Obligations In Thomas Hobbe's 'To Obeye, And To Be Obeyed'

“To Obey and To Be Obeyed”

LiHui Li

All legal systems recognize, create, vary and enforce obligations; this isn’t an accident. Obligations are central to the social role of law and explaining them is necessary to an understanding of law’s authority and, therefore, its nature; these also include a moral obligation to obey. As a matter of course, throughout the human history, the subjects of a state had obeyed the sovereign power. But how does one acquire such an obligation, and how many people have really done what is necessary to acquire it? Human beings do not necessarily have a moral obligation to obey the sovereign. As the humans cultivate and evolve from wild animals to what we are – civilized beings, we still retain some basic animal instinct. One of the most important instincts is the love of freedom. As long as this one particular instinct is still intact, there won’t be an actual moral obligation to obey the commands of the sovereign. Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, who shows support to the absolutism for the sovereign. In his book, Leviathan, he goes on to explain the reasons for the creation of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. According to Hobbes,

Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind;

The difference of present day U.S. government compared to the old government is that the federal government now has the power to enforce the people to obey its laws through the departments such as the military and the police force. David Hume in his article, Of the Original Contract, go against the social contract of Thomas Hobbes by the fact that he thinks there is no conscious agreement between the sovereign and the people that creates the society and gives legitimate authority to the state over the people. According to