they are richer, he is safer if they obey the laws, etc. Rebellion is wrong both because it usually fails and because, if it succeeds, it sets a bad example and teaches others to rebel. The Aristotelian distinction between tyranny and monarchy is rejected; “tyranny,” according to Hobbes, is simply monarchy, which the user of the word does not like.

The author gives various reasons why the government of the monarch is preferable to the government of the assembly. It is allowed that the monarch will usually follow his personal interests when they collide with the interests of the people, then the assembly can act in the same way. The monarch may have favorites, but so can every member of the assembly; therefore the total number of favorites under a monarchy should probably be less. The monarch can take advice from anyone and in secret, but the assembly can only take advice from its own members and publicly. The occasional absence of some members from the assembly may be the reason for another party to gain a majority and thus effect a change in policy. Moreover, if the assembly were to split into hostile parties, the result could be civil war. Based on all this, Hobbes concludes that monarchy is the best form of government.

Throughout Leviathan, Hobbes nowhere considers the influence of periodic elections in curbing the tendency of the assembly to sacrifice public interests for the private interests of its members. Apparently he is not really thinking about democratically elected parliaments, but about bodies like the House of Lords in England. He imagines democracy like the ancient one, which presupposes the direct participation of every citizen in the legislative and executive powers.

The participation of the people, according to Hobbes's system, is completely exhausted by the first election of the monarch. The succession to the throne should be determined by the monarch, as was the practice in the Roman Empire when rebellion did not interfere. It is accepted that the monarch will usually choose one of his children or a near relative if he has no children, but it is held that there should be no laws to prevent him from making a different choice.

Interstate relations, according to Hobbes, can only be relations of rivalry and hostility. States are military camps defending themselves from each other with soldiers and weapons. This state of states, Hobbes emphasizes, should be considered natural, “for they are not subject to any common power, and the unstable peace between them is soon broken.” It is obvious that Hobbes's views were greatly influenced by the era in which he lived. At that time, European states waged continuous and bloody wars. Despite this, there were thinkers who, under the same historical conditions, considered war not a natural, but an unnatural state of humanity.

But what are the rights of the state? The state, by virtue of transferring the rights of everyone to it, has all the rights that belong to a person in the state of nature; as we have seen, the rights of the state are unlimited. There is no higher power on earth than state power, and there is no one who could hold this power accountable for its actions, for from the moment of the existence of the state it has all, without exception, the rights of all people within it. “The only right on earth is state law, and state law is nothing more than the externally expressed will of state power. “Since in a state the only determining principle for the will of an individual person is the will of state power, it is natural that submission to this power should be unconditional. For any resistance to state power would lead a person to a natural state of “war against everyone.” Therefore, the same law that commands a person to desire peace requires absolute submission to state power. According to Hobbes, the purpose of the state is to abolish the natural state of man and establish an order in which people would be ensured security and a peaceful existence.

It is clear that while maintaining this state of security, state power must be armed with appropriate rights. These rights are as follows:

- “the sword of justice,” that is, the right to punish lawbreakers, because without this right security cannot be ensured;

- “sword of war”, that is, the right to declare war and make peace, as well as establishing the number of armed forces and funds necessary to wage war, for the safety of citizens depends on the existence of troops, the strength of the troops depends on the unity of the state, and the unity of the state - from the unity of the supreme power;

The right of the court, that is, the consideration of cases where the use of the sword is necessary, since without resolving disputes it is impossible to protect one citizen from injustice on the part of another citizen;

The right to establish property laws, because before the establishment of state power, everyone had the right to everything, which was the reason for the war against everyone, but with the establishment of the state, everything must be determined what belongs to whom;

The right to establish subordination of power, with the help of which it would be possible to carry out a balanced regulation of all functions of state power;

The right to prohibit harmful teachings that lead to disruption of peace and tranquility within the state, as well as those aimed at undermining state unity.

All other rights, according to Hobbes, are contained in the above or can be logically deduced from them.

If state power is armed with all the rights that belong to citizens in the state of nature, then it also has those responsibilities that arise from natural laws; and since the good of the people is the highest law, they are reduced to obedience to the dictates of reason, which requires the good of all people. And since this good is, first of all, peace, anyone who violates the peace thereby opposes the instructions of state power. However, it must be added that peace is a good thing because it helps to protect people’s lives; but people strive not just for life, but for a happy life. Consequently, the task of the authorities is to ensure not just life, but a happy life for citizens. But what is a happy life? Happiness, says the philosopher, consists in enjoying the various benefits of life, and to be able to enjoy all these benefits of life, the following is necessary: protection from external enemies, maintaining peace within the state, increasing well-being and wealth, and giving every citizen the right to enjoy freedom without harm to other citizens. The state power, therefore, must provide these four conditions necessary for the happiness of the citizens living in the state. And in order for state power to fulfill its duties, it must have certain rights.

Hobbes entrusts to the state power all the rights arising from its nature: he reserves to the citizens only the right to physical life, after the election of the first monarch. Even in spiritual matters he gives all power to the state. State power can establish religion and rituals. Non-believers must, however, submit to the laws of the state and perform all external religious rites. The inner world of faith and thought is not accessible to power; therefore it cannot command us to believe or not to believe. But if we were ordered, says Hobbes, in a non-Christian state, for example, “to express in language or external signs confessions contrary to Christianity, then we would have to obey the laws of the state, preserving faith in Christ in our hearts.”

What should be, according to Hobbes' theory, the relationship between the state and the church? Hobbes believes that the church is not a simple body of believers; the union of believers without legal permission does not form a church. In order for a body of believers to become a legitimate assembly, it must receive permission from the state authorities: only under this condition does it receive the right to issue decrees. Consequently, only the supreme power, by its consent, transforms meetings of individuals into a correct, legal assembly, into a church. Since a church can be formed only with the consent and assistance of state power, it is clear that a single church cannot be formed from several politically different peoples. Every nation is at the same time both church and state; the difference between church and state is only a difference in form. The same union of people is the state, since it consists simply of people, and the church, since it consists of believing people, Christians. From this relationship between church and state it follows that citizens who are obliged to unconditionally obey state authority in temporal matters are obliged to obey the church in spiritual matters. This obedience must be complete. For one cannot reason about the dogmas of faith: they are not subject to discussion, “they must be taken,” Hobbes notes very caustically, “like a doctor’s pills: whole and without chewing.”

Accordingly, according to Hobbes, religion - not as faith, but as confession - is also entirely dependent on the state. According to Hobbes, religion is a superstition recognized by the state. Hobbes considers the claim of the church to dictate its will to the state harmful, leading to anarchy and the return of society to the original state of war against everyone.

2. The main ideas of Thomas Hobbes

If we try to characterize the internal logic of Hobbes's philosophical research, the following picture emerges.

The problem of power, the problem of the genesis and essence of state coexistence was one of the central philosophical and sociological problems facing progressive thinkers of the 16th and 17th centuries during the era of the creation of national states in Europe, the strengthening of their sovereignty and the formation of state institutions. In England, during the revolution and civil war, this problem was especially acute. It is not surprising that the development of issues of moral and civil philosophy, or the philosophy of the state, primarily attracted the attention of Hobbes. The philosopher himself emphasized this in the dedication preceding the work “On the Body,” in which he defines his place among other founders of science and philosophy of modern times.

The development of these questions forced Hobbes to turn to the study of man. The English philosopher, like many other progressive thinkers of that era, who did not rise to the level of understanding the real, material causes of social development, tried to explain the essence of social life based on the principles of “Human Nature”. In contrast to Aristotle's principle, which states that man is a social being, Hobbes argues that man is not social by nature. In fact, if a person loved another only as a person, why should he not love everyone equally? In society we are not looking for friends, but for the fulfillment of our own interests.

“What do all people do, what do they consider pleasure, if not slander and arrogance? Everyone wants to play the first role and oppress others; everyone lays claim to talents and knowledge, and as many listeners in the audience as there are doctors. Everyone strives not for community with others, and to power over them, and therefore to war. War of all against all is still the law of savages, and the state of war is still a natural law in the relations between states and between rulers,” writes Hobbes. According to Hobbes, our experience, the facts of everyday life, tell us that there is distrust between people.

"When a person goes on a trip, a person takes a weapon with him and takes a large company with him; when he goes to bed, he locks the door; while staying at home, he locks his drawers. What opinion do we have of our fellow citizens, since we travel around armed , since we lock our door, about our children and about the servants, since we lock our drawers? Don’t we blame people with these actions just as I blame them with my statements?

However, Hobbes adds, none of us can blame them. The desires and passions of people are not sinful. And when men live in the state of nature, no unjust acts can exist. The concept of good and evil can take place where society and laws exist; where there are no established ones, there cannot be injustice. Justice and injustice, according to Hobbes, are not faculties of either soul or body. For if they were such, a person would own them, even being alone in the world, just as he owns perception and feeling. Justice and injustice are the qualities and properties of a person living not alone, but in society.

But what pushes people to live together in peace among themselves, contrary to their inclinations, to mutual struggle and to mutual destruction. Where to look for the rules and concepts on which human society is based?

According to Hobbes, such a rule becomes a natural law based on reason, with the help of which everyone ascribes to himself abstinence from everything that, in his opinion, may be harmful to him.

Hobbes's picture of the “state of nature” can be considered as one of the first descriptions of the emerging English bourgeois society with its division of labor, competition, the opening of new markets, and the struggle for existence. It seemed to the thinker himself that he recognized the nature of man in general, revealed a form of social existence that is natural for all times and peoples. This was a view far from historicism.

According to Hobbes, the nature of people contains not only forces that plunge individuals into the abyss of a “war of all against all.” Man also inherently possesses properties of a completely different kind; they are such as to awaken individuals to find a way out of such a disastrous state of nature. First of all, it is the fear of death and the instinct of self-preservation, which dominates other passions. Together with them comes natural reason, that is, everyone’s ability to reason sensibly about the positive and negative consequences of their actions. The instinct of self-preservation provides the first impulse to the process of overcoming the natural state, and natural reason tells people under what conditions they can carry out this process. These conditions (they are expressed by the prescriptions of natural reason) are natural laws.

“Natural law is a rule that lies not in the agreement of people among themselves, but in the agreement of man with reason; it is an indication of reason as to what we should strive for and what we should avoid for the purposes of our self-preservation.” - says Hobbes. So what are these natural laws of human society as understood by Hobbes?

The first fundamental law of nature is: Every one must seek peace by every means at his disposal, and if he cannot obtain peace, he may seek and use all the means and advantages of war. From this law follows directly the second law: Everyone must be willing to renounce his right to everything when others also desire it, since he considers this renunciation necessary for peace and self-defense. In addition to the renunciation of one's rights, there may also be (as Hobbes believes) a transfer of these rights. When two or more people transfer these rights to each other, it is called a contract. The third natural law states that people must keep their own contracts. This law contains the function of justice. Only with the transfer of rights does community life and the functioning of property begin, and only then is injustice possible in the violation of contracts. It is extremely interesting that Hobbes derives from these fundamental laws the law of Christian morality: “Do not do to others what you would not have done to you.” According to Hobbes, natural laws, being the rules of our reason, are eternal. The name "law" is not entirely appropriate for them, but since they are considered as the command of God, they are "laws."

Hobbes' theory of the State follows logically from his theory of law and morality. The basis of the state lies in the reasonable desire of people for self-preservation and security. We already know what, according to Hobbes, are the natural laws that are dictated by man by his reason. But reason does not always require compliance with these laws. For the fulfillment of these laws by some and failure by others leads the former directly to destruction, and not to self-preservation. From this it is clear that to observe natural laws one must have confidence in one's safety, and to achieve safety there is no other way than to unite a sufficient number of people for mutual protection. For the common good, people, according to Hobbes, must agree among themselves to renounce their rights to everything in the name of peace and the preservation of life and unite together to fulfill the agreement. Such an agreement or such a transfer of rights is the formation of a state. Hobbes defines the state as follows: “A state is one person or assembly, whose will, by the agreement of many men, is the law of them all, being able to employ the powers and faculties of each to secure the general peace and defense.” The person or assembly to whose will all others are subject is called the supreme power; all other citizens are called subjects.

But what are the rights of the State? The state, by virtue of transferring the rights of everyone to it, has all the rights that belong to a person in the state of nature; as we have seen, the rights of the state are unlimited. There is no higher power on earth than state power, and there is no one who could hold this power accountable for its actions, for from the moment of the existence of the state it has all, without exception, the rights of all people within it. “The only right on earth is state law, and state law is nothing more than the will of state power expressed externally.” Since in the state the only determining principle for the will of an individual person is the will of state power, it is natural that submission to this power should be unconditional. For any resistance to state power would lead a person to a natural state of “war against everyone.” Therefore, the same law that commands a person to desire peace requires absolute submission to state power.

According to Hobbes, the purpose of the state is to abolish the natural state of man and establish an order in which people would be ensured security and a peaceful existence. It is clear that while maintaining this state of security, state power must be armed with appropriate rights. These rights are as follows:

Hobbes calls the first right the “sword of justice,” that is, the right to punish lawbreakers, because without this right security cannot be ensured.

The second right is the “sword of war,” that is, the right to declare war and make peace, as well as establishing the number of armed forces and funds necessary to wage war, for the safety of citizens depends on the existence of troops, the strength of the troops depends on the unity of the state, and the unity state - from the unity of the supreme power.

The third right is the right of the court, that is, consideration of cases where the use of the sword is necessary, since without resolving disputes it is impossible to protect one citizen from injustice on the part of another citizen.

The fourth right is the right to establish property laws, because before the establishment of state power, everyone had the right to everything, which was the reason for the war against everyone, but with the establishment of the state, everything must be determined what belongs to whom.

The fifth right is the right to establish subordination to power, with the help of which it would be possible to carry out balanced regulation of all functions of state power.

The sixth right is the right to prohibit harmful teachings that lead to disruption of peace and tranquility within the state, as well as those aimed at undermining state unity.

All other rights, according to Hobbes, are contained in the above or can be logically deduced from them.

Hobbes establishes three types of government: monarchical, aristocracy and democracy; for public power may be vested in one person or in a council of many. Accordingly, the council of many people consists either of all the citizens in such a way that any of them has the right to vote and can participate, if he wishes, in the discussion of affairs, or only of a part of them."

Tyranny and oligarchy are not separate forms of government, but only other names for the same types - names that express our negative attitude towards each of these forms. The best form from the point of view of achieving those means for the sake of which state power exists is, according to the philosopher, monarchy.

If state power is armed with all the rights that belong to citizens in the state of nature, then it also has those responsibilities that arise from natural laws; These responsibilities are expressed as follows:

The good of the people is the highest law, and therefore they are reduced to obedience to the dictates of reason, which requires the good of all people. And since this good is, first of all, peace, anyone who violates the peace thereby opposes the instructions of state power. However, it must be added that peace is a good thing because it helps to protect people’s lives; but people strive not just for life, but for a happy life. Consequently, the task of the authorities is to ensure not just life, but a happy life for citizens. But what is a happy life? Happiness, says the philosopher, consists in enjoying the various benefits of life, and to be able to enjoy all these benefits of life, the following is necessary: protection from external enemies, maintaining peace within the state, increasing well-being and wealth, and giving every citizen the right to enjoy freedom without harm to other citizens. The state power, therefore, must provide these four conditions necessary for the happiness of the citizens living in the state. And in order for state power to fulfill its duties, it must have certain rights, which I spoke about earlier.

Hobbes entrusts to the state power all the rights arising from its nature: he reserves for citizens only the right to physical life. Even in spiritual matters he gives all power to the state. State power can establish religion and rituals. Non-believers must nevertheless submit to the laws of the state and perform all external religious rites. The inner world of faith and thought is not accessible to power; therefore it cannot command us to believe or not to believe. But if we were ordered, says Hobbes, in a non-Christian state, for example, “to express in language or external signs confessions contrary to Christianity, then we would have to obey the laws of the state, preserving faith in Christ in our hearts.”

Since a church can be formed only with the consent and assistance of state power, it is clear that a single church cannot be formed from several politically different peoples. Every nation is at the same time both church and state; the difference between church and state is only a difference in form. The same union of people is the state, since it consists simply of people, and the church, since it consists of believing people, Christians. From this relationship between church and state it follows that citizens who are obliged to unconditionally obey state authority in temporal matters are obliged to obey the church in spiritual matters. This obedience must be complete. For one cannot reason about the dogmas of faith: they are not subject to discussion, “they must be taken,” Hobbes notes very caustically, “like a doctor’s pills: whole and without chewing.”

Hobbes was accused of atheism by many of his opponents. Hobbes tried to prove that this accusation was unfounded. But if it would be incorrect to consider Hobbes an obvious atheist preaching atheism, then it can be rightfully argued that his teaching leads to atheism and that therefore his haters had every reason to consider his philosophy as atheistic.

What does Hobbes see as the roots of religion? The roots of religion, according to Hobbes, lie in man’s fear for his future; fear of the future encourages people to look for the causes of things and phenomena because “knowledge of them allows people to arrange the present better, both in such a way and in such a way that it serves them more for their benefit.” From here two roads lead: one leads to the recognition of the existence of a higher power, which we call God; the other is to create in the imagination a multitude of gods who should not only explain to us the cause of objects and phenomena of the world, but also help us obtain the necessary objects if they are useful to us, and avoid them if they can bring us harm. Searching for the cause of things, people come to the conclusion that there must be a final cause, which in itself does not have a cause. This last reason people call God. But this thought about the cause is only an abstract mental conclusion; people cannot have any idea about this final cause.

In most cases, ignorance of the nature of things and phenomena makes people believe that these phenomena are caused by some unknown, mysterious force. Since phenomena cause people pleasure or pain, it is clear that they want to know what kind of force is that comprehensively influences their lives, and they therefore invent all sorts of mysterious forces on which they depend. And "this fear of unseen and inexplicable things is the natural seed of what we call religion."

Gods, says Hobbes, are nothing more than the creation of our imagination, and there is no thing that has a name that is not considered by men as a god or a devil." Hobbes's main ideas can be briefly summarized as follows. Fear of the future is the root of religion. Ignorance, that is, ignorance of the causes of the phenomenon, and the tendency to see mysterious forces and unknown spirits everywhere is the main reason for religious beliefs and religious cult. Conscious deception and consolidation of ignorance among peoples, as the best way to keep them in obedience - all the activities of servants of religion come down to this.

Such views on religion directly lead to atheism, and no matter how Hobbes emphasizes that we are talking only about pagan religions, and not about revealed religions, it is obvious to everyone that he is talking about all religions. We can safely say that Hobbes comes close to understanding religion and religious cults of his time as a tool for subjugation.

We have already seen that Hobbes believes that the church must in any case be subject to state authority. Religion - not as faith, but as denomination - also entirely depends on the state. According to Hobbes, religion is a superstition recognized by the state. Hobbes considers the claim of the church to dictate its will to the state harmful, leading to anarchy and the return of society to the original state of war against everyone.

Some elements of Hobbes's teaching on natural law also had a significant influence on the development of economic thought, which found its development in England at that time. First of all, this relates to Hobbes’s doctrine of “war against all.” Hobbes paid relatively little attention to economic issues, in the strict sense of the word, in his writings. He touched on them insofar as they were related to his general political theory. But they, however, deserve comprehensive comprehension and analysis, like any other aspects of Hobbes's philosophical theory. Hobbes's economic thoughts are mainly expounded in his work Leviathan.

His economic views and statements deal mainly with questions of value and money - two central problems, philosophical problems that attracted the attention of most early economists. I will try to cite the most characteristic statements of Thomas Hobbes, written by him in his Leviathan:

“As for the abundance of substances,” writes Hobbes, “nature limits them to products, which God usually either gives to humanity free of charge, or sells for labor. To obtain them, a person needs only labor and diligence, since the abundance of things and goods depends, in addition to the grace of God, from the labor and diligence of people."

In his book “On the Citizen,” Hobbes writes: “Two things are necessary for the enrichment of citizens: labor and frugality. A third thing is also useful, namely, the natural products of the earth and sea. The fourth source is war, which sometimes increases the wealth of citizens, but more often war only reduces it. Only the first two things are necessary, for even states that do not have cultivated area can enrich themselves through well-developed trade and fishing alone."

“The value or value of a person, as well as of all other things, writes Hobbes, is his price, that is, it is as much as the benefit and useful result that can be obtained as a result of the use of his strength or his intellectual abilities, and therefore it has no of an absolute nature, and does not depend on the needs and judgment of other persons. Human labor is a commodity that, like any other thing, can be exchanged for rewards, and there were states that, possessing territory only in the amount necessary for settlement, not only preserved it. However, not the opinion of their strengths, but also increased them partly through labor expended on trade between different regions, partly by the way of selling manufactured goods from materials brought from other regions." In these sayings of Thomas Hobbes we see the labor theory of value, which received its first expression from Hobbes’ student, the no less famous philosopher Thierry. The philosopher’s statements in his work “Behemoth” are extremely interesting.

It is constructed in the form of a dialogue between two interlocutors discussing the causes of civil war and other unrest arising in the state: “In the event of rebellions arising under the pretext of oppression,” says the first interlocutor, “large capitals necessarily turn out to be on the side of the rebels; for oppression is usually caused by taxes, and the townspeople, that is, merchants engaged in the pursuit of private profit, are by nature born enemies of taxes, since their whole pride lies in enriching themselves limitlessly through the art of buying and selling."

“But they say that of all professions, this is the most useful for society, since merchants give work to poor people.

“This means,” replies the first interlocutor, “that they force poor people to sell them their labor at a price that is set by them, the merchants, so that usually these poor people could get a better living by working in a workhouse in Bradnamely, than by spinning, weaving, and other similar works performed by them, the only way in which they can help themselves a little is by their careless work, to the shame of our manufactures." We have cited only some of the most important aspects of Hobbes' economic theory that deserve reliable estimates today.

Chapter 2. What is a state? Its essence and mechanism.

1.Why does the state arise? 1.1. The state of nature and natural laws.

So, the first question that would be logical to consider can be formulated as follows - How does the state arise? What are the reasons for its occurrence?

Thomas Hobbes answers this question as follows. Due to their natural qualities, each person strives for maximum satisfaction of his needs. In the absence of a state, there are no rules that would limit the individual, and each person has the right to everything without limitation, which inevitably entails a state that Hobbes calls “a war of all against all.” After all, if every person has the right to everything, and the abundance around us is limited, then the rights of one person will inevitably collide with the same rights of another. Violence and oppression of some by others arise - this is the “war of all against all.” Each seeks to destroy the other to make room for themselves. In this state, homo homini lupus est is a wolf to man. This condition is dominated by:

· selfishness;

· thirst for power and profit;

· hostility towards each other.

Hobbes is ready to argue as much as he likes with those who claim that people are social creatures and can initially live in peace with each other, like, for example, ants and bees, which get along well without a state. The point is:

1. People constantly compete with each other, seeking rank and honor, therefore, envy and hatred arise;

2. In animals (ants, bees), the common good coincides with the good of each individual. A person whose self-pleasure consists in comparing himself with others can only enjoy what elevates him above others;

3. Not possessing intelligence, these creatures do not see or think about mistakes in managing their common affairs, and among people there are many who consider themselves wiser and strive to reform the social system, thereby introducing disorder and civil war into the state;

4. And finally, the agreement of these creatures is due to nature, and people - by agreement. Therefore, to make this agreement permanent and lasting, a common power is necessary to keep the people at bay and guide them towards the common good.

In such a situation, a person risks losing the main benefit - his own life. The very existence of humanity is under threat.

Such a detailed description of the state of nature is given by Hobbes only in order to convince people of the need for the establishment and unconditional submission of state power. Since human existence is always associated with some kind of inconvenience, but even the greatest oppression that state power can bring is nothing in comparison with the chaos that reigns in the state of nature.

Man instinctively strives to prevent constant struggle in order to preserve life. The tool for realizing these aspirations is the mind. Natural laws arise, that is, general rules found by the mind, according to which a person is forbidden to do what is detrimental to his life and what deprives him of the means to preserve it, and to neglect what he considers the best means for preserving life. Hobbes identified several such laws:

The general rule of reason is that every person should strive for peace if he can achieve it, but if he cannot achieve it, then he has the right to use any means that provide advantages in war.

Part 1 - The first natural law - peace should be sought and followed - this is the natural way to end war.

Part 2 - natural law - the right to defend oneself by all possible means. With this, Hobbes tells how to achieve peace.

The second natural law is that if other people agree, a person must agree to renounce the right to all things to the extent necessary in the interests of peace and self-defense. And be content with the same degree of freedom in relation to other people that he would allow from other people in relation to himself.

In other words, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris - what you don’t want for yourself, don’t do to others.

The natural law is justice, namely that people must fulfill the agreements they make. Justice arises only here on this basis. But these laws themselves are not enough to build a society; we need power that will force them to be observed, otherwise they are just words that cannot guarantee human security, and he defends it himself - a war of all against all.

1.2. Social contract

So Hobbes approached the creation of the state. So, a common power is needed, keeping people in fear and directed towards the common good. Such power can be established only in one way, namely, by concentrating all power and strength in one person or in an assembly of people, which, by a majority vote, could bring together all the Wills of the citizens into a single will. Without this, the wills of different people are opposite. They do not help, but hinder each other and reduce their strength to zero in front of the enemy, and without this, they wage a war for their private interests. This clearly does not contribute to the preservation of the life of each individual person.

So this concentration of power is more than agreement or unanimity - it is a real unity embodied in one person by means of an agreement made by each person with every other, in such a way as if each said to the other: “I authorize this person or this assembly of persons and I transfer to him my right to govern myself, on the condition that you transfer your right to him in the same way and authorize all his actions.”

A set of people united in this way is a state. The state is a single person, responsible for whose actions a huge number of people have made themselves responsible for their actions through a mutual agreement among themselves, so that this person can use the power and means of all of them as he deems necessary for their peace and common defense.

The bearer of this face is the sovereign - he has supreme power. The rest of the people are the subjects of the sovereign.

Thomas Hobbes calls states that arise from voluntary agreement constitutional or political states. The thinker classifies states that are born with the help of physical force as based on acquisition; He does not express any special affection towards them. And in this classification of states, Hobbes’s hostility to the English pre-revolutionary feudal-monarchical order is also visible.

Whatever varieties and forms of the state we are talking about, the sovereign power in it, according to Hobbes, is always absolute, that is, it is limitless: it is as extensive as can be imagined. The one to whom the supreme power is entrusted (transferred) is not bound either by civil law or by any of the citizens. The sovereign himself makes and repeals laws, declares war and makes peace, examines and resolves disputes, appoints officials, and so on. The prerogatives of the sovereign are indivisible and not transferable to anyone. “To divide the power of the state means to destroy it, since divided powers mutually destroy each other.” The power of the sovereign is in fact his monopoly on the life and death of his subjects; Moreover, “no matter what the supreme leader does in relation to a subject under any pretext, cannot be considered injustice or lawlessness in the proper sense.” Subjects have no rights in relation to the supreme power, and therefore it cannot rightfully be destroyed by people who agreed to establish it.

Thomas Hobbes understood that the approach he proposed to determining the extent of the powers of the sovereign and the scope of the content of absolute power could turn people away from it. He, however, assures: “There is nothing painful in absolute power, except that human institutions cannot exist without some inconveniences. And these inconveniences depend on the citizens, and not on the authorities.” Hobbes also uniquely rejects the idea that unlimited power should lead to many bad consequences. His main argument is that the absence of such power (which turns into a continuous “war of all against all”) is fraught with much worse consequences. As a theorist of political absolutism, T. Hobbes is much less concerned about the possibility of the tyrannical use of unlimited and uncontrolled state power than the unbridled conflicts of private interests and the turmoil of social anarchy they generate.

2.What is a state? Its essence and mechanism for implementing its functions. 2.1.Rights and obligations of the sovereign. Obligations and freedom of subjects.

Hobbes's writings speak of "the duties of the sovereign." All of them, according to the thinker, are contained in one position: the good of the people is the highest law. The duty of the sovereign, according to Hobbes, is to govern the people well, for the state was established not for its own sake, but for the sake of the citizens. These formulas are full of political wisdom and humanism. But within the framework of T. Hobbes’s teaching about the state, they look more like decorative inserts - beautiful-hearted and practically meaningless phrases. The fact is that, according to Hobbes, people who already exercise supreme power are not in any real dependence on the people and therefore do not bear any responsibility to them. Rulers only experience something subjective "in relation to reason, which is the natural, moral and divine law and which they must obey in everything, so far as possible." Since Hobbes does not allow the creation of appropriate social and legal institutions that would externally impose such obedience to the sovereign, it generally appears chimerical. This is completely in the spirit of the ideologists of absolutism - to entrust the concern for order in society to the apparatus, civil laws, to all the real physical power of the state, and to leave the concern for the well-being of the people to the “good will” of the rulers.

A state is established when a multitude of people agree and enter into an agreement, each with each, that for the purpose of establishing peace among them and protecting them from others, each of them will recognize as his own the actions and judgments of that person or assembly of people to whom the majority gives the right to represent everyone. From this flow all the rights and obligations of the one or those to whom the supreme power and subjects are transferred by agreement of the people:

1. Subjects cannot change the form of government;

2. Supreme power cannot be lost;

3. No one can, without violating justice, protest against the establishment of a sovereign;

4. Subjects cannot condemn the actions of the sovereign. One who is authorized by another cannot commit an unlawful act against one by whom he is authorized;

5. Any sovereign cannot be punished by his subjects. Every subject is responsible for the acts of his sovereign; therefore, in punishing a sovereign, he is punishing another for acts committed by himself;

6. The sovereign is the judge in matters of what is necessary for the peace and protection of his subjects. The right to a goal gives the right to the means to achieve the goal. He is also the judge of what doctrines should be taught to his subjects;

7. The right to prescribe rules to subjects, with the help of which everyone knows well what exactly is his property, that no one else can, without violating justice, take it away from him. These rules about property, about good and evil, legal and illegal - are civil laws;

8. The sovereign also has judicial power and the right to resolve disputes. Without this, laws are an empty phrase;

9. The right to declare war and make peace;

10. The right to choose all councilors and ministers, both civil and military. The goal justifies the means to achieve it.

These rights are indivisible, since a kingdom divided within itself cannot survive. There can be no grant of the rights of the sovereign without an express abdication of the supreme power. The power and honor of the subjects disappear in the presence of the supreme power. Since this huge sphere of competence is indivisible and inseparable from the supreme power. Supreme power is not as harmful as the absence of it, and the harm occurs when the majority has difficulty obeying the minority.

Duties of the sovereign. Ensuring the welfare of the people - all the duties of the sovereign flow from this:

1. Through education and laws. The fulfillment of this duty involves not only concern for individuals, but also the making and application of good laws;

2. It is contrary to the duty of the sovereign to renounce any of his essential rights. As well as leaving the people ignorant of their fundamentals. Since the abolition of the essential rights of the supreme power would entail the disintegration of the state and the return of each person to the state and disasters of war of all against all, it is the duty of the sovereign to retain these rights in full;

3. Uniform taxation. Equal justice also includes equal taxation, the equality of which does not depend on the equality of wealth, but on the equality of the debt of every person to the state for his protection;

4. State charity. If many people, due to inevitable accidents, have become unable to support themselves by their labor, then they should not be left to private charity, but the most necessary things for existence should be provided for them by the laws of the state;

5. Good laws - that is, those that are necessary for the good of the people and at the same time generally understandable;

6. Punishment;

7. Awards;

8. Appointment of commanders.

Freedom of subjects. Freedom means the absence of resistance (external obstacles to movement). A free person, according to Thomas Hobbes, is one who is not prevented from doing what he wants. Civil laws are artificial bonds that limit freedom. The freedom of subjects consists only in those things which the sovereign, when regulating their actions, passed over in silence. Different states have different degrees of freedom. The freedom of the subject does not abolish or limit the power of the sovereign over the life and death of his subjects. The freedom that writers praise is the freedom of sovereigns - in the international arena - a war of all against all, and freedom is the same in both democracy and monarchy.

In the act of submission lies both our obligation and our freedom.

Subjects have the freedom to defend their lives even from those who encroach on them on a legal basis (some rights cannot be alienated by agreement);

They are not required to harm themselves;

Even in war, if they have not taken upon themselves a voluntary obligation to fight.

But no one has the freedom to resist the state in order to protect another person, guilty or innocent. The greatest freedom of subjects arises from the silence of the law. If a subject has some dispute with the sovereign and this is based on a previously issued law, then the subject is not free to seek his right, as if it were a lawsuit with another subject. The duties of subjects also include:

· understand the futility of changing the form of government;

· not to give preference to any popular person as opposed to the sovereign;

· have time to study one's duty towards the sovereign

In all political affairs the power of representatives is limited, and its boundaries are prescribed by the supreme authority.

2.2.Civil servants.

“Who is a public servant?” - Hobbes asks himself. And he himself answers that a civil servant is one to whom the sovereign entrusts a certain range of affairs with the authority to represent the face of the state in it. Public servants are not those who serve the bearer of supreme power in his natural capacity, but only those who serve the sovereign for the management of public affairs. Hobbes identifies several types of servants:

1. Servants for general administration. Some of the civil servants are entrusted with the general administration of either the entire state or only part of it. These servants are protectors, regents, governors;

2. Servants for special management, such as household management. That is, they are entrusted with a special range of affairs within the country or abroad. They are entrusted with the management of the state economy, the collection and receipt of taxes, duties, land taxes and quitrents, all other state revenues, as well as control over these items;

3. Ministers for the instruction of the people. Servants of the sovereignty are also those who have authority to teach or to enable others to teach men their duties to the sovereignty;

4. Servants for the administration of justice;

5. Ministers for Execution - These ministers are engaged in executing judicial decisions, promulgating the commands of the sovereign, suppressing riots, arresting and imprisoning criminals, and performing other acts intended to preserve the peace.

2.3. Civil laws.

Civil laws are laws that people are obliged to observe, not as members of a particular state, but as members of the state in general. In general, a law is an order from a person addressed to someone who previously pledged to obey that person. Civil law for every subject is those rules that the state orally, in writing or with the help of other sufficiently clear signs of its will, prescribes to him, so that he uses them to distinguish between right and wrong, that is, between what agrees and what does not agree with the rule.

1. The sovereign is the legislator. Only he can repeal the law;

2. The sovereign himself is not subject to civil laws - for he is free who can become free at will;

3. A practice receives the force of law, not from the length of time, but from the consent of the sovereign;

4. Natural and civil laws coincide in content. For natural laws, which consist in impartiality, justice, and so on, in the state of nature are not laws in the proper sense of the word, but only qualities that dispose people to peace and obedience. Only after the establishment of the state, and not earlier, do they truly become laws, for then they are orders of the state. Civil and natural law are not different types, but different parts of the law, of which one (the written part) is called civil, the other (unwritten) - natural;

5. The laws of a province are not created by custom, but by the power of the sovereign. If the sovereign of one state has conquered a people who previously lived under the authority of written laws, and continues to govern according to the same laws after the conquest, then these laws are the civil laws of the conqueror, and not the conquered state;

6. The law is established not by juris prudentia, or the wisdom of subordinate ideas, but by reason and the command of artificial man - the state;

7. The law is the law only for those who are able to understand it;

8. All unwritten laws are natural laws. Natural laws do not require any publication or proclamation - they are contained in one universally recognized proclamation: do not do to another what you would consider unreasonable on the part of another in relation to yourself;

9. With the exception of natural laws, all other laws have as their essential feature that they are brought to the attention of every person who will obey them either orally, or in writing, or through some other act knowingly emanating from the supreme authority. Nothing is law when the lawgiver is unknown;

10. The interpretation of the law depends on the supreme authority, for otherwise a clever interpreter could give the law a meaning opposite to that put into the law by the sovereign, and thus the interpreter would be the legislator. All laws require interpretation;

And weapons. This state of states, Hobbes emphasizes, should be considered natural, “for they are not subject to any common power, and the unstable peace between them is soon broken.” It is obvious that Hobbes's views were greatly influenced by the era in which he lived. At that time, European states fought continuous and bloody wars. Despite this, there were thinkers who, in the same...

2. logical-theoretical, 3. structural-functional. These methods served as the methodology for the study of this topic. Chapter 2. The main points of Hobbes's political concept 2.1 The origin of the state Hobbes's political theory was directed against scholastic feudal-religious views on the state and law. Ideologically, it is focused on...