What are the key features of sovereignty for Hobbes?

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What are the key features of sovereignty for Hobbes, and how do they follow from his argument concerning the state of nature?

Thomas Hobbes gives voice to the need of a higher authority by explaining what life would be with the absence of such an authority. He illuminates the picture of this state with no higher authority in big detail, showing the problems people would face in it. In order to get out of this state of insecurity, he suggests that people should give up their natural rights to a higher power and therefore this higher power will provide security for them, both internal and external. But in order this model to work he suggests that sovereignty should be absolute, therefore the authority gives all the rules and principle by which the organization of life will be made. He is the one which possesses the power. With this power he can protect its people from outside dangers but it also can punish the individuals who do not obey its rules. The sovereign must be also the higher authority in its territory because a conflicts between it and other powers cannot be resolved. Hobbes concept of sovereignty comes as an answer to the problem of insecurity and violence in the state of nature. By the mutual agreement between the people to give their rights and to erect this higher power they gain security over their lives and property. The sovereign power which is made as Hobbes argues is above the law and nothing should stop it to conduct its policies.  

        In order to demonstrate the necessity for a sovereign power, Hobbes asks himself how life would be organized if there wasn’t a higher authority to govern the people. The answer for Hobbes is that people would be in the state of nature in which there is no order and a constant war between individuals in order to gain power over the other. He argues that people are driven by their passions and the will to satisfy their own desires and thus this will lead to this constant conflict and threat for the survival of each individual. As he argues, the life in this constant battle between individuals in the state of nature is “nasty, brutish, and short” This is because as Hobbes says there are three main causes of quarrel: competition, diffidence, and glory. On the other hand these causes of quarrel can be seen in all societies which live outside the state of nature. They are the embedded in the nature of man. This may be so but they can have a big destructive power in the state of nature which Hobbes envisions because there is no common power to prevent their escalation into a war of all against all. Another factor for the harsh environment people live in the state of nature is that with the absence of a higher authority there is not a single person or institution which could decide which is wrong and which is right. In this situation the perception of just and unjust depends only on the way each individual sees it and as people are driven by their desire for self-preservation each will judge that everything is just if the other endangers his life. Therefore the absence of a higher authority which gives a law which all must obey makes the environment insecure. On the other hand, Hobbes’ state of nature is seen only as a logical conclusion of what would happen if we remove the higher authority. He does not think that such a state prevailed at some time in history, but he suggests that this may be the state in which “the savage people in many places in America” lived. This insecure situation which Hobbes describes has to be removed somehow and peace must be introduced. Here comes the role of the sovereign.

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The answer for getting out of the state of war is to make a commonwealth which serves as the highest authority in the given territory which it governs. As Hobbes suggests there are two ways to achieve this. The first way is if people agree with each other to construct such an authority in order to gain security and peace. The second way is if an outside sovereign power takes over the territory in which people live in the state of nature. In both ways sovereignty is made. From a theoretical way of thinking there is no difference between ...

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